Do you want to show up more creatively for your clients and your colleagues, your family, and your friends?
Do you want to default to thinking about opportunity versus focusing just on problems?
Discovering Hope is full of proactive steps you can take right now, to achieve a more positive mindset or to help maintain the positivity you already have
Getting Positive reveals that more optimism is close at hand
Strategic Planning Jobs Returning?
It’s good to report to the strategy community that at June 9th my calls have developed in to requests to find freelance and full time strategists. That said, the mood out there is still one of great uncertainty, albeit, confidence has improved. As we are emerge from lockdown, marketers will be looking for a broadening and consistency of consumer expenditure. If they see it they will spend more on advertising. In turn, agencies seeing clients return to spending more will think more positively about hiring needs. I suspect what will happen, for the remainder of this year, most employers will pursue a course of ‘flexible’ hiring; Soon furlough deadlines will be reviewed. Some will be re-hired, some will see furlough extensions. There will also be more redundancies. If furloughed, how should you proceed?
1. Prepare to be re-hired or fired! – Assume your job isn’t coming back. If it does its’ a bonus; If it doesn’t psychologically you are prepared. Remember in this situation, it’s very little about ‘you,’ more the world!
2. Front Up – Even if you feel miserable about things, show up positively with your boss and/or potential clients. If you show up negatively your actual world will more likely become the one you imagined.
#Confidence #Consumerspending #Jobs
Enhancing Your Chances of Finding Work
I’ve had conversations with a few agency heads in the last few days that have told me they have in the last few weeks re-hired some of theose they furloughed two months ago. It’s a start! So what should job seekers be doing, perhaps as the tide begins to turn, to enhance their employment prospects 1. Follow the money – Ask yourself, where is money being spent? Target those companies and products you/others consistently buy. If company’s products/services are selling well, their advising agencies are quite possibly doing comparably well and are likely to be the first to need extra help. 2. As money starts to be spent again, (it’s beginning) energise your effort to talk with more people. I know from my own experience, that creating maximum opportunity for working prospects is based on being in the right place at the right time. The speed with which you identify career opportunity is directly related to your energy and peristence. But critically, you can’t talk with everyone all the time, so target your energy, as indicated in 1) above. hashtag#followthemoney hashtag#Persistence hashtag#Opportunity
How did I do during covid?
A crisis sheds light on those that function well under extreme pressure. Conversations about lockdown have revealed those of you that feel your boss simply cannot communicate/reassure/cope, with virtual working. But cut some slack to those bosses, who knows what their domestic circumstances are. That said, we are all constantly being assessed, the bosses but team members as well! For sure, team leaders will now have a pretty good idea who thrives virtually and who is diving. This will be a valuable understanding to have in deciding the physical/virtual mix post covid. And perhaps moving forward, whilst intelligence ‘IQ’ and emotional intelligence ‘EQ’ will continue to be important, your ‘AQ’ or adaptability quotient, will play a much larger part in the hiring process. bit.ly/2QQGzLp hashtag#Effective hashtag#Communication hashtag#Assessment hashtag#Adaptability
Get Inspired Get Living
‘Inspiration exists, but it must find you working.’ (Pablo Picasso) I’ll certainly be working this long weekend…On my tennis arm, my drinking arm, my sun worshipping everything…May you all be ‘found’ working this weekend. ps. time out is crucial for successful careers. Be kind to yourself. Live a bit! hashtag#Live hashtag#Inspiration hashtag#Timeout
Should we all work virtually all of the time?!
There’s much talk about the future impact on working practices, a big theme of my daily conversations with you. The longer we have to live with covid 19, the more entrenched coping behaviours become, the more likely we are to see real permanent changes. Will we all be working from home instead of going in to offices? Managers have discovered that virtual working can work. Specifically, they will now know who can work effectively from home and who can’t. Recently some companies have decided beyond covid, they are going completely virtual. This seems as strange to me as compelling everyone to be in the office! For many years I’ve been asked by those of you looking for a new job, whether an employer might allow four day weeks in office and one day out. My response has been, earn the right, prove your ability and perhaps you can make it happen. ie) Employers want people in the office. Moving forward, the smart agencies will allow more virtual working/have a flexible approach to their employees. What they will not do, is lurch from the controlling inflexibility of expecting 100% attendance to demanding everyone stay at home. If they do, this seems more a policy about financial management and less about employee welfare or effectiveness. hashtag#optimalwork hashtag#motivatedemployees hashtag#flexiworking
Strategists – Jobs Outlook – Reasons for Some Optimism
For those of you strategists that don’t have jobs and are worried about your prospects, some context and encouragement based on the many interactions I have had and continue to have today, May 18th:
1. New business activity – Despite furloughs and layoffs, far from being in survival mode, there are plenty of agencies actively pitching new business and I am hearing repeatedly from those working telling me there’s plenty of activity.
2. Stretched Teams – I’m also being told that teams, prior to covid that were running lean, are now running extremely lean meaning, any incremental business will lead to hiring, which I suspect in many cases will be flexi/freelance.
3. More varied consumer spending – As the un-lockdown does begin to gain momentum, consumers spending money on a broader range of goods and services give a broader range of clients more confidence (it’s all relative) to begin to start spending again. #staypositive #newBusiness # #inthistogether