Times have changed. One of the things I often tell people is that you can’t do a job-search the way you used to. Most people have relied heavily on a job application form and a resume. Typically, that just doesn’t work anymore, although those are useful things and most times necessary. In today’s world you have to adopt a new mindset for finding and securing a job-and not just a job but work that you would find meaningful.

The new mindset is: be a solution, not a problem to a prospective employer. When you call or submit your resume, it likely goes into a pile with perhaps hundreds of other resumes or applications. This is a problem for the employer; you are one more person they have to deal with.

However, what if you took the time to really research the company you want to work for? Read and research about what’s going on right now in the company. Find someone you might know to talk to about what they’re dealing with and what they’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t know someone, make a call to find someone in the company who might be willing to spend a few minutes with you. Network with their suppliers or one of their clients to get a better understanding of the company, department or person you want to work for. Between the Internet and networking, you can piece together a picture of what would be of specific value to them. From there you can see if your experience, talent, skills, and passion match up to what they need. Now you can creatively position yourself as a solution and differentiate yourself. Get a conversation started in the company by presenting yourself as a solution to their problems not as a person looking for a job.

The tougher things get the more creative and solution-oriented you have to become. Be a solution, not a problem-and you’ll significantly increase your ability to land a new job.

To learn more about how to advance your career, take charge of your life and become a highly valued employee join my career development webinar series at: https://www.franklincovey.com/tc/publicworkshops/dr-stephen-r-covey-webinars

“I’m not sure why my company hired you, I’m really good at setting goals and I really don’t think I need any help.”

My client, Jeff was partially correct. He regularly set goals for himself and for his team.  Unfortunately, he seldom achieved them – a characteristic that had led his company to suspect he was not be the leader they needed. Hiring me was a final attempt to help him.

As we continued our first planning session, I asked Jeff to share the goals he had set for the coming year. He withdrew a binder from his briefcase and opened it on the table in front of us. 

“This binder contains all of our goals as a team, broken down into four major categories,” Jeff said proudly.

Over the next few minutes, Jeff reviewed the four categories, each of which contained at least five goals. Together, he had set over twenty separate goals for his team, all of which were classified as “high priority.”

When he finished, Jeff leaned back in his chair and said, “Now, do you still think I need help?” With real compassion, I said yes.

Yes, because I know there are 3 actions I knew that Jeff needed to do to reach his goals.

1. Decide what’s important. The first difficulty Jeff faced is one that affects almost every leader – saying no to the relatively important in order to focus on the truly important – which is Discipline 1 in Franklin Covey’s 4 Disciplines of Execution.

Without question, this is easy to say but it’s hard to do. It’s hard to say no to a good idea, even in deference to a great one. It’s also hard to say no to an idea that’s politically correct to support, even if it’s not the right focus. Most of all, it’s hard to say no because limiting your goals increases your risk if you choose incorrectly.

But the more goals you set as “top priority”, the more you spread the focus of your team. Set enough goals and the focus on each one will be so small that it is almost meaningless. Limiting the number of top goals is the only way to ensure that enough time and talent will be applied to achieve exceptional results.

When I forced Jeff to identify the most important goals out of the twenty he had chosen, it was like a root canal without anesthetic, but he eventually narrowed his list to two.

Try deciding what your most important goals are, I would love to hear about your experience…

Check out my next post for #2 Candidly Assessing New Behaviors and #3 Preparing to Follow Through

 Author: Jim Huling Senior Consultant, Execution Practice

For me, this has been really hard. When I get to work I tend to be heads-down and not resurface for a long time. I would eat at my desk, or not eat at all. But what I’ve found, over time, is that the harder I work, the greater my stress becomes. It’s a vicious circle that you can’t escape.

But when I take five or ten minutes to read an interesting news story completely unrelated to work, run an errand at lunch, or call a family member or friend for a few minutes, my mind clears and I find that I have even more energy to get my projects done. Once I even went to a nearby Costco, grabbed a hot dog for lunch and walked the aisles for 20 minutes. It opened my mind and kept me fresh for the remainder of the day.

Regardless of what you do, find some time every day just for you. Whether alone or with others, find something other than work, to experience for a few moments.

Hopefully these five tips will keep your stress levels low, increase your productivity, and improve your life-no matter how crazy it becomes.

Author: Matt Murdoch, FranklinCovey