Social networking is the buzzword of the moment…Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, LinkedIn and many more. People are asking, “is it relevant to my career or professional life?” With so many options, it’s easy to become overwhelmed if you’re trying to figure it all out, and you may even question whether it’s worth the time to invest in setting up an online profile. If you’re searching for a new job, wanting to change c...

While preparing for a speaking engagement for a group of senior executives, I was briefly distracted by a worrying thought: what if this audience of high-achieving, hard-working, successful leaders doesn’t care about work-life balance? What if they think the topic is irrelevant, unimportant and even counter-productive to what they believe has made them successful? What if, after my first introductory words and Power...

Feedback has an effect on you whether you’re receiving it from an annual performance review, a 360 feedback assessment, or a seemingly well-intentioned comment from a supervisor or colleague. Your interpretation of the feedback depends on a multitude of factors including the source, the content, the intention, your ability to change in relation to the feedback, and how you’re feeling when you receive it. In some instance...

Do you feel like you fell into your work? So many of us go to law school because it was expected, or we become doctors because it’s the family profession. Professional choices are made because it’s what we ‘should’ do, as opposed to pursuing what we want to do. The results of making these decisions, or lack of decisions, can be varied. For some of us, this path is acceptable. The work may be interesting, challenging,...

Dennis, an accountant, was part of an audit team for a large corporation. As he was reporting some data findings to his project manager and the rest of the team, his manager pointed out an incorrect assumption Dennis made that resulted in erroneous figures and that could have legal repercussions. Fortunately, the mistake was found before the results were presented publicly and Dennis was able to correct his reports. Unfortu...

In today’s economic situation, having and holding your job cannot be assured. We are no longer living in a world where the organization one works for has any guaranteed loyalty to its employees. What then can you do to stack the deck in your favor? You need to make yourself irreplaceable to your boss, your team and your company. Do this by providing extreme value both internally, within your organization, AND externally, to...