Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • What Do You Envy?

    What Do You Envy?

    Are you envious of the guy who has started his own restaurant? What about the attorney who has argued a case before the Supreme Court (this is one of the examples in Quiet)? How about the friend who is a stay-at-home mom by day, painter by night with happy kids and her art in galleries all over the country? Maybe you’re jealous of the teacher who inspires you when she talks with passion about what the students in her class are learning. You wish you had that kind of passion.

    In reading, Quiet- The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, I came across another great question to ask in determining work values: What do you envy?

    We are taught to see jealousy as an unbecoming trait, but the author, Susan Cain, is so insightful in her reasoning for examining what you envy as a way to identify what she describes as your “personal projects.” She states, “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.”

    Work and life values should be a key driver of career choice because they impact career satisfaction. There a host of questions (and assessment tools), which can help identify a person’s work values, but maybe the best place to start is by examining a feeling that we are discouraged from seeing as valuable.

    What do you envy?

  • Looking for a Magic Wand in 2014?

    Looking for a Magic Wand in 2014?

    Are you a leader with a talent management problem like turnover, absenteeism, employee engagement, etc.? What if I gave you a magic wand in 2014 and it could wipe your problem out?

    One way to do this is to see yourself as a key driver of organizational strategy and results and then use this mindset to drive talent management process improvements that connect back to bottom line results. This mindset is your magic wand.

    Wait a minute you say! It can’t be that easy. Just thinking strategically can’t eliminate (insert your problem here). Recently, I described a process to a group of HR professionals that I think can help you connect corporate strategy and values to solve problems through talent management interventions.

    This process led one company to a $4000.00 direct cost savings each year just by connecting their corporate values to their selection process. Not to mention, they have made three new hires with this new process. Each of these hires are performing at the optimal level per their performance standards, saving the company an estimated $210.00 a day in absenteeism costs and approximately $54,000 a year per hire in turnover costs. These changes may not have been easy as waving a magic wand, but they weren’t rocket science either.

    You can download the handout from this presentation here to help you walk through the steps of waving your magic wand.

    What is one of your talent management processes that in its current state, needs a good dose of the magic wand?

  • Help Your Child Discover

    Help Your Child Discover

    I’m going to completely contradict myself today, so hang on. In a previous post I stressed the importance of 10,000 hours of practice in order to achieve mastery in a given field, implying that if you are a student that wants to succeed in a particular arena, or if you are a parent wanting to help your child become successful, devote most of your time to a single effort. 

    Is a singular focus in the teen years the right thing? Does this set a child up for career success? I’m beginning to think not. 

    A singular focus in one thing may not be helpful in helping our children master life. Maybe a better alternative is to expose our children (and ourselves) to a wide variety of things, so that we can actually discover what we want to actually devote 10,000 hours of practice towards. 

    Here are some reasons why: 

    • Exposure to variety of things naturally sets us up to fail. We can’t to be good at everything, and time and time again research shows that we learn more from failure than success. 
    • Exposure to a variety of things naturally exposes us to a variety of people, which helps us grow as individuals and as contributors to society. There is lots of value in realizing not everyone has the same skills, background, socioeconomic status, etc, and the younger we learn this, the better we are able to interact with others in a way that reflects a desire to build relationships with others. 
    • Exposure to a variety of things gives us to opportunity to find out what we do like. I wish I had a dollar for every time I got the response “I don’t know” when I asking a student who has come in for career and college coaching what they like to do, and if they do give a response it is something like “playing video games” or “cheerleading” that isn’t going to be a lasting skill for their lives. 

    Maybe we need to become masters of discovery by practicing life and all its variety at an early age. Maybe this focus will help us truly get to the business of practicing a craft in a way that leads us down a path that takes us beyond work and into self-fulfillment because we truly know ourselves, and we’ve learned from the best teacher: experience. 

    How have you helped your child discover him or herself

  • A New Take On Time Management

    A New Take On Time Management

    I’ve been asked by a friend to write a post on time management. It seems fitting at the beginning of each year to look at how we manage our time and “resolve” to manage it more appropriately as we begin anew. 

    But other than this one tidbit of time management advice, I’m not going to write today about time management: How you spend your time should be based on your purpose, and your purpose should be captured in a mission statement to govern how you spend your time. 

    Instead, in considering time management, I think it is worth reflecting on this quote from Raising Self- Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen: 

    “Studies of successful, healthy people show that they are consistently good finders who see lemonade in lemons and glasses that are half full rather than half empty.  Incidentally, such people, who are quick to celebrate any little movement in the right direction, have very few problems with burnout and stress.  People who look at what they failed to accomplish during the day, not what they did accomplish, and who go to bed and burn themselves out in stress tend to invalidate themselves and others.  We need to be encouraging to ourselves as well as our children, and celebrate our own incremental successes as we go through life.” 

    So if you want to manage your time wisely, my advice this year: Celebrate your successes, your “little movements in the right direction” and try to do more of it one day at a time. Don’t beat yourself up when you haven’t checked everything off today’s to-do list. Move what hasn’t been accomplished to tomorrow, and go to bed knowing that you did get something accomplished today. My hope is that you celebrate the accomplishments of each day and purposely connect them to something that connects to your personal purpose. 

    What is the best advice you have received on how to manage your time?

    Want some more traditional reading on time management? Here are some recommendations: 

    Books:  Ready Covey: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,  First Things First

    Blogs:  Joseph Lalonde’s How to Improve Your Time Management Skills  (the comments on this post are also good reads)

  • College Prep Checklist

    College Prep Checklist

    Have no clue what to do when to prepare for college admissions? You’re not alone. Recently, two parents and their high school senior were in our office seeking our assistance in vetting different college programs. They were shocked to hear that most admission deadlines in order to be considered for scholarships were less than two weeks away. In addition, they had already missed a few early acceptance application process deadlines to schools that were at the top of their list.

    Preparation for college can be a daunting process, with many students and their parents caught at the last minute with so much to do and so little time to do it or overwhelmed with all there is to do and how early the process really should start.

    We’ve taken dozens of college preparation checklists and compiled them into one list by grade. We hope that this will help you navigate what to do when as you prepare for and make decisions about college.

    Horizon Point College Prep Checklist