Comparison Addiction

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A Step A Day, career goals, comparison addiction

One of the executives whom I am coaching inevitably compared himself with others- often, seemingly, to his disadvantage. ABC had a better title, XYZ had a better house, LMN had more reasonable customers etc. In his mind, the people he compared himself with had ” advantages” which he did not enjoy. On the face of it, while this may partly be true, it did not justify his feeling of being less effective or successful as them.

Some days ago, I had a post titled ” 7 Steps To Feeling Good “. One of the points in this list was: Make valid comparisons: It is natural to compare your self with others who you feel may have succeeded more than you. Make these comparisons with care. Don’t compare yourself with others in vastly different circumstances. These comparisons are a waste of time and energy. Compare yourself, if you have to, with others like you.

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What’s Right and What’s Not

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A Step A Day, communication at work, Onboarding

“Beware! Your boss is Watching” is an article by Rex Roy in AOL which speaks of measures business organizations are taking these days to make sure their employees are not goofing off or cheating on them. As Roy writes: Companies are in business to make money and managers want productive employees.

The top ten ways of monitoring employees are:

RFID (Radio Frequency ID) Cards, In-Office Cameras, Office E-Mail, Office Phones, Mobile Phones, Office Computers, Office Networks, Printer Servers, Google Alerts  &  Black Boxes.

While I certainly do not support willful misuse of organizational resources ( and I am not talking of people yet), I believe the responsibility of communicating “What’s Right & What’s Not” is that of individual managers.

Organizational Democracy

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A Step A Day, organizational democracy, Tracy Fenton

Came across this post in BusinessWeek in which Jena McGregor wrote about an organisation called WorkBlu and an interesting concept called “workplace democracy”.

The founder of WorkBlu, Tracy Fenton, elaborates on what organizational democracy is. As Tracy writes: Organizational democracy acknowledges that democracy should not, and cannot, be limited to the political sphere alone but can also be extended to organizations – with effective, empowering, and profitable results.

“Do Unto Others..”

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A Step A Day, behaviour, IPL

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you; says the Bible.

How often have you experienced this for yourself? As a new member of a team, you are friendly with the others, go out of the way to meet and get to know them and you find they in turn respond positively to you and soon make you truly feel part of the team. The converse is also true.

If as a new member of the team, you are aloof and keep to yourself, without making the effort to make friends, you will soon finds that no one responds positively to you either.

Online Reputation Management

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A Step A Day, Online reputation management

With the internet being an influencing factor in almost every decision we take: seeking information as we do on what to buy, where to buy it from, the options available etc, it is inevitable that organisations, and may I add, individuals too have to keep an eye on their online reputation.

What is your online presence like? Does it convey confidence to the reader? Is it inspiring for the person who wishes to do business with you? Do people who come across you and “meet” you, as it were, go away with a positive impression of you? They could be your blog readers, the consumers of your product/services or as is more likely the casual surfer who stumbles across you.

In Practical Ecommerce, Paul Chaney writes that you can no longer afford not to listen to what people are talking about you. He has a few tips on how to track what people are saying about you in Online Reputation Management.

I, for one, believe it is what people say by way of the quality of comments you get rather than the number of times you “feature” which really matters.

If you don’t have a web presence, get one now.

If your reputation on the web needs improvement, attend to it now.

We simply don’t know who will read about you next. It could be the guy next door, some chap in another corner of the world or a potential customer.

You can subscribe to the A-Step-A-Day series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

This is the 145 th of the “A Step A Day” series : To provide perspective and provoke thought to facilitate self-development across a wide spectrum of issues- big and small- crucial for executive success

Is Praise As Good As Cash?

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A Step A Day, praise

Many years ago, a friend of mine complained to me that his parents were the last people to praise him. He scored 96/100 In Math which was an astounding score for those days ( although it may have become all too common now). The only comment his father made, he told me, was to ask what had happened to the missing 4.

There is a school of thought that people in some cultures find it difficult to praise others. We from India, for example are reputed to be niggardly with praise. It doesn’t come easily to us. One reason could be our belief that the task accomplished was only to be expected and hence did not deserve special mention.  He was supposed to get 100 and he got 96 kind of thing.

7 Ways to Lick Procrastination

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A Step A Day, procrastination, time management

How often have you put off a task you imagined was “difficult” ?

How often have you found excuses to avoid a task you found distasteful?

Most of us would answer truthfully that there have been many times when we have put off doing one thing or another- particularly if we found it difficult or distasteful.  We would have been guilty of procrastination.

Here are 7 Ways to Lick Procrastination:

Management Futures-2018

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A Step A Day, change management, Chartered Management Institute, Future trends

The Chartered Management Institute in the UK produces from time to time research reports that provoke thought and make for interesting reading.

I came across “Management Futures – The World in 2018” recently. The study predicts what the world of work and management will look like and examines how organisations can prepare for it.

This study is strongly recommended for both students of management as well as for practicing managers.

7 Steps to Feeling Good

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A Step A Day, feeling good, self-confidence

There are days when you feel down and out. There are days when you feel lost. This is inevitable. Everything doesn’t go your way. In reality these days when you feel down and out or lost are no different from any other days. It’s just that you have chosen to think of them as being bad.

As Shakespeare wrote centuries ago in “Hamlet”; “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. ”

Murphy’s Ten Laws of Time Management

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A Step A Day, Patrick Forsyth, time management

A quote that has stayed in my mind over many, many years is from the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. In his poem “To A Mouse” he wrote :-

” The best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promised joy.”

You would have noticed in your own work life, that Burns’ words ring true, every now and then. Something will go wrong despite all your plans.