Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Is Rejection a Badge of Honor

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Is Rejection a Badge of Honor But although unpleasant, rejection can be seen as a critical warning and/or badge of honor. This post, featuring an exclusive interview with Halley Bock, author of Life, Incorporated, will explore the types of professional rejection, how you should take it in different situations, and what it means when you’re not experiencing any. What are the different types of professional rejection? Rejection can come in many forms â€" personal and professional, subjective and objective â€" and there isn’t much delineation except the setting in which it occurs. In the workplace, it could show up as a project abandoned, a team member suddenly disengaged or hostile, a plan hopelessly complex, a budget undermined by economic fallout, or an idea with no buy-in to support it. And while rejection can feel demeaning and frustrating, each rejection gives us the opportunity to categorize it as either a critical warning â€" a beacon illuminating an alternative path â€" or a badge of honor â€" a rumble meant to test internal drive. In which situations might rejection be a warning? How can you accurately identify it as such? Rejection may serve as a critical warning when we either repeatedly experience it in a particular situation. This perhaps indicates a need for us to alter our behavior and/or approach. Or, when despite all of our best laid plans, roadblocks and issues persist. In my experience as a CEO,nine out of 10 times, rejections were due to extenuating forces that had nothing to do with the validity, cleverness, or implementation of the effort itself. Instead, ideas didn’t work when they were ill-timed. Strategies didn’t pan out when there was a shift coming around the corner that would change everything. Relationships stalled when we were coming together for the wrong reasons. Turns out, rejection was theuniverse’s way of saying: “Not now. Something else needs to happen first.” When I learned to listen to the resistance and let go of a preconceived outcome, the organization hardly missed a beat and simply kept growing. I stopped thinking of rejections in terms of failed strategies. Instead, they were simply ideas ahead of their time. On the other hand, if I received the same negative feedback or rejection after repeated attempts at a particular idea, project, or relationship, then it was time to take inventory of the situation. I could either decide that, despite the rejection by others, my passion for a particular idea still resonated deeply. In this case, I continued to pursue it provided that no one would pay an emotional or financial price for my efforts. Or, I would step back, evaluate my approach, and make adjustments in order to get better results. How should you address rejection in different situations? Should you perceive a rejection as a critical warning where adjustments in behavior, direction, and strategy are required, an attitude and mindset of curiosity is the most essential tool. If you are in a situation in which your idea is meeting heavy resistance, lean into the resistance and genuinely ask for feedback. Maybe the way in which you are pitching your idea is unclear or contains too much bravado. Or, your quiet nature has wrongly been perceived as aloof and arrogant. The only way to find out is to ask. Use questions like: “Dan, I admire your opinion and have noticed your success in getting teams behind your ideas. Would you be willing to give me feedback on my idea and the way in which I am putting it forward?” Or: “Sarah, in our conversation last week, you seemed frustrated and impatient with me. It’s important to me that our working relationship is solid. Would you mind telling me if my perception was accurate and, if so, what you might suggest for a more positive interaction next time?” Regardless of the answers you receive, you can decide how much feedback to take or leave. For the rest of the interview, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

3 Personal Brand Mistakes You Dont Know Youre Making - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

?3 Personal Brand Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career You’ve spent a lot of time and effort carefully maintaining your personal brand (as you should). But you may be overlooking some crucial factors that can weaken your  brand over time â€" and are easily fixable. Here are the three personal brand mistakes to watch out for: Following ALL the Trends.  Why? If you’re a first adopter for both technology and social media â€" great! But, your personal brand doesn’t require jumping aboard  any and all  new sites or apps. First, it will be difficult to remain connected and consistent on multiple platforms. Second,   you  will jeopardize losing the niche and following you have built by bombarding your audience with what’s trending when you should be sharing relevant content. Not Measuring Results.  Why? You were able to cultivate your brand from nothing to something great â€" don’t let your efforts go to waste by not measuring your results. Keeping track of what works and what doesn’t work prevents you from stagnating and growing indifferent about your brand in general.  HootSuite  is a great online tool for keeping track of multiple profiles as well as analyzing site traffic. No Professional-Looking  Design.  Why? Image is everything   and first impressions count. Have a professional and  simple design that reflects your own individuality. Nothing possibility offensive or inappropriate should belong on a profile or site â€" ever. Be sure to consider the font and color scheme as well using basic graphic design principles found  here. Personal branding doesn’t have to be a difficult endeavor! Remember that improvements can and should always be made. What else would you add to this list?   Author: ?Heather R. Huhman  is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder president of  Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of  Lies, Damned Lies Internships  (2011),  #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle  (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for  numerous outlets.

High-income women get more oral sex. Maybe.

High-income women get more oral sex. Maybe. It is well known in the sex research arena that the more educated a woman is the more often she will receive oral sex. I have always wondered if this is true for salary as well. For example, if your salary goes up by $50,000, how much more likely are you to receive oral sex? I cannot find research to support that women who earn more receive more oral sex, which is why I am conducting my own research on this weeks poll. But I have a hunch, based on a string of research that I have cobbled together: People who are open to new experiences live in big cities (except for Chicago), and high-earning women do best in big cities. High earning women do well dating because they are better looking than average, and because men prefer dating women who make a lot of money. The highest earning women tend to be single, and women who are single and high earning tend to look harder to find those who are good in bed. So, it goes to reason that women who make a lot of money receive more oral sex than women who do not make a lot of money. Whenever I mention the fact that I have an editor for my blog, people ask why. Today is a good example: You cannot be a CEO writing about how much oral sex your own demographic receives without having someone take a look at the post to see if its okay to run. And, for those of you who doubt the usefulness of my editor, here is his input on the topic: Lets assume that men give oral sex only because women ask for it. Thats probably 95% true. Then who asks for it? Women who consider themselves at least equally deserving of that sort of consideration -the women who are going to be better earners because they are educated enough to know that they deserve it (both the income and the oral.) So I think they are coincidental, not causal. A woman who earns more has the self-confidence (and the self-worth, boosted by external factors like earning ability, education, etc.) to ask for oral. Im hoping that his comment is the first in a string of insightful comments on the causal or not causal relationship between salary and sex.

Mind Your Manners

Mind Your Manners Clarence Thomas said, “Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.    Carolle Vargas would agree. She’s a business and etiquette coach and will be the speaker at the June 28 meeting of the WorkSource Professional Network. She teaches leaders the tools they need to refine their presence and improve the way they connect.   Her coaching helps professionals present themselves with greater confidence and authority, forge stronger relationships, and get and keep more clients.  Vargas worked as a manager and trainer in call centers for Dell and Qwest, jobs which honed her understanding of how etiquette can impact success in business. She moved to Jacksonville from Austin, Texas in August of 2011 and works now with business professionals who want to understand the rules of etiquette and improve their people skills. She trained at the prestigious Protocol School of Washington, which is recognized as a leader in protocol, cross-cultural communication, and business etiquette. Good manners, she says, are about respect and making the other person feel comfortable. You can be wrong even if you’re technically correct, she asserts. “Being right about an etiquette rule doesn’t matter if you embarrass someone when you point out mistakes.” Vargas lists what she considers to be the three most important skills in etiquette: good eye contact, good listening skills, and a strong awareness of your environment (and the people in it.) Eye contact and listening skills make other people feel that you’re truly present and that they matter. Those are important factors in the respect component of personal interaction. Vargas also explains how a keen awareness of your environment is also critical to good manners. “People who notice that someone is trying to speak on the phone moderate their voices so as not to disturb them. They introduce themselves first if they see someone struggling to remember their name. It’s those small things that add up to how likeable you are.” We have protocol and etiquette rules to prevent chaos, Vargas goes on to say. When we all understand how something should be done, like which way to pass food at the table, we can relax and focus more on our conversation and interaction. (For the record, you should always pass to your right.)Most manners are simply common sense and center around deferring to your host or the most senior person in the room. For instance, you should wait to be seated or to begin eating until your host or the most senior (in age or in status) person sits or begins. If you were to think it through, that’s the course of action that would probably come naturally. Etiquette training can help take the guesswork out of situations just in case you’re not a natural. Introductions set the tone for many business meetings, and it’s an easy place to make your first faux pas (French for “false step.”)In both business and social situations, you should always introduce in the following order(courtesy of Monster.com): Younger people to older people; Junior ranking professionals to senior ranking professionals; Business contacts and staff to clients; Personal acquaintances and family members to business professionals when attending a business function; and Guests to their hosts. The way to know whether you have it right is to mention the name of the most important person first. The easiest and simplest introduction sounds like this: “Mr. Jones, this is Mary Peterson. She just started in our sales department as an assistant buyer.” Vargas says that business situations are gender neutral; you don’t need to observe certain rituals simply because one of the parties is a woman.   That might be confusing for someone who was raised with a set of rules that applied to the fairer sex, like standing when she leaves or enters a room, opening doors for ladies, or deferring to them as the most significant in the introductions above (unless they do outrank the other party.) Do you have a pet peeve about modern manners? Not sure if your manners are top notch? Leave a comment.

4 Tips to Make Employee Scheduling Easier CareerMetis.com

4 Tips to Make Employee Scheduling Easier â€" CareerMetis.com Photo Credit â€" worktime.comMany businesses rely on a mixture of full and part-time staff working varying shift patterns. Scheduling around your employees’ personal commitments, managing ad-hoc changes and requests, as well as the general day-to-day running of a company can be difficult no matter the size of your business and can quickly consume much of your time.Most managers will be familiar with schedules that resemble a corrected piece of homework with lots of crossings out and scribbles. Paper schedules also risk getting lost or ignored by staff, which means starting again with more phone calls and time wasted.The good news is that there are now easy ways to avoid all of these problems and claim back hours of your time each week.evalHere are some tips to make your employee scheduling a quick and easy task.1) Move scheduling to onlineGone are the days of losing scraps of paper and constantly crossing names out until you can’t read who is actually working. Well, we hope they are! Using an online employee scheduling tool can help both you and your employees in monitoring and updating schedules and save loads of time too.Employees are able to log-in from their phone to check their schedule and will even get a notification the second something changes. If you aren’t already using an online system then this should be the number one change to save you time, money and a lot of unnecessary stress.2) Know your employeesMake sure you understand your staff and their needs from when they begin working for you. Being certain you have clear details of when employees can and can’t work for you will ensure you don’t keep scheduling people on the wrong days.You should also know who does what, so you are scheduling the right person for the right shift and making the best use of people’s skills. Trying to minimize any unnecessary changes from the beginning can help save time later down the line.Good online scheduling systems will have staff profiles for each empl oyee where you can keep notes of all this information, and more.3) Plan for the worstIf you know it is likely to get busier one week then make sure you have people on standby or know who is available to work at the last minute. If you are able to schedule people to be on standby in case of absences this can help diminish last minute panics. Depending on the business there could always still be something for extra staff to work on if they aren’t needed on their usual task.4) Provide clear guidelines for shift changesevalBeing transparent from the start about how and when employees are allowed to change or swap their shifts is key to making sure changes are kept to a minimum.Have deadlines for when staff needs to send in their availability, when they can make changes and what kinds of changes they can make. When staff is constantly swapping shifts between each other this can cause problems on the day, especially when different team members have different roles, meaning work may not be properly covered if the wrong people have swapped shifts.Though you want to have clear rules, there will always be exceptions, so understanding and allowing for last-minute changes under exceptional circumstances will also go a long way to keeping your employees engaged with your business.Ultimately better staff scheduling means a better run and more profitable business. Making sure you have the right amount of people for the right job can ensure work is done properly and to a high standard.evalNow, what are you going to do with all your newfound free time?