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PERSISTENCE!!!

If you were to choose just one part of your personality to develop that would virtually guarantee your success, I’d like to suggest that you place persistence at the top of your list.

Napoleon Hill, in his classic Think and Grow Rich felt so strongly about this subject, he devoted an entire chapter to it. Hill suggested, “There may be no heroic connotation to the word persistence but the quality is to your character what carbon is to steel.”

Think about it. If you took a quick mental walk down memory lane and reviewed some of your accomplishments in the past – large and small – you would have to agree that persistence played an important role in your success.

Napoleon Hill studied many of the world’s most successful people. He pointed out the only quality he could find in Henry Ford, Thomas Edison or a host of other notable greats, that he could not find in everyone else was persistence. What I found even more intriguing was the fact that Hill made comment of the fact that these individuals were often misunderstood to be ruthless or cold-blooded and that this misconception grew out of their habit of following through in all of their plans with persistence.

It’s both interesting and sadly amusing to me that, as a society, we would be quick to criticize people for realizing they had an unshakeable power within them and were capable of overcoming any obstacle outside of them. This power would ultimately move them toward a greater chance of achieving any goal they set for themselves!

Milt Campbell is a good friend of mine. He and I have shared many hours together discussing the very topic of persistence. Milt was a Decathlete in the Olympic Games held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. His goal was to capture gold for the US. Unfortunately, another fierce competitor who had taken home the gold four years previous in London wasn’t satisfied with one gold, Bob Mathias wanted two; Milt had to settle for silver. That did not deter Milt one bit. He had formed the habit of persistence and four years later in Melbourne, Australia, Milt won the gold medal, earning him the title of the greatest athlete in the world.

On numerous occasions Milt has said, “There were many guys in school who were far better athletes than me, but they quit.” I can recount story after story about individuals who overcame obstacles so great, but only did so because they dared persist. These individuals are no different than you and I.

Ultimately persistence becomes a way of life, but that is not where it begins. To develop the mental strength – persistence - you must first want something. You have to WANT something so much that it becomes a heated desire… a passion in your belly. You must fall in love with that idea. Yes, literally fall in love with the idea and magnetize yourself to every part of the idea. At that point, persistence will be virtually automatic.

Persistence is a subject I have studied all of my adult life and I can tell you one thing I know for certain: very few people ever, mentally or verbally, say to themselves… this is what I really want and I am prepared to give my life for it, and thus, they never develop the persistence to achieve it.

Persistence is a unique mental strength; a strength that is essential to combat the fierce power of the repeated rejections and numerous other obstacles that sit in waiting and are all part of winning in a fast-moving, ever-changing world. As Napoleon Hill found out, there are hundreds of highly successful men and women who have cut a path for others to follow, while leaving their mark on the scrolls of history… and every one of these great individuals was persistent. In many cases it was the only quality that separated them from everyone else.

It is generally believed that a lack of persistence is a consequence of a weak willpower. That is not true. A person could have a highly evolved willpower and still lack the persistence required to keep moving forward in life. In more cases than not, if a person lacks persistence, they do not have a goal that is worthy of them, a desirable goal that excites them to their very core.

Though willpower is important in moving a person toward their goal, if there is ever a war between the will and the imagination, the imagination will win every time. What that means is: you’re powered by desire and fuelled by the dream you hold. Once you start to use your imagination to help you build a bigger picture of your dream, to define and refine it until you get it just right in your mind, the emotion that is triggered by that desire far outweighs any force that may be caused by sheer will alone. I am not suggesting the will does not have to be developed, it does. It must become highly developed in order to direct you toward the image with which you are emotionally involved.

Your intellectual factors hold the potential for enormous good when they are properly employed. However, you must remember that everything has an opposite and any of your intellectual factors can turn, without warning, into destructive lethal enemies when they are directed toward results that are not wanted. It is easy to find individuals who are persistently doing what they don’t want to do and achieving results that they do not want. A lack of persistence is not their problem; that person is persisting to their own detriment. Ignorance and paradigms are the enemy that we must defeat. Everyone is persistent. Our objective must be to put persistence to work for us rather than against us.

Vision and desire have to be the focus of your attention if you’re going to develop persistence into the great ally it can become.

Another excellent example of persistence was demonstrated when, in 1953, a beekeeper from Auckland, N.Z., Edmund Hillary and his native guide, Tenzing Norguay, became the first two people to climb Mt. Everest and return, after having tried and failed the two previous years.

Hillary had two obvious character strengths that took him to the very top —- vision and desire. Even despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges, he had no trouble persisting with the strenuous acts that were required because every act was hooked into the image of him standing on top of the mountain. They were expressed because of his persistence, but he was persistent because he was emotionally involved with the image. Without persistence, all his skills would have meant nothing.

Persistence is an expression of the mental strength that is essential in almost every profession, where repeated rejection and obstacles are part of a daily routine.

In closing, let me give you four relatively simple steps that will help you to turn persistence into a habit. These steps can be followed by virtually anyone.

1. Have a clearly defined goal. The goal must be something you are emotionally involved with, something you want very much. (In the beginning, you may not even believe that you can accomplish it—the belief will come.)

2. Have a clearly established plan that you can begin working on immediately. (Your plan will very likely only cover the first and possibly the second stage of the journey to your goal. As you begin executing your plan, other steps required to complete your journey will be revealed at the right time.)

3. Make an irrevocable decision to reject any and all negative suggestions that come from friends, relatives or neighbors. Do not give any conscious attention to conditions or circumstances that appear to indicate the goal cannot be accomplished.

4. Establish a mastermind group of one or more people who will encourage, support and assist you wherever possible.

What do you dream of doing with your life? Do it. Begin right now and never quit. There is greatness in you. Let it out. Be persistent.

Have a positive day!

Posted on on June 29th, 2009 in Human Resources   | No Comments »

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 
 
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance management tool which began as a concept for measuring whether the smaller-scale operational activities of a company are aligned with its larger-scale objectives in terms of vision and strategy.

By focusing not only on financial outcomes but also on the operational, marketing and developmental inputs to these, the Balanced Scorecard helps provide a more comprehensive view of a business, which in turn helps organizations act in their best long-term interests.

Organisations were encouraged to measure - in addition to financial outputs - what influenced such financial outputs. For example, process performance, market share / penetration, long term learning and skills development, and so on.

The underlying rationale is that organisations cannot directly influence financial outcomes, as these are “lag” measures, and that the use of financial measures alone to inform the strategic control of the firm is unwise. Organisations should instead also measure those areas where direct management intervention is possible. In so doing, the early versions of the Balanced Scorecard helped organisations achieve a degree of “balance” in selection of performance measures. In practice, early Scorecards achieved this balance by encouraging managers to select measures from three additional categories or perspectives: “Customer,” “Internal Business Processes” and “Learning and Growth.”

History

In 1993, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton began publicizing the Balanced Scorecard through a series of journal articles. In 1996, they published the book The Balanced Scorecard.

Since the original concept was introduced, Balanced Scorecards have become a fertile field of theory, research and consulting practice. The Balanced Scorecard has evolved considerably from its roots as a measure selection framework. While the underlying principles were sound, many aspects of Kaplan & Norton’s original approach were unworkable in practice. Both in firms associated with Kaplan & Norton (Renaissance Solutions Inc. and BSCOL), and elsewhere (Cepro in Sweden, and 2GC Active Management in the UK), the Balanced Scorecard has changed so that there is now much greater emphasis on the design process than previously. There has also been a rapid growth in consulting offerings linked to Balanced Scorecards at the level of branding only. Kaplan & Norton themselves revisited Balanced Scorecards with the benefit of a decade’s experience since the original article.

The Balanced Scorecard is a performance planning and measurement framework, with similar principles as Management by Objectives, which was publicized by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in the early 1990s.

Having realized the shortcomings of traditional management control systems, Kaplan and Norton designed the Balanced Scorecard as a result of a one-year research project involving 12 companies.

Since its introduction, the Balanced Scorecard has been awarded a prize by the American Accounting Association as the “best theoretical contribution in 1997”, and its industry and academic attention has placed it alongside approaches such as Activity Based Costing and Total Quality Management.

The Balanced scorecard is a tool to execute and monitor the organizational strategy by using a combination of financial and non-financial measures. It is designed to translate vision and strategy into objectives and measures across four balanced perspectives: financial, customers, internal business process and learning and growth. It gives a framework ensuring that the strategy is translated into a coherent set of performance measures.

 

Use

Implementing Balanced Scorecards typically includes four processes:

  1. Translating the vision into operational goals;
  2. Communicating the vision and link it to individual performance;
  3. Business planning;
  4. Feedback and learning, and adjusting the strategy accordingly.

The Balanced Scorecard is a framework, or what can be best characterized as a “strategic management system” that claims to incorporate all quantitative and abstract measures of true importance to the enterprise. According to Kaplan and Norton, “The Balanced Scorecard provides managers with the instrumentation they need to navigate to future competitive success”.

Many books and articles referring to Balanced Scorecards confuse the design process elements and the Balanced Scorecard itself. In particular, it is common for people to refer to a “strategic linkage model” or “strategy map” as being a Balanced Scorecard.

Although it helps focus managers’ attention on strategic issues and the management of the implementation of strategy, it is important to remember that the Balanced Scorecard itself has no role in the formation of strategy. In fact, Balanced Scorecards can comfortably co-exist with strategic planning systems and other tools.

 

Original methodology

The earliest Balanced Scorecards comprised simple tables broken into four sections - typically these “perspectives” were labeled “Financial”, “Customer”, “Internal Business Processes”, and “Learning & Growth”. Designing the Balanced Scorecard required selecting five or six good measures for each perspective.

Many authors have since suggested alternative headings for these perspectives, and also suggested using either additional or fewer perspectives. These suggestions were notably triggered by a recognition that different but equivalent headings would yield alternative sets of measures. The major design challenge faced with this type of Balanced Scorecard is justifying the choice of measures made. “Of all the measures you could have chosen, why did you choose these?” This common question is hard to ask using this type of design process. If users are not confident that the measures within the Balanced Scorecard are well chosen, they will have less confidence in the information it provides. Although less common, these early-style Balanced Scorecards are still designed and used today.

In short, early-style Balanced Scorecards are hard to design in a way that builds confidence that they are well designed. Because of this, many are abandoned soon after completion.

 

Improved methodology

In the mid 1990s, an improved design method emerged. In the new method, measures are selected based on a set of “strategic objectives” plotted on a “strategic linkage model” or “strategy map”. With this modified approach, the strategic objectives are typically distributed across a similar set of “perspectives”, as is found in the earlier designs, but the design question becomes slightly less abstract.

Managers have to identify five or six goals within each of the perspectives, and then demonstrate some inter-linking between these goals by plotting causal links on the diagram. Having reached some consensus about the objectives and how they inter-relate, the Balanced Scorecard is devised by choosing suitable measures for each objective. This type of approach provides greater contextual justification for the measures chosen, and is generally easier for managers to work through. This style of Balanced Scorecard has been commonly used since 1996 or so.

Several design issues still remain with this enhanced approach to Balanced Scorecard design, but it has been much more successful than the design approach it superseded.

In the late 1990s, the design approach had evolved yet again. One problem with the “2nd generation” design approach described above was that the plotting of causal links amongst twenty or so medium-term strategic goals was still a relatively abstract activity. In practice it ignored the fact that opportunities to intervene, to influence strategic goals are, and need to be anchored in the “now;” in current and real management activity. Secondly, the need to “roll forward” and test the impact of these goals necessitated the creation of an additional design instrument; the Vision or Destination Statement. This device was a statement of what “strategic success,” or the “strategic end-state” looked like. It was quickly realised, that if a Destination Statement was created at the beginning of the design process then it was much easier to select strategic Activity and Outcome objectives to respond to it. Measures and targets could then be selected to track the achievement of these objectives. Destination Statement driven, or 3rd Generation Balanced Scorecards represent the current state of the art in Scorecard design.

 

Popularity

Kaplan and Norton found that companies are using Balanced Scorecards to:

  • Drive strategy execution;
  • Clarify strategy and make strategy operational;
  • Identify and align strategic initiatives;
  • Link budget with strategy;
  • Align the organization with strategy;
  • Conduct periodic strategic performance reviews to learn about and improve strategy.

In 1997, Kurtzman found that 64 percent of the companies questioned were measuring performance from a number of perspectives in a similar way to the Balanced Scorecard.

Balanced Scorecards have been implemented by government agencies, military units, business units and corporations as a whole, non-profit organizations, and schools.

Many examples of Balanced Scorecards can be found via Web searches. However, adapting one organization’s Balanced Scorecard to another is generally not advised by theorists, who believe that much of the benefit of the Balanced Scorecard comes from the implementation method. Indeed, it could be argued that many failures in the early days of Balanced Scorecard could be attributed to this problem, in that early Balanced Scorecards were often designed remotely by consultants. Managers did not trust, and so failed to engage with and use these measure suites created by people lacking knowledge of the organisation and management responsibility.

 

Variants, Alternatives and Criticisms

Since the late 1990s, various alternatives to the Balanced Scorecard have emerged, such as The Performance Prism, Results Based Management and Third Generation Balanced Scorecard. These tools seek to solve some of the remaining design issues, in particular issues relating to the design of sets of Balanced Scorecards to use across an organization, and issues in setting targets for the measures selected.

Applied Information Economics (AIE) has been researched as an alternative to Balanced Scorecards. In 2000, the Federal CIO Council commissioned a study [1] to compare the two methods by funding studies in side-by-side projects in two different agencies. The Dept. of Veterans Affairs used AIE and the US Dept. of Agriculture applied Balanced Scorecards. The resulting report found that while AIE was much more sophisticated, AIE actually took slightly less time to utilize. AIE was also more likely to generate findings that were newsworthy to the organization, while the users of Balanced Scorecards felt it simply documented their inputs and offered no other particular insight. However, Balanced Scorecards are still much more widely used than AIE.[citation needed]

A criticism of Balanced Scorecards is that the scores are not based on any proven economic or financial theory, and therefore have no basis in the decision sciences. The process is entirely subjective and makes no provision to assess quantities (e.g., risk and economic value) in a way that is actuarially or economically well-founded.

Another criticism is that the Balanced Scorecard does not provide a bottom line score or a unified view with clear recommendations: it is simply a list of metrics [2].

Some people also claim that positive feedback from users of Balanced Scorecards may be due to a placebo effect, as there are no empirical studies linking the use of Balanced Scorecards to better decision making or improved financial performance of companies.

 

The Four Perspectives

The grouping of performance measures in general categories (perspectives) is seen to aid in the gathering and selection of the appropriate performance measures for the enterprise. Four general perspectives have been proposed by the Balanced Scorecard:

  • Financial Perspective;
  • Customer Perspective;
  • Internal process Perspective;
  • Innovation & Learning Perspective.

The financial perspective examines if the company’s implementation and execution of its strategy are contributing to the bottom-line improvement of the company. It represents the long-term strategic objectives of the organization and thus it incorporates the tangible outcomes of the strategy in traditional financial terms. The three possible stages as described by Kaplan and Norton (1996) are rapid growth, sustain and harvest. Financial objectives and measures for the growth stage will stem from the development and growth of the organization which will lead to increased sales volumes, acquisition of new customers, growth in revenues etc. The sustain stage on the other hand will be characterized by measures that evaluate the effectiveness of the organization to manage its operations and costs, by calculating the return on investment, the return on capital employed, etc. Finally, the harvest stage will be based on cash flow analysis with measures such as payback periods and revenue volume. Some of the most common financial measures that are incorporated in the financial perspective are EVA, revenue growth, costs, profit margins, cash flow, net operating income etc.

The customer perspective defines the value proposition that the organization will apply in order to satisfy customers and thus generate more sales to the most desired (i.e. the most profitable) customer groups. The measures that are selected for the customer perspective should measure both the value that is delivered to the customer (value position) which may involve time, quality, performance and service and cost and the outcomes that come as a result of this value proposition (e.g., customer satisfaction, market share). The value proposition can be centered on one of the three: operational excellence, customer intimacy or product leadership, while maintaining threshold levels at the other two.

The internal process perspective is concerned with the processes that create and deliver the customer value proposition. It focuses on all the activities and key processes required in order for the company to excel at providing the value expected by the customers both productively and efficiently. These can include both short-term and long-term objectives as well as incorporating innovative process development in order to stimulate improvement. In order to identify the measures that correspond to the internal process perspective, Kaplan and Norton propose using certain clusters that group similar value creating processes in an organization. The clusters for the internal process perspective are operations management (by improving asset utilization, supply chain management, etc), customer management (by expanding and deepening relations), innovation (by new products and services) and regulatory & social (by establishing good relations with the external stakeholders).

The Innovation & Learning Perspective is the foundation of any strategy and focuses on the intangible assets of an organization, mainly on the internal skills and capabilities that are required to support the value-creating internal processes. The Innovation & Learning Perspective is concerned with the jobs (human capital), the systems (information capital), and the climate (organization capital) of the enterprise. These three factors relate to what Kaplan and Norton claim is the infrastructure that is needed in order to enable ambitious objectives in the other three perspectives to be achieved. This of course will be in the long term, since an improvement in the learning and growth perspective will require certain expenditures that may decrease short-term financial results, whilst contributing to long-term success.

 

Key Performance Indicators

According to each perspective of the Balanced Scorecard, a number of KPIs can be used such as:

 

Financial

  • Cash flow
  • ROI
  • Financial Result
  • Return on capital employed
  • Return on equity

 

Customer

  • Delivery Performance to Customer - by Date
  • Quality Performance to Customer - by Quality
  • Customer satisfaction rate
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Customer retention

 

Internal Business Processes

  • Number of Activities
  • Opportunity Success Rate
  • Accident Ratios
  • Overall Equipment Effectiveness

 

Learning & Growth

  • Investment Rate
  • Illness rate
  • Internal Promotions %
  • Employee Turnover
  • Gender/Racial Ratios

Further lists of general and industry-specific KPIs can be found in the case studies and methodological articles and books presented in the references section.

 

See also

  • Applied Information Economics
  • Digital dashboard, also known as business dashboard, enterprise dashboard or executive dashboard
  • Key performance indicators
  • Performance management
  • Strategic management
  • Strategy map
  • BSC SWOT

 

References

  • Douglas W. Hubbard “How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business” John Wily & Sons, 2007. ISBN 978-0470110126
  • Cobbold, I. and Lawrie, G. (2002a). “The Development of the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management Tool”. Performance Measurement Association 2002
  • Cobbold, I and Lawrie, G (2002b). “Classification of Balanced Scorecards based on their effectiveness as strategic control or management control tools”. Performance Measurement Association 2002.
  • International Controller Association: Statement Balanced Scorecard; Gauting, Germany, 2003
  • Kaplan R S and Norton D P (1992) “The balanced scorecard: measures that drive performance”, Harvard Business Review Jan – Feb pp71-80.
  • Kaplan R S and Norton D P (1993) “Putting the Balanced Scorecard to Work”, Harvard Business Review Sep – Oct pp2-16.
  • Kaplan R S and Norton D P (1995) “Chemical Bank: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard” Harvard Business School Press
  • Kaplan R S and Norton D P (1996) “Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system”, Harvard Business Review Jan – Feb pp75-85.
  • Kaplan R S and Norton D P (1996) “Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action” Harvard Business School Press
  • Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2004). Measuring the strategic readiness of intangible assets. Harvard Business Review, 82(2): 52-63.
  • Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2004). Strategy maps: Converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
  • Kurtzman J (1997) “Is your company off course? Now you can find out why”, Fortune Feb 17 pp128- 30
  • Niven, Paul R. (2006) “Balanced Scorecard. Step-by-step. Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results”.
  • Per Nikolaj Bukh & Teemu Malmi “Re-Examining the Cause-and-Effect Principle of the Balanced Scorecard”
  • Norreklit H. (2000), The balance on the balanced scorecard - a critical analysis of some of its assumptions, Management Accounting Research, 11, pp. 65-88.
  • Papalexandris, A., Ioannou, G. and Prastacos, G.P. (2004) Implementing the Balanced Scorecard in Greece: a software firm’s experience. Long Range Planning, 37(4), 347-362.
  • Papalexandris, A., Ioannou, G., Prastacos, G.P. and Soderquist, K.E. (2005) An integrated methodology for putting the Balanced Scorecard into action. European Management Journal, 23(2), 214-227.
  • Voelper S., Leibold M., Eckhoff R., Davenport T. (2006), The tyranny of the Balanced Scorecard in the innovation economy, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 7, n° 1, pp. 43-60.

 

Software tools

Many firms choose to use standard office software (such as spreadsheets, word processors, presentation software) to provide the same functions as are provided by commercial software packages - trading the time taken to develop the appropriate templates in the packages and then use them against the typically high cost of commercial Balanced Scorecard software packages / services.

Read More…..

 

Case Studies For Case-Based Classes
balanced scorecard - kaplan and norton’s organizat…
Balanced Scorecard Initiative
Perspectives on the Balanced Scorecard©
Must Your Scorecard be Balanced?©
Juggling Balanced Scorecard Metrics©
Juggling Balanced Scorecard Metrics©
BSC - Business Publications
HOW TO BUILD A BALANCED SCORECARD*©
The First Balanced Scorecard©
balanced scorecard methodology
Balanced Scorecard at UVa Library
The Balanced Scorecard Toolkit!
Balanced scorecard - A guide to real change
History of the Balanced Scorecard
Sharpening Your Skills: Balanced Scorecard in Acti…
Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard
A Balanced Scorecard Approach To Measure Customer …
The Balanced Scorecard - Who’s Doing it ?
The Balanced Scorecard and Knowledge Management
The following books are recommended to provide exp…
Handbook for Basic Process Improvement
The Balanced Scorecard and Knowledge Management
Deployment of the Balanced Scorecard Measurement S…
HR Scorecard Metrics - measure and improve HR perf…
Balanced Scorecard as a Strategy of Life
The Revolution in Strategic Planning
Using the Balanced Scorecard to Align Your Organiz…

Posted on on November 5th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | 5 Comments »

Competency Based Interview

A competency based interview (also referred to as a situational, behavioural or competency interview) is a style of interviewing often used to evaluate a candidate’s competence, particularly where it is hard to select on the basis of technical merit: for example for a particular graduate scheme or job where relevant experience is less important or not required. However, increasingly, companies are using competency based interviews as part of the selection process for experienced recruitment, as it can give valuable insights into an individual’s preferred style of working and help predict behaviours in future situations.
Conventional job interviews may focus on questions relating to an applicant’s past or previous industry experience, but this is an ineffective tool for graduate level candidates who are not expected to have any former experience in the industry they wish to work in.Questions about industry experience will not be part of a competency interview. Instead interviewers will pose questions that ask candidates to demonstrate that they have a particular skill or a “key competency” the firm is looking for. Candidates will be asked to do this using situational examples from their life experiences, to illustrate their personality, skill set and individual competencies to the interviewer.

Competency interviews may also feature questions that probe candidates on their knowledge of the company and industry applied to. This type of interview question tests candidates on their motivation and commitment to career.

A typical competency based interview will last for one hour. At most major firms competency interviews will also be standardised. Consequently all applicants can expect to be asked identical questions.

What are Competencies?

A competency is a particular quality that a company’s recruiters have decided is desirable for employees to possess. During interviews and assessment processes competencies are used as benchmarks that assessors use to rate and evaluate candidates.

In interviews recruiters look for evidence of competencies by asking candidates competency based questions. This style of question forces candidates to give situational examples of times in the past when they have performed particular tasks or achieved particular outcomes using certain skills.

Key Competencies

A firm will usually isolate several key skills or “key competencies” to look for in candidates at interview. You will be graded in terms of each competency based upon your answers to competency based questions.

Employers typically use some of the following as their key competencies:

  • Teamwork
  • Responsibility
  • Commitment to career
  • Commercial awareness
  • Career motivation
  • Decision making
  • Communication
  • Leadership
  • Trustworthiness & Ethics
  • Results orientation
  • Problem solving
  • Organisation

Now see - Competency based interview and competency based questions.

Why are Competency Based Questions Used at Interview?

In the case of applications for graduate jobs, candidates typically have no experience in the industry to which they have applied. Consequently it is not possible to assess their suitability for a job role based upon their CV alone. This has led to the development of competency based interviews becoming the prime way to interview inexperienced graduate applicants.

Typical Competency Based Interview Structure

Questions in competency interviews will usually refer to activities a candidate has participated in at school, college or university, or any other activities that can be used to effectively display evidence of particular competencies or a particular competency.

A typical competency question could be: “Describe two situations where you have had to work as part of a team.” When asked a question like this, you should be able to talk for several minutes about your participation to a particularly strong team you have been part of in the past and how your sense of teamwork helped lead a task or project to successful completion.

You should have an idea before the interview of the experiences from your life that you could use as examples to demonstrate the key competencies of the firm to which you are applying. You are likely to have to provide at least two examples for each competency during your interview.

It is quite acceptable to ask for and to use a few moments of thinking time before answering competency questions. If necessary, simply notify your interviewer by explaining you “may need to think about this for a few moments”. Once you have thought of a good example to use, continue with your answer.

Who Uses Competency Interviews?

Estimates indicate that a third of all employers are using competency interviews as part of their recruitment process. Large graduate employers are especially likely to use competency interviews as part of their graduate recruitment procedure, in particular as part of an assessment centre.

Will I Be Given a Competency Interview?

It is hard to tell if a competency interview will feature as part of your assessment process before making your application to a firm, although the application form itself may help to give you a clue. Many employers who do use competency interviews design theirapplication forms to include a number of competency questions. Take note if you find any questions on your application that ask you to give situational examples. These may be a strong indicator of what is in store at interview!

Key Competency: Motivation & Commitment to Career

It is likely you will be asked why you wish to work for this company in particular, and what distinguishes this company, for you, from its competitors. This question requires you to discuss your knowledge of the firm in detail and prove to your interviewer your desire for a job.

To answer this question you should describe:
 

  • The key strengths this firm has over its competitors in the industry (e.g. more specialised in certain niche areas, more international scope, more respected).
  • What appeals to you personally about the firm (e.g. your interests in the firm’s niche areas, your relevant study at university).
  • Other relevant factors you find interesting (e.g. the impression you have of the working style at the firm, the social side of the company, the type of charitable work the firm is involved in).

 

You may also be asked what you believe you will be doing during your first year on the graduate scheme. You should be particularly clear about exactly what it is you will be doing. If you cannot answer this question, you are unlikely to be successful. If you are currently unsure, it is perfectly acceptable to contact firm’s graduate recruitment departments before applying to discuss anything you do not already know about the job.

Competency Based Interview: The first 60 seconds

Although competency based interviews are standardised, a typical interviewer will decide within minutes whether they like you or not, and this is likely to affect the outcome of the interview. It is very important to give a good impression to your interviewer from the very first moment you meet.

Shake hands confidently, smile, introduce yourself, and be generally convivial to the occasion. Sitting quietly and communicating poorly will not help you, and neither will boisterous or arrogant behaviour. You should be polite but outgoing, assertive but not aggressive and aim to be every bit as professional as the interviewer who is assessing you.

For more information about preparing for competency interviews and general interview skills see General interview advice and How to get hired.

Posted on on October 8th, 2008 in Human Resources   | No Comments »

Competency–based Human Resource Management:Planning for Success

Competency–based Human Resource Management:Planning for Success©
Suzanne Simpson, PhD. & Lorraine McKay, M.A. 
 
What is Competency-based Human Resource Management
 
A competency is “any skill, knowledge, or other attribute that is observable and identifies successful performance”. Effectively, competencies translate the strategic vision and goals for the organization into measurable and observable behaviours or actions that employees must display.
 
A common framework of competencies provides the means for integrating all aspects of the HR system so that employees are selected, evaluated, developed, promoted and rewarded based on competencies that support organizational success. By communicating these competencies, organizations empower employees to take charge of their careers, direct their own personal development, and continually self-evaluate and improve. At the same time, the framework allows the organization to pro-actively plan for its human resource needs both in the immediate and long term, and to establish programs that support employees in acquiring the competencies needed for organizational success.

Planning for Competency-based Human Resource Management
 
It takes effort and commitment to implement a fully-elaborated and integrated competency-based human resource management (HRM) system. 
 
It is important, therefore, to take the time to evaluate the needs of the organization, and to create a strategy and plan that will meet these needs - in other words, getting it right the first time.
Developing the Business Case
 
Our years of experience in implementing competency-based human resource management programs have shown that, as with any other significant change initiative, there must be a compelling need and will to change. It is not sufficient for the organization=s human resource or
training professionals to see the need; leaders of the organization must also see the benefits and be willing to champion the initiative. Likewise, employees must understand how the program will benefit them both in their current jobs, as well as in advancing their careers. For this reason, many organizations have chosen first to implement components of a competency-based HRM system that address the expressed needs of employees, preferably in a non-threatening way - for example, a competency-based self-directed learning program.
 
Developing the Strategy 
 
Having identified the business need, the champions for change and the organizational readiness, the organization is in a position to more precisely define a staged approach for developing and implementing competency models.
 
As the first major challenge the organization must decide to what level the competencies will be defined. For example, will it be sufficient to define the common / core competencies for everyone in the organization, or do specific competencies have to be developed for particular classifications and levels, functions, or jobs. The answer to this question hinges on how the competencies will be used. For example, to staff particular positions, competencies should be defined for the job. On the other hand, for appointments to level, for appointments to level, competencies need only be defined at the core or common level.
 
The organization must also determine the competency modelling method best suited to support the identified needs. In our experience no one single method will effectively support all components of the human resource management system (i.e. training and development, selection,
performance management, etc.), the full range of occupations and levels (executive, professional, skilled, semi-skilled, etc.), or the various types of organizational and business environments. 
 
Finally, communication is imperative at all stages of the planning, development and implementation process. In addition to promoting the value, benefits and ways in which the competency-based initiative will be implemented, stakeholder participation in the process is also important, not only to create “buy-in” for the initiative, but also to ensure that the competencies truly reflect the behaviours that will contribute to and sustain organizational success.
Conclusion
 
Many organizations are using competencies as the means for identifying and developing this
talent. Our experience shows that unless the competency framework is well planned and defined,
organizations will not have the proper foundation for developing and implementing a system of
human resource programs and initiatives for renewal and sustained success. 
 
Competency-based Human Resource Management:  Planning for Success©
Suzanne Simpson, Ph.D., C.Psych. & Lorraine McKay, M.A. 

Posted on on September 22nd, 2008 in Human Resources   | No Comments »

DEVELOPING DISCIPLINE

by Dr. John C. Maxwell


H.P. Liddon said, "What we do on some great occasions will probably depend upon what we already are, and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline." I believe that with all of my heart.

Discipline is doing what you really do not want to do, so you can do what you really want to do. What makes it hard is that in our own human nature, we do not want to do certain things, and so therefore, what happens is we have a tendency to be undisciplined in the areas that we do not care to do.

Three areas to develop discipline:

1. Disciplined Thinking.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."

I am in the process of writing a new book. The whole book is based on the idea that people who understand how to get to the top and stay there are people who think their way to the top.

One of the major differences in this discipline of thinking is that people that think their way to the top have the ability to do what I call "sustained thinking." They have the ability to think on an issue for a long period of time, until that issue becomes clear on the decision that should be made.

People who do not think their way to the top have the unwillingness of discipline to master sustained thinking. They will think about something for a while, and then they will get off it and go on to something else.

They have never learned how to discipline their thoughts by writing them down. I always keep a pad with me of things that I am thinking. I write thoughts down so that I can stay concentrated and disciplined in that area.

2. Disciplined Emotions.
We have choices when it comes to our emotions:
1. We can master them, or
2. They can master us.

I was playing golf the other day at East Lake Country Club, a great golf course here in Atlanta. It is known for being the links where Bobby Jones played. As you may or may not know, he is a legendary golfer who won a major tournament at twenty-one. By age twenty-eight, he had already won the grand slam and retired.

Jones had an uncle who said that by the time he was fourteen, Bobby was probably already the best golfer in the world. He certainly was popular. However, Jones was also known for his temper because he would throw his clubs when he got irritated. Jones’s uncle sat down with him and said, "Bobby, your problem is you’ve mastered the game of golf, but you haven’t mastered your emotions; and until you master your emotions, you’ll never be a champion in golf."

3. Disciplined Actions.
I call the two actions of initiating and closing the "bookends of success" because I really think they are.

I know some that can initiate but they can never close; I know some people that can close but they can never get it cranked up. You have to kick start them every time. When you can do both, initiate and close, you have the bookends to success.

Allow me to leave you with this closing thought about developing discipline: you cannot give what you do not have, and self-improvement precedes team improvement.

The only way that I can keep leading is to keep growing. The day I stop growing, somebody else takes the leadership baton. That is the way it always is.

– John C. Maxwell

Posted on on August 28th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | No Comments »

Evaluasi pelatihan, perlukah?

Banyak pimpinan perusahaan mengeluh, mengapa anak buah yang dikirim untuk mengikuti pelatihan, seminar dsb nya, hasilnya tak signifikan dengan peningkatan kinerjanya. Agak sulit memang, bagi seorang pembicara seminar selain dituntut dapat menularkan ilmunya, juga harus bisa bertindak sebagai entertainer. Apabila si pembicara tak dapat menarik minat peserta, nilai evaluasi akan rendah, namun di satu sisi seminar yang dibawakan secara menarik belum tentu sesuai dengan yang diharapkan oleh perusahaan.

Evaluasi yang dilakukan pada umumnya masih bersifat evaluasi dari peserta pelatihan, dengan cara mengisi kuestioner apakah pelatihan dimaksud sesuai dengan bidang kerjanya, apakah penyajiannya baik, akomodasi bagus dsb nya. Sedangkan evaluasi yang dilakukan oleh staf, berupa laporan hasil seminar yang ditujukan kepada perusahaan pada umumnya bernilai “baik”, dengan harapan staf tadi dapat dikirim lagi ke seminar atau pelatihan berikutnya.

Pada dasarnya, evaluasi setiap program pelatihan dapat dilakukan, dengan memperoleh feedback dari peserta, yang dapat dibagi menjadi 4 (empat) level, sebagai berikut:

  1. Evaluasi pada tingkat reaksi (Reaction level). Pada evaluasi ini yang diukur dan dinilai adalah reaksi peserta. Dalam hal ini diukur tingkat kepuasan peserta terhadap program pelatihan yang diselenggarakan, sehingga dapat dilakukan perbaikan atas program tersebut.
  2. Evaluasi pada tingkat pembelajaran (Learning Level). Evaluasi ini dilakukan dengan tujuan utama mengukur seberapa jauh perubahan kompetensi para peserta segera setelah pelatihan berakhir, sebelum mereka kembali bekerja. Dengan kata lain, tujuan evaluasi pada tingkat ini adalah peningkatan kompetensi peserta dalam kelas dan untuk mengidentifikasikan keberhasilan komponen sistem pelatihan (metode, materi, dll).
  3. Evaluasi pada tingkat perilaku dalam pekerjaan (On the job behavioral Level). Evaluasi pada tingkat ini yang diukur adalah pengaruh program pelatihan terhadap penerapannya ditempat kerja. Dengan kata lain, tujuan evaluasi pada tahap ini adalah perbaikan perilaku peserta dalam pekerjaan.
  4. Evaluasi pada tingkat hasil (Result level). Evaluasi ini dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk mengukur seberapa jauh peningkatan produktivitas yang dicapai pekerja, serta unit kerja, setelah mengikuti program pelatihan. Atau untuk menentukan apakah manfaat pelatihan lebih tinggi dibanding dengan biaya yang telah dikeluarkan.

Pada umumnya kita baru bisa mengukur pada tahap 3, karena untuk menilai sesuai tahap 4 dibutuhkan data base yang bagus, serta keterlibatan dengan pimpinan unit kerja yang telah mengirimkan stafnya ke pelatihan tersebut. Bagi yang ditempatkan di unit kerja yang profit oriented, mereka pada umumnya telah disibukkan dengan target-target bisnis, sehingga tak memungkinkan untuk melibatkan diri secara aktif, baik melalui kuestioner ataupun melalui penilaian langsung, apakah hasil pelatihan dapat diaplikasikan di bidang pekerjaannya.

Kita menyadari, bahwa SDM merupakan aset perusahaan, dan untuk meningkatkan kemampuan dan kualitas SDM, antara lain bisa diperoleh melalui pendidikan dan pelatihan. Oleh karena itu diperlukan campur tangan dari Manajemen perusahaan, agar proses evaluasi pendidikan dan pelatihan ini dapat berjalan lancar. Apalagi bagi perbankan, terdapat aturan Bank Indonesia, bahwa minimal setiap Bank harus mencadangkan 5% dari BTK (Biaya Tenaga Kerja) untuk mendidik para karyawannya.

Apabila kita melihat laporan keuangan publikasi Bank-bank , terlihat bahwa angka BTK cukup tinggi, oleh karena itu besarnya biaya pendidikan yang dikeluarkan harus diimbangi dengan hasil yang dapat diaplikasikan dilapangan. Disadari, ada pendidikan yang bersifat konseptual, yang hasilnya tak dapat dilihat langsung, namun akan terlihat pada beberapa tahun kedepan. Pendidikan yang bersifat aplikatif akan langsung terlihat hasilnya, minimal terjadi penurunan tingkat kesalahan, atau kinerja unit kerja tersebut meningkat.

Posted on on August 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized   | No Comments »

JIM ROHN’S CHALLENGE TO PURSUE

(excerpted from the 2004 Weekend Event)


Review your performance. Whether it’s communication, whether it’s activity, whether it’s a CEO, whether it’s on the job. Here’s what my father said, "Always do more than you are paid for to make an investment in your future." Now some unions would argue with that. My father was so unique. Review your performance–your language with your children. Say, "Have I been too harsh, too strong, too stubborn? Should I have learned to be easier and mixed more compassion with the tough stuff I have to deal with?" And yes, prayer will help. Ask for help to say the right thing, not to ruin it all by poor communication.

Face your fears. That’s how you conquer them. Don’t dismiss them; face them. Say, "Here’s what I’m afraid of. I wonder what I could do to change that."

Exercise your willpower to change direction. You don’t have to keep doing what you’ve been doing the last 6 years if it’s not yielding the benefits you want. My mentor helped me review the last six years so I wouldn’t repeat those errors the next six. Pick a new destination and go that way. Use your willpower to start the process. You don’t have to repeat last year. Clean up the errors. Invest it now in the next year. Watch it make the difference.

Admit your mistakes. Sometimes you have to admit them to others. Parents have to do it. We ask our kids do it; we have to do it. Here are some of the best phrases in the English language, "I’m sorry." The reason those are good words is because they could start a whole new relationship. It could start two people going in a whole new direction. Simple, not easy. You get this done, the turnaround can be dramatic. The early years can be big in payoff.

Here’s the big one. Admit your mistakes to yourself. You don’t have to babble about them to everyone in the neighborhood. But it doesn’t hurt to sit down and have a conversation with yourself and say, "There’s no use kidding myself. Here’s where I really am. I’ve got pennies in my pocket and I’ve got nothing in the bank." That’s what I said after a Girl Scout left my door. I had a conversation with myself and I said, "I don’t want this to happen anymore."

Refine your goals. Start the process. Set some higher goals. Reach for some higher purpose. Go for something beyond what you thought you could do.

Believe in yourself. You’ve got to believe in God and you’ve got to believe in the community. You’ve got to believe in the possibilities. You’ve got to believe in the economy. You’ve got to believe that tomorrow can be better than today. Here’s the big one. Believe in yourself. There isn’t a skill you can’t learn; there isn’t a discipline you can’t try; there isn’t a class you can’t take; there isn’t a book you couldn’t read.

Ask for wisdom. This is communication of the highest source. Ask for wisdom that creates answers. Ask for the wisdom that creates faith to believe things are possible. Ask for wisdom to deal with the challenges for today and tomorrow, to deal with the challenges your family brings you. Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better.

Conserve your time. Sometimes we get faked out. Bill Bailey says the average person says, "I’ve got twenty more years." No, Bill says you’ve got twenty more times. If you go fishing once a year, you’ve only got twenty more times to go fishing, not twenty years. That fakes you out.

Invest your profits. Here’s one of the philosophies that Mr. Shoaff gave me. Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living, profits make you a fortune. Could we start earning profits while we make a living? The answer is yes.

Protect your family. These are troublesome times. At school–troublesome times. Protect your family as best you can from the hidden dangers, the lurking evil one.

Live with intensity. You might as well turn it up a notch or two. Invest more of you in whatever you do. Be a little stronger; be a little wiser. Step up your vitality contribution. Put everything you’ve got into everything you do and then ask for more vitality, more strength and more vigor, more heart and more soul.

Find your place. If you just work on a job, find the best place you can serve well, and sure enough they’ll ask you to occupy a better place. And if you keep doing a job well, do the very best you can. That’s your best way out. Here’s a Bible phrase. If you work on your gifts, they’ll make a place for you.

Demand integrity from yourself. Integrity is like loyalty. You can’t demand it of someone else; you can only demand it of yourself. Be the best example of loyalty, and you’ll get some loyal followers. Be the best example of integrity, and you’ll have people around you who have integrity. Lead the way.

Welcome the disciplines. Can’t give you much better advice than that because disciplines create the reality. Disciplines build cities. A well-disciplined activity creates abundance, creates uniqueness, productivity.

Fight for what’s right. It’s a fight we’re in. The story-teller says "And there was great war in heaven." One of the writers of later scripture said, "I fought a good fight." That’s extraordinary to be able to say. I fought for my kids, and I fought for what was right and I fought for good health, and I fought to protect my company and I fought for a good career that would bless my family. I fought a good fight. It’s good to fight the encroachment. Opposites are in conflict, and you’re in the middle. If you want something valuable, you’ve got to fight for it. Then this writer also said, "I fought a good fight and I kept the faith." See, that’s the deal. Keep faith with your family. Fight the enemy and keep faith. Fight the illness and keep faith. Fight the evil and keep faith. I can’t give you much better advice.

Jim Rohn

Posted on on August 20th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | No Comments »

Finding A New Business Idea

Finding A New Business Idea
By: Brian Tracy

Look for Opportunities
How do you find a new product or service, recognizing that 80 percent or more will be new in five years? Here’s a series of ideas. Number one, begin with yourself. Begin with your own talents, your abilities, your experience, knowledge, interest, background, education, and so on. Look carefully at your current work, your current business, your current position, or your current product or service. Seek for what is called your own acres of diamonds. Look under your own feet.

Look Into Yourself
Here’s a question. What qualities account for your greatest successes in life so far? What personal qualities and abilities have gotten you to where you are? And how could you apply those qualities and abilities to starting and building a new business?

If you already have a company, ask what are your companies’ talents, abilities, experience, knowledge, interest, background, and so on. What qualities and talents and abilities have enabled your company to succeed up to now? Where can you specialize? Where can you make a difference?

Identify What You Really Enjoy
Number two is look for a product or service about which you can really become enthusiastic. Sometimes people become wealthy by translating or transforming their hobbies into a business. You will be most successful doing something or marketing something that you really love.

Every product must have a champion. Every product or service must have someone in the business who really, really loves the product or service and is eager to get out and tell other people about it.

Improve On Something Else
Number three, look for something that is an improvement on an existing product or service, not something brand new. Look for something that’s cheaper or better quality. Or that has additional features or functions. Look for something that’s an improvement.

Remember improving an existing successful product or service is the fastest and surest way to build a successful business. An idea only needs to be ten percent new and better to capture substantial market share. Brand new products or services are very risky.

Be Willing to Work Hard
The fourth key to finding a new product or service is this. Don’t look for easy money. Don’t look for gimmicks or useless knickknacks. Don’t look for get-rich-quick schemes or rewards without working, because they’re aren’t any.

More people have wasted more time and more life and more money trying to find quick ways to make easy money than you can possibly imagine. So be willing to put in a lot of hard work before you start making real money in a business.

Success Takes Time
It takes two years to break even in the average business. It takes four years to show a profit. It takes maybe eight to ten years before it starts to generate real cash flow. So you have to be patient. If you’re impatient, what will happen is you’ll end up setting yourself further back than you can imagine.

Action Exercises
First, be prepared to research a lot of business ideas before you make a final decision. The first 10% of time that you spend doing your homework will save you 90% of the effort in getting results later on.

Second, look for something that you can make an improvement upon rather than something brand new. You are surrounded by ideas and opportunities for improvement if you can just identify them.

Posted on on August 14th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | 1 Comment »

How to Handle a Pay Cut

How to Handle a Pay Cut

by Caroline Potter
Perhaps you’ve noticed that business has slowed down around your office, which could be a sign that your company has fallen on tough times. The good news, you learn, is that you still have a job. But before you can say, "Whew," you learn the bad news: Your salary is being reduced.

Make No Accept-ion

When your supervisor breaks the news to you about your pay cut, do not accept anything immediately. In other words, refrain from conveying any type of agreement, either verbally or in writing. If pushed, you may say something to the effect of "This is a lot to process right now. I need to think about this and discuss it with my family this evening."

What you want to do is buy yourself some time. Why? You need to find out all the facts surrounding a salary reduction before you accept it. A pay cut can affect your future severance package and compensation for unused sick or vacation days as those numbers are usually calculated based on your current salary — as are unemployment benefits. Also, the reduced compensation could affect salary negotiations with future employers as your last salary of record could be significantly less than what you are really worth.

Just the Facts

Once you’re no longer reeling from the shock, go on a fact-finding mission. Questions to ask your superiors include:

  • Is this a mandatory or voluntary pay cut?
  • How much will your pay be lowered by?
  • Who else is affected by the pay cut?
  • How long will the pay cut last?
  • Could there be retroactive reimbursement?
  • How will this affect raises, bonuses and benefits?
  • Are you going to have to work longer hours or take on additional tasks?
  • What are the company’s plans to turn things around?

Questions to ask yourself include:

  • How much do you need this job?
  • Do you have faith that the company will recover from this setback?
  • Can you trust what your superiors are telling you?
  • Is it time to move on?

After gathering information outwardly and inwardly, you may want to speak with an employment attorney to explore all of your legal options and your rights.

It Pays to Negotiate

Once you know the facts and think you may wish to continue at your current job, see if you can negotiate to make the pay cut more palatable to you.

Some areas to negotiate can include your weekly hours and where you work. Suggest a reduced schedule, such as a four-day workweek. Or try to arrange to telecommute to reduce your commuting costs.

You can also negotiate around stock options, if you still believe the company is viable — and valuable. If you don’t have any stock options, ask for some. If you have some, try to get more. If you’re not sure what the shares are worth and where the company is headed, do some research on Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! News.

Finally, ask the company for a written agreement around the salary cut, when your old pay rate might be reinstated and if there will be any recompense for lost wages. Your supervisor may balk, but if you work for a small company, you may be able to negotiate this.

Exit Stage Left

If at the end of your fact-finding and negotiating you feel cornered, remember: you’re not. You still have choices and options. However, to exercise any of them, you may need to consult with an employment attorney or your local unemployment office.

Because most people are employed "at will," you or your employer can end the arrangement at any time and your salary can be lowered, as long as it is done for a legitimate business reason. But, if your pay has been cut by an unreasonable percentage, you may be able to quit and still collect unemployment benefits. Rules vary from state to state; check with your local unemployment office before you do anything.

If you have an employment contract, you may be able to refuse the cut altogether or at least quit and collect unemployment, but only if the contract states terms of compensation and says that your employer cannot alter the terms without your consent. The pay cut could constitute a breach of contract and an attorney can help you negotiate the terms of your release or fight for your full pay.

Finally, you can temporarily agree to the pay cut, update your resume. Begin applying for new jobs immediately and look forward to the future with a different employer.

Posted on on August 13th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | 1 Comment »

Are You Too Nice at Work?

by Clea Badion, Robert Half International

Creative, talented, brilliant. You would be thrilled if your boss used any of these words to describe you. But how about nice? Consider it for a moment: When asked to come up a definitive description of your capabilities, your manager says, "She’s very nice." True, there are far worse labels, but if someone used that description of you following a first date, there might not be a second one.

It’s not that a pleasant demeanor isn’t a valuable trait on the job. After all, people want to work with individuals who are tactful, responsive and quick to offer a helping hand.

The trouble with being too nice is that it often goes hand in hand with other traits, such as being too accommodating, unwilling to speak up for yourself, or hesitant to offer constructive criticism to your colleagues. Following are some tips to help you be nice and creative, talented and brilliant:

Set boundaries. People who are too nice rarely say no. However, there’s a vast chasm between helping out in a pinch and being overly accommodating. If you accept every request, even when your plate is full, you risk being taken advantage of and can quickly burn out. The next time a colleague asks for your help, and you’re slammed with your own work, ask if you can lend a hand later, when you’re less busy.

Speak up. If you find that other people often present an idea you had but didn’t vocalize (those "I thought of that, too!" moments), stop being so shy. You’ll gain more visibility if you regularly contribute at meetings or brainstorming sessions and while serving on project teams. As long as you remain professional, others will respect your ideas, even if they don’t adopt them.

Be direct. You’ve reviewed a new hire’s draft of a proposal and have several changes. Since you don’t want to hurt his feelings, you make the adjustments yourself. But are you really doing him any favors? If he doesn’t learn from his mistakes, he’s likely to repeat them. Instead, offer constructive criticism and give him another pass at the proposal.

Avoid being overly empathetic. There’s another reason nice people take on too much work: They are overly empathetic. Perhaps your best work friend always turns to you when she’s overwhelmed. While she doesn’t directly ask you for help, you end up offering anyway, even when you already have several balls in the air. After all, you hate to see her so stressed out. Next time this happens, pause before you offer assistance. It’s often enough to lend an ear and offer encouragement without jumping into action. Practice listening more and acting less.

Exude confidence. Whether you’re talking to a manager or a coworker, be succinct and direct. Nice people frequently feel the need to justify their thought processes by describing them in excruciating detail. But no one wants to sit through a 10-minute explanation as you slowly get to your point. The truth is there’s no need to overexplain. The person you’re talking to will ask for clarification if he or she needs it.

Keep in mind that if you start diplomatically turning down projects or offering critiques of others’ work, you’ll be displaying new behavior. This will take time to get used to, not only for you, but also for your coworkers and manager. However, by sticking to your new approach, you can be nice and not have to worry about being taken advantage of.

Posted on on August 13th, 2008 in Uncategorized   | No Comments »

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