Stephen Goldberg, Author at Optimus Performance

Landing your Ideal Dream Job

Nov 21, 2016 Comments

Landing your ideal dream job can be a challenge and even a lifetime project. First you must know what your dream job looks and feels like. Yes, it does take some reflection.

An ideal dream job might be something that you don’t have right now and it could be a job you outgrow after a while.

In this article, I am not going to talk about how to figure out what your ideal dream job is or how to write the best resume. There are tons of searchable information about that online already.

Once you are quite clear on what you are looking for and the type of company you want to work for I suggest the following to get attention and stand out.

Cover letter for your Dream Job

Writing a great cover letter shows that you want the job and are willing to do what many people are not.

Research well about the company and the people who work there. What are there projects and plans? Who are there customers?

Make the letter very specific to the job. Explain how your skills, experience and interests coincide with the job and the company.

Express what you can contribute to the company and its goals and objectives. Use your research to make it specific.

Too many people write generic cover letters that every recruiter sees through and puts aside.

Personal contacts to land your Dream Job

Business is about who you know and trust. Hiring is a business decision. Every manager is responsible for results in their department and the new staff member is employed to contribute to those results.

Do everything you can to connect with the hiring manager or HR person that is part of the employment decision. Call them by phone, connect over Linkedin, email and whatever way you can. Make it personal.

The fact is that over 40% of hiring is done through word of mouth. Who do you know that knows someone that works where you want to. Use your contacts to help you make a connection.

Summary

Using a well-crafted cover letter will begin the process to differentiate yourself.

Often several well qualified people are applying for the same job. It’s important to speak to the hiring manager or team member to express your passion for what you do and make an impression.

Landing your ideal dream job takes work but so does everything worth attaining that is ideal for you.

Employers

Employers wishing to attract people seeking their dream job need to re-think how they market themselves as an employer of choice. It’s not just about marketing but more about becoming a sought-after employer. Think about what that would mean for your organization.

Improve Personal Productivity for High-Paced People

Nov 08, 2016 Comments

Most people, especially high achievers want to improve personal productivity and get more done in a day. I recently was not feeling as productive as I would like and decided to revise my daily planning. I also thought about the cause for my low productivity and here is my conclusion and plan to improve.

I’ve concluded that there are three things that affect personal productivity, especially for high-pace people. These are often referred to as type A personality types, driver, achievers, etc.

personality type
personal motivation
focus

Personality type

People who are often referred to as type A personality types, driver, achievers, etc. tend to be high paced individuals. They incline to have more difficulty focusing on one thing at a time and thus engage in multitasking. This often means less focus on details, forgetting things because of too many things going on and high stress.

Lower paced individuals tend to have more patience to focus on the details and prefer to do one thing at a time.

High paced people may tend to flip from one time management system to another rather than learning to slow down and focus.

I am higher paced type and have suffered from these symptoms for years, so I am always interested to improve personal productivity.

Personal motivation to improve personal productivity

When one is motivated to accomplish things on the to do list there is less procrastination and more vigor for completing the tasks.

80% of the tasks performed in a day should be enjoyable otherwise you may avoid many of them. In other words, your highly important tasks related to projects and goals should be what you enjoy doing most of the time. If they are not, then you need to do some personal reflection regarding your job and the choices you’ve made. Perhaps you have not delegated or assigned tasks adequately.

Many people waste a lot of time indulging in distracting but seemingly enjoyable activities such as spending time on social networks, playing video games and chit chatting online. If problematic, these are signs of low motivation and personal satisfaction.

Focus to improve personal productivity

Physical and mental energy can affect focus as well as personal motivation. You need to make sure you’re getting enough rest, eating well and exercising regularly.

You also need a system or process in place to manage your tasks and time constraints.

Using a to-do List to improve personal productivity

Here is a good system you may want to consider o improve personal productivity. Keep an ongoing list of tasks related to projects and goals. I keep adding to my list using Google tasks, which is accessible in Gmail. I review this list every day and then choose 3 to 7 tasks that I want to accomplish on a given day. I write this down in OneNote in my Surface tablet. You can keep a notebook dedicated to your daily to do list if you prefer pen and paper.

Each day I review the list several times and cross out what I have accomplished. I find doing my list this way helps me feel like I’m accomplishing important tasks daily.

If some items keep getting written down over and over you may want to question their importance and delete them for your lists. IF they become important again you will remember to write them down.

Attitude

Keeping a positive attitude regarding your progress in becoming better organized and productive is important to stay on track. If you are not happy with your focus or progress, look at what’s working and what’s not. Come up with simple ways to improve and focus on one improvement at a time.

Rewards

It’s important to recognize progress and celebrate success. Find ways to reward yourself for staying focused and productive.

The Most Effective Leadership Style

Oct 25, 2016 Comments

Effective leadership styles vary from a control style to a participative style. The right leadership style should depend on the situation and the leaders’ objective.

At times a control style of leadership is appropriate. Think of a fire brigade that is called into action to fight a blaze. The fire chief must assume a control style of leadership since it is an emergency and tight control is required from the commander.

However, when there is no fire the chief takes a participative leadership style and engages in activities such as debriefing, problem solving, training, coaching, rewarding etc. Training as a fire fighter is crucial for proper decision making and execution of tasks when there is a real fire to fight.

The same is true for leaders and managers in organizations. They need to vary their style according to the situation so that their employees are fully capable to perform at the levels expected.

Leaders and managers often spend too much time fighting their own organizational fires, rather than engaging their staff in discussion, problem solving, training and coaching.

It’s quite easy for a leader or manager to think they are doing their job well when in fact they might be taking a control style of leadership too often by solving problems for their employees and telling them what to do.

By adapting a coaching and participative style of leadership, the leader recognizes and understands the importance of setting aside time to provide training and coaching, and engaging employees in continuous improvement initiatives.

A participative leadership style results from a decision that a leader or manager makes to make this their preferred style of leadership. It also requires that the leader or manager develops the skills to be this type of leader.

Leadership Skills

Some of the skills that a leader or manager needs to learn and practice to master a participative leadership style is listening, visioning, sharing thoughts and feelings, goal setting, empowering, recognizing, giving feedback, training and coaching.

The leader who wants to adapt a participative leadership style must also develop good self-knowledge. Different types of people have different strengths and challenges when it comes to the aforementioned leadership skills.

A leader who is an assertive action type might be too controlling with people and find it hard to listen and empathize with others.

A leader who is good in strategy and logistics might tend to over analyze things and be afraid to share decision making with his team, thus also be too controlling but in a different way than the action type leader.

In conclusion the leader or manager that wants to develop high performance empowered employees and teams needs to learn how to adapt a participative leadership style most of the time. This is a process that unfolds over time and does not happen overnight. On-going skills development congruent with self-knowledge is crucial for this to be fully realized.

How to Write an Affirmation

Sep 26, 2016 Comments

Affirmations are highly effective to support a goal to change a behaviour or to modify a negative self image. You must be clear on your goal or the change you want to have about yourself. My previous articles and videos on the behaviour change process is a great way to get started on clarifying your goal.

Characteristics of an Affirmation

Affirmations need to be written in the present tense as if the behaviour or change is reality. This works on changing your subconscious belief about yourself.
The affirmation should be congruent with your goal statement.
The affirmation should be positive

Example of an Affirmation

Using myself as an example for the personal behavioural change goal I am working on, this is my affirmation:

I am patient and diplomatic.

This supports my following goal statement:

When things are not going at the pace I like or being done the way I want, take a diplomatic and positive approach with the person or those responsible for the task and show patience and support

The above affirmation supports the following desired behavioural change:

Impatient and too controlling with people when things are not going fast enough or done the way I think they should be

How to use an Affirmation

An affirmation should be repeated frequently throughout the day in order for it to form a new belief in the subconscious mind. It will disrupt your current belief and cause you to respond differently in the present moment without having to think about it.

A good practice would be to take a few minutes to relax for a few minutes three times a day to repeat the affirmation to yourself. Sit in a comfortable chair or lay down, close your eyes and concentrate on taking a few deep breaths to relax. Repeat the affirmation several times and out loud if you can. Do this upon rising in the morning, after lunch and before bed.

Adding visualization techniques can make affirmations even more effective. I’ll cover this in my next article and video.

Posts By: Stephen Goldberg