Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom The 13 Mantras of Trust

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom The 13 Mantras of Trust Just when we thought things were getting better… According to the 2015 annual Edelman Trust Barometer Study, the business world is experiencing an evaporation of trust across all kinds of institutions, reaching the lows of the Great Recession in 2009. Trust in business specifically is below 50 percent in two-thirds of countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan. Trust deficits are so significant that they’re hindering organizational innovation and progress. The worst thing is, we don’t trust our own people any more than we trust outsiders. And when leaders don’t trust their employees and employees don’t trust their leaders, all sorts of bad things happen. In a study last year, for example, The Forum Group found that organizations with low trust experienced less productivity, less engagement, and greater turnover. How can we increase trust? One of my favorite reads in the last five years is Stephen M.R. Covey’s The Speed of Trust. In the book, Covey defines the following 13 behaviors as a great place to start: Talk Straight Communicate clearly so that you cannot be misunderstood. Preface your discussions by declaring your intent, so you leave no doubt about what you are thinking. Don’t manipulate people, distort facts or leave false impressions. Demonstrate Respect Freely demonstrate fairness, kindness, and civility to all, regardless of what they can do for you. Create Transparency Be real and genuine and tell the truth in a way that people can verify. You can establish trust quickly by being open and authentic, erring on the side of disclosure, and having an open agenda. Right Wrongs Make restitution instead of just apologizing. Don’t deny or justify wrongs because of ego and pride, and don’t attempt to cover up mistakes. Show Loyalty Give credit to others and speak about people as though they are present. Don’t disclose others’ private information. Deliver Results Define your results up front. By establishing a track record, making the right things happen, being on time and on budget, and not making excuses, you quickly restore lost trust on the competence side. Get Better Continuously improve. Others will develop confidence in your ability to succeed in a rapidly changing environment. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, but learn from them. Develop formal and informal feedback systems and respond to them. Confront Reality Tackle the tough issues head-on. This facilitates open interaction and fast achievement, and also allows you to engage the creativity, capability and synergy of others in solving problems. Clarify Expectations Outline specifics upfront. Always discuss and reveal expectations, and never assume they are clear or shared. Renegotiate if necessary, but don’t violate expectations once they have been validated. Practice Accountability Hold yourself and others accountable. Don’t avoid or shirk responsibility, and be clear on how you’ll communicate progress. Listen First Genuinely understand another person’s thoughts and feelings before trying to diagnose or advise. Keep Commitments It is the quickest way to build trust in any relationship. Make keeping all promises the symbol of your honor. Extend Trust Be a trusting leader to those who have earned it. Don’t extend false trust by giving people responsibility without the authority or resources to complete a task. What do you do to build trust among your teams?

Learning a Musical Instrument

Learning a Musical Instrument Music helps to shape the world and spark our imaginations. Unfortunately, many people give up on learning how to make music because they assume they lack talent or believe that lessons will cost too much. It’s never too late to start learning a musical instrument. While the variety of instruments available in nearly infinite, the most popular lessons to take   are guitar lessons and piano lessons. This guide will help you figure out how to get lessons so you can create music of your own. Finding a Music Tutor Whether you want guitar lessons or  piano lessons, the process begins with a tutor or instructor. Very few people are able to learn a musical instrument through self-teaching; a teacher provides guidance, consistency, and a trained ear that can help you work on your problem areas. You can begin your search to find a tutor who provides guitar lessons or piano lessons in   by seeking out other people who have had a positive experience learning an instrument. This could come in the form of asking people you know about their experience with a teacher who provides guitar lessons in, or it could mean looking for online reviews about tutors in your area. Try to develop a list of several tutors, and you can narrow it down from there. Choosing Your Instrument You also have to determine what kind of music you want to make. Assuming that you are choosing between piano lessons and guitar lessons, you need to think about your resources and your preferred style of music. The piano is generally considered easier to play than the guitar, but the instrument is much larger and takes up a large space in a home if you purchase one for yourself. This means that piano lessons often require a tutor to visit your home, which can drive up costs. The guitar is an excellent instrument for those who enjoy pop, country, or folk music, but it takes longer to learn and often requires more frequent maintenance, including regular replacement of strings. Purchasing an Instrument Once you have decided upon a guitar or piano instructor, you should figure out what instrument you need to purchase for yourself. There are many options for beginner’s guitars and pianos, and the sheer number of choices before you may feel overwhelming. Luckily, you can always consult your tutor for advice. Sometimes, the person teaching you might provide you with a practice instrument to gauge your comfort level. Additionally, your preferred musical style may have an impact on your choice of the first instrument. Learning a musical instrument can open up a whole new world of possibilities. By taking time to find a music teacher who will fit your individual needs, figuring out what specific instrument appeals to you the most, and consulting your tutor on purchasing possibilities, you can dive into this new world prepared and ready to make beautiful music.

Be Positive About Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Be Positive About Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Todays post will focus on how having a positive outlook can help you create your personal brand. A large portion of your success can be attributed to your attitude and outlook towards things. Learn how to harness the positive power available to you as you create your personal brand and strive for meeting your other goals in life. Your success principles The following excerpts are from Jack Canfields book, The Success Principles. Take 100% responsibility: Quit blaming the economy, your parents, your past, the government. The outcome of any event depends on you. Events + Response = Outcome. You are responsible for building your personal brand and it’s up to you to make it happen. No one is going to care more about you, than yourself, so it’s in your best interest to take advantage of the opportunities creating your personal offers. Decide what you want: If you’re clear and focused on the what, the how will show up. Set a goal so large, you will advance while pursuing it. What do you want your personal brand to represent? How will you promote it? Decide now and then go make it happen. Release the brakes: Don’t limit beliefs. Use affirmations by telling yourself such things as, “I am enjoying looking at my physically fit 185-pound body in the mirror.” Stop thinking of how you can’t create your personal brand and start thinking about how you can. Be positive, take small steps, and learn all you can in the pursuit of the larger goal. Visualize: Meditate twice a day and envision what the outcome will be like. This may seem weird to some of you â€" don’t let the word meditate deceive you. It can be as simple as taking a bit of time each day to daydream about your success. Try it when you’re exercising, taking a shower, at a stop light, etc. Feel the fear, but take action anyway: Get over the four major fears. Failure, rejection, looking foolish, loss. FEAR = Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real. Whatever is holding you back from building your personal brand, you need to let it go. Don’t be scared to create your unique personal brand and then share it with the world. Ask. Ask. Ask.: Find out how people achieved what you aspire to do. Many times there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Follow best practices of those who are succeeding and you can model their success. That’s what the personal branding blog is all about helping you build your personal brand! Reject rejection: Remember SWSWSWSW, which means some will, some won’t, so what, someone’s waiting. When someone says no, you say “next.” Building your personal brand is a continuous process that evolves over time. Keep creating, keep building it and you will reach your goals quicker than you would’ve otherwise. Start good habits: Replace 20 minutes of watching TV with 20 minutes of exercise or reading. You must do the new habit 30 straight days before it feels routine. If you want something or have a specific goal, learn all you can about it and you will begin to acquire the knowledge necessary to succeed. Sacrifices are a part of life, but a few small sacrifices can add up to a large about of success. Author: Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.

Top Placement And Internship Employers 2012

Top Placement And Internship Employers 2012 The wait is finally over! And here we have the Top Placement and Internship Employers 2012-2013 announced by Rate My Placement. Top 50 Placement Internship Employers According to the judging of Rate My Placement users, the top placement and internship employer is Barclays, with a score of 8.51 out of 10. Second best internship and placement provider is Grant Thorton followed by PWC in third place with a score of 8.49 and 8.48 respectively. Pretty close going in second and third place! But you can see the top 50 placement and internship  employers in a new guide released by RateMyPlacement.co.uk. Rate My Placement Top Placement and Internship Guide RateMyPlacement.co.uk was founded in 2007 by students from Loughborough University. They have published a students guide to top placement and internship employers. This guide claims to be the only undergraduate focussed employer ranking publication that is actually based on the experiences of those students who have been there and done it. I was supplied a copy of the guide received by our Editor, to check it out and write about it. It is actually quite a nice guide published by RateMyPlacement.co.uk. The guide provides information that is targeted towards undergraduates and I think it does it beautifully. It is precise and gives exactly the information about top placements and internships that undergraduates deserve. [toggle title=EXPERT ANALYSIS] ASYA BODEVA, Editor, Career Geek Blog   I think its a great guide, although it doesnt represent all subjects and all industries. I like the fact that there are case studies and students can see what other people who work for the organisation have to say. Students will definitely benefit from it. Comprehensive is the word that comes to my mind right now. But there has to be contribution from other sectors to represent the diverse array of subjects that students now take up. [/toggle] Top Placement and Internship Employer Insights The Top Placement and Internship Guide by RateMyPlacement.co.uk gives advice and insights into some of the top placement and internship employers. It has also published a table of The Top 50 Placement and Internship Employers Top 10 Medium-Sized Employers Best Small To Medium-Sized Employers   The guide has some good information and a definite guide for students to have, looking for a placement or internship. You can download the top placement and internship employers guide by RateMyPlacement.co.uk for free online or pick a copy from your Careers Service. 5

Simple Ways to Increase Productivity - CareerMetis.com

Simple Ways to Increase Productivity Have you ever felt like you have too many thoughts and ideas, but just can’t apply them properly and make them workYou are not alone: for many inability to organize their ideas properly proves to be quite an issue. At the same time, high productivity is often a necessity, whether you are a student with lots of paper writing assignments to manage or a responsible employee with loads of tasks to fulfill.Photo Credit â€" Pexels.comDid you know that an average person has at least 70, 000 thoughts passing through his or her mind every day?evalIf you don’t know how to bring them in order, it’s easy to make your everyday life chaotic. Disorganized thinking doesn’t just adversely affect s the way your brain works â€" it affects your body in general.It increases your stress level, makes you impulsive, less productive and even causes weight, heart and sleeping issues and gives you headaches.So how can you organize the way you think so to be able to not only be more productive, but also enjoy what you do? Well, this may take some time and effort, but there are effective steps to increase your productivity.Your steps to productivity: smart goalseval2. Make a clear outline for the work you intend to doWhen you are trying to complete a task you’ve been given, it’s very easy to get distracted, if this task is too easy or too hard. What you need to do is set specific goals you need to achieve and make sure they are appealing enough for you. It would definitely be easier to do if the work you are doing is new experience, but you can find enough motivation even if it’s just about cleaning your room.When figuring out your work plan, always take your skills and fortes into consideration, as well as how they will help you to complete your task.2. Stay focusedAs we don’t live in vacuum, there are lots of things that get us distracted all day long. Do you remember how you stopped your essay writing to browse Internet, enjoyed the view outside your window instead of wr iting an important report, or just wanted to check out a new song or a video?It usually takes a person 20 minutes to get properly tuned for hard work. If you make yourself get to work straight away, your chances to complete your task successfully and in a shorter period skyrocket!evalGet rid of everything that can distract you out of your sight, close all browser tabs not related to your work No matter what it is â€" professional writing, accounting or writing reports, learn to love what you do. To save your time you can use special services which will help you to do some important work.As far as writing is considered you visit dissertationlabs.com

Daniel Kahneman on why we get happiness wrong - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Daniel Kahneman on why we get happiness wrong - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This TED talk by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman is absolutely fascinating to me: In it Kahneman points out some cognitive biases that affect our happiness and our thinking about happiness. Ill be taking some time to figure out the implications for happiness at work. Ill be back :o) Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

What Do You Call Writing Psychological Studies On Resume?

What Do You Call Writing Psychological Studies On Resume?If you want to write psychological studies on resume, then here are some important tips for you. Resume should provide something interesting to the reader and so you should always keep your resume interesting by adding some interesting words to it.When you get into a situation wherein you have to write resume for a job that requires personality type test, then you must remember that people usually read a resume first by their personality type. The personality test is very helpful for you if you want to get a certain job interview or better looking job. Therefore, if you want to get a better-looking job, then you need to study the human psychology, read resume, analyze the psychological effects of a resume and understand how it will affect your future career.Reading resume is important and many people overlook it. In fact, there are several reasons why you should avoid wasting time while reading resume and concentrate more on so mething that will bring more positive results for you.There are many areas in which you can benefit from a resume; there are some areas in which you have to focus and that is the area of educational qualification, experience, and personality type. In the case of mental test, most resumes are not done properly. But, if you can write some resume, then you should think about one that would be easy to read and be informative.While preparing for a resume, make sure that you need to know how to add a little creative ideas to it and yet at the same time should be very professional. In this way, you will be able to show your skills that you have. And remember that creating your resume with professional content may look very different to some other resume and they might not be successful with it.If you think about the time that you spend on writing a resume, then you must be aware that it is a very long process that sometimes you may not feel that you are going to finish. You should take som e time in studying and be ready when it comes to your own resume.Even if you have some problems with your resume, it will still help you and a little hard work and experience can bring you good results. Sometimes, a resume looks quite complicated and also it is important that you will find a right writing technique that will appear professional and interesting to your readers.In conclusion, if you want to learn about psychological studies, then you need to read resume. Use resume as a great guide to help you in your career and will help you a lot.