Hello again , I hope you are keeping well this week? I'm continuing to take a limited number of individual clients, in between being a carer at
home, so don't hesitate to get in touch if you are thinking about coaching.
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Fabulous! They've offered you the job, you did a great inteview (maybe you read my post about interviews!) and you have decided to accept. First of all, relax and treat yourself. Acknowledge your success. Then it's time to get down to business and plan your campaign. And the name of that campaign is to do the best you can with the job as
quickly and as efficiently as possible. There may be a probationary period, which is often three months, so a hundred days should about do it. By then you want to have settled in to the job, got to know your employer and their routines and most importantly, your colleagues. Here's some tips to make this
period run smoothly, - Get very clear very fast on what you are actually supposed to be doing. Most good jobs will have a job description, so read, mark and inwardly digest this. And watch out for the catch all section which is often tucked in at the end and says something to the effect of 'any other tasks
which may reasonably fall within this role'.
- Know who your immediate line manager is, who will help with all the documentation you have to complete. A good employer will also arrange for regular supervision so you want to get that booked in, and remind them if
they don't do it.
- Take your induction period seriously and use it to find out all you can about the company and the people involved. What? There is no induction? And you accepted the post? You'll need to ask even more questions then. So get a notebook
or suitable online programme such as Microsoft's One Note and at the end of each day make a note of anything significant. Mostly this will be about the people involved.
- When I say people I mean what roles they have in the company but also what the relationships are. Not
only where they fit in the official hierarchy of who reports to who, but more importantly what the personal alliances and feuds are. Who likes who, who can't stand who, who tends to avoid certain people and so on. (Apologies for grammar there - I know it should be 'whom' but it doesn't sound right!) Soon you will be aware of where the real power and influence lies - and it's not always at the top. So observe, observe, observe!
- Make sure you get enough rest and recreation while you are settling in. Starting a new job can be stressful, even if it's a great job and you really wanted it. I'm talking about stress in the sense of having to learn and process new routines and information - it does take up
energy and you need to replenish it.
- Even if your manager does undertake supervision, it's a good idea to keep a reflective journal a few times a week and ask yourself - what went well? What can I be pleased about? What can I do better? What do I need in
order to enable me to do better? How do I feel about this day, this week? Looking back over such a diary can be very illuminating, even surprising. And of course some jobs will expect you to keep a record of Continuing Professional Development, so this will kill two birds with one stone.
Lists and how to survive them
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I rather like lists. I'm forever
making nice new ones, mostly in Google Calendar, where you can have lots of lovely bright different colours for different areas of your life - and haven't we all got complicated lives, full of different things we have to attend to? Don't we really have to get through everything on our to do list, or else, why did we put it there in the first place? And there's lots of stuff out there to help you Manage Your Time...but actually we all have the same time - whatever time even is... And it progresses at roughly sixty seconds per hour and we've all got it. The difference is, what we do with
it, how we react to it. It's how we react to what's happening that matters. I'm sure you can think of an example where you got so caught up in what you were doing that you totally forgot the time. And when you're a child, doesn't it take ages for Christmas to come! Now we are all grown up it seems we have only just got over the last one before the next is upon us. You can see where I'm going. It's all a matter of perception, how much time we perceive that we've got - and we have some choice in how we see this. Back to the lovely lists - here are a few tips on how to ensure you manage them and they don't manage you. - Remember they are only lists - marks on a page, pixels on a screen - and they have no reality in themselves, only what you give them. So with that proviso, let's see how we can best use them.
- Have as many
things on your list as you like. You don't actually have to do them all - there is no List Police! Put everything on that you can think of, when you think of it (then it won't hang around and take up your mental space).
- Each morning when you start your day, pick from that list the three things that absolutely must be done, or the world will
end.
- Write down the time and do the first one. Just do it. Set a timer, or keep an eye on the time and don't go past an hour without a break or a rethink. A good time to have is 25 minutes, time enough to get something done, not too long to get bogged down. (This is the basis of the Pomodoro Technique.)
- Notice how much time it
has taken you.
- Do the same for the next two items.
- Then do something completely different - go for a walk, dance round the kitchen, phone a friend, practice your scales - whatever takes your mind off
it. In NLP we call this 'breaking state', putting the attention somewhere else for a few moments.
- Then back to the list. If there are three more things that must be done today, follow the same steps.
(And notice that not many things really are important in life. Ask yourself, will this matter in five years, a year, a month, a week? Most things won't.) Still, on a day to day basis we want to be efficient at work. Stephen Covey, who wrote 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', distinguished between things that are important and things that are urgent. Often we get swallowed up by the urgent things, whereas if we took care of the important things first, like planning, we wouldn't be forever fire fighting. How does all this seem to you?
Other things I'm still doing...
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- As ever, the wonderful Harrison Assessments, which I described in one of my previous issues. The assessment consists of a short 'smart' questionnaire which indicates your traits, such as Optimistic, Authoritative, Influencing, and about 170 others. It's
also brilliant for everything HR that you can think of, plus individual career guidance and planning. Coaching is then based on this information. I'm bringing in Harrison Assessments to most of my coaching, which you'll soon see in my Shop. With my international partners in Paris, San Francisco and Perth, I can now offer this at a considerably reduced price - contact me for more details.
- I have several downloadable exercises and worksheets on my website here, to give you a taste of what you might get when you work with me. Everything else is in the Coaching Shop. Enjoy!
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That's it for today,
- stay well, keep safe, and I'll be in touch again soon. Thanks for your understanding, All best wishes, Barbara P.S. if you like this update and you got it elsewhere, you can get your own personal regular copy by subscribing safely here. Please feel free to share, just keep the attribution to me. You get a short free email course on sign up about well being, effectiveness and resilience. NB The information contained above is provided for information purposes
only. The contents of this email are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this email. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this email. Barbara Bates disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this email. |
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