Some Work Tips (not necessarily in order of importance)

-   How to motivate yourself (there are 2 ways to do this:

  i) make the process more interesting

  ii) have a clear understanding about the purpose; use the following questions to understand the purpose:

-   Who are the people whose lives will be worse off if we don't exist?

-   Get a stakeholder who has had a positive experience with your organization to talk to the staff about it?

  NB
  “...You're on this earth for a certain period of time. And your job is to create an impact and meaning…”

  Sukhinder Singh Cassidy as quoted by Tess Bennett, 2024a

  Also, make work enjoyable and fun)

-   Ensure that your personal values align with the organisational ones (if there is a misalignment, you need to change your job; the sooner you do it the better; find a job that fits your values

             “...go where your values fit…”

             Sukhinder Singh Cassidy as quoted by Tess Bennett, 2024a)

-   Make yourself replaceable (rather than irreplaceable

   “... if you cannot be easily replaced, your bosses will be less likely to select you for promotion or other new opportunities…”

   Wei Li as quoted by Hans van Leeuwen, 2024

-   Be a positive role model (‘do as you say, ie ‘walk the talk’’; have a good work ethic; be humble; be ambitious; be resilient; be opportunistic; encourage critical, creative and divergent thinking; be prepared for the unexpected; develop a balanced lifestyle including leaving work issues at work and personal life at home; maintain good health/wellness habits including eating, exercise, sleep, hobbies, non-work activities, social life, etc)

-   Develop an extensive network of contacts (you never know when you can use these to your advantage; find a way to keep in regular contact, etc)

-   Organize your working day, ie personal productivity (do tasks in descending order of interest, ie do the most interesting first, then mildly interesting and lastly the boring jobs - do the more menial, administrative task last)

-   Organize your working week (divide your week into:

  i)   manager time (when you deal with the administration issues)

  ii)  maker time (when you do the creative work)

    “...maker times typically works better earlier in the week, before your plate gets too full and while your brain is fresh…”

    Adam Grant as quoted by John Thompson, 2024

-   Manage time in blocks (working blocks of uninterrupted time around 2 to 3 hours so you are able to get the creative flow going

  “...You can't get more time in your day, but you can manage the timing of your day…”

  Adam Grant as quoted by John Thompson, 2024

-   Schedule meetings (the best time is the middle of the day to hold meetings, ie lunch time or just after lunch)

-   Seek advice – it is more powerful than feedback (people are more forthcoming when giving advice rather than feedback; advice tends to be more positive and constructive, and easier to give than feedback)

-   Create a sense of urgency (explaining what will happen if you don't change can be very effective as staff usually believe their organisational culture is good and will resist any change to it.

   “...The best time to transform a company's culture is when things are going well - it might not seem like change is actually required, that's       when a business typically has the spare capacity to pull off this kind of work…” 

  John Thompson, 2024

  However, when things are going well, people have less incentive to change.

  (for more detail, see elsewhere in the Knowledge Base)

-   Understanding the 2 tensions in every organisation:

   i) risk vs rules 

    - tilt too much towards risk and anarchy could result with lack of process and structure plus a high error rate

    - tilting too much towards rules, regulations, etc could result in the organisation becoming more like a bureaucracy with hierarchical  structure

 ii)relationships versus results

    - focus on the relationships only and you end up with a happy workplace producing average result

    - focus on results only and you get a toxic culture.

     NB Need to get the balance right between the tensions)

-   When making decisions consider 2 key questions: 

    i) How consequential is the decision?

    ii) How reversible is the decision?

   This will help determine which decisions need to be made quickly and/or can be delayed before fully committing; use analysis ahead of important decisions to test assumptions and possible risks)

Kill the company (explore ways to ‘kill off’ your organisation to understand your organization’s vulnerabilities, challenges, threats, opportunities, etc.)