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Get a jump on improving work life in '07
Here we stand in early December, staring down the double barrels of holiday distractions and New Year's resolutions. Where to focus?
Understanding human nature as I do, I'm going to bet the holidays will take our attention for the short term. But sooner or later, we'll have to face the new year and our deep-seated wish to improve our lives.
If one of your resolutions has been to improve your life at work, you can get a jump on that goal with the following books. The theme for these five is control -- taking control of yourself, of work situations or, even, of others. Cheers.
"Working With You is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself From Emotional Traps at Work" by Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster (Warner Business Books, 2006, $22.95). What do you get when you cross a psychotherapist (Crowley) with a business consultant (Elster)? A business book, offering as basic advice that old therapy saw: "You can't control what other people do, but you can control your response to it."
I generally agree with that sentiment, so it's interesting to see it applied to a broad selection of workplace interactions. The professional disciplines of both Crowley and Elster are reflected in the book's chapters: setting boundaries, unhooking from "fatal attraction" co-workers, managing up (and down) and handling difficult bosses. The crowning chapter deals with corporate culture and includes a lengthy assessment to help you identify the right kind of workplace for you.
"Get Out of Your Own Way at Work . . . and Help Others Do the Same" by Dr. Mark Goulston (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005, $24.95). In a similar vein to the above book, this volume combines elements of psychotherapy with business practice. The theme is more directly stated, with the responsibility for each self-defeating situation resting squarely on the reader's shoulders. Unhappy at work? Goulston's advice: "Do something about it."
The chapters are short and discuss specific but common workplace problems: being defensive, fearing performance reviews, thinking you're indispensable, etc. Each chapter ends with a short list of action steps; if you were to take all these steps, you would find your work problems essentially solved. To ensure success, start with the chapter on procrastination.
"Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" by Tom DeMarco (Broadway Books, 2001, $23). And now -- as John Cleese used to say in "Monty Python's Flying Circus" -- for something completely different. I'm slipping in a book aimed at managers and CEOs because I like its premise: To have a creative, changing workplace, you have to give up total efficiency in favor of slack. Only when middle managers and lower-level workers have a little free time can they respond to emerging issues or innovate. Conversely, when workers are overly busy, they can only plod along, ignoring or even missing exciting opportunities.
While DeMarco is targeting higher-ups with this message, there's much here that ordinary worker-bees can take to heart. In a nutshell, busier isn't more efficient, and energy isn't derived from exhaustion. More of these things are in our control than we may believe.
"Fearless Leadership: Conquering Your Fears and the Lies That Drive Them" by Bruce E. Roselle (Leader Press, 2006, $29.95). Despite the title, this book by a Minneapolis psychologist and career coach is not exclusively for people who consider themselves leaders. Rather, it is directed to those who would improve their leadership qualities by overcoming unproductive reactions to real and perceived insults.
It's a difficult book to summarize, but here goes: We all carry within us irrational fears born of early events in our lives. These fears -- including the fear of being rejected and the fear of being caught unprepared -- then engender in our minds harmful lies and faulty beliefs that create unhelpful trigger responses, such as perfectionism and defensiveness.
Roselle is a leader in the discussion about fear and its impact on our work lives. If you're ready for an intellectual challenge and want to conquer those fears, this is the right book for you.
"How to Get Anyone to Do Anything" by R. Philip Hanes (Ten Speed Press, 2006, $24.95). Again, something completely different. What a character this Hanes fellow is! From the front cover, where he managed a blurb from reclusive author Harper Lee, to the appendix containing his 10-page resume, Hanes makes it clear that he's in control of this story.
And, although it is basically 177 pages of how he got different people to do his bidding, his motives are so pure that you don't mind the hubris. The chapters on risk-taking and fund-raising make it worth the read.
- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.
