Career Opportunities

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Break out of the traditional job search treadmill

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Look to the The Welchwrite Bookstore and more this Christmas

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:27:25 +0000

Looking for gifts for the special people in your life?

Start your search in The WelchWrite Bookstore and more, in association with Amazon.com.

I have highlighted books, software, podcasting equipment and more in my store, or you can shop for anything the Amazon.com provides.

The WelchWrite Bookstore and more

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Look to the The Welchwrite Bookstore and more this Christmas

Reach out to friends to boost your career

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:16:54 +0000

Reach out to friends to boost your career
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

Sometimes in the rush of life and work, we can let ourselves become cocooned in our busy-ness. We rush from task to task, crisis to crisis. Life becomes an endless series of wake up – go to work – go to lunch – go home – go to bed. We can become distanced from our family, our friends and even, in the long run, from ourselves. Continue this long enough and you might eventually find that you are truly alone. If you don’t cultivate your outside relationships — if you don’t sit down with your family or go out with your friends — there will come a time when they will stop trying to be part of your life.

We all need friends and family around us — even if they might irritate us or make our lives a bit more difficult. Overall, the benefit of relationships is incalculable. You need friends for commiseration, networking, job searches, shoulder to cry on and a host of other reasons. No one makes it in this world alone, even if they might profess the desire to be alone. We all have to exist as part of a larger civilization and culture.

Sometimes, when my wife and I are talking, we will often comment on how many good friends we have. Both the quantity and quality of our friends amazes us. We are not famous. We are not rich in dollars, but we are rich in a number of other ways. We have friends who would go out of their way to help us in even the most extreme cases. We have friends who support us and allow us to build the life we want. We have friends who help us do fascinating and interesting things. We have friends who sometimes are just “there” — for listening, for dinner, for help, whatever. More importantly, we see this as a reflection on ourselves. It only makes sense that we have to be great friends to have so many great friends in return.

So, how about your friends? Are they acquaintances or people who would crawl out of bed at 2 in the morning if you called? Are they people you hang out with regularly, or only see on special occasions? Do you have friends that help you be the best person you can be? Are there friends that help you do amazing things? If not, the time has come to ask some hard questions.

Are you trying to “go it alone” in your life and your career? Do you dislike relying on others, even in the most basic ways? Do you work to cultivate friends or to keep people at arm’s length? Are you a good friend yourself? If you don’t cultivate friendship, you are limiting yourself and your career. It isn’t strong and brave to go without friends. It is lonely and dispiriting. Even worse, when times get tough, you have no one to listen — no one to help — no one to fall back on. I personally find this a frightening thought.

So, now that you know a few reasons why you need great friends, how to do you go about finding them? First, you need to expose yourself to the world. Whether this means going to church, going out to eat, hiking, biking, going shopping, whatever — you have to engage the larger world in order to find other like-minded people. Too often we are confronted with people complaining how they have few friends, or even worse, no real relationships. It usually comes down to the fact that they rarely engage the world. They drive from home to work and back again and, as Charles Dickens said in A Christmas Carol, “edge their way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep…its…distance.”

Second, be a good friend. Help others. Share your knowledge and your skills. Care about others as you would like them to care about you. I am not telling you to subsume all of your own desires in the service of others, but rather enjoy helping others to succeed in their life and they will help you in yours. Don’t demand or even always expect a quid pro quo in return for your friendship. In the best relationships, this comes naturally. If you expect a 1 for 1 reward for every action you take, you will be disappointed. Friendship ebbs and flows. Expect this when you begin.

Friendship is an essential part of any life and career. If you deny your friendship to others, you are cutting yourself off from a substantial part of life. Engage in life, even though it may have its disappointments and difficulties. Embrace friends in your life and be embraced in theirs. Life is too short to go it alone.

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Reach out to friends to boost your career

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Make-A-Move Mondays launches this week!

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:01:49 +0000

We are starting a new feature on the Career Opportunities Community Site at http://careercommunity.welchwrite.com – Make-A-Move Mondays!

Make-A-Move Mondays are a chance to look forward into each week and decide what you want to accomplish in life, job and career. You can post something that you want to accomplish, and how you might accomplish it – a great resource to help you accomplish your weekly goals or a compelling/insightful/energizing video.

We are looking for your favorite blogs, podcasts, videos, twitter messages — anything that helps to make your coming week the best one possible.

Each week, I will start a discussion thread in the Forums area of the community site where you can post your links and we can discuss them.

For next week, you can find this discussion at http://career-opportunities.ning.com/forum/topics/makeamove-mondays-for-november

Share your best ideas and resources with our fellow Career Opportunities readers and listeners and Make-A-Movethis Monday!

Douglas

uStream Jumpstart: Learn how to broadcast your shows, meetings and events via the Internet (welchwrite.com)
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Video: Interview with Christie Greer (welchwrite.com)

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Make-A-Move Mondays launches this week!

You are unique. Act like it!

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:37:37 +0000

You are unique. Act like it!
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

Here is a little experiment. If you work in an office with cubicles, stand up on your desk and look out over the office. What do you see? If you work in an building with individual offices, walk down a line of offices and notice what is happening within. What are people doing? How are they dressed? What sort of decoration do you see?

Now that you have done this experiment, let me give you a way of evaluating what you see. When you did your observations, did everything look the same from cube to cube or office to office?

Were there oddities scattered among the sameness? Was everyone doing something unique? Now, here is what all this means.

The more conformity, the more sameness, the more blah your office, the less innovative it is likely to be and the less likely you will find a way to express your true talents and skills. The fact is, we know all of this intuitively, but we force ourselves to ignore it by becoming buried in the day-to-day mundanity of our work. It is only when we stop and take a moment to really look at where we work that we can make the fog clear and see the truth.

Why should you care about how your place of business looks? As I have often said in the past, you can only do your best work when you are passionate. Sure, you might do good work, but nothing approaching what you might achieve, given half a chance. If you are burying your uniqueness under the same clothes, the same interests, the same way of working as everyone else, you are bound to suffer.

You might still get your paycheck every week, but you won’t change the world. You might like some of your co-workers and your office, but you will avoid them whenever you can. You might work, but you might not live.

You are unique. Act like it. Look inside yourself — deep inside. What clothes would you prefer to wear? What work do you love to do? Where would you like to do it? Is your current job fulfilling your needs beyond a simple paycheck? If not, there is a way you can change things for the better — and a big reason why.

First the why. Being true to yourself, your passions and your sensibilities is the first path to the career you deserve. If you are constantly corralling your true self and hiding it behind a facade of sameness you are killing yourself every day. You don’t have to “go crazy” in public, but you need to express how unique you are.

Start small. Wear odd socks, a neat tie, a new hat. I know it sounds a bit silly, but it is a start and it leads the way to more dramatic changes. If there seems to be only one way to complete a task, find another. You don’t need to stand on your desk and announce to the world how you will do it differently, but do it in a way that makes the most sense to you. Once you have something worked out, introduce it to others and see how it received. You may soon find yourself rising above your co-workers who don’t make any attempt to mix things up.

The next steps take a bit more courage. Take every opportunity to explore who you are. Don’t like the hours you work? Ask for different ones. Don’t like your location? Ask to work from home on a regular basis.

Obviously, all this works much better after you have established a good — no, great — track record in your work. If you hope to make such large changes, you need to make sure that everyone believes you can complete your work — even be more productive — after these changes.

If you look around and see only sameness, it is time to make a change. Don’t let your job turn you into merely another worker bee, just like all the rest. Find ways to explore and express your uniqueness. Find ways to make your job into the career you deserve.

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You are unique. Act like it!

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Get Career Opportunities Via Email

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:20:51 +0000

You can receive Career Opportunities content directly in your email box. Use the form or link below to subscribe via email.

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Your career needs a holiday

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:02:03 +0000

Your career needs a holiday
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

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It might seem a bit too soon to be thinking about “the holidays” — yet with Halloween only 2 weeks away they are rapidly approaching. For those working to “Build the Career You Deserve” the holidays might seem like a time yo slack off. Business will be slowing down, people will be distracted by other concerns and you might simply want a break from thinking about — or worse, worrying about — your career.

While the holidays might not be the best time for more formal career activities like sending out resumes or going on interviews, it can be great for re-establishing old ties, building new relationships and developing plans for the future.

One common thread throughout the holidays is camaraderie — spending time together with friends and family. At this time of year, there will be more parties, more family meals, more public events, more opportunities for getting out and engaging with the world. This is much needed in a world where we typically spend way too many hours hunkered over our work. Yes, you need to focus on your work, but you also need to come up for air on occasion. Too much of anything, even oxygen, can be a bad thing. Consider the holidays as a time to decompress, but not disengage. Time to think about yourself and your connections to the world instead of just your work.

Make a point of accepting as many engagements as you find comfortable and enjoyable. When invited somewhere or to some activity, look for the one reason to say “yes” instead of the many reasons to say “no.” Strike a balance between your old, friendly, comfortable activities and a few, challenging, new ones. In my case, this meant going to an El Día de los Muertos celebration for the first time a few years ago. I was surrounded by new people, a few friends and a completely different atmosphere than usual. While El Día de los Muertos is celebrated at the same time as Halloween, its focus is quite different. Where our modern Halloween focuses on the gruesome, the gory and the frightening, El Día de los Muertos seeks to celebrate those now gone from our lives, but not forgotten. Decorations are macabre — candy skulls, skeletons and such, but in ways that help us deal with the realities of death, not make us afraid of it. After that experience, I’m now thinking – as you should be thinking – What new activities can I say “Yes” to this year?

Engaging in new activities helps to challenge and energize your thinking. Confronted with new sights, new sounds, and new ideas, you can’t help but think new thoughts. Visiting new places, talking with new people, smelling new smells, hearing new sounds and music, all refill our creative well and give us the basic building blocks of new innovations.

Next, take the time to truly connect and converse with those around you. Avoid parties and other gatherings with loud music and other distractions that prevent you from speaking and listening to one another. One of my personal pet peeves is friends who would rather go to a movie than come over for dinner. You can’t talk at all in the movie, so while you experience the movie together, you never get a chance to connect.

At the very least, find a more quiet part of the room or location. You are almost sure to find other, like-minded, people looking to escape the noise and engage in a little conversation. At one raucous Hollywood holiday party years ago, my wife and I escaped to the pool area of a home, even on a cold December night and fell in with a small group already there. Some people crave conversation more than than anything. You should cultivate it in your life, too.

People are inclined to talk around the holidays. There is usually plenty of good food and good drink to lubricate the conversation, but you still need to find people and get the conversation started. My wife and I have found that many people don’t know how to hold a conversation, so we make the effort to include them and show them how in a comfortable environment. We even started LA Friday Coffee (http://lafridaycoffee.com) to give people a weekly opportunity to get together and simply talk.

Once you go out and start engaging with people, you’ll find that you will also have more thinking to do by yourself. Again, new experiences bring new thoughts. The long, dark, nights of Winter give us ample time to do some hard thinking about where we are and where we want to go. This doesn’t mean wallowing in depression, though. Just the opposite. Your thinking should turn to grand plans, new ideas and new adventures. Thinking your way through Winter could lead to some explosive growth come the Spring. Just like the flower bulbs, sometimes we need a period of darkness and cold before we can burst into bloom.

The holiday season can be fun and also productive — if perhaps, in some non-traditional ways. It may be difficult to land a new job, but the potential for many meetings and amazing conversations could lead you down the path to the career you deserve.

Don’t just get angry — do something about it!

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Your career needs a holiday

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What I’m Reading…Rules of Thumb by Alan M. Webber (welchwrite.com)
Preconceptions (welchwrite.com)
Time to be an adult (welchwrite.com)

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What I’m eReading…Grassroots Innovation

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:04:43 +0000

Another theme in the list of blogs and web sites I follow is innovation.

Grassroots Innovation is written by Greg Eisenbach and a variety of innovation topics on a regular basis. Recent posts include “Yuck, the great contraction”, “Low cost beer packaging” and “The Dalai Lama’s Business Book.”

Direct link to blogs and posts in this “What I’m eReading…” bundle

Sharing Google Reader Shared Items with your Twitter followers (welchwrite.com)
What I am eReading…Eat, Drink and Be Merry! (welchwrite.com)

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What I’m eReading…Grassroots Innovation

Recently “Noted” Items from my reading

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:43:08 +0000

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Recently “Noted” Items from my reading

Don’t just get angry, do something about it!

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Don’t just get angry, do something about it
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

I was sitting at my favorite local coffee shop the other day, reading some email and sipping my latte, when it suddenly became a very stressful place to be. Two tables away a man sat talking loudly on his cell phone. While I wasn’t necessarily upset that he was talking on his phone, the tenor of his conversation made my chest clench with anxiety. He was obviously having trouble with a business partner and spent 15-20 minutes laying out his troubles in graphic detail.

Then, a short time later, I heard another conversation begin, even more angry and graphic than the first. One woman was complaining vociferously to her friend about how she had systematically been frozen out of a business relationship. I was amazed at what she was saying within clear earshot of any number of strangers. Again, her anger spilled out regardless of who might be listening.

Airing our dirty laundry in a public place is never a good idea. You never know who might be listening — a friend of your target, the target themselves, future clients or employers. While I have taken that up in past columns, I want to address a deeper issue of this behavior in this one. Too often we replace action with anger. We spend our time in unproductive complaining instead of getting something done.

Venting has its advantages. It can feel cleansing. It can feel good. It can also be a substitute for more important work. I have my moments of venting. You only need to ask my wife about that. That said, my next step is to take some direct action about the problem I am facing. I find great solace in movement — in action. Sometimes this action takes the form of a good long walk. Sometimes I write about it. Sometimes I start to plan my movement to disentangle myself from a bad situation. What I try not to do is wallow.

It is so easy to descend into the depths of a bad situation and wallow there for days or weeks. Wallowing allows us to blame everyone and everything but ourselves. We can lash out at the economy, co-workers, clients, the world and heaven above. We can feel like we are taking action, but in reality we are going absolutely nowhere. We are wallowing deeper and deeper in the mud hole, making it increasingly difficult to get out. Wallowing is a death spiral, like an airplane in a deadly spin. Only dramatic action will save you.

If you find yourself wallowing, do everything you can to stop the descent immediately. Go for a walk. Start work on another project. Plan your resignation. Do something that will help to clear your head a bit and slow your descent. Next, take a long, hard, look at yourself, your actions, your behaviors and yes, your mistakes. It is rare that a problem is solely caused by outside forces.

Like the scene from “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” when Lukes walks into the jungle, “What is in there?” he asks. “Only what you bring with you.” replies Yoda. We carry our own baggage and would do well to recognize our own issues and failings, along with the failings (as you see them) of those around you. Sometimes, when we recognize our own culpability in our problems it can help us to find a way out. The problem no longer resides “out there” but rather inside ourselves where we can actually do something about it.

When anger strikes, it is okay to vent — to a friend, to a spouse, to your journal. For your own sake, don’t do it in public. You might do more harm than good if someone overhears. But remember that once you have vented, it is time to get back to work. Look at the problem objectively. Look for opportunities to take action. What next steps can you put into play immediately to reduce the effects of your problem or avoid it in the future? What can you change about yourself, your life, your career that can make these problems only a memory?

Don’t just get angry — do something about it!

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Expand Your Horizons (welchwrite.com)
The New Career Danger Zone (welchwrite.com)
Do something crazy! (welchwrite.com)
Video: Visibility and Your Career from LaidOffCamp LA (welchwrite.com)

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Career Tip 20091005 – Don’t get angry, do something!

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:39:42 +0000

iPod Ready Video | See all past Career Tips

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Career Tip 20091005 – Don’t get angry, do something!

Longevity…and our 5th Anniversary!

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:24:33 +0000

Longevity…and our 5th Anniversary!
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

This week marks the 5th anniversary of the Career Opportunities podcast. The print version of Career Opportunities is now entering its 12th year. I want to offer my thanks to everyone who has read or listened to the show over the years. While I have my own reasons and rewards for creating Career Opportunities, the main reason will always be you. I will continue as long as what I write has some value for you and anyone else hoping to “Build the Career You Deserve.”

This major milestone seems a perfect time to address the concept of longevity in your projects and in your career. While there is some honor in doing something important over a long period of time, longevity is never a goal in and of itself. There needs to be a reason and a series of goals behind the longevity. Otherwise, you may end up focusing on habits instead of something which is truly worthwhile.

Over the years, I have revisited the purpose and usefullness of Career Opportunities. I did some hard thinking about whether it was adding value to the conversation and whether it carried significant rewards for myself and my own career. The most important part of this review is forcing yourself to step back and consider your work as an outsider. Despite your intimate involvement with your work, you have to consider it with a critical eye. Why? It has to do with the concept of “sunk costs.”

According to Wikipedia, “sunk costs are retrospective (past) costs which have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.” Too often, we look at the sunk costs of our work and are loathe to bring the project to an end. Surely, after investing all this time and energy, there is a reward to continuing. Why would you stop now? Unfortuntely, the heavy physcological baggage of sunk costs can lead us to do some odd, and sometimes destructive, things.

Take for example a new television show that takes months, if not years, to produce. This same show then fails after its first episode. Why couldn’t those invovled see that the show was not working? Why would they continue production when it seems obvious to many that it was going to fail? Why couldn’t someone have put a stop to it before even more money was wasted? You already know the answer — sunk costs. So much money was poured into the effort that no one wanted to be the one to call the turkey a turkey. No one wants to be the one to abandon those sunk costs, even though that is exactly what needs to be done.

Do you recognize yourself in this discussion? I know I do. This is why you have to regularly review your work and your projects, even if you have been doing them for a very long time. In fact, the longer you have been doing something, the more carefully and deeply you must review why you do it. Don’t let sunk costs fool you into doing something long after the benefits are gone.

Despite the dangers, longevity in anything can do a lot for you and your career. It establishes you as someone who is focused, organized and reliable. If your project is self-defined, it also shows an ability to manage yourself and work independently — skills nearly every job interview asks you to describe. These are great examples to be able to quote when dealing with prospective employers or clients. Longevity in any project also gives us sense of accomplishment in our lives. It is accomplishments like this that help us to gain confidence, stretch and grow throughout our lives and our careers.

After this year’s review of my work with Career Opportunies and other projects, it looks like they will continue. I believe this column and podcast offers value to both you and I. You can help me to insure that fact by letting me know what you want and need from Career Opportunities. What questions do you want addressed? What information do you need to “Help Build the Career You Deserve?” How can I help you to make sure that your work and projects have a long, happy and producuctive life? I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me on the web site at welchwrite.com, via email aat career@welchwrite.com or on any of the social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and our own career community at careercommunity.welchwrite.com. Thanks again for making Career Opportunities such a success.

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Longevity…and our 5th Anniversary!

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Expand Your Horizons (welchwrite.com)
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Do something crazy! (welchwrite.com)
Video: Visibility and Your Career from LaidOffCamp LA (welchwrite.com)

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What are you selling to your employer?

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:05:48 +0000

What are you selling to your employer?
By Douglas E. Welch

Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site

The nature of work has changed dramatically over the centuries. As a people, we moved from hunting and gathering, to subsistence farming, to larger agricultural communities, through industrialization to manufacturing and into the “information economy. Sweeping dramatic changes all, but each stage has demanded more physical work than thought. Even the information economy still encompasses much “grunt work” to keep it operating. In many cases in your career, companies are still only buying your “hands”. Sure, they might also be buying a certain amount of your “head” — your best thoughts and ideas — but the next wave in business, which many people do not understand, is asking people to sell their hearts, as well. This will not, and should not, come cheap.

It is probably obvious what I mean by selling your “hands” to your employer. In the past, this might have meant working in a farm field or on an assembly line, but today it could also apply to webmasters and server administrators whose job it is to keep information resources running. In my work as a computer consultant, most of my time is spent troubleshooting, repairing and recovering. Even though I find training and preventive maintenance to be much more involving and rewarding, in many ways I am the high-tech equivalent of a plumber. My job is to fix ‘what’s broke’ as quickly as possible.

As I am moving my consulting business into New Media work, I find that I am selling more of my “head” than my hands. Instead of doing the actual work of setting up blogs and social media accounts, I spend more time helping individuals and businesses discover what is possible and the best ways to make use of these new tools. I have moved from making the automobile on the assembly line to helping design the car that will be made by others. In some ways, writing this column and podcast has also been more “head” work than “hand.” Each week I try to develop ideas that help you “build the career you deserve.” This shows how different parts of your career can simultaneously be at different steps in this new migration of the concepts of career and work.

Today, though, we are entering entirely new waters in the work world. To be deeply successful, to do the best work possible, we need to find a company, a business or a life where we can “sell” our “heart” — our passion. While it can sound odd to discuss selling our passion, that is truly what we are doing. In the best careers, we find a place where we are willing to provide our passionate skills and thoughts to another in return for monetary rewards. This isn’t selling out. This is finding what I consider to be the epitome, sine quo non, of careers — a career where you make money doing something you love. A career in which you can invest your heart and soul. A career that supports you not only monetarily, but spiritually.

I am sure some of you are shaking your heads, not believing that such a career exists, but you can look around you to see some current practitioners of this idea. Yo Yo Ma and other classical musicians of less reknown make a living doing what they love. Many other artists, too. Many of the great thinkers we read or see speak at conferences all over the world have reached this level, in some ways. It isn’t only famous people, though. The songwriter who sells a top 40 hit remains largely unknown, but supports themselves and their families in fine style. We have many friend who are “working” actors you see on television nearly every day, who love their work and are successful, even if they are not “star” names to you. For me, the very definition of success is having a comfortable life while doing something you love. There are opportunities to be successful no matter your industry or type of work. These opportunities arise from finding a place where you can exercise your passions as much as possible. In some ways, I don’t think you can do your best work unless you are truly passionate about what you are doing.

So what are you selling? Your hands, your head or your heart? If you want to build the career you deserve you need to do some hard thinking about your work and your life. You need to discover your passions so that you can go and find a place — a new company, your own business, a career in the arts, whatever — where you can engage your passions and reach the highest levels of financial and spiritual success possible.

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What are you selling to your employer?

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Career Tip for September 18, 2009

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:31:46 +0000

[Tip] Leadership is of the utmost importance, even if you are only leading yourself. Lead yourself and others may follow, though.

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Career Tip for September 18, 2009

Archive: An Interview with Kevin Devin

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:11:16 +0000

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This is the second in our on-going interview series, talking with high-tech workers of all types.

Today’s guest is Kevin Devin, Information Systems Analyst with a large building controls manufacturer, host of In the Trenches: The Podcast for SysAdmins and founder of Friends in Tech.

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Archive: An Interview with Kevin Devin

What I’m Reading…Tribes by Seth Godin

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:39:24 +0000

Seth Godin’s newest book, Tribes, touches a concept near and dear to me…organizing groups, or Tribes, and helping them get things done. This is not to say I have been terribly successful at this activity, but I love helping people achieve things and doing it any way I can.

I was interested in Tribes for exactly this reason. I wanted to see what Godin had to say about organizing people and creating “movement” to see if there was anything I could be doing better. Of course, there is always something more you can be doing, so I took away a few good ideas from the book. He does admit, though, that there aren’t any hard and fast rubrics for he can give you for working with Tribes. You need passion and a vision and an ability to understand and care about people, but you can’t break it down into 5 easy steps that anyone can do.

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What I’m Reading…Tribes by Seth Godin

Who are you laboring for?

career@welchwrite.com (Douglas E. Welch) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:34:30 +0000

Who are you laboring for?
By Douglas E. Welch

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This week began with the US celebration of the Labor Day holiday, celebrating the labor that keeps our economy and our nation moving forward. Labor Day “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country” according the US Department of Labor web site, but I think it is much more important to think of our own personal labor, and the benefits it brings us. The true meaning of our labor can get lost among the interlinked needs of company, employee, business and individual.

Everyone works for someone else, this is always true. Whether you are a traditional employee or a freelancer, we sell our time, our knowledge and our skills to someone in return for money. Too often, though, we only consider the effects of our labor on our employer or customer. Instead, no matter what your work arrangement, you must also consider the effect of your work on yourself. How does your work effect not only your monetary well-being but also your mental, spiritual and medical well-being?

The value equation of work doesn’t move in one direction. Yes, you must provide value to the person who provides your paycheck or pays your invoices, but you also need to be gaining something other than money. I am very fond of saying that money should never be the sole reason for doing — or not doing — anything. There are countless reasons and needs that surround any work decision. To reduce it to a simple matter of dollars and cents is a disservice to both you and your employer. If your job isn’t valuable to you, in a number of ways, then it is a clear sign that you need to find a way to increase its value or find a job that provides that additional value.

So, what are the other valuable items you should be finding in your job? First, and most important, is knowledge. Your job should be challenging in a variety of ways. You should be learning new things about a wide variety of topics as often as you can. Sure, over the years some tasks will become almost automatic, but this stable environment should provide you opportunities to stretch your skills and knowledge. If you aren’t learning more each day, your value to your company can actually decrease over time. At its worst, you can become better and better at a task that is needed less and less. If you aren’t learning about new methods, new needs, new changes in your company — and your industry in general — you could find your job has disappeared out from under you.

Next, the new skills, experience and knowledge you gain each day must be transferable to another job, another company, another industry. Certain jobs can be so specific that the skills you have are only applicable to a very narrow band of industries. Sure, there will always be some specific skills, but if the majority of your work is taken up with these tasks, you might find it very hard to find your next job. You must take every opportunity to explore all aspects of your job and find those skills that serve not only your current position, but whatever future position you might desire.

These two valuable items, knowledge and transferable skills are the driving factors in a long and successful career. By pursuing them, you are preparing for the reality that a career is made of many jobs over many years, not one job with one company. You have to prepare yourself for the dissolution of any particular company, or even an entire industry. Your paycheck may cover your expenses and allow you to buy the items you want for your house and family now, but expanded knowledge and transferable skills are the added value of any job that allows you to build the career you deserve in the future.

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