Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Career Planning

Don’t Get Stuck in Middle Management

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This survey by the Association of Asian Americans in Investment Management reports (via The New York Times DealBook column) the nature of discrimination and bias faced by Asian Americans:

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are often stereotyped as lacking leadership skills. At investment firms, they “fill middle management ranks, but their percentages plummet in senior management and C-suites.” Respondents said they were often tapped as technical experts and benefited from the perception that they are good workers. But their advancement stalled as they sought more senior roles that emphasize networking and communication skills.

Don't Get Stuck in Middle Management Most professionals fail to realize that the competencies that made them successful in their early corporate roles are not necessarily the attributes that will allow them to outshine in roles higher up on the ladder. These desirable qualities would include forming coalitions, managing relationships and alliances, determining where and when to shift one’s focus, and learning to appreciate different perspectives.

Work out what you need to get to the top and fight the perceptions

  • Evaluate where your development priorities should be. Find out how you can acquire the necessary skills and competencies. Go get them. Become more visible to management and situate yourself for a promotion.
  • Network wisely. Understanding who must be won over to your point of view is vital for training for your promotion. Spend time cultivating meaningful relationships.
  • Ask for honest feedback—not just from your boss but also from well-respected peers, customers, mentors, and others. Confront problems quickly lest they metastasize.

Idea for Impact: In today’s world, your skills and promotability are your responsibility.

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Wouldn’t You Take a Pay Cut to Get a Better Job Title?

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Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz on giving employees ego-boosting new job titles to appease them for not receiving a promotion or a pay increase:

Marc Andreessen argues that people ask for many things from a company: salary, bonus, stock options, span of control, and titles. Of those, title is by far the cheapest, so it makes sense to give the highest titles possible… If it makes people feel better, let them feel better. Titles cost nothing. Better yet, when competing for new employees with other companies, using Andreessen’s method you can always outbid the competition in at least one dimension.

Wouldn't You Take a Pay Cut to Get a Better Job Title? Millennials tend to consider work as the defining aspect of their identity (see Horowitz’s What You Do Is Who You Are (2019).) Job titles aren’t just descriptors of what they do but a reflection of who they are—not just service technicians at an Apple Store, but Geniuses. A self-elevating job title helps them cling to the notion that work has meaning and, consequently, their work-lives make sense.

Moreover, since they’re experiencing more of their lives online than any generation before them, millennials tend to be conscious of their personal brands on social media. Being a ‘senior numbers ninja’ rather than a mere ‘cost accountant’ offers instant branding appeal.

Idea for Impact: However superficial they sound (“bogus grandeur,” I called them previously,) a fancy title could help you land a better position further down the line. Get creative with your job title even if you have to take a hit on your expected salary—it could pay off in the long term.

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Don’t Quit Your Job Until

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Before you quit your job, give your employer a chance to address your issues.

Thoughtfully identify what the real concerns are. Is the problem your current job, your supervisor, a coworker, the processes, the whole company? If the job is the problem, consider making a move within your company before you decide to leave. Time your concerns appropriately.

Before you quit your job, give your employer a chance to address your issues If you don’t tell your supervisor, she can’t fix it. Who knows what’s feasible—a different job description, team, department, schedule? You may just be surprised at how enriched your experience can be once the key issues are addressed.

Don’t jump ship in frustration if you’re likely to run into the same problems with your next employer. It’s easier to tackle frustrations in a familiar environment at your current employer than at a new company, where you’ll be under pressure to learn the ropes and quickly produce results.

Indeed, your supervisor may not be able to fix your issues even if she knows what they are. But unless you give her a chance, you’ll never know. If you can’t work it out, don’t get hung up on whose “fault” it is.

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‘Follow Your Passion’ is Really Bad Career Advice

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One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

Wallace Stevens - Insurance Executive Wallace Stevens, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated poets, was a full-time insurance executive for The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company. The son of a wealthy lawyer, Stevens attended Harvard, where he became recognized on campus as a prolific and multitalented writer. He moved to New York City to become a poet. His father was a lover of literature but was also prudent. He disapproved of Stevens’ literary aspirations and directed his son to cease writing and study the law.

Stevens eventually caved to his family’s pressure and went to New York University Law School. He practiced law at several New York firms for more than a decade before becoming an insurance lawyer and executive.

Stevens wrote most of his poetry on his daily two-mile walks to and from work: “I write best when I can concentrate, and do that best while walking.” He would take slips of paper in his pockets and jot down words. His secretary would type them up for him.

Despite the job demands, Stevens produced a fantastic body of imaginative work in his spare time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1955 for Collected Poems (1954.)

A Paycheck Comes First

Artists of all kinds have kept their jobs their entire lives. Among just the writers,

  • T. S. Eliot did some of his best work while employed at Lloyds Bank in London.
  • Two-time Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was also an insurance executive for much of his career. He would get up early, write poems for an hour and a half, and then go to work.
  • Pulitzer winner A. R. Ammons was a sales executive at his father-in-law’s scientific glass firm.
  • Richard Eberhart, another Pulitzer winner, worked at the Butcher Polish Company, his wife’s family’s floor wax business.
  • Poet Laureate James Dickey started his career at an advertising agency to “make some bucks.” A copywriter, he worked on the Coca-Cola and Lay’s Potato Chips accounts. He famously said, “I was selling my soul to the devil all day… and trying to buy it back at night.”
  • William Carlos Williams was a doctor in New Jersey practicing pediatrics and general medicine.
  • Novelist Henry Darger was a custodian at a Chicago hospital.
  • Harvey Pekar was a VA Hospital clerk in Cleveland. He held this job even after becoming famous. Until he retired in 2001, he declined all promotions.
  • Jules Verne was an agent de change (a broker) on the Paris Bourse. He woke up early each morning to write before going for the day’s work.
  • Novelist Jodi Picoult worked at an ad agency and a financial analyst, a textbook editor, and an eighth-grade teacher. She wrote her first novel when she was pregnant with her first daughter.

Follow Your Passion is Really Bad Career Advice

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Each of these authors had ambitions to be a writer but didn’t think they could earn a living at it initially. They started working as a means to an end. At the same time, they plodded away at writing, honing their craft, trying to appeal to readers, and refusing to stop trying because of their ambition and passion.

The boilerplate career advice “Do what you love and the money will follow” is aspirational but hardly practicable. Plenty of people are passionate about their craft, but few people can turn those passions into an actual paycheck.

Many people want to “do what they love” and specialize in, say, 17th-century Metaphysical poetry, get disheartened when there aren’t a lot of job positions available in that field, let alone that narrow area of expertise.

Pursue a passion but as a hobby. Work at it, and until you can find people who’ll like your work well enough to pay you for what you love to do, get a day job that’s acceptable and pays reasonably well. A steady professional income will take the pressure off. You’ll still be pursuing what you love, and, hopefully, someday, you can make a full career of it.

For now, though, let the money follow, if only from a different source.

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

Follow Your Passion - Disregard the Inspirational Career Advice To follow a passion, go get a day job. Think of it as your side gig. Then make time to cultivate your passions. When you’re good at something that people are likely to want, the money will come.

Despite the well-meaning counsel to follow your passion, the truth is, it’s easier to pursue your passion and achieve your dreams if you can afford to work free. Until then, seek the peace of mind that comes from being able to pay your bills and attaining financial stability.

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How to Own Your Future

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Self Directed Learning: How to Own Your Future Work seems to be shifting faster than ever. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman provides a particularly emblematic example of the profound changes in the way people work and the way organizations design jobs and work environments:

Work is being disconnected from jobs, and jobs and work are being disconnected from companies, which are increasingly becoming platforms. A great example of this is what’s ha ppening in the cab business. Traditional local cab companies own cars and have employees who have a job; they drive those cars. But, now they’re competing with Uber, which owns no cars, has no employees, and just provides a platform of work that brings together ride-needers and ride-providers.

Adaptivity via Self-Directed Learning

Dramatic economic, social, and technological changes necessitate professionals at all levels to be almost continuously trained and re-trained just to keep abreast of all facets of working life.

The career implication of this continuous transformation is the increasing need for ongoing learning. You’ll have to equip yourself to stay ahead of changes. In other words, you’ll need a growth mindset to learn, apply, reorient, and keep learning.

More Will Be Now on You

You’ll need to be self-directed. You’ll need to take the initiative and responsibility for the learning process. You’ll need to recognize training needs and choose how you’ll meet these needs rather than rely on your organization to tell you what to learn and how to do it. The smarter organizations out there are enabling and promoting individual choice and self-directed and self-determined learning.

What will set successful professionals apart in the future is that they take responsibility for their continuous learning. They proactively explore what they may be interested in and what the future will demand instead of indifferently waiting for options to present themselves.

Idea for Impact: Own Your Learning

Set your sights on a long career with multiple stages, each involving ongoing training and re-skilling. If you want to achieve career greatness, you will likely find your current skill sets obsolete in less than five years without self-directed learning.

Develop a growth mindset that’ll help you grow, expand, evolve, and change.

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Not Everyone is Chill About Tattoos and Body Art // Workplace Norms

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Over the last decade or so, body art has gained more acceptance as a form of personal expression—akin to clothing, jewelry, or hairstyle. Workplace attitudes toward body art have slowly shifted.

Certain trades—especially arts and media—value individuality, especially in creative roles. Visible tattoos and body piercings are common and acceptable. However, consulting, law, management, recruitment, and other “traditional” trades are likely to find body art less compliant with the industry norms. Having a tattoo can even be seen as unprofessional and defiant—even intimidating.

You have the right to express yourself as long as you are respecting the company’s norms

Not Everyone's Chill About Tattoos and Body Art For some conservative people, visible art suggests that you may have a problem with authority. One study showed that tattooed people are perceived to be less honest, motivated, and intelligent.

At some workplaces, your insistence on leaving large earrings and nose piercings on or dressing in short sleeves that reveal your tattoos signals to that employer that you don’t care about norms. You may be judged as a willful person insistent on exerting your individuality rather than fit in and belong.

Your appearance and behavior are expected to reflect your workplace’s values and culture, particularly in customers’ presence.

Employers are free to impose dress codes and grooming guidelines. Discrimination law does apply to matters related to age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion—but not your sense of fashion.

Idea for Impact: Offensiveness is subjective, and everyone draws their lines differently

Don’t put yourself at a disadvantage. Consider the micro-cultural stereotypes concerning body art.

Seek a happy medium between personal style and dressing for work. Cover up and limit the number of visible piercings.

If you’re starting a new job and aren’t sure how body art will be perceived, consider a pilot. Instead of going “all in,” test the waters by displaying a little body art and see what sort of response you get.

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6 Ways Leadership Roles Will Help You Succeed After College

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College is the perfect place to learn leadership skills. You can learn how to communicate, find out more about your particular strengths and weaknesses and learn how to solve problems. By learning how to inspire others and deal with conflict, you will develop more confidence.

This can have many benefits long after you have finished college. It can have an influence on your career trajectory and your daily life. Here are six ways of taking on leadership roles in college can benefit you.

6 Ways Leadership Roles Will Help You Succeed After College

Develop your communication skills

When you take on any leadership role in college, it sharpens your communication skills. You have to express yourself in a way that is clear and easy to understand. You will find you understand people better by paying attention to their body language and learn how to ensure that you convey your message more clearly when your words and body language are consistent.

You will learn how to take a moment and pay close attention to what you want to say and how to say it. This could help to avoid misunderstandings due to overcomplicated language or using too much jargon.

Sharpen your problem-solving skills

One of the important attributes of a leader is to be able to solve problems and college life can present many challenges that need to be overcome on a daily basis. As a leader, you don’t only have to deal with your own problems but present solutions to those you are leading.

One of the issues many students find to be a real challenge in college is difficulty with their assignments. Introducing them to the free sample essay portal https://eduzaurus.com/free-essay-samples/leadership/ could be a solution to this problem. It could help students learn more about what is expected from them when writing essays. They could learn a great deal from free samples of essays, such as how to structure an essay, how to correctly format their references and much more.

Sharpen your problem-solving skills

Identify your strengths and weaknesses

When you’re in a leadership role, you quickly start to understand more about your strengths and your weaknesses. Perhaps you know you’re good at decision-making but you have a weakness when it comes to listening to input from others.

Understanding this weakness and addressing it by carefully listening to any constructive criticism others give you could turn this weakness around and make it one of your strong points. You may even find hidden talents you didn’t know you possessed when taking on leadership roles, such as the ability to inspire others.

Build confidence

Leaders need to be confident or those around them are unlikely to feel inspired by them. Taking up a post in student government, becoming a sports captain or heading up a campus organization can help you to develop more confidence.

It will teach you how to bring out the best in those you’re leading, and they will develop a respect for you. As leaders stand out from the crowd, they often receive criticism and if they learn how to handle it, it makes them stronger instead of destroying their confidence.

Learn how to resolve conflict

As a leader, you will inevitably have to resolve conflict. For example, if you’re the leader of a sports team, you will usually have team members from different backgrounds with varying points of view.

It will be up to you to unify everyone in pursuit of a common goal. You will need to learn how to settle conflicts in the most efficient way to prevent them from escalating and destroying team morale. In the workplace, the success of a company may depend on having all the team members collaborating effectively to achieve a particular goal.

Improve your resume

Including the leadership roles, you have fulfilled in college on your resume will help to impress future employees. Many companies are looking for candidates with leadership skills who can take responsibility and lead teams effectively.

If you have successfully fulfilled college leadership roles, this could give you an edge over other candidates. If you can include particular examples on your resume, such as how a sports team performed under your leadership, it will be even more impressive.

Conclusion

Taking up leadership roles in college is a great way to improve your leadership skills and prepare for the future. You will learn how to communicate more effectively, recognize your strengths and weaknesses, build your confidence and sharpen your problem-solving skills. You will also learn how to deal with conflict and impress future employees with the fact that you already know what it takes to lead and inspire others.

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7 Helpful Tips for University Students

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Each university it is a place that offers education to those who wish to pursue it. If you’ve decided to become a student, you have a very promising future ahead of you. That is, provided that you obtain your degree.

To get your degree, you need to complete your assignments and pass the subjects. These 7 tips will set you up for success while at College.

Pick Your Major Wisely

One of the great things about this school is that students have many options when it comes to education. For example, Emory University offers over 80 majors and 60 minors, as well as a dozen pre-professional programs.

Check your options and thread wisely. This is a big decision that will affect your future, so you should take your time when making an important choice. If you’ve decided to pursue a degree, you should make sure that it is one that you’ll be happy with in the future.

Read the Syllabus

The syllabus can come in handy when you study at a university. It introduces the subject, outlines the key assignments, and allows you to organize your schedule. The syllabus outlines the key assignments and their due dates, as well as any upcoming activities that you should mark.

Writing papers will be a big part of your studies there. When creating your schedule, plan your time accordingly. Consider how much time it will take you to research for a paper, write it, and edit it. If you cannot complete every written assignment on schedule, it is best to know ahead. This will give you time to ask for assistance from WritingBros and with their help, deliver every essay before the deadline. Also, check their free essay examples. It is so useful for all students.

Get a Planner

Once you have the syllabus in front of you, you’ll need a reliable place to take notes and handle your assignments. A planner is crucial when you’re at high academic levels since you’ll have many things to do. It’s hard to keep track of everything.

Take Many Notes

Note-taking is very useful when you’re in class. You shouldn’t go overboard and note everything that the instructors say verbatim. However, taking small notes of the important topics or things that instructors mention for the exams will come in handy during all those study sessions.

This isn’t a skill that comes naturally. With time, you’ll learn how to take notes clearly and use them to make your studies easier.

7 Helpful Tips for University Students

Make Friends

High-level education isn’t all about studying and passing exams. Amid all that hard academic work, you need an outlet. More importantly, you need to remember this as a great time in your life, not years crammed in a library without social contact.

Friends can do all the difference when you’re at university. They can help you with assignments, entertain you, and turn into a lifelong friendship.

Unplug

Now and then, unplug from social media, even from the Internet in general—and relax. All that working on assignments, chatting on networks, and sitting on your phone can get you tired. During your breaks, simply give your brain some time to refuel and reconnect.

“There’s just one thing that can put you in the right mood when you are overwhelmed and tired—some rest. Whenever I feel like I cannot function or I lose my focus, I take some time for myself. No thinking, no contact with people.”—says Nadine Caridi, a former model and motivational speaker.

Find Your Perfect Study Zone

All students have their perfect study zone, time, and methods. You should test them all to pass your student’s years stress-free. For example, some students prefer studying in quiet places without disruption, so they pick the library. Others want to be surrounded by people, so they study best at a cafe shop or with friends.

Test different things to find out what works for you. See what kind of lighting helps you study best, consider using music to inspire you while writing, and set the temperature to your preferred level.

Tips to Keep Yourself Motivated at School

There’s also the matter of when you study. Early birds are at their most productive state in the mornings. If you’re one of them, you might want to catch up on your material before you get on campus. If you are a night person, you can find a well-lit place and do your learning in the late hours.

Final thoughts

Every student is different, but they all share the same thing—the goal to complete their studies and obtain a degree. To do this, you need to be dedicated and hard-working. Thankfully, tricks like the ones above will help you get through school easier and keep yourself motivated along the way. Good luck!

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Avoid Being the Low-Priced Competitor

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In determining how much you’ll charge for your products and services, explore the “price umbrella”—how others are charging for competitive or comparable products.

The key to pricing is knowing how much your service is worth for your client. Charge too little, and you’re short-changing yourself and making your client speculate, “If she’s decent, why does she charge so little?”

Avoid being a low-price competitor. It’s a terrible habit. Don’t announce, “I’m new. I’m trying to get established. Therefore, I’m offering my service for less than the existing players. Please buy from me.”

Avoid Being the Low-priced Competitor Jim Price, an entrepreneurship lecturer at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and author of The Launch Lens: 20 Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask (2018,) calls this “apologetic pricing.”

Instead, consider the “proud pricing” approach: “We’re launching this business because we firmly believe in our unique value proposition; we look forward to explaining that to customers and charging a premium price for a superior product.”

Positioning yourself as the low-price market offering is a competitive strategy that tends to only work for large, undifferentiated retailers and similar businesses, and it is a poor prescription for entrepreneurial startup success.

Being the low-priced competitor tends to require massive operational and financial scale and often results in an undifferentiated product or service offering and a business with very narrow profit margins.

Idea for Impact: Don’t get stuck in the race to the bottom to be cheaper. Marketing expert Seth Godin has reminded, “Cheaper is the last refuge of the marketer unable to invent a better product and tell a better story.”

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That Extra Salary You Can Negotiate Ain’t Gonna Make You Happy

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This well-cited study shows that people with high incomes aren’t actually that much happier than their less-earning brethren. This is something many people know empirically. Never mind that subjective happiness is a nebulous condition that’s not easy to measure.

The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory … People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities.

Of course, there’re situations wherein more money can make a real difference in your well-being: nirvana from living paycheck-to-paycheck, freedom from debt, and adequate savings for retirement. Yes, being poor makes people miserable.

The Extra Salary You Can Negotiate Ain't Gonna Make You Happy But, beyond a reasonably upper-middle-class living (better health care, lavish-enough vacations and celebrations, affording one partner who could stay at home, the ability to buy conveniences, and so on,) additional income doesn’t create enough incremental happiness to justify all the compromises the extra income entails.

Even people who had big wins in the lottery winded up no happier than those who had bought lottery tickets but didn’t win. Sure, these people will be more content with their new toys for a short time, but that delight typically fades away quickly. After that, they’ll seek out yet another indulgence. Soon, that’ll wear off too, at which point they’re already on the hedonic treadmill.

Idea for Impact: Be mindful of what you’re trading away in the pursuit of a higher salary. Wealth and status are false gods.

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