A Square Peg In A Round Hole

Recently at work we had to take the Strengths Finder. After taking the test and letting it score my top five strengths I began pouring through the materials. One of my strengths indicated that I would rather focus on what I do well and use my strengths to the best of a project or role than focus on my weaknesses. The materials praised this "maximizing" tendency and reiterated how important it was to find everyone's core strengths when working on a project or in a role to have the biggest impact.

This weekend at church the same message was reiterated- find your spiritual gifts and serve God in way that is true to those gifts. The pastor stressed the fact that you may be willing to serve God in some way but that may not play to your true strengths, and ultimately the only way to serve God to the fullest is to have everyone serve with their own unique gifts, because otherwise you're just trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

These were two very different settings and yet the message was the same- everyone has different strengths and gifts and figuring out what those are so that they can best be utilized is the only way to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity. This is why I think it's important to have good relationships with your coworkers- to know them as people and how they work best. Then, then you end up having to work with them on a project you'll how best to assign tasks, schedule meetings, meet deadlines, and more. If your strengths don't include the ability to get to know people easily and make these observations about them, just ask. The important thing is to make sure you're using people in way that they work best. Think about it this way: you would ask an accountant to do a marketing plan, or an HR person to do forecast, or a sales person to decide on new partnership ventures. In the same way, you need to play to the strengths of your coworkers- not because it's polite or kind, but because it will get the job done!

When In Rome...

I never had any idea how diverse different regions of the US could be in terms of employment environments. After we moved to Austin I worked in customer care for a short time, and my first week there I was shocked to find out that the company had a happy hour every other Friday in the office during work hours. It was apparently totally normal to have an alcoholic beverage at your desk before leaving on a Friday. People would bring in beer to share, and on special occasions we would sometimes make mixed drinks or frozen beverages. This blew my mind!

At Bentley I had attended on-campus seminars that taught you how to dress for success, eat politely at fancy business dinners, and conduct yourself in an office with professionalism. All of that seemed to go out the window when my first week on the job I found myself sipping a pink mixed drink of some sort out of a solo cup at my small cluttered desk. In fact, when it had been offered to me at first I thought it was a joke. But it wasn't- this was part of the company culture. It felt really wrong to be drinking at work. I suddenly was stricken with fear and conspiracy theories- maybe this was an elaborate plot to fire me (give me a drink and convince me that it's normal to drink at work and then fire me for doing so), or maybe I was on Candid Camera!

The happy hour was carefully planned- no employee could have more than one drink, and it had to be at least an hour before that employee left for the day. It was responsibly handled and it served the company in the same way that any other employee perk does- make the employees happy and they will provide a better experience for your customers.

In the following weeks I came to understand that this happy hour tradition was totally normal. For two weeks we would all work really hard dealing with belligerent/confused/unhappy customers and then we would get a happy hour as a reward. It was actually more strange at the company NOT to partake of the happy hour than it was to do so. Moral of the story: When in Rome do as the Romans do!

You Handle It

When your boss or manager tells you "You handle it" or "You take care of it" it doesn't mean "You do it." It means, you take charge and make sure it gets done. In fact, if you always take it to mean that you have to do everything yourself it'll make you look like a control freak.

I can already hear your retort, "If I do it myself I know it'll get done right and on my time schedule. I'm the one that's most familiar with it. I should be the one doing it. I'll get help on the next project. I can do this one."

I have news for you, if you use this thinking that "next project" will never come. You will keep operating independently and eventually you'll isolate yourself and alienate those around you. So friend, I advise that you put the control down and step away slowly.

I speak from personal experience. In college it looked like I did fine working in groups because I always got good grades. But the other side of that story was that my paralyzing fear that something would get done poorly or submitted late caused me to overstep my duties and take on additional work- essentially carrying every group I was ever in on my back. I did fine in groups all right- I took control and did the work while others sat back and were glad to have someone else do the hard work. More control for me, more drinking time for them. It was a win-win. But that doesn't work in the real world.

Here are some tips for my fellow control freaks to break the cycle of controlling:

1. Be realistic in your time availability- don't over-commit
2. Realize that you are not the best at doing everything- reach out to those that are experts in other areas for better efficency and greater sanity
3. Keep your cool- listen to ideas and opinions that you may not personally support or agree with
4. Trust- have faith that your company hired competent people (they hoired you didn't they?)

The more you can work with your peers and superiors in the company, the more you'll show that you do indeed have leadership potential.

Who else out there is a control-zilla?

Nothing Is Impossible (With Excel)

My husband is the reason for this post. I don't know how we got on this topic but over dinner tonight with our neighbors I was explaining how my new favorite excel function is =COUNTIF. My husband began talking about the many uses of =COUNTIF and went off on a pivot table tangent. I stated that there was something I was trying to do at work today but I didn't think there was a way to do it in excel. My husband explained "Nothing is impossible with excel!"

As usual, he was right. I explained in detail what I was looking to do and in under 15 seconds my husband rattled off the equation I needed. Today I spent 10 minutes rearranging data to do what he could have done in a flash.

What was the most valuable thing you ever learned to do in excel?

General Advice

I sent the link to this blog to some old college friends and family. The response I got back was overwhelming! I wanted to make an area that was just for the advice they provided. Voila, that's what this is!

So, if you have anything you want to share post it as a comment on here and it'll appear in the right-hand nav menu. (I will post what I have been sent so far.)

No One Cares That You Were Right

If you're any good at what you do, you will inevitably come to a point in your career where one of your colleagues has a project/proposal/plan/idea/etc that they come up with that you just know won't work. If you're lucky, your input will be evaluated and the matter at hand will either be scrapped or changed so that it can become viable. If you're unlucky, your company will go ahead despite your warnings.

The thing that you need to understand is that if your company moves ahead and then the the item ends up failing, no one cares that you were right. What they care about is turning it around so that it can succeed, or backing out gracefully.

What I've found is that it's human tendency to want to relish in "I told you so" boasting (especially if it's your first time being right publicly). After all, you just had a career breakthrough right?! You proved that your business acumen can be trusted and that you're a credible source of knowledge. In the long run that will go a long way in establishing your credibility in the company and building your own confidence, but in the short term it doesn't matter much. What matters now is how you're going to fix it.

So instead of gloating remind yourself why you predicted it would fail, and what proof you now have that it did, indeed, fail. Here are some of the most common reasons for failure:

1. Wrong Numbers
2. Inconsistency with Overall Company Mission
3. Incorrect Assumptions
4. Lack of Targeting
5. Poor Cross-Team Communications
6. Lack of Full Organization Buy-In
7. Financial Constraints

Once you know why it failed you can help your company decide whether it should be abandoned or re-worked. If you attach yourself to being part of the solution it will show maturity and a strong sense of commitment to the company's ongoing success.

Tell me about a time when you knew that an activity was going to fail at your company. Why did it fail and what did your company decide to after? How were you part of the solution?

Post-Interview Snafus

After an interview you may want to do something clever to set yourself apart from the competition. I once read an article that compiled a list of cheesy bizarre things that people had done after interviewing with various companies. The strange actions ranged from mailing a bowling pin to the company with a note that said "I'll bowl you over" to creating a pop-up book resume to leaving a shoe to "get a foot in the door." These are all terrible ideas! You'll stand out to the company all right, but not in a good way. No company is going to hire the crazy man/woman that brought an extra shoe to the interview to leave behind. While I tend to think very few people would engage in these "extreme" activities I also caution people that are doing "normal" things like following up with an email or phone call or hand-written letter. Be careful! Before you send anything make sure you've checked it and check it again!!

This is a true story: One time at work a candidate came in to interview and several days after he had come in, our female HR director got a nice hand-written card that read "I can't wait to work you" inside. I don't know if he would have gotten the job or not, but he certainly didn't get it after she read that card. What I'm assuming was a simple mistake displayed that candidate's lack of attention to detail and ineffective communication skills. (Either that, or he thought our married HR director was hot and decided that a hookup with her was worth not getting the job.) Either way, not a good fit for the company.

Here is something awesome to get your creative juices flowing: Unique business cards

If you've done anything interesting in the past to make a name for yourself with a company where you're interviewing, let us know!

Making The Best of Unpaid Internships

While I was in college I had three unpaid internships. For some of you, the idea of working for free may seem strange, but in the Boston area this is incredibly common. This is due to the fact that there is a huge student population around Boston so businesses know that they don't need to pay students to attract them as long as they promise the kind of experience that can be touted on a resume later on down the road.

Having one or more internships before graduating is standard at Bentley. I had internships at a financial planning office, an internationally known shoe manufacturer, and an events planning company. The common thread between the three was that I was mislead before accepting all of them. Going in I was told that I would be doing one thing (i.e. something that had to do with my major) and I ended up being asked to do something totally different (i.e. grunt office work, manual labor, and needless busy work). The moral of the story here is that when you accept an internship expect to do things you never signed on for. What will decide how beneficial the internship ends up being to your professional networking and career development is how you handle those unexpected duties. If you grudgingly do the least amount of work needed to complete them you'll end up getting bitter and cynical. It's very easy to fall into that trap! You think to yourself, "I'm paying $35,000/year to get an education where they tell me I need an internship and then I get one and I'm filing all day without even getting paid for it?!" But trust me, if you find a way to turn it around you'll get a huge payoff!

Here are some tips to make the most of those undesirable tasks:

• Go above and beyond- provide more than you were asked for, and provide it sooner than expected
• Find room for improvement- make the process more efficient, more complete, or more detailed
• Do it without being asked- if you see something that needs to be done just do it
• Brainstorm- come up with ideas to supplement what you've been asked to do

If you've had the same experience share it with our readers! What crazy things have you been asked to do at your internship(s)?