CareerSherpas: Climbing the Mountain

I’ve recently finished Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World, which I found quite difficult to put down once I got into it. Pentland puts his considerable wealth of research into a very consumable and revealing manner. His framework for judging future performance is a very clear and in some ways surprising viewpoint on common problems like groupthink.

Having finished it, I was struck by the comparison with “The Definitive Book of Body Language” by Alan Pease and how much of Pentland’s work supports many of the points Pease has been making for more than three decades. Certainly I have a soft spot for my countryman’s work, but my sense has always been that Pease provides practical tools and understanding on how to interact with people that are lacking elsewhere.

Where Pentland provides a frame of reference for the problems and opportunities available in measuring and understanding body language, Pease gives a practical, step-by-step approach to using body language. Both works have a great deal going for them, but if I were to choose one as the more approachable and immediately useful, I have to recommend “Body Language”.

Want to know how to connect, communicate with and influence someone say in an interview? You’ll learn a thing or two from “Body Language”.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

One of the difficulties I’ve had in recent years is being able to manage all the things coming in, going out and circulating around my life. I always seem to have more projects than I can possibly handle at one time, but at the same time I’ve gotten enough done on all of them to move them forward. Now sometimes that’s been in dribs and drabs, sometimes in intermediate sprints and spurts and sometimes in seemingly unending marathons.

The conclusion I came to a while ago was to look at how each project was paced and make sure that the ebbs and flows of each tie in with my energy available in that area. Once I realized this, it was a small step to expand into finding ways to remind myself of all the next steps on all of my outstanding goals. I spent some time figuring out a productivity model that works for me, and nowadays my efforts are all blending into a nice activity level. I’ll be the first to admit it’s a hodge-podge of more than a couple of approaches.

Now, this might seem like a bit of a diversion in some ways when looking at managing your career but the reality is that managing your time is a foundation for planning. If you don’t know what you’re spending your time doing, or you do know but don’t feel like you have any control over it, you can’t plan for the future.

 At all. On any time scale.

Does that seem ridiculous? Think about it. If I don’t have a picture of what’s hanging out there to be done, then I can’t figure out the best time to do it or possibly even what I need to be able to accomplish the tasks at hand.

Being able to plan your career, your life, even your week, relies on you being able to manage your time. It’s almost as important as having a picture of what you want, and it lets you get a clearer picture of the paths to your goals.

Naturally, I’ve got a couple of recommendations on places to start looking at your productivity and managing your time. The two sites that I consistently find the best information on personal productivity are www.lifehacker.com and www.lifehack.org. Both offer great information and great links out to other articles across the blogosphere and the larger web.

So go on, get productive!

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

For all of us, there is a constant struggle of how to allocate our time and energies, and nowhere is this more true than in traversing our career paths. Each opportunity, challenge and effort offers a new learning experience and a chance to prove ourselves. The question we need to have in the backs of our minds when provided with a fork in the road is which direction makes the most sense for the goals we’ve set.

Sometimes it’s not a question of can we make a decision now, but rather have we got the right basis for making a decision. To try to figure out if this is the case for you, try asking yourself the following questions:

• Are your goals too far out to make a real plan?
• Are your goals too short term to make decisions?
• Does either choice prevent the other alternatives from being possible?

Clearing the fog to see a bright day ahead can be difficult, but if you can frame your decision in terms of what your ideal future looks like, you can make wise decisions and move forward without second-guessing your choice.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

In working with a client a while ago, they made an interesting Freudian slip when referring to executives as the “Leadersheep”. This led me to think about the concept of leadership in general, and the recognition that this concept of “Leadersheep” at the top of an organization was a surprisingly common theme.

In many cases there seems to be an amount of sheep-like activity driving many organizations as those who are looked to for direction mill around, failing to give real direction. This sense of ambiguity really causes a great deal of anxiety through organizations as individuals attempt to rise to the occasion in addressing issues and opportunities, but don’t have a clear path to give them focus. The end result leaves the unit, department or entire organization in a state of disarray and frustration.

A lack of clear, shared direction, strategy and, in some cases, communication channels delivers the perception that the leaders are not making decisions and not in touch with the reality of the business they are supporting. In some cases I have seen this drive managers to hyper-active micro-management as they pursue less specific goals. Undirected fear and anxiety are then often allowed to derail any and all progress toward improving the fortunes of the organization.

So is there a solution? Definitely.

Individuals in leadership positions need to get a handle on the fundamental problems and requirements of leading. Leaders need to understand what it means to lead, what their followers need from them and how to make sure everyone marches along together. Recently I’ve been reading Bob Lewis’ very slender but highly accurate portrayal of leadership in “Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World”. While it was originally intended for IT leaders, as the title suggests, the points in it are equally applicable to anybody trying to lead a group of people.

In any case, let’s all work to exercise leadership and not be “Leadersheep”.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, managing a team of project managers, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

As clouds brew in the economic forecasts and the fortunes of companies shift, the announcement of layoffs is becoming more commonplace. Being caught in a layoff cycle is never a fun experience, but can offer great opportunities to re-evaluate and even gain more control over the direction of your life. For those left behind after layoffs, life can be challenging as workloads are distributed and the unsettling questions over the stability of ones position arise.

So what can either group do to balance the disruption?

Reach out!

If you’re on the receiving end of a pink slip, your former co-workers can help you make new contacts that you might not be able to make on your own. Reaching out to them can help you get a start on the job search, get pointers on new directions, and help you find other connections. In many cases the larger the community you live in, the more chances you have to connect with a chance of a lifetime contact just by asking at the right time or when you need it.

On the other side of the fence, if your co-workers have been laid off, offer to help. Ask them how they’re doing, what they’re planning to do now, and if they’d like to go for coffee or lunch. The simple act of offering comfort will help you both deal with the situation. Share contacts that you think might be able to help the person bridge the gap to what they want to do next and, if you’re able to follow through, offer to make the connection for them. Aside from feeling good about helping someone, you will strengthen your own network by helping to connect different needs. You’ll also increase the chance that, if and when the time comes that you need help bridging a gap or recovering from a layoff, someone might be able to help you.

Reaching out to people you know costs you little or nothing and helps form stronger relationships. Either way, you haven’t lost anything by talking to someone.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, managing a team of project managers, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.