These People Who Followed Their Passions Share How And Why They Did It

 

Want to build a life and career around something you’re passionate about? Great! Now how do you feel about intense struggle, repeated failure, and constant change?

To be sure, those are things pretty much all of us are bound to face in our careers, but it’s far more likely you’ll have a tougher go of it if you’re dead set on following your passion. That’s why so many advise different approaches to finding work, suggest ways to turn your ho-hum gig into your “dream job”, or counsel giving up an a passion career altogether.

But the fact is that some people do follow their passions and find it actually works out. One reason they’re a small minority, though, is because we live in a world that glorifies words like “passion” and “purpose” when it comes to life and career choices, but almost completely ignores the pain, failure, and even chaos that tends to precede achieving that. That’s a recipe for widespread disappointment.

So we asked five professionals across a range of fields to share the raw, unfiltered truth about struggles they experienced as they set out to follow their passions and, ultimately, pulled it off.

Read my and Danielle Harlan’s article in Fast Company to find out what they said.

Special thank you to Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of the New York Times bestseller How to Raise an Adult; Elizabeth Meyer, funeral director and author of the upcoming book Good Mourning; Casey Gerald, founder and CEO of MBAsXAmerica and TED speaker; Adam Braun, founder of Pencils of Promise; and Aspen Institute fellow Cathy Casserly for sharing their stories.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Creating Workplace Culture That Actually Works

 

Workplace culture often seems like some sort of abstract concept. We think, ‘Oh to build a great culture at work, we have to create something that mimics Apple’ or some other hot, tech company. In reality, building a dynamic work culture is much simpler, based on how the organization’s values, attitude and behavior manifest daily in person to person exchanges.

A recent article in Ragan cited twelve workplace characteristics that will have employees packing their bags and updating their LinkedIn profile as they look for a new job. When you go through the list, you’ll likely be walking down memory lane, recalling situations in previous jobs, or perhaps even your current, where the atmosphere was stifling.

To avoid this type of attrition, let’s focus on three lessons learned:

1. Leadership is key. Let’s face it, we mimic our surroundings. If we’re new on the job, and not in a leadership positions, we often observe and copy the behaviors of others around us. Leadership is key in setting the standard,  and clarifying expectations throughout the organization.
2. What’s the real issue? Many employees bring you the symptom of a problem that they want you to solve. Your job as a manager is to dig deeper and find the real issue, by asking questions such as, “What’s underneath all this?” or “What’s the most important issue we need to look at now?”. Once the employee sees the real issues, help them tie it back to its impact on the team and organization. This will then start to create real change.
3. Structure enhances productivity and networking will aid efforts. Your colleagues are bright and good at what they do. However, what do they do? If you don’t know, it’s time to find out. Help every employee create a LinkedIn profile and encourage them to connect through the company page. Why is this important? When you’re trying to figure out who handles media inquiries, it’ll only take two minutes instead of an hour!

Simple habits build success. Take a look around your work; where do you see yourself succeeding? Start with what’s working and expand from there. What can you work on next?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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A Human Capital Strategy to Help America Thrive

 

No one would argue against the idea that, to thrive in today’s global economy, nations must grow their capital. But many people don’t realize that “capital” comes in two very different forms.

We often think of capital as tangible things — physical assets like factories, farms, roads, highways, and even warships.

But what about intangible capital? These are also critical for success, and include such competitive advantages as creativity, motivation, loyalty, and trust. These intangible assets are called human capital — and in How to Grow Human Capital During Hard, I argue that investing in human capital is the best choice right now.

I also posit that, although the branches of our military services have benefited greatly from human capital strategies, our nation has never tried to implement a national strategy to marshal and grow our most important asset: people.

What Would a U.S. Human Capital Strategy Look Like?

National human capital strategies grow out of human capital policies; both the policies that are consciously adopted by a country, and those that are so deeply embedded in its DNA that we take their impact on our lives for granted.

There are five policies that I believe are essential for maximizing human capital at the national level. Some of these are areas in which the U.S. proudly leads the world. Others are areas in which we’ve arguably fallen to last place among other wealthy, industrial nations.

They are:

1. Education and Training
2. Enforcement of Contracts and Property Rights
3. Balance of Risk and Safety
4. Freedom
5. Agility of Government and the Private Sector

Let’s look at each of these policy areas to see how they do or don’t support a U.S. national strategy to maximize our human capital.

Education and Training

Although education can be its own reward, many advanced societies offer rewards and incentives to encourage their populace to pursue more education and/or more formal skills training.

The U.S. clearly doesn’t offer such an organized incentive structure. While college graduates often earn more money than those without diplomas or degrees, the skyrocketing cost of a college education is born by individuals or families, which explains in large part why, over the past 50 years, the percentage of Americans with four-year degrees has grown by a paltry 5%, from 25% of adults to 30%.

Our grade schools and high schools are also not optimized to produce the best outcomes for most U.S. citizens. Because local schools are controlled by local school boards, the best predictor of the quality of your education is the zip code where you were born.

Enforcement of Contracts and Property Rights

The strong U.S. protections for owners of both physical and intellectual property provide a tremendous incentive for economic growth. Owners know that if they successfully expand and nurture their assets, they will reap economic benefits and — most importantly — be allowed to keep them.

This basic tenet of the U.S.’s social contract has fueled periods of tremendous growth and innovation by allowing us to invest in both human and tangible capital to produce future growth, confident that we “know what’s ours is ours.”

Balance of Risk and Safety

Every nation has rules about what risks will accrue to individuals and families, and what risks will be managed on their behalf by society. The social safety net adopted in the U.S. following the Great Depression ushered in a long period of property and growth that benefited Americans from all walks of life and allowed many citizens to develop themselves and contribute to society.

By contrast, countries like Japan (where families are expected to provide the safety net, and 65% of elders live with their children), can expect that adult children — and particularly women — will do significant care-taking during their prime years of productivity, with a consequent diminishment of positive economic activities.

Freedom

In America, citizens have the freedom to decide where they will live, what job or professional field they’ll choose, who and when they marry, how big of a family they’ll have, whether or not they’ll move for advancement, how much they’ll work and when they’ll stop working. And while these decisions can be daunting and hard, they’ve allowed many in the U.S. to develop their own human capital to a high degree — to invest in themselves and garner the rewards.

Agility of Government and the Private Sector

How quickly can a country’s government and its private sector adjust to the reality of a changing world? How smoothly can they coordinate their responses to challenges like economic disruption, artificial intelligence, new technologies, terrorism, or even a global pandemic?

In a world of accelerating change, the ability of nations to increase their human capital depends on the agility and effectiveness of both government and private sector responses to those changes. And here, the U.S. has a mixed record: Some technologies, like social media, have developed rapidly and had a tremendous impact on society. Others, like stem cell research, have languished because government could not be agile on the policy side, and the vision of industry was thwarted at great potential cost.

Can the U.S. Create a National Human Capital Strategy?

That answer is clearly complicated. An effective national human capital strategy requires clarity and coordination between government and industry, across a wide range of policy areas.

In some of these areas, the U.S. excels. In others, our success has been limited.

One thing is clear, however: Because of the nature of global competition, it is time for nations to look hard at their current human capital strategies and take actions now to optimize the sum of our human capital. Our future will depend primarily on how well, how effectively, and how fast we learn to maximize our human capital.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter.

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Four Resources to Help Employees Manage Change

I recently had the honor and privilege to be interviewed by different publications about changing work dynamics, managing difficult employees and the future of our workforce. The new era of workforce management is here; I hope our interview discussions help you plan for the future in these times of change.

When I spoke to Bindu Nair, editor at The Smart Manager, we discussed various ways to manage unmanageable people and situations.

Supported by my years of experience as a front line coach and consultant, we outlined how to help those unmanageable employees who torment other employees. The methodology we recommend consists of five steps: Commit or quit; Communicate; Clarify goals and roles; Coach; and Create accountability. How can you use this methodology? First, the manager needs to decide to retain this unmanageable employee or not. Ultimately, it’s not only about making that employee accountable; it’s also about the manager’s commitment to the employee’s success. Next, the employee should be clear on what goals she is expected to achieve.

Successful organizations not only manage employees; they also create and manage successful teams. During another discussion with The Uncommon League, we mused about preparing individuals and teams for employee training. What tips did we discuss? First, explain the training context to increase the chances of employees attending that training. Second, build organizational interest in what they will learn, to attract other employees who want to learn these skills as well.

Successful organizations are also nimble and adapt to change, which is important because the way people are choosing to work has changed. Discussing the trends that are shaping the future workforce with Brown Wallace on The Bridge Revisited, we shared our thoughts about the personality traits and key differences of each generation in the workforce. The discussion also included the impact of women starting their own businesses, the importance of workplace diversity and the increasing trend of freelancing. If leaders develop a strategy without knowing about these workforce trends, they will be shooting into the dark.

Finally, at the Women’s Foodservice Forum we exchanged views on how freelancers and contract workers can provide fresh perspectives and help organizations move toward success. To effectively leverage their talents and capabilities, leaders must integrate freelancers in the workplace culture, articulate clear expectations, touch base regularly, and recognize results.

I’d love to hear how you are managing workforce challenges. What works for you and what doesn’t? What results have you seen? 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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People Analytics Certification Online - An Easier Way to Better Your Career

As groups get flooded with the great amount of information on a day by day basis, it's far turning into extraordinarily difficult for them to satisfy the demands of clients on a continuous basis.

Analyzing and processing any such humongous quantity of data is a complicated project. To keep away from issues connected with managing big statistics, organizations have now started to adopt the methodologies and techniques of large statistics.

Organizations must hire professionals who have the talents and expertise to cope with information, and these experts are described as big data analysts or big data specialists.

Advantages of People Analytics Certification

1. Carrier Growth