Tag Archives: Rose Coaching

Is keeping the status quo keeping you back?

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Is keeping the status quo keeping you back?
Is there such a thing as being too content?

Take these three scenarios:

  1. low income, high school degree, 2years of college, working at hardware store, getting married in spring, looking forward in starting a family right away
  2. medium-high income, college and master, software industry, interested in expensive side hobby or second business
  3. multimillionaire on the level of Donald trump and Oprah Winfrey

Of these three, who do you feel should be working to keep everything exactly as it is?

Who should keep their income, their job level, the size of their home, their circle of friends, their opinions and beliefs–exactly the same? Of these three, who should consider a lateral change over a promotion with addition training, growth and income opportunities?

Would it be the multimillionaire that already has everything anyone could ever imagine?  Or would it be the medium or low income group, because they don’t have any spare funds to explore and experiment with (you have to have money to make money…)?

It’s difficult to answer because it is not the individual situation that dictates our response but our emotional and belief system.  People that believe they can do, have and be anything they can imagine are often both very appreciative of what they currently have —- and are excitedly anticipating more and greater things.  They are always exploring and expanding.

It’s rarely the size of their pocket but the wealth of their confidence-in-self that dictates the life they have designed for themselves.

Let me know what you think about these ideas.

And if you would like some individual help on designing your perfect life, contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.com

Work is getting too hard, but you enjoy the job….what do you do?

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This is Laura Lee Rose, business and success coach that specializes in time management, career management and work/life balance strategies.   Recently I received the questions: “Work is getting too hard, but I enjoy the job.  What should I do? Should I stick it out or leave?”

Although I don’t know enough about this particular situation to answer in detail — I do know that if you don’t do something different, things will get worse.

On the other hand, I believe you can have it all.   Here are some tips to experiment with:

  1.  Clearly articulate what you really like about your current position.
  2. Find ways to increase your focus on those aspects that you enjoy.
  3. Find ways to delegate and train others on the tasks that are not aligned with your individual career goals.
  4. Acknowledge that the MUST DO items will always get done (otherwise they are not really MUST DO items). Also acknowledge that you can’t do everything. You can only do your best.
  5. If some of those “MUST DO” items are not aligned with your individual career goals, be transparent with your manager.  Express that you want to always give your best.  And you are unable to do your quality best on this particular item.
  6.  Be transparent with co-workers and managers on what you are working on and what you are not currently working on. Be transparent on (and realistic about)  when you will get to things, and what you are prioritizing very low. If they feel that the things you are not working on are important — it will get assigned to someone else. If it doesn’t get assigned to someone else — then it’s not that important. (See Rule 4).

Read Don Ruiz’s The Four Agreements  (quick summary below):

  1. Be impeccable with your word (Say way you mean, and do what you say)
  2. Don’t take anything personally
  3. Don’t assume or judge
  4. Always do your best.

Where does Instant Messaging and Chatting fit in the professional arena?

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In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office etiquette on various real-world IT topics in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.

 

I agree that instant messaging is another good tool for communication. Chat and IM usage is also growing in the web-conference area. It’s a terrific tool to collect and answer questions during a presentation. I have been using the group chat functions in my many webinars and web conferences. I think it’s great for that.

 Once again, I agree with you that it’s a great tool in it’s separate uses. But I’m not 100% convinced that it’s a good alternative to email. Like any tool, IM can be misused.
In the regular office environment, Instant Messaging should be consider as “interrupting” someone for a moment for a quick FYI or interaction. It isn’t as effective for longer informative exchanges (not as effective as email, phone call or a face-to-face meeting).
Things to keep in mind when using IM:
  1. Since you can not see the person your are ‘pinging’, acknowledge that they may be in the middle of an important project, meeting, or interview. Ask them if they have time for a quick chat. Just because they are on their computer, don’t just assume they have the time to be interrupted like this. Their machine could just automatically bring up their chat window, even though they are not really available. Therefore, keep your IM short.
  2. Use a quick same-time chat to setup an official phone-call or meeting (or even to tell them that you have sent them a more detail email on the topic). Don’t try to actually conduct an impromptu one-on-one meeting using chat. Agree upon a time/date for the longer meeting, and allow them to return to what they were previously doing.
  3. Use a quick same-time IM to quickly verify information or status; but not a long explanation of said status. If your brief status update generates questions, pick up the phone (or schedule a proper meeting).
  4. 4) Instant Messaging isn’t as professional or effective a communication tool as a real phone call or face-to-face meeting — because people can not hear the refection of your voice, see your facial expression or your body language (similar to the limitations of email). Written text only covers 36% of the communicative message. The other 64% is conveyed through tone, expression and body language.
  5. IM has another drawback for medium or long-conversation uses. It is difficult to convey your entire thought without being interrupted by your co-chat-partner. People don’t realize when you are merely pausing. Therefore, they often jump-the-gun to respond to what they think you are saying (while you are pausing or gathering your thoughts). Since you were actually in mid-thought, IM introduces the opportunity for mis-direction and miscommunication.
  6. You also don’t know if the person has finished their thought or just has been momentarily distracted by something else that is currently happening in their location. This leads to disconnected and un-chronological ordered threads. Therefore, you are often responding and/or following different topics.
  7. Meetings are less effective if/when people are IM-ing others during the meeting. Your attention is no longer on purpose. (The exception is that if you actually pause the meeting to IM someone for a quick status or update that is aligned with the meeting purpose. Any off-purpose chatting is disrespectful.)
IM is a convenient professional tool to momentarily capture someone’s attention. But I’m not convinced it’s a good substitute for a phone call or person-to-person conversation. It’s also not as effective as email for longer-informational discussions. Just because it seems convenient, doesn’t mean it’s as effective as a real-person-to-person chat.
Video chats can certainly overcome many of the limitations of the IM texting. That tool is also becoming popular. Google, SKYPE, and ipads provide this capability and more computers (these days) have built-in webcams. The drawback is that you can not easily carry on the video chats in shared-office space.
I think they are all great tools. But great tools for different reasons and uses. They are great tools in their own right.  To learn more about the different tools and their most effective uses, please subscribe to the GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

How to Stay Focused While Working from Home

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Laura Lee Rose is the Corporate Exiting Strategest for blooming entrepreneurs.
Laura helps others to easily transition into their next chapter whether it’s the next ladder of success within their corporate environment or into the entrepreneurial playground.

To sign-up for these tools, subscribe at  http://eepurl.com/gGZtP

 

Questions to Ask Yourself After You Get Fired

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As a business and life coach who specializes in time management and work life balance strategies, I recommend clients to consistently look forward (not backwards).

Therefore, the question “why I got fired” is not as beneficial as “what do I want to do now“.

Although there are many symptoms — there are usually only a few underlying reasons that anyone gets fired (I am making a distinction between being “fired” and “getting laid off”):

1) The ‘real’ job did not match what the effort the employee wanted to submit.
2) The employee and employer’s expectations were not understood or did not match.
3) The job didn’t lead the employee’s career in a direction that the employee wanted to go.
Given the above, better questions to ask yourself after you get fired are:

Creating a “No Excuse” Zone ~ Part 3

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Below is Part 3 of a 3-Part article designed to help IT and database professionals stay on top of their game in an ever-changing trade. Part 1 and 2 describe examples of how we inadvertently make excuses for our lack of progress in certain areas of our careers.

Part 3 offers several steps toward creating “No Excuse Zones” in our home, office and thinking. For more examples that fit your specific work environment, please feel free to contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info.

We all have “excuses‟ as part of our normal, default speaking and thinking patterns. It’s normal. It’s human. We often entertain ourselves with stories of how we got to where we “don‟t want to be”. We do not readily acknowledge these stories as “excuses” or blaming something or someone external to ourselves for our predicament; we’re simply “explaining” ourselves.  But the longer we stay in the “explaining” stage of the current situation; the longer we are stalled and not making forward progress.

As you can see in part 1 and part 2 of this article, there are endless ways to take control over your own calendar and time.  Using external people and event as excuses for your lack of progress is very natural but not very beneficial.  We won’t be able to totally avoid our very natural and human reactions to things.  But we can continually improve upon are recognition of what is more beneficial in moving us forward faster.

Beginning steps toward NO EXCUST ZONE thinking:

Step 1) Create several NO EXCUSE ZONES in your home, office and social environments.
These places will be designated as “NO EXCUSE ZONES”. These are places where you are deliberately on the lookout for excuses in your speech and in others. It will be in these places where “excuses” will no longer be acceptable.
You can place a “NO EXCUSE ZONE” sign to warn co-workers, friends and family that you have kicked-up your game. It will be at these places that you practice your new-found energy, focus, and purpose.
When you detect “defensive” speech from yourself and others, diplomatically challenge the thought as an assumption, a false premise or even an irrelevant truth. Just because something is factual doesn‟t make it beneficial or useful. There are lots of truths that are simply immaterial to forward progress or solutions.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

 

 

How to Repel a Current Client From Ever Returning

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Laura Lee Rose is the Corporate Exiting Strategest for blooming entrepreneurs.
Laura helps others to easily transition into their next chapter whether it’s the next ladder of success within their corporate environment or into the entrepreneurial playground.

To sign-up for these tools, subscribe at  http://eepurl.com/gGZtP

 

How to Repel Your Existing Customers from Ever Coming Back

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Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – Corporate Exit Strategist for the Blooming Entrepreneur – and I am a business and life coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies. As a business coach, I received this recent question:

“How do you repel your existing customers from ever coming back?”

At first glance, this may seem like a strange question, but it is actually a great topic. In any business, it is unrealistic to feel that you can make everyone happy with your products and services. Most successful businesses do not plan to be “all things to all people”.   As such, there may be certain customers that you don’t really want as regular clients.  This is actually very good business planning.

Having said the above, how does one go about professionally “repelling” an existing customer without the risk of a “Better Business Bureau Complaint”?

One very positive way to “repel customers from ever coming back”, is to focus on your overall goal to an exceptional client experience. This seems strange, but please bears with me.

If your goal is for 100% client satisfaction (or an exceptional client experience), and you are unable to satisfy this particular client with your current services or products, point them toward someone else’s service or products that will satisfy them.

Creating a “No Excuse Zone” around YOU Professional Development Series

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Below is Part 2 of a 3-Part article designed to help IT and database professionals stay on top of their game in an ever-changing trade. Part 1 highlighted some IT scenarios. In this part 2, we will take a closer look.

Part 3 offers several steps toward creating „No Excuse Zones” in our home, office and thinking. For more examples that fit your specific work environment, please feel free to contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info.

We all have “excuses‟ as part of our normal, default speaking and thinking patterns. It’s normal. It’s human. We often entertain ourselves with stories of how we got to where we “don‟t want to be.”  We do not readily acknowledge these stories as „excuses‟ or blaming something or someone external to ourselves for our predicament; we‟re simply ‘explaining’ ourselves. But the longer we stay in the ‘explaining’ stage of the current situation; the longer we are stalled and not making forward progress.

 

Let’s look closer:

My task was to contact 3 hospitals to collect meaningful metrics on these five database features. Only one hospital has responded on only one database features. I am late with this project and don’t know how to proceed.

Our developer had not been keeping his team and stakeholders involved in his progress. He had been struggling with the 3 hospitals without conveying the obstacles he was encountering. He allowed the deadline to pass without a word of status. He was nervous and ashamed about his lack of progress on this task. Continue reading →

How to Transition From a Consultant Job Back Into Corporate

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Laura Lee Rose is the Corporate Exiting Strategest for blooming entrepreneurs.
Laura helps others to easily transition into their next chapter whether it’s the next ladder of success within their corporate environment or into the entrepreneurial playground.

To sign-up for these tools, subscribe at  http://eepurl.com/gGZtP

 

 

Side note: When re-entering into the corporate environment from either a consultant or previous entrepreneurial position, I highly recommend targeting executive or skip-level positions. Do not focus on corporate positions that are merely lateral role to your previous corporate position. The experience that you gained as a consultant or entrepreneur is equivalent to executive, director or VP status. Please don’t sabotage yourself by aiming too low.