Taking Care of Business

It's a newsletter ... it's a blog ... it's a resource dedicated to helping people survive and even thrive in the ever-changing world of work.

Respect Yourself

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

The Staples Singers

It was the beginning of rush hour, and the Green Line train was almost full, forcing us to stand. As soon as we boarded I grabbed the bar on the back of the seat nearest me and adjusted my stance to absorb the jerk which I knew would follow as soon as we started.

I noticed a man sitting in the aisle seat a few rows back, and two things about him immediately grabbed my attention. One, he was sitting with his back ramrod straight, and two, he was obviously ex-military, wearing a black corduroy baseball cap embroidered in red and yellow letters that said “Marine Veteran” and a badge that read “Vietnam Veteran” above the pocket of his denim jacket.

His self-assurance was fascinating, yet I also found his eyes-front posture intimidating because the aviator sunglasses hid half of his handsome face. I aimed my gaze over his head and out the window and wondered what he’d experienced in that war that was more humiliating to those who fought in it than any other in America’s history, and how it had shaped him.


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Spring Cleaning

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Spring CleaningDuring the first week of spring, the temperature dipped into the twenties, the daffodils lay prostrate on the walk, and I devoted an entire day to cleaning out my files.

I usually purge them in January to get a fresh start on the year, but I had failed to do so, not only this past January, but also in January of 2011.

So it was time—past time. Loose paper never sorts itself out. The trivial and the important were jammed together, both in the cabinet and in my head. My neglect to use organization as a strategic planning tool (see Wildly Organized) was symbolic of an ambivalence about where I am in my professional life.


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Yes Men Transformed

Friday, March 16th, 2012

In Free Agent Nation, Daniel Pink suggests watching two films to get an idea of how the world of work has changed since the middle of the twentieth century.

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) is about a public relations executive, the Organization Man of the 1950s.

Jerry Maguire (1996) is the story of a West Coast sports agent who navigates today’s freewheeling entrepreneurial culture.

But what struck me on the snowy afternoon that I watched these movies back to back was not so much how the culture of work has changed, but how much it has remained the same.


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Worry—Again!

Friday, February 10th, 2012

WorryI usually begin thinking about a column a few weeks before I sit down to write it, but the month of January flew by so quickly and the approach of the deadline for this month threw me into a panic.

How could I possibly attend to the client work on my calendar, prepare for a strategic planning summit a week from now, and write a newsletter?

The more I stared at the calendar, trying to find open space, the more inaccessible a topic seemed. I not only couldn’t think of anything to write about—I also couldn’t remember anything I’d written in the eight years I’ve been producing this newsletter!

I figured I could do something about the latter, so I went to my website to look through the archives, and I happened on a column I wrote in July of 2009. It was just what I needed!


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Black Hole

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Black HoleLong ago, I vowed never to write another column about resumes, but something a client said to me a few weeks after being laid off by the Fortune 200 company where she had worked for over fifteen years changed my mind.

“I don’t want anymore black hole resumes,” she said emphatically.

For her to be able to speak with such clarity, even while recovering from the shock of being let go, was a cause for celebration. It was a huge step forward because in taking it she was rejecting the idea of another job in favor of work, as a consultant, free agent, business owner.


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Court Street Thrift Boutique

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

The MayflowerI am writing this on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. Because I like to finish one holiday before leaping ahead to the next, I am making this a quiet day, a space to reflect on what this annual feast, now so narrowly focused on eating and football, really means.

The actual history of Thanksgiving is far more complex, both messier and richer, than the story everyone knows about the Pilgrims inviting the Indians to dinner.

We hear very little about how the Pilgrims stole seed corn from the Nauset Indians of Cape Cod a few days after they arrived, or the fact that the land around Plymouth had already been cleared and cultivated by Pokanokets who had been wiped out by disease shortly before the newcomers arrived, or that when Native American neighbors came to help the Pilgrims they usually showed up naked!

We cheat ourselves when we settle for an oversimplified view of history because the arrival of the Mayflower in Plymouth represents a nitty-gritty struggle for survival which is as relevant today as it was for the residents of Plymouth in the 1620s.


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Drop the Shock and Awe

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Drop the Shock and AweEvery event or conversation that upsets or displeases us is made up of two components: what actually happens in real time, and what our head does with it afterwards. We have little or no control over many of the difficult things which occur in our lives, but we can change our response to them.

A good starting point in keeping our minds from spinning out of control is to learn how to “drop the shock and awe.” We do this by making a choice not to be surprised—once again—by behavior that we know from past experience is consistent with a particular person.

Because we already know what to expect, we can eliminate, or at least shorten, the time we spend trying to build a case for why we find another person’s thinking, words or actions unacceptable.


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Professional Dysfunction

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Out of the BoxI’ve been aware for some time now that what causes my clients the most pain in their professional lives is not the weight of their responsibilities, the heavier workload due to the economic downturn.

What leads to frustration, sometimes despair, are those difficult or even hostile exchanges with specific people in the work environment, often the boss. These interactions play out in predictable patterns which one of my clients recently described in great detail.

The scene was all-too-familiar: her boss kept calling her again and again, each time with a new demand, neither asking nor caring how the interruption would affect what she was currently working on, expecting her to be able to shift gears immediately, insisting that everything was urgent. It was making her numb.


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More Often Than Not

Friday, September 16th, 2011

Artist PaintingI regularly work with clients who have creative goals—making pottery, writing poetry, actually using the sketch pad they’ve purchased or been given as a gift. Sometimes these aspirations come up almost apologetically: “Of course, it’s not practical and I have so little time, but what I’d really like to be doing is—”

Frequently they come to light in an exercise where clients write stories about experiences in their lives which gave them a deep sense of personal satisfaction, e.g., this description of a drawing class written by a woman who manages construction projects: “I loved how I felt when I was doing these drawings. There was a connection between my soul and the paper.”

Occasionally, the need to put hands to clay or pen to paper has become so important to a client that the failure to be able to do it become the focal point of our discussion. This is always exciting to me because it is an unconscious recognition of the link between the artistic urge and transforming a work life.


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Owls Head

Friday, August 12th, 2011

Owls HeadPeople who vacation on Cape Cod would probably find it strange that someone who lives here would leave in July.

Nor would they be likely to see the connection between their arrival and my need to get away.

Initially our annual mid-summer escape was motivated by the desire to leave our tourists behind and become tourists ourselves.

We have come, however, like many others, to love the meandering coastline of Maine, with its rugged coves, smooth-as-glass inlets, and sailboat-dotted harbors.

We have grown particularly fond of the panoramic, almost three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of Penobscot Bay from Owls Head Light. It has become for us a must-go-to-whenever-we’re-there.

This year we made it the last stop, a place to pause to take in the beauty of the natural world before turning our backs on the sea and facing the five-and-a-half hours of highway ahead of us.

Some places never disappoint, and when you know this, it adds to the joyful anticipation of returning.


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The Labyrinth

Friday, July 15th, 2011

LabyrinthGrowing a lawn, rather than isolated clumps of grass, is a problem on a sand bar, which is a good description of outer Cape Cod, where I live.

After years of trying without success, this Spring my husband announced that he was giving up, and he was going to put down mulch because he was sick of mowing dirt.

I have a strong preference for the a natural look, so I balked at the idea of covering our yard with brown—or worse yet, red—mulch.

We compromised on ground cover and shrubs in the front, but what the do on side of the house remained unsettled until I had a wild idea in the middle of the night—we could build a labyrinth.

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol for wholeness. It combines the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path representing a journey to one’s own center and back again into the world.


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Cape Cod Ice

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Cape Cod Ice Sold HereSometimes I’ve just had it with the absurd extremes marketing goes to and I have to stand up and say, “Enough!”

In the window of a convenience store near my house there is a sign which announces, “Cape Cod Ice Sold Here.”

The Cape offers many wonderful things—clam chowder, lobsters, glorious beaches, and cranberries, to name a few—but no one ever returned from a vacation here saying, “I can’t wait to go back next year for some more of that fabulous Cape Cod ice.” Give me a break!


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