Planting A Seed
If we have a very precious seed, and we want that seed to grow, should we just plant it anywhere and walk away? No, because it makes more sense to ‘tend’ a precious seed. To care for it as best we can – which is something we all know how to do. ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ By ‘tending’ we look after a seed’s environment and growth. We make ourselves part-responsible for the best possible outcome – of course, the seed must also do its bit. Tending also speaks of applying the best of our energies, and skills, along with the best of our hopes for the future too. By...
Read MoreOf Ghosts Past
There’s nothing new under the sun, as the old saying goes but isn’t it also true that we find something new wherever we look? Talking of something that certainly isn’t new – although it has endured and been revived countless times – at the start of the year, I read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens for the first time. Inside this old book, something that felt very new caught my eye. Well over 100 years before corporate social responsibility or intrinsic career drivers, Jacob Marley’s ghost gave clear warning to anyone getting caught up in the importance or the trappings...
Read MoreLove Your Job?
One of my favourite websites is Gavin Aung Than’s Zen Pencils, so imagine how happy I am whenever he writes, illustrates and muses on anything even loosely related to career development and work/life. Gavin has a great career story (as explored in this Forbes article) so when he picked out the quote below there was a very personal connection… Choosing a job I loved was never a mission for me, until I got a sniff of something I enjoyed doing, then this quote from Confucius made all kinds of sense. Supporting other people to find jobs they might be able to love became a mantra I happily...
Read MoreHow Do You Spot High-Potential?
Somewhere along the way of spending thousands of hours, talking to hundreds of people about work, it occurred to me that no one has higher potential than anyone else. At first, this sounded like an odd idea and was easy to ignore. Outward signs of career success suggested otherwise but the same notion of higher-potential kept coming back, and kept showing itself in all kinds of different and unexpected ways. The beating heart of working in career development is making people feel more confident at times of career decision. Supporting people until they feel more comfortable – and are...
Read MoreIs it ever too late to switch careers?
The idea of switching careers rests on an old notion that we are defined by what we do. A carpenter is a carpenter. A banker is a banker. A retail store assistant is… well, you get the idea. If we accept this view of our relationship with work, switching careers becomes a great personal upheaval. It becomes a negative even morbid notion; something we do at times of despair and desperation because of the great personal risk, especially if this is something we’re thinking about in the second-half of our career. Who in their right mind would walk away from half a lifetime of skill and...
Read MoreWhat do employers value?
As employees, workers and jobseekers, we all have huge capacity and high potential but sometimes we are the last to see this. If you want proof, on any given day there are people out there undervaluing and underselling themselves, particularly when they are looking for work – which is perhaps when a person needs to see and know his or her value most. I remember a news article about employers in the US hiring ex-service personnel. Companies who did this are more likely to do it again. As the article says of one such case… “[Employers] wanted to hire him for the things they couldn’t...
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