Category communication

‘Choose’ a poem by Carl Sandburg

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

On Tuesday morning folks living in the beautiful, Belgian capital city of Brussels boarded a train that reliably conveyed them to work each day. Others made one of those unconscious daily decisions to grab a cup of coffee at the airport before boarding a flight.

Researchers estimate we make over 200 decisions a day. Now, one of those individual decisions will aggregate to the global; how do we respond to acts of terror?

America’s ‘working man’s poet’, Carl Sandburg, plainly sets out the alternatives in The Friday Poem, ‘Choose’, from his 1916 collection, Chicago Poems.

Choose

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
Choose:
For we meet by one or the other.

Imagining the Monday morning conversation at PwC

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

I have two questions. What happened to the PricewaterhouseCoopers lead partner for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and his colleague, and Oscar balloting co-leader, Sunday night? How did they face their colleagues on Monday morning after the Oscar host turned their most visible annual ‘guest spot’ into the saddest stereotype ‘joke’?

Melena Ryzik described what happened at the point in the award ceremony when the team from the PwC was brought on stage.

“Introducing the accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which tabulates the vote results, Mr. Rock instead brought onstage two boys and a girl of Asian heritage, whom he named Ming Zu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitz. As they clutched briefcases, they visually illustrated the stereotype that Asians are diligent workers who excel at math.

“If anybody’s upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids,” Mr. Rock added, a punch line interpreted as a reference to child labor in Asia.”

What happened to Matt Damon ‘look alike’ and managing partner for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Brian Cullinan and his colleague, Martha Ruiz ?

The conversation on social media since the Oscar broadcast has centered on the ‘joke’, and the fine line between satire and slur. But what happened as hundreds of PwC’s employees arrived at work on Monday morning? What was the conversation between corporate recruiters and expectant applicants on college campuses? How did the meeting start between engagement managers and clients? Why did a company that values diversity allow it’s moment in the spotlight to turn into an epic fail?

PwC’s corporate website and recruiting site advertise the diversity of the firm as a core value.

“Role models inspire others by bringing possibilities to life. And I believe we all have the power to shape the course of other people’s careers. Active sponsorship makes all the difference when it comes to advancing diverse professionals.”

Maria Castañón Moats
Chief Diversity Officer

“At PwC, we foster an inclusive culture by acknowledging the unique experiences and perspectives all of our people bring to work. Our goal is to be known as the place to build a career, regardless of one’s background, beliefs, gender or sexual orientation. Diversity, in all its dimensions, is a key element of our people and our client strategy, and we continue to invest in the area diversity and inclusion knowing we will ultimately be measured on the progress we make.”

Bob Moritz
US Chairman and Senior Partner

Who makes the decision to violate corporate values for a moment of ill timed humor? On Sunday, a company with a publicized core value of diversity allowed itself to be manipulated in the midst of a nationwide controversy about the lack of inclusion.

In February, journalist Iris Quo wrote an article for the Washington Post, posing the question,  ‘Why do my co-workers keep confusing me with other people? Because I’m Asian.’

“All my life I’ve been mistaken for other people of my race. It’s a degrading and thoughtless error that boils away my identity and simplifies me as one thing: “that Asian.” One reason is that our society has so few Asians and people of color in positions of prominence that some people have little exposure to them. Diversity is so lacking in film and television that a director thinks it’s okay to cast a white person as Chinese, as Cameron Crowe did with Emma Stone in “Aloha,” and the Hollywood Reporter mistakes “Master of None” actor Kelvin Yu for show co-creator Alan Yang, who tweeted in response, “Same race, different dude.”

On Sunday night, I was thinking about Iris Quo, ‘degrading and thoughtless errors’, PwC employees and all the college students who are considering offers from PwC. An aberration, or a catalyst to revise the resume?

 

 

 

‘Sending Flowers’ by Hannah Stephenson

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

On this Friday of Valentines weekend, a poem that celebrates the work of the florist, in a creative presentment of the vendor/customer relationship. The Friday Poem this week is ‘Sending Flowers’ by Hannah Stephenson.

Sending Flowers

The florist reads faces, reaches into the mouths of customers.
Turns curled tongues into rose petals,

teeth clinking against one another into baby’s breath.
She selects a cut bloom, a bit of leaf,

lays stem alongside of stem, as if building a wrist
from the inside. She binds them

when the message is right, and sighs at the pleasure
of her profession. Her trade:

to wrangle intensity, to gather blooms and say, here,
these do not grow together

but in this new arrangement is language. The florist
hands you a bouquet

yanked from your head, the things you could not say
with your ordinary voice.

Hannah Stephenson

workthoughts@one

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

Happy Groundhog Day! A day immortalized in the 1993 Bill Murray movie, as our national holiday of second chances.

I launched ‘workthoughts’ a year ago, on Groundhog Day, because I believed a blog about work should consider career evolution, lifelong learning and several second chances. It was never meant to be a place to find a job, rather a place to consider choices, share ideas and reconnect with dreams.

‘Workthoughts’ had its origin in a Tuesday afternoon course I taught for college students who were employed as interns for the semester. Most arrived thinking it was a waste of time, an added commitment to an already crowded schedule of classes, commuting and work.

As the semester progressed we dealt with the situations that develop in any workplace: disconnect in expectations, dysfunctional communications, poor leadership, lack of meaningful assignments, and recognition. We also talked about the bigger picture: global trends, leadership, teamwork, generations in the workplace, diversity and gender issues, work/life balance. It was about the humanities and social sciences, and building relationships with mentors, colleagues and clients.

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and everything was exactly the same and nothing that you did mattered?” (Bill Murray, Groundhog Day)

Success@work begins with a clear understanding of self and a broad knowledge of the world@work. How can you connect the dots if you’re stuck in one place, everything is exactly the same and nothing you do matters?

‘Workthoughts’ provides weekly supplements in the humanities with the ‘Friday Poem’, sampling a variety of lyrical interpretations of work, and ‘The Saturday Read’, a book or long form article recommendation to illuminate the work experience and offer alternate views to problem solving. The ‘week@work’ summarizes selected stories from a variety of journalists and experts. And in-between are the conversations about fun, joy, success, and failure @work.

Work is about relationships. We build them, not on the technical aspects of the work to be accomplished, but on the human connections that grow beyond, in shared interests and experience.

Thank you to all who have connected and shared your ‘workthoughts’ this year. And thank you to all the alumni of MDA 250 – who stay connected, continue to inspire, and know the value of second chances.

 

 

Holiday Homework: Write your story

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

It’s the holiday season and you have one assignment to complete before the New Year begins – write your story.

During the Thanksgiving holiday I encouraged readers to participate in the Story Corps ‘Great Thanksgiving Listen’, conducting interviews  with relatives to capture the oral history narrative of America.

This week’s challenge is about you; to think about your life as it has evolved to this point, highs and lows, and write a short story, your story.

Before you craft your resume, schedule a meeting with a networking contact or head to an interview, you need a story; the narrative of how you arrived at this point in your life and career.

The end goal is to collect as much information about your past before you open your laptop and begin to browse resume formats. Most folks make the mistake of finding a template and relating their story via someone else’s outline. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t acceptable resume formats. It does mean that it’s premature to begin with the resume before you have considered the narrative you wish to convey.

Storytelling has become the latest marketing approach adopted by entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 CEOs. Google ‘storytelling’ and the initial search results will reflect current business practice vs. writers working on the great American novel or the hottest new screenplay.

Here’s the thing. If the folks you hope to work with are employing storytelling to advance their business goals, it may be time for you to practice your skill.

Buried in the list of google results is a link to an Atlantic.com video, ‘George Saunders Explains How To Tell A Good Story’. It’s one of the most viewed videos of the year, which may provide another hint to why you should take seven minutes out of your life this week and watch.

Let’s pause a minute to address all of you who have gotten to this point and are stressed because all you wanted was a few words on how to write a resume in ten seconds.

Nothing of quality results from ten seconds of effort. And this is your life, eight to ten hours of every five days of seven.

Back to George Saunders.

“A story is kind of a black box, you’re going to put the reader in there, she’s going to spend some time with this thing that you have made and when she comes out, what’s going to have happened to her in there is something kind of astonishing. It feels like the curtain’s been pulled back and she’s gotten a glimpse into a deeper truth…

As a story writer, that’s not as easy as it sounds..”

It’s not easy to tell your story. There’s a lot of stuff that in the end may have no relevance to your job search. But it’s important to conduct an annual rewrite to update and adapt your original script.

Let’s borrow a term from the screenwriters and suggest you are developing a draft ‘treatment’ before you write a resume, network and interview.

Micki Grover defines and describes how this summary of a story fits into the screenwriting process.

“All we’re talking about is a short document written in prose form and in the present tense that emphasizes, with vivid description, the major elements of a screenplay. Yes, treatments are actually written in prose! The essence of the story and the characters should be evoked through exhilarating language and imagery.

Treatments have a style of their own just as screenplays do, and they too take time to master. Writers who swear by using treatments find that it’s a fun outlet to write with a voice that screenplays and synopses sometimes constrain. The ultimate goal is simply to tell your story in an engaging way, as if you were passionately telling your best friend about a new script over coffee.”

That’s your holiday assignment. Develop a ‘treatment’ that tells your story in an engaging way, connecting the dots and inviting an audience who may be interested in promoting your talent.

 

 

 

The week@work – End of the fossil fuel era, founders, introverts, college athletes and the one business book to read

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The generational disruption continues. This week@work world leaders committed to cut greenhouse gases, ensuring the environment for future generations. MTV labeled the next of these generations ‘the founders’. Silicon Valley is quickly becoming the vortex for college consulting, making sure these ‘founders’ gain admission to the best universities. And a group of Clemson alumni have come up with a creative alternative to legally compensate college athletes via crowdfunding.

For introverts, there were hints for employers to maximize success. And if you only read one business book this year, the experts recommend ‘Rise of the Robots’ by Martin Ford.

The global story this week was reported from Paris by The Guardian.

“After 20 years of fraught meetings, including the past two weeks spent in an exhibition hall on the outskirts of Paris, negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed on to a legal agreement on Saturday evening that set ambitious goals to limit temperature rises and to hold governments to account for reaching those targets.

Government and business leaders said the agreement, which set a new goal to reach net zero emissions in the second half of the century, sent a powerful signal to global markets, hastening the transition away from fossil fuels and to a clean energy economy.”

In national news, The Atlantic’s David Sims summarized the MTV survey that resulted in a name for the children of the new millennium.

“The name “The Founders” comes from the kids themselves, according to MTV’s survey of more than 1,000 respondents born after the year 2000. America is still reckoning with Millennials (loosely classified as those born from the mid-1980s to the late-’90s) one thinkpiece at a time, but according to this survey, their fate is already sealed. As the children of indulgent baby boomers, Millennials are classified as “dreamers” who live to disrupt and challenge established norms. The Founders, by contrast, are “pragmatists” who will navigate a tougher world defined by 9/11, the financial crisis, and gender fluidity. Previous generations had to worry about getting into college and finding a job, but the next one is tasked with cleaning up their mess.”

Nathan Heller, writing in The New Yorker imagined how today’s fourteen year olds will impact the economy.

“When the teen-agers call themselves founders, they are not thinking of Roger Sherman or, for that matter, of Henry Ford. They are allying themselves with West Coast startup culture—a milieu that regards inventive business-building as the ultimate creative and constructive act…In embracing “founders,” it affirms the idea that creativity is essential—and performed through business enterprise.

“If the founders hold to their founding, it is not hard to extrapolate the economic model that their interests will support. A founder-friendly society is deregulated, privatized, and philanthropic in its best intent. (See ur-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent tax-incentivized pledge.) “Founders,” whose popularity as a Silicon Valley concept followed the 2009 recession, has become a stand-in for more charged, and less heroic-sounding words, such as “small-business owner,” “C.E.O.,” and “boss.” To found is not to manage; it’s to dream and to design. This is the new model for innovative business, scrupulously cleansed of the dank trappings of corporate industry. It’s business all the same, though, and it aims for growth.”

If you are working in the underpaid and undervalued world of college admissions, you have a future in the lucrative business of college consulting. Georgia Perry reported on the growing industry, fueled by parental anxiety, that helps high school students find summer internships, prepare applications and refine essays.

“Private college-admissions consulting is a rapidly growing industry across the U.S. According to the Independent Educational Consultants Association, the number of independent admissions consultants in the U.S. has grown from 2,000 to nearly 5,000 in recent years. In a nationwide study, the marketing firm Lipman Hearne found that of students who scored in the 70th percentile or higher on the SAT, 26 percent had hired a professional consultant to help with their college search. The San Francisco Bay Area has a higher concentration per capita of independent college-admissions consultants than “most cities,” says IECA communications manager Sarah Brachman, though the association doesn’t have specific numbers. The IECA’s most recent report found that nationally, $400 million was spent on college consultants in 2012. Hourly rates in the Bay Area can be as high as $400 an hour, and comprehensive packages with regular meetings throughout high school can add up to several thousand dollars.”

How student-athletes are compensated continues to be a topic in legal proceedings, but this week a group of Clemson folks have come up with an innovative approach that just might work and meet NCAA requirements. Ben Strauss provided the details in his article ‘If Colleges Can’t Pay Athletes, Maybe Fans Can, Group Says’.

“The answer to the riddle of putting money in the hands of amateur student-athletes, who according to the N.C.A.A. cannot be paid, is crowdfunding, said Rob Morgan, a Clemson business school graduate and an anesthesiologist based in Greenville, S.C. His new website, UBooster, started on Friday with the goal of soliciting payments for high school recruits from fans, and delivering the money to the athletes after their college careers end.

“We think this is the direction college sports is headed,” said Morgan, who has been helped in his venture by a former Clemson football player and the interim dean of the university’s business school. “At some point, there is going to be an opportunity for players to make money, and here’s how we can be a part of it.”

“The business model is simple. Fans pledge money to individual recruits, and can leave public notes on the site urging them to attend their favorite college. Morgan said all high school recruits — men and women in every sport from Division I to Division III — would be eligible, though it would seem obvious that most of the interest and money would be directed at top-flight football and basketball prospects. The accounts lock, and no more money can be pledged to players once they formally commit to a college. UBooster will then hold the money in a trust before turning it over to the athletes after their college careers.”

Quiet Revolution founder Susan Cain is an advocate for the introvert in all facets of life. And it’s her website’s section on work that provides insight into fostering career success. This week, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West offered an ‘Illustrated Guide to Introverts in a Start-Up’.

An-Illustrated-Guide-to-Introverts-in-a-Start-Up.jpg

“Famous introvert entrepreneurs include Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Marissa Mayer, and Mark Zuckerberg.

When we imagine our ideal workplace, it looks more like a library full of quiet rooms and isolated carrels than the ball-pit and bullpen situation start-ups are currently obsessed with. As introverts, we may be outnumbered by extroverts at start-ups. According to Laney, “The introvert is pressured daily, almost from the moment of awakening, to respond and conform to the outer world.” This need to conform can be tiring. But we promise, with just a few tweaks in the workplace, you could make us very happy.”

Finally, if there is only one business book you will read this year… and the clock is ticking…the experts recommend ‘Rise of the Robots’ by Martin Ford. Jessica Stillman reported:

“According to the Financial Times and consultancy McKinsey, there’s at least one title even the busiest business owners shouldn’t miss. They recently crowned Rise of the Robots by entrepreneur Martin Ford the very best business book of the year.

Hugely topical, the book discusses the much debated idea that advances in automation will soon radically affect the labor market. “The book reflects growing anxiety in some quarters about the possible negative impact of automation on jobs, from manufacturing to professional services,” explains the FT write-up of the award. This economic reshuffle may require “a fundamental restructuring of our economic rules,” according to Ford, who proposes a guaranteed minimum basic income as one possible remedy.”

Enjoy your week@work… the founders and robots are coming…

 

 

 

The week@work – Mark Zuckerberg writes a letter, equality comes to combat, 20 predictions/20 years, the November jobs report and terrorism@work

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

This week@work was dominated, until mid-week, by the story of the ‘Chan Zuckerberg initiative’ to set aside 99% of their Facebook wealth, and overshadowed a major shift in policy within the Pentagon, opening all combat jobs to women, without exception. The November jobs report continued the positive trajectory of the economy with the revision upward of September and October numbers. And the editor of Fast Company Magazine offered ‘Twenty Predictions for the Next Twenty Years’.

All of those stories pale in comparison to the return of terrorism to the workplace at a holiday party at 11 AM on Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.

Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to his new daughter and lots of attention was paid to the section on sharing his wealth.  Carmine Gallo of Forbes took closer look and noted that the letter read like a great speech.

“As you’ve probably read by now Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan welcomed a daughter into the world in a very big way – with the creation of a new initiative to donate 99% of their Facebook shares ($45 billion currently) to philanthropy. That’s the headline. I was struck, however, by how the open letter to their daughter read more like a speech than a letter. It was meant for the eye…and the ear. It was meant to inspire a generation to commit itself to giving and to making the world a better place.

“Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today,” the letter begins. Read aloud at an average speaking pace, the 2,200-word letter takes about twelve minutes to recite, the ideal amount of time for a good speech (many of the most notable speeches in recent history clock in at 15 minutes or less).

Zuckerberg’s hope for his daughter’s generation provides the theme of the letter, a headline that fits into one short sentence. In bold letters, Zuckerberg writes:

“Advancing human potential and promoting equality.”

Amanda Platell of The Daily Mail offered an alternate version.

“Let’s start with the ‘friends’ you may have on Facebook. Do not confuse them with the friends you should trust in the real world. Many will barely know you, plenty may be jealous, others will be insincere and spiteful…

If I have learned anything from running Facebook, it’s that there is no such thing as privacy any more. After all, that’s how I made our billions!

Come to think of it, perhaps we won’t give you a computer until you’re 18, just to be safe. Love, Dad.”

On Thursday the Dan Lamothe reported on the groundbreaking change in staffing policy at the Pentagon.

“Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said Thursday that he is opening all jobs in combat units to women, a landmark decision that would for the first time allow female service members to join the country’s most elite military forces.

Women will now be eligible to join the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and other Special Operations Units. It also opens the Marine Corps infantry, a battle-hardened force that many service officials had openly advocated keeping closed to female service members.

“There will be no exceptions,” Carter said. “This means that, as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.”

Robert Safian, the editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication with ‘Twenty Predictions for the Next Twenty Years’.

“We celebrate birthdays to remember all that has gone before, and also what is to come. This month, with issue No. 201, we recognize Fast Company’s 20th anniversary by looking toward the future. The dynamic change of the past two decades is just a warm-up for what is still to come.

I have used the phrase Generation Flux to describe this era of transition. Because the changes are coming so fast, there is a rising premium on our ability to adjust, to be adaptable in new ways. This can be scary for some, but it is also undeniably exciting, and for those prepared to embrace this emerging reality, the possibilities are tantalizing.

What follows are 20 observations that we believe will hold fast in the years ahead. They are predictions and, as such, are fraught with limitation and supposition. None of them, on their own, is shocking. That is by design. In combination, though, they outline a world of tomorrow where work is still personal, computing is still social, and knowledge is still power. And where the rules for success will be ever-changing.”

Bouree Lam covered the optimistic economic report from the Labor Department on Friday.

“The November jobs report is out, and it’s meeting what were moderately high expectations. The figures from the Labor Department show that the unemployment rate remained at 5 percent and the economy added 211,000 jobs in November. Jobs were added in construction, health care, and “professional and technical services”—the Labor Department’s term for an assortment of white-collar jobs. Among those, the construction sector showing particularly strong growth, adding 46,000 jobs.”

On Wednesday morning a group of colleagues went to work at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. As they were taking a break, preparing for a holiday celebration, one of their team and his wife, both heavily armed, entered the room and changed lives forever.

In 2014 there were 404 workplace homicides, 80% were shootings. The ‘mass shooting’ in San Bernardino was the fourth of this year.

Yesterday the editors of The New York Times published an editorial on the front page of the paper, ‘End the Gun Epidemic in America’.

I’m done with the retailers who give away guns to the first 200 customers on Black Friday. And I’m not comfortable with my cubicle mates carrying weapons to work. The workplace is a place to create, engage and perhaps follow a dream. Fear and hostility have never been a productive part of life @work. The last time leading by fear worked was in the mid-20th century Catholic grammar school classroom.

“It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.”

On March 4, 1933 newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his inaugural address. The familiar phrase, “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..” has been whispering from the back of my mind since Wednesday and I think it’s particularly relevant to our political conversation today.

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

 

 

 

The Saturday Read – Gift a book this holiday season

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

One of the best presents one can give or receive is a book. #ShopSmall today and visit your local bookseller to find the perfect gift for everyone on your holiday list.

Let’s start with a client or your boss, two challenging categories for gift giving. You could go with a bottle of wine, chocolates, fruit basket or Starbucks card. But that’s what they’ll get from your competitors and colleagues. If you want to stand out and demonstrate, in a very tangible way, that you’ve been listening when they talk about their interests outside of work, a book just may be the way to make a connection. And I’m not talking about the latest business best seller.

Former Seattle librarian and current NPR commentator, Nancy Pearl has written a series of ‘Book Lust’ books recommending current and back list titles for “every mood, moment or reason and travelers, vagabonds and dreamers”. Her suggestions sample the catalog of titles published since 1960, so you will no doubt rediscover some gems to twinkle under the tree.

Create a list of folks @work. Then make a few notes about each and their interests. Visit an independent bookseller today, #SmallBusinessSaturday, and ask for suggestions. Often the best books of the year will never make The New York Times bestseller list, so you will need a little help from someone whose life is about books.

Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Costco don’t count. For the important task of matching books with colleagues and clients, you need the expertise of someone invested in presenting a diversity of titles.

“Independent bookstores never had to answer to the dictates of public markets. Many of their proprietors understood, intuitively and from conversations with customers, that a well-curated selection—an inventory of old and new books—was their primary and maybe only competitive advantage. In the words of Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, “The indie bookselling amalgam of knowledge, innovation, passion, and business sophistication has created a unique shopping experience.”

Some may think a book is a risky gifting proposition. The risk lies only in not  paying attention and failing to seek out help from experts. Take some time today to shop on Main Street and pick up a few books for the holidays.

“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside them, and it’s much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world.” Neil Gaiman

 

 

 

 

#TheGreatListen 2015

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What if you could capture a generation of American lives and experiences in one holiday weekend? That’s the vision of StoryCorps founder, Dave Isay, and he plans to fulfill his mission this Thanksgiving weekend through a combination of an app and an educators toolkit to enable DIY interviews to gather the wisdom of others. It’s the #GreatThanksgivingListen and you are invited to attend.

StoryCorps recently celebrated twelve years of conducting and recording oral history interviews, beginning with a booth in New York’s Grand Central Station and later taking the booth on the road to all 50 states creating the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. The next step is to grow the archive of 100,000 to tens of thousands.

Dave Isay and his organization are the recipients of the 2015 TED Prize, and it was in his presentation to the annual conference in April that he outlined his proposal for a “national homework assignment”.

Here’s the plan. Download the app, select ‘helpful hints’ for a short tutorial. Select ‘browse’ to view previous StoryCorps recordings. Go to ‘my interviews’ to outline and record your interview. You can choose  from a list of sample questions by categories. Next step –  record!

“Who are they? What did they learn in life? How would they like to be remembered?”

And here’s the magical part. You can keep your recording for yourself or opt to upload it to the StoryCorps archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Imagine the story of your family intertwined with other American voices building upon a historical record of their time.

In his April TED talk, Isay described the power of “…everyday people talking about lives lived with kindness, courage, decency and dignity…it sometimes feels like you are walking on holy ground…”

If you believe that you learn from the wisdom of others, this holiday offers an opportunity to join “…a global movement to record and preserve meaningful conversations with one another that results in an ever growing digital archive of the collective wisdom of humanity.”

 

 

Planning for the Thanksgiving Career Conversation

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

It’s the annual celebration of Thanksgiving, that time of year when families get together and complain about dissatisfaction with work. What if we approached the holiday season as an opportunity for taking action on shelved career plans?

We tend to think of the holidays as a time to get away from our workplace. And yet, it can be a time to reconsider career choices and solicit input from family and friends.

Let’s reimagine the pre or post-dinner conversation that has previously been a competition to demonstrate who has the worst boss, longest hours, deadest of dead end jobs. Consider a conversation where you identify your spot on your career timeline, articulate your goals and ask for guidance on next steps.

Your friends and family are your most trusted advisors. They’re the folks who know all your faults and are still there. Don’t waste their time with a whining session. Respect their abilities to listen and share feedback.

Start with the past year and what you have accomplished. Even in the worst job situation we can salvage a few learning experiences, from both failure and success. Come up with a way to communicate your skills, leaving out acronyms, to enable folks to envision how your strengths apply across fields.

Next, recall that dream job that has been tantalizing you, but disappears in the fog of the everyday demands of the workplace. Got it? Now you have your baseline and end goal. Don’t be shy about sharing it.

What’s missing? The interim steps to get you from point A to point B.

And this is where those negative conversations turn into positive and productive discussions. Now that you have shared your goals, folks are empowered to help: adding to your list of skills based on a long term view of your career, providing input on strategy and offering connections to keep the conversation going after the holidays.

It’s not just the folks who are contemplating career transition that can benefit from these holiday interactions. If you think all is well in your career, a close confidant can often detect warning signs you may be missing in your optimism.

The real value of your family/friends ‘board of advisors’ is their ability to hold you accountable to your dream. You will see them, same time next year, and they will ask you how far you’ve travelled on the road to your destination.