Endorsements should be honest and sincere. Please only endorse people and their skills which you have witnessed first hand and can attest to. This video is prompted by a trend where people are endorsing skills on LinkedIn (among other social networks) of people they have never worked with. While everyone enjoys and appreciates recognition and support, I don’t understand the …
Surviving the last mile of your Ph.D., the dissertation
Doctoral degrees and related studies require many things, most important of them are commitment and determination. One must stay motivated and focused on the end result and find ways to make progress every single day. How do you stay motivated?
How to staff your team during training
Providing training to your team is essential in order to continue improving the quality of services you offer as well as to enhance career development opportunities. However, when training takes place, it is important not to neglect services you currently provide. The actual staffing process depends on the size of your team, services you provide and training opportunities and schedule. …
Top 3 areas to focus on at a new job
Top 3 areas to focus on at a new job may vary when it comes to specifics and details. However, the overall theme of the three areas that deserve and need you attention once you join a new organization are: Meet your coworkers – learn what their hopes, goals and ideas are. Leverage their institutional knowledge and experience in adapting …
Client experience is the starting point
Client experience is the starting point of all service offerings. When designing services to support your organization it is essential to start with the experience of your users (both internal and external) in mind. Once you are aware how your services impact the lives or responsibilities of others that’s when you reverse engineer the process to make sure proper people …
Organizational mission sets all calendars
Business side of your organization sets the calendars of all others. This can happen directly or indirectly, but all functional areas need to be aware of the core mission of their business and act in support of it. In my particular case, in higher education, academic calendar sets our IT calendar and has a significant impact as to how and …
Hire people for their personality, character and abilities, not prestige
As you are expanding your team or replacing an employee who has recently left the company make sure to focus on the personality and abilities of that new individual, not the prestige they may bring. While the education and previous employment are absolutely important, don’t become enamored with “glamorous” companies or universities such as MIT, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Stanford, Cambridge…as …
Leverage available expertise
Work with your colleagues, peers and counterparts across different functional areas in order to produce contributions of the highest quality. None of us know everything so it is time to act that way and leverage available expertise within our organizations and invite others to contribute and share both the work and rewards.
Building effective advisory boards
Effective and valuable advisory boards much have a purpose and provide measurable contributions to the top management teams and organizations as a whole. While in some companies certain folks are invited to join boards simply because of their name and popularity (which can be beneficial) in most instances you want members to contribute. Contributions of effective advisory boards can vary, …
Benefits of writing well
One of many valuable skills most of us will need in life, in our professional lives in particular is the ability to write well. Being able to write well will help you get your ideas across, secure buy-in and achieve the following with your reader/supervisor/client (whoever your intended audience may be): Get their attention Share your vision Spark imagination Demonstrate …