The photo above is of the two greatest games ever: Skip-Bo and Rummy. Unfortunately, the photo is missing Yahtzee. Each of which I always win at.
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It’s goal meet-up check-in time! This is your mid-month reminder to take a breath and see how you’re coming along. How are you all doing?
I’m not doing too badly, but the coming of Fall seems to be an unofficial New Year where all your dreams and thoughts and ideas bubble to the surface. So I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with not just my goals, but everything I want to do. Do you feel that way? Like, I’m walking against the wind, and try my darndest, I’m just not getting anywhere.
“That’s called the dip,” Ryan reminds me. “You’re trying to get to the other side. It’ll happen. Have you read The Dip?”
“No,” I pout. “Seth is overrated.”
“You should read The Dip. You’ll like it.”
“Hmph.”
“So, remember when we walked around New York City and you gazed wide-eyed at the sights like a newborn baby?”
“What?!”
The infuriating thing about Ryan is that when I’m trying to be in a bad mood he’ll make a funny face or say something so ridiculous or sweet or something that I am forced to stomp off.
“Stop trying to make me smile!” I say in between halting giggles. “I hate when you try to make me happy when I want to be angry!”
And it is in that maddening moment that Ryan laughs at my insistence to be cross. Which is quite unnecessary because clearly he has already won along with life. Despite my best efforts to control it, life wants me to be happy. Even during this stupid dip.
So, in the spirit of happiness, I’m sharing the photo below of the two greatest games ever: Skip-Bo and Rummy. Unfortunately, the photo is missing Yahtzee. Each of which I always win at.
Also, thank you to everyone who is participating or following along in the meet-up. Keep walking into the wind, my friends!
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Get a raise in the recession
People are afraid of asking for a raise now more than ever. In fact, the recession is providing a good excuse for employees to not ask for more money, and for companies not to give any. But high performers can and should be compensated.
To get a raise, you first need to be aware of the three contingencies raises are based on:
Past Performance (and the learning curve)
All jobs have learning curves. What took you eight hours a day at the start of your position will slowly taper off until you start to get bored six months in. Good employees realize this and try to shorten the learning curve as quickly as possible by completing stellar and quality work right away. How quickly you’re able to shorten the curve often determines how quickly your first review and raise will be.
Future Opportunity (and taking on more responsibility)
Once you master your initial set of responsibilities, it’s time to start looking for more. You should first look for the low-hanging fruit; tasks that have been overlooked in which you can easily shine in. This might be tracking and measurement, or the suggestion of a weekly meeting. Whatever it is, you should make sure your superiors know you are looking to do and be more.
Second, you should also be strategically thinking about your next step and title in the company. If you want to expand your design role to include rendering in addition to drafting, you should try to take on as many rendering projects as you can before your review. New titles (and the accompanying compensation) aren’t awarded to people who haven’t already been doing the work. In other words, don’t wait for the title to impress.
Many companies won’t have such opportunities for advancement, however – either they aren’t willing or aren’t able – and that’s when you should start looking for a new job.
Market Value (and how adaptable are you)
There are a ton of social media jobs out there right now. There are also a lot of people who can’t execute on social media. Which leaves the people who can in a great negotiating position.
For those positions that don’t carry such great demand – say, journalists – you’ll need to figure out how to keep yourself and your position relevant. This doesn’t mean saving the entire journalistic profession, but being creative in the responsibilities you take on. It’s good to think of yourself in both positions at once, however, since the market varies and changes from year to year.
Once you understand the three contingencies, it’s time to put together an action plan:
1. Be proactive. Bad companies will put off your review on purpose. Good companies will too. There’s no reason for employers to pay you more if you’re not asking for it. Be proactive in checking in with your boss throughout each month, and scheduling reviews often. It’s often helpful to schedule your next review at your current one (“I’d like to meet again in three months to talk about the possibility of a new title and an additional raise.”) When you set up a meeting with the expectation that you’ll be discussing a raise, the conversation becomes easier.
2. Research and prepare. Even if you don’t show your boss, prepare a document of your past accomplishments and proposed future responsibilities. This gives you a list of relevant talking points during your meeting. In that document, include a salary number and back it up with research on what other people in similar positions are making. I recommend listing the number a bit larger than you expect so that you have some negotiating room and can meet your employer in the middle.
3. Practice. Just because you have everything written down doesn’t mean you won’t stumble in the meeting. Practice phrasing some of your key accomplishments and especially practice stating how much salary you’d like. Just say it aloud a few times to make it less scary.
4. Negotiate. Negotiating for a raise is incredibly hard, made even more so by the fact that your boss has probably just finished a glowing review, and it seems like an especially inopportune time to ask for more. (Or is that just me?) But not only is it the right time, it’s the only time. Go for it! Some employers will tell you right away whether the amount you’re asking for is something they can do, others will want to check and get back to you. Be prepared for either possibility.
5. Negotiate again. It’s very rare for a company not to be able to give a high performer a raise, even in the recession. When more money really is impossible – say, when you work at a University and they’ve declared that not only will there be no raises, but there will be pay cuts – you should still ask for more. You don’t have to ask for more money, but make sure you’re asking for more of something.
For instance, a smart woman I know negotiated additional paid time-off in lieu of more zeros on her paycheck. Just be careful that you’re not setting a precedent that the ability to work from home, gain additional stock options, or attend a conference is how you want to be compensated in the future. Unless, of course, it is.
What do you think? Is it difficult to get a raise in recession? If you’ve been successful, what were your strategies?
This rug is gorgeous and I totally want it to replace my white rug in my living room, but they don’t have a 5′ x 8′, only 5′ x 7′. Bummer.
Via Anthropologie, $398.
By all accounts, the current state of work is good. Flexible schedules are beginning a workplace transformation. Hierarchal structures are being dismantled, replaced with decentralized team-oriented organizations. Rewards are no longer exclusively linked to extrinsic motivations like salary or titles, but to projects that make us feel good and do good for the planet.
Fresh-faced workers are responding in kind with idealism, strong ethics, and bright-eyed expectations to change the world. With energy and impatience to do something that matters. Even in the recession, we shine to thrive.
And it is from such high hopes that we discover such low realities. Where real life makes every effort to shut us down. Cramp the rainbows. Take out the sun. Step on our rose-colored lenses.
One twenty-something likens entering the real world to “a confidence-killing daily assault of petty degradations. All of this is compounded by the fear that it is all for nothing; that you are a useful fool.”
The bully to blame is work politics and its shameful hum in the background of most companies is a deafening precursor to what we know, but ignore: companies that are built on lies, deceit and manipulation fail.
A recent UK study revealed there is a clear gap between dreams and reality. One in three graduates believes their employer has not met expectations, that management stifles innovation, and that their opinions are undervalued.
Workers are spending more time learning a game with unspoken rules and invisible puppeteers than engaging in any real contribution to society. A fashion designer started a once-anonymous blog to expose such humiliations in his own industry, writing his first posts on “designers whose careers he thought had been unduly advanced by the support of fashion’s power brokers, rather than evidence of hard work.”
But most of us are silent on the issue. Many of us just settle, choosing to bow out of the game, and some bow out of the system all together. Others join the dark side, if you will. And still others – a small, but inspirational minority – bring such goodness and dedication to their jobs that you can almost see halos forming above their brow line.
There is a natural learning curve to growing up, of course. And while it’s okay to learn that change is hard, that everything doesn’t work out because you wish it so, that you have to pay dues, and that life is generally not fair, it’s not okay to live a life without integrity.
It’s not okay to engage in power plays. It’s not okay to cheat and form alliances and be exclusionary. It’s not okay to be unethical or gossip or commandeer confidence and ideas and dreams as a buck-toothed swindler. Pirates, we are not.
When did manipulation become the status quo? When did deceit become “just business”? And when, exactly, did we start ignoring such desperation? When did it become a humming that we worked alongside instead of a shrill invasion?
Instead of gorging on control and power and greed like goblins, companies should take note of Netflix and their “Freedom & Responsibility Culture.” A company that doesn’t theft and abuse the self-worth of their employees, but encourages it with great candor.
“The [Netflix] executives trust staffers to make their own decisions on everything – from whether to bring their dog to the office to how much of their salary they want in cash and how much in stock options,” reports BNET.
In their internal presentation on their work policies, Netflix asks what it would be like if every person you worked with was someone you respected and learned from, defining a great workplace as one filled with “stunning colleagues.” Where responsible employees thrive on freedom, are worthy of a culture of innovation and self-discipline, and even brilliant jerks can’t be tolerated.
Netflix argues that “the best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than trying to control people.” They urge their managers to ask themselves when they are tempted to control their people, “Are you articulate and inspiring enough about goals and strategies?”
The result is that the company isn’t bogged down in the policies, rigidity, politics, policies, mediocrity or complacency that infects most organizations. Instead, they are adept, fast and flexible. And they’re honest and human. Incredibly human.
Netflix is just one example. My job at a non-profit that served the poorest of the poor, but kept laughter flowing through the office is another. My current position is still another.
And those examples are the future of work, the next step after company-supplied daycare and work-life balance programs.
A future without work politics. A future with goodness. And probably some rainbows too.
What do you think are some of the problems facing work today? Have work politics been an issue? What are some trends you see for the future?
I’m borrowing an idea from Jena over at Modish, who hosts a Monthly Goal Meet-Up for creatives. I’d like to do the same for those interested in the career and life conversations here at Modite.
So, each month we’ll check in with our goals from the previous month and our plans for the new month. I’ll feature a photo and accomplishment from previous participants to accompany each meet-up. This is the first month – yay!
My friend Caitlin McCabe of Smile Like you Mean It (above) keeps me sane and started a successful consulting business last month. Pretty awesome. Here’s what I crossed off for August:
August Career /Life Goals
1. Ask for more responsibility at work, a raise and a new title. (Yes! This was a big one for me, and I’m thrilled about my new role).
August was a big month not just because I started transitioning into a new position at work, but because before the month ended, I turned a year older. I took stock of life, reflecting on the five areas I wanted to focus on this year: Alice, Modite, Health, Relationships, and Financial. I discovered I felt like I had Alice and Relationships down, but the rest could use some work… which leads me to my goals for September.
September Career/Life Goals
1. Start to exercise once a week.
2. Get 30% more blog and PR coverage for Alice than I did in August.
3. Update and automate budget to appropriately allocate money toward credit card debt and savings accounts.
4. Start writing weekly on Modite again.
What about you? What are your September goals? Are you kicking it into high gear for Fall?
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To participate in the meet-up:
- Post a list of your career/life related goals for Sept, along with your checked off August goals if you’d like, on your own blog
- Come back here and leave a link to your post in the comments (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list of goals right here in the comments to join in!)
- Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments – click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!
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I’m so excited about this project and really hope you join in. I’ll post a mid-month reminder to keep you accountable. The next meet-up will be Wednesday, September 30th so that we can check in and set goals for October.
Looking forward to seeing your Sept goals!
Note: This was originally a guest post for Sam’s Appreciation Revolution. You should check it out.
I’m an extremely lucky person. Really. Sometimes I can’t even believe how lucky I am. I have the best mother, best job, best boyfriend, best condo, best everything.
And yet still, I want. I still have that hunger for more. Selfishly, I am often found in dark corners brooding over the infallibility of life, the unfairness, the annoyances, and over that stupid guy who cut me off this morning in the white Dodge Ram with a ladder strapped to the top and a license plate forever seared in my memory. I did not feel lucky that I didn’t skid off the road to my untimely death. I just wanted to hurt him.
In retrospect, I do feel grateful, immensely grateful, that when I sped up, tailed, and yelled obscenities at the man in the Dodge Ram, that we were going sixty-five miles per hour and there’s no way he could have heard me. I’m grateful that at the last moment I decided not to show him the slender nature of my middle finger. I’m grateful that my exit to work arrived before I really gave him a piece of my mind. I imagine – as he well should be – he was grateful as well.
This is the ugly side of appreciation, the not so fluffy and pillowy kind. There are chapters of my life when I am overcome with the sweet and sugary kind, when I am surrounded by rainbows and treats and sparkly revelations. But mostly, I have little patience for swaths of gratitude to envelop me.
Gratitude is hard for me sometimes.
I imagine it’s hard for most people, even the big teddy bears of appreciation. It means accepting a whole litany of injustices and bending your eyesight towards what is beating both in and outside of you simultaneously to which, I’m sure, only the heartfelt natures of Gandhi or Mother Theresa have fully mastered. It means not being afraid of the past, the future and the ever-so vast present, because really, gratitude is about living in the now.
So, you could write about the things you are happy for daily – which I do. Or, you could take a moment every Monday morning to reflect upon the previous week, which I do. Or, you could look up at the ceiling occasionally, through the drywall, up through the six floors above you and up to the roof, all the way through the clouds and at the sky and say, “thank you.” I do that too.
Or you could just drive to work like you do every day, embracing the good, the bad, and the dick in the Dodge Ram. Sometimes, that’s gratitude too.
I met Ryan through his ideas and opinions. I commented on his blog posts and often disagreed. When I started my own blog, I linked to his, and often disagreed then too. In fact, Ryan was a big reason I established Modite; I felt like I had something to say, something different than was already being said.
The Gen Y blogging niche was small then, the quality blogs were much fewer, but it all exploded very quickly. At the center of it all were Ryan and Ryan at Employee Evolution and then Brazen Careerist. The exchange of ideas was powerful and exciting. Tightropes were walked, ideas were spun, and manifestos were formed with each click of the publish button.
The constant filtering and challenging of ideas accelerated learning, encouraged my dreams, and helped me form key relationships. These ideas and relationships are the reason for my last position, my current position, and why Ryan and I are together.
I knew Ryan long before we exchanged emails, long before we talked on the phone. And by the time Ryan and I met in person, everyone else around us disappeared, and I could only see him. Admittedly, he stands head and shoulders above everyone else – he’s really tall – but don’t scoff when I tell you it was just like a movie. My life changed in that moment.
And from that moment to this, I could not be more impressed and proud that Ryan, the co-founder of Brazen Careerist, is launching a new social and professional network for the Brazen site. Instead of relying on the traditional online resume approach of current job sites that showcase static experience and background, Brazen Careerist provides a platform for you to dynamically manage and enhance your professional identity.
Tech Crunch reports that the Brazen site offers “an environment where users can share their thoughts and activities alongside their resumes.” To fully leverage this environment, Brazen Careerist provides users with a host of opportunities to actively showcase their expertise and develop their network. Users can find and talk with people of similar interests, location or profession, engage in dialogue on career and life topics, and create and join groups that relate to their goals.
That is, your ideas are your value. Brazen allows you to level the playing field against more experienced candidates. And since I’ve been lucky enough to have my ideas already benefit my career and relationships by virtue of Brazen Careerist, I know this is only the beginning of how truly great Brazen will be.
What do you think? Can ideas be your resume? Does a professional network help your career?
This is a short video I created at the request of Bret Simmons who teaches a college class called Entrepreneurial Psychology. Since I couldn’t speak to his students in person, this was the next best thing.
While it’s longer than most of my videos, I share a story that I have never talked about publicly before, and discuss personal branding, integrity and how blogging can affect your life.
This video will not show up on the home page. The post was shared exclusively to my subscribers and Facebook fans as bonus content. Thank you for being such a great community!
Bloggers, Facebookers, Tweeters and more seem to be constantly besieged by warnings from young and old alike that we will regret our words, photos and thoughts. One blogger reveals, “I look back at some of my own posts and shake my head.” Online tools make it possible to change in front of the eyes of the entire world… And some believe this is going to be pretty embarrassing in the years ahead.
What do you think? Do you share enough to worry? How do you think your online activities will affect the future?
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How to innovate your career
When careers were based more on hierarchy, and work was more about getting a paycheck than knowledge, it didn’t really matter what you did. But today’s worker no longer desires swanky salaries or titles (although those don’t hurt, certainly), but instead searches for work experiences that can contribute to their lives.
Today, experience is the product. And smart workers are building their careers in the same way innovators build businesses. For example, trendy Barcelona shoe company Camper diversified it’s offerings by plunging into the hotel business. People rightfully asked, “Why?” To which Camper replied, “You misunderstood what we’re all about. We don’t produce shoes. We produce comfort.”
And that’s good career advice. That is, you don’t produce marketing plans, you create connections. You don’t create paintings, you evoke emotion. You don’t deliver newspapers, you spread information.
It’s time to stop looking at your career as a set of skills applicable to a single position. You probably won’t use the major listed on your college degree. You’ll change jobs six to eight times before you’re thirty. And you’ll eventually get the urge to change the world, which doesn’t happen from a single pressure point.
If you can’t talk about how your waitressing job applies to architecture, how teaching kindergarten makes you great for customer service, or how your blog has prepared you to be a circus manager, you lose.
Instead, look at your career as a set of experiences in which there exist core ideas that can be widely applied across disciplines. In A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink argues that the majority of professions (doctors, lawyers, even MBAs) can either be automated, outsourced to Asia, or are abundant (it’s easy to make quality goods and services).
“The only thing these three A’s as he calls them cannot yet do well,” Bret Hummel reports “is bring ideas from multiple disciplines together. [Pink] argues that the person who understands the big picture, how to bring people together, and create a unique idea are the ones who will succeed in this global economy.”
Gen X and Y thrive in this regard. Occupations are no longer siloed, but instead individuals are cultivating multiple passions, talents and income streams to create meaningful work lives. Marci Alboher calls this becoming a “slash.” Being a Musician / Engineer / Bartender is encouraged and admired. I love design, marketing and database spreadsheets myself.
Working across disciplines “rather than climbing the career ladder within a corporation, facilitates flows of information and know-how between individuals, firms, and industries,” Wired reports.
Everything is connected. HR people call this transferable skill sets, theorists describe it as systems thinking, and poets recognize these ideas in the words of Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass.
Worker mobility gives flourishing industries “fluidity, velocity, and energy,” Wired continues. “It creates a culture in which people routinely jump from one job to another… And that lack of loyalty has been a key driver of the rapid innovation over the past three decades.”
Innovation isn’t a stickler for tradition, you see. It only cares that you bring it. In summary, to innovate your career:
1) Collect experiences, not titles.
2) Realize connections.
3) Apply those core skills and ideas across disciplines.
Are you talented in more than one area? Do you apply lessons from one place to the other? What’s your advice to bring it?
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