Email: What can we do more of, as a daily routine at work? (Canada)
The importance of expressing gratitude. We have numerous occasions to feel grateful in our personal & professional lives. Sometimes, we can just be thankful for our jobs.
Gratitude enables us to savour positive experiences, cope with stressful circumstances, be resilient in the face of challenges, strengthen belief in the team. A moment to thank supportive colleagues, empathetic team leaders, collaborative partners, feedback from customers, learnings from competitors. It can also improve our health & well being. Small expressions of gratitude have a powerful long-lasting effect on those who receive. Makes teams feel valued, inspired & motivated. Giving thanks is such a simple, compassionate & meaningful gesture.
Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List. With experiences ranging from hiking among the vast granite pillars of South America’s mesmerising Torres del Paine to snaking our way through desert to the treasured ancient city of Petra, this book covers everything from UNESCO World Heritage Sites to azure bays & white-sand beaches by way of iconic cities. With 500 destinations, a definitive wish list for the best places to visit on our planet.
Email: How can I improve my writing skills at work? Write reports. (Wales)
We learn as we go. Good writing skills are essential in business. We need to effectively communicate with colleagues, stakeholders, customers & partners. Many think good writing is an art, ones who do it well have an innate talent. Yet, the criteria for making better writing choices are more objective than we think.
Whether it’s a succinct email or a complex argument, magic happens when it’s simple, specific, surprising, stirring, smart, social or story-driven. Keep it simple, clean. Short sentences, familiar words ensure others don’t have to exert much brain-power to understand. Cutting unnecessary words, using the active voice keeps it persuasive. Specific words stimulate.
Surprise can make our message stick, a novelty factor. We process emotional connotations of a word faster, reason follows. We then combine the immediate feeling & subsequent thought to create meaning. E.g. ‘promote innovation’ can be ‘prize ingenuity’. Metaphors work better. Feelings mixed with facts create the best expression.
We can build up excitement when we clearly structure our writing – Steve Jobs iconic ‘how to live before you die’ address at Stanford. “Today, I want to tell you 3 stories from my life. Just 3 stories.” On the edge to hear these stories? Good writing is like solving a mystery. How can we create an ‘a-ha’ moment?
We’re wired to crave human connection, even in what we read. Want to understand what writers are thinking & feeling. One way to connect is to reveal more traces of ourselves, our experiences, the human angle. Stories, even fragments of them, captivate. By incorporating stories in our communications we empathise, motivate & inspire. Basically, we can thoughtfully reward readers as we would ourself.
There’s an air of mystery around successful business founders & what sets them apart. Is it their vision, drive, execution or insight? Is it because they practice mindfulness, meditate? Jeff Bezos changed both how we shop & how the internet operates. New books shed light on the real people behind successful start-ups & how much their imprint matters.
In Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos & The Invention Of A Global Empire,Brad Stone explains Amazon’s evolution from a mere success to an inescapable part of everyday life. Bezos is a founder against whom contemporaries are measured. Legendary 14 leadership principles (customer obsession, bias for action) inform decision-making at Amazon. Instrumental in development of Alexa, Amazon Web Services, Prime Video. Efficiency inspires Amazon’s expansive distribution network & fulfilment centres.
Tencent: The Extraordinary Story Of A Chinese Internet Enterprise by Wu Xiaobo argues Pony Ma transformed Tencent from a company that connected the internet to pagers into one that spans gaming, mobile payments, e-commerce, messaging service WeChat. A focus on creative strategic growth made Tencent adept at exploiting emerging opportunities. Guiding principles of product minimalism, user-driven strategy, rapid testing aren’t necessarily novel but Tencent executes better than others.
Email: Feel so anxious, unsure about going back to the office. (Ireland)
Empathetic. A feeling of social anxiety about returning to the office is natural. Many of us are feeling unsettled. After over a year of remote work, the idea of physically returning to our office can feel overwhelming. Since the Covid landscape is still in flux, it’s hard to feel sure about how long the return to normal will last either.
In unfamiliar circumstances, we’re wired to be more on the edge. Although we may be returning to our old job, a lot has changed, leading to adjustment stress. Self-compassion, empathy & calm can help during transitions. When we gradually get back to our previous activities, our built-up anxiety may naturally subside.
We can follow the new norms in terms of Covid precautions at work, vigilantly. Some co-workers may be thrilled to get back to the office whereas others may feel the reverse. Our perspectives may not be identical. Guess, we can be more tolerant & accepting.
Working from home is a big experiment. Some insights are practical, others emotional. What did we learn about our social rhythms that best support our productivity? Did we develop creative strategies for getting the work done? Did we implement more simple, efficient ways of communicating? Pandemic work pluses can be intentionally retained. We can patiently try to understand our colleagues & how they may be navigating the transition back.
Email: Current job isn’t one I’m passionate about. Nothing can be done about it. (US)
Understand. Passion is an important factor to consider when choosing a job, but it’s not the only factor. How can our career be a conduit to our passion? Do we need to pursue our passion through work only? What would it look like to pursue this passion outside of work? Would it be equally fulfilling? Should we make our career our passion or find a job that allows us to spend time on it outside of work?
Drawing a line between what we love & what we do helps build boundaries between our work & personal lives. Transforming hobbies into work could undermine our enjoyment, interests get sapped by pursuits of external rewards like compensation. True for creative passions like writing, painting, music. Passion may also evolve over time, not to lock into a career path.
If we decide not to pursue our passion at work, what should we look for in a job? Will this job give us time, money & energy to pursue our passions? E.g. if time is our scarcest resource, finding a job that offers flexibility & predictability is one way to gain more time for our passions. We can see our job as an integral part of our passion pursuit. Without the security, flexibility & income it offers, we wouldn’t be able to pursue our passions, at all.
Passions define us as individuals, makes our lives satisfying & meaningful. But passion doesn’t necessarily have to define our work. Taking a broader view of passion as something that can be pursued through work, but also outside of it can help us live creative, passion fuelled lives in whatever way it works best for us.
