BOOK: CAREERS - The Path Less Travelled ..... embrace it!

Chaos and happenstance play as much of a part in careers as planning



Things both good and bad happen in our careers that we do not expect and have not planned for.



The idea that we plan our careers by thinking carefully and logically about what best suits us and then simply implementing our strategy is probably the most commonly held view of how our careers work. "Plastics" was the career advice given by a well-meaning family friend to Dustin Hoffman in the film The Graduate. The 1967 movie reflected the societal expectation that all graduates (and school leavers) should have a clear and firm plan for their lives. This expectation is pretty much still in place today, but should it be?



When we start looking closely at careers as real people genuinely experience them and not as some mythologised logical, linear and ever-upward trajectory, a different picture emerges. It turns out that careers are a lot less predictable than we imagine.



Think about your own career - is what you are doing now, what you believed you'd be doing when you were 15 or 21? The career path of most of us better resembles a drunken man's stagger through the world of work than a neat, calculated and straight line.



Careers are riddled with chance events. They are also subject to a complex array of different influences. Career decisions are not the result of cold, rational and logical thought processes, rather they emerge from a melting pot of personal history, circumstance, interests, experiences and more.



The rise of foreign economies has dispossessed many Australian workers. Whether it is using an iPad to order your meal in a restaurant, driving a Chinese car, or sending your dictation to India to be typed, the way we work, and hence our careers, are changing continually.



Here are some facts about careers and their trajectories:



■ At least 70 per cent of us will experience a chance event that significantly alters our career.



■ A US study found that over a period of 25 years about 60 per cent of us will change occupations and will report higher levels of well-being because of it.



■ A 2005 report from Monash University showed that after one year 29.7 per cent of enrolling students had changed courses, universities or had dropped out.



■ Federal government figures suggest 26.2 per cent of apprentices dropped out in 2009-2010.



We may think we make our own decisions about our careers but all of the following factors have been shown to be influential in our choices: where you live, your mother, your father, your siblings, politicians, the media, the web, your health and injuries.



What all this means is that shift happens in our careers continually. Sometimes it is the result of planning but often it is not. It means that "planning a career" is a less viable and useful thing to do. The appropriate reaction to this is not to become fatalistic or despairing but to recognise that our careers are the result of a complex, dynamic system of influences, people and the environment. 



Emerging from the complex interaction of all these different things will be a career pattern that has periods of stability but is subject to unpredictable and sometimes radical change.



The appropriate reaction to the complexity of our lives and careers is to place more emphasis on learning the skills of planning - how to make a plan, how to change a plan, how to copy someone else's plan and how and when to abandon a plan. It means developing the skills and mindset to embrace uncertainty and realising that unplanned events - both good and bad - are inevitable. 



This will help us to be resilient and persistent in the face of bad-chance events and ready to take advantage of any good-chance events that come our way.



Those who react to uncertainty by trying to control and predict everything by risking nothing are likely to be either confounded in their efforts by the forces of change and complexity, or they will limit their careers to such an extent they risk never fulfilling their potential. Successful people live their careers on the edge of chaos, a place where they are sufficiently open to change to engage, learn and transform.



The Chaos Theory of Careers describes the realities of working in the 21st century in a complex, changing and unpredictable world. To be successful in our careers now, we must be more open than ever to new possibilities, continual learning and the need creatively to reinvent or recast ourselves as circumstances permit or demand.



It is no longer necessary or even desirable in a world defined by change to have too firmly decided what we are going to do with our lives, because shift happens. Perhaps we should adopt the approach of Peter Ustinov who said, ironically, on his 75th birthday: "I really must decide what to do with my life."



The Chaos Theory of Careers: A New Perspective on Working in the 21st Century by Robert Pryor and Jim Bright is published by Routledge and is available from Palgrave Macmillan and Amazon.com.

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Worplace Bullying Harassment and Mobbing - VIDEO: 5 Phases of the Mobbing Process

How does Mobbing happen? Gail Pursell Elliott, author, consultant and expert on this topic, explains the 5 phases of a mobbing process during a 2009 teleconference presentation. Share this information with human resources professionals, managers, and others in your organization. Contact Gail through her website, innovations-training.com

BOOK REVIEW - The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

by Robert I. Sutton

Robert Sutton, is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, at Stanford University, argues that assholes—those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful—poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses, regardless of their individual effectiveness.

He also makes the solution plain: they have to go.

Direct and punchy, Sutton uses accessible language and a bevy of examples to make his case, providing tests to determine if you are an asshole (and if so, advice for how to self-correct), a how-to guide to surviving environments where assholes freely roam and a carefully calibrated measure, the "Total Cost of Assholes," by which corporations can assess the damage. Although occasionally campy and glib, Sutton's work is sure to generate discussions at watercoolers around the country and deserves influence in corporate hiring and firing strategies.

What the readers said….

A New Best Book on Empowerment in the Workplace

I have never written a review on Amazon, but feel strongly about writing a review for Sutton's No A**hole book because I feel many people whose might be concerned about the "taboo" title might not look beyond it and do themselves a great disservice.

As a female professional, I felt highly empowered reading this book. Dr. Sutton acknowledges the bullying and crass behavior that frequently occurs in the workplace and offers concrete ways to combat these trying individuals. I have already practiced his technique of publicly discounting bullying behavior with great success.

I found his suggestions for handling office place bullies - as both a superior and subordinate actions extremely smart and well-grounded. This book is based on sound social psychology and organizational research and does a great service to workers throughout the world.

I have dog earred many pages of the book and expect it to be a handy reference for many years to come.

An Excellent Must-Read for Anyone in the Workforce,

I am not one who typically reviews books. I do have to say that the No A**hole Rule was an excellent book both in researched content and personality. I was able to read this book in one sitting. It is very topical for anyone who shares a workplace with A**holes or demeaning people. I am sure that most of us do not have the luxury of avoiding these people on a day to day basis. If so, let me know where you work .

For the most part, it is inevitable that we have to deal with these people face to face. This is the first book that doesn't skirt around the facts of diagnosing these people as a**holes (by there actions) and giving effective advice on how to deal with them or not be one of them.

Bob Sutton's List of The Dirty Dozen Common Everyday Actions That A**holes Use
1. Personal insults
2. Invading one's personal territory
3. Uninvited personal contact
4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
6. Withering email flames
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals
9. Rude interruptions
10. Two-faced attacks
11. Dirty looks
12. Treating people as if they are invisible

The Author sites companies that have effectively instilled a "No A**hole Rule" because they have realized that the true cost of the A**hole runs deeper than the A**hole's salary (TCA or Total Cost of A**holes). It truly can diminish productivity in the office, increase employee turnover, stifle communication, and lower employee self esteem and health. The book explains how to implement a No A**hole Rule at any organization.

According to the book, negative interactions have a five time stronger effect on mood than positive interactions. So you can see that keeping around that "very productive A**hole" may have deeper implications that do not show up on the books, but take a toll on the ones around him/her.
There is a whole section in the book detailing how to avoid being an A**hole which I won't get into here. I think that it is a truly insightful section on how to face ones own demons, and to be a more effective co-worker/partner/boss in a work environment.

The section that really jumped out for me (due to its immediate applicability) was the ways to deal with A**holes. Many books talk about enthusiasm and working harder with passion allows you to get around people who are demeaning and rude at work. This book explains that this is not necessarily the head on solution to avoid rudeness in the workplace. In some instances, developing indifference and emotional detachment may be the best way to survive in the long run while achieving small victories. In the end, small victories can lead to winning the war. You can also limit your exposure, hope for the best and expect the worse, de-escalate and re-educate, or stand up to A**holes.

In conclusion, this was a great read. I think it is extremely topical for anyone who is involved in HR or hiring new employees and management. I also believe that it is an especially good read if you are a victim of A**holes on a day to day basis.

The Cost of Black Holes

Authors not afraid to call it like it is have been in short supply the past several years. The world of business and finance have been filled with executives and managers not willing to be straight about what constitutes ethical or rational behavior. Bob Sutton wasn't afraid. He wrote a controversial book with an edgy title.

It's now common knowledge that all too many companies looked the other way as executives and managers have misbehaved. Sutton had the guts to call these folks out. He did the research. And he has shown the cost of these black holes to organizations.

These jerks can be tremendously threatening when they are in positions of power. Sutton breaks it down and shows how you can gain ground. I love the idea of scheduling short meetings with these blowhards in rooms without chairs, cutting as he calls it "your exposure time by 34 %." Or the trick of hitting the mute button on the conference call during a screed, to tune out a "colleague's nastiness."

Nor does Sutton deny the truth. Being a jerk works for a lot of folks in business. He even has a chapter on the subject and notes that when he matched Steve Jobs with that key "A" word in the title of his book, he "got 89,000 matches." As someone who has seen Jobs do his thing in person all I can say is, only 89,000 matches?

But even in this focused book on the dangers of bullies to corporations, Sutton has the good sense to explain at length, "The Virtues of Nastiness." I dare say if we'd had more people write as honestly about the dark side of human nature - in business and finance - we wouldn't be in such a mess today.

One of my favorite books!

Love this book! The title's been my private mantra for YEARS. Dr. Sutton's concise examination of the trouble caused by workplace antagonists is not only right on, but is the one thing that has been carefully stepped around by HR forever. High time the topic's been given its due. It's an essential guide for anyone up against any of a variety of bullies. And not just at work. I can see The NAR being helpful even at the grocery checkout line.

It's also great from a hiring perspective. By paying close attention to the earmarks of these troublemakers (especially looking to pick up cues and clues when checking a new hire's references), there's a better possibility of keeping the a**h***s from getting hired in the first place.

As much as I enjoyed how refreshingly open and honest as it is on the top of problematic coworkers, I wonder if those coworkers would ever become self-aware enough to read the book themselves and change their behavior as a result. Now THAT would be amazing.

BOOK - 'Getting Even' - The Truth About Workplace Revenge

Gossip in the workplace can be a powerfully destructive force.

Gossip spread by employees about their coworkers can be the result of passive participation or it can be triggered by a more affirmative attempt to cause harm to another. Office gossip is an effective method to exact workplace revenge.

What fuels efforts to engage in workplace revenge has a story all its own.

A new book, due out in March 2009, takes a close look at what it is that workplace revenge entails and why employees engage in such conduct.

In Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge - and How to Stop It, by Thomas M. Tripp and Robert J. Bies conclude that workplace revenge is the product of individuals who feel that they have been victimized and seek to avenge justice on their own behalf.

The book is the result of years of research and the various lessons learned from the nearly 500 managers and workers interviewed for the project. Pieces of the interviews are peppered throughout the book in the form of lively anecdotes.