Tag: self development

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Make criticism work for you

I remember many many meetings with my Managers where they (attempted) to give me feedback.  When they needed to deliver negative feedback, they often used the technique called the Feedback Sandwich, some specific positive feedback, the negative feedback in detail and then follow up with some more general positive feedback.

Initially I thought this was great as I completely ignored the negative bits and basked in their positive comments- until I realized they didn’t really mean the positive bits, there were there just for display- it was the negative part that counted.… Read more

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Perfect Presentation skills

As an occasional extrovert, I believed I could present at will- stand up, talk.  But when I saw Rob Campbell– Weiden and Kennedy Strategic Planner- present I immediately realized that my comfort with talking could also become a weakness when it came to giving useful presentations.

Equally, some of my colleagues are introverted and so avoid presentations when ever they could and when forced into it would really over prepare in great detail.… Read more

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How can a blog get me a job?

As an employer I used to ‘Google’ applicants for jobs.  See what presence they had on the internet.

I was usually disappointed, other than the odd Facebook account (and sometimes I mean ODD), or a banal twitter feed, or the occasional picture somewhere, most applicants left little evidence of their views or thinking.

And whilst we are warned not to indulge in silly pictures or posts in case these come back to haunt us, i would like to turn this around and propose that the internet is a great way to get a profile to boost your changes of that great job you want.… Read more

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Failure’s 5 lessons

I’ve failed a lot in my career, and I wont bore you with a laundry list, safe to say the failures weren’t career threatening, just embarrassing.

I did learn though. The painful touch of failure made the lesson all the more memorable.

Taking stock, achieving the meaningful results in large projects the first time around is rare. I’ve certainly found that  the best lessons are learned when things don’t happen the way you want them to and you find out what doesn’t work as planned.… Read more