Category Archives: career

What Really Matters! Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 ebook released

Hi folks!

Please access your free copy of the most recent addition to the What Really Matters! ebook series. Selected articles from January 1st 2011 through to March 31st 2011 have been included in this ebook.

Please download your copy of What Really Matters! Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 here.

Please send your feedback and suggestions for the next ebook in this series to feedback@orgsthatmatter.com .

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

If you listen, service excellence follows

The capacity to listen is probably the most important skill that relates to service excellence. Without this capacity staff will not know the expectations of their customers, each other, or the key stakeholders of their communities. Organisations that provide great service are fantastic listeners; to their customers, to their key stakeholders and to each other within the organisation.

William Isaacs (1999) notes that our culture is dominated by sight. Light moves at 186,000 miles per second, yet sound only travels at 1,100 feet per second. In summary, William Isaacs says that in order to listen we must slow down.

How do you and/or your organisation slow down to listen?

Quote
Our hearing puts us on the map. It balances us. Our sense of balance is intimately tied to our hearing; both come from the same source within our bodies…Hearing is auditory, of course, relating to sound. The word auditory…most ancient root means “to place perception.” When we listen, we place our perceptions. (William Isaacs, lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, consultant and author)

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Leadership Insights Series – Michael Josem, Senior Manager, Game Security Team, PokerStars.com

In the first of our ‘Leadership Insights Series’ Webinars for 2011, Gary Ryan will interview Michael Josem, a successful young professional who has created a highly successful career as a result of playing games!

Michael will share a series of turning points and decisions that enabled him to ‘out’ an online gaming fraud, which created a series of events that resulted in him being offered a job in the field of work associated with playing online poker, a passion of Michael’s that had developed while he was at university. One of these events resulted in Michael being interviewed on the USA 60 Minutes program for his role as an internet security expert in discovering the online fraud which result in over $20Million being returned to players.

With a strong sense of personal values Michael’s role involves ensuring that ‘fraud’ is kept out of the system and that online poker players all have a fair chance for success.

If you have wondered how jobs such as Michael’s are discovered, or how online poker can be driven by an organisation with a strong sense of fairness and integrity, then register for this 30 minute webinar, I’m sure you will find it intriguing.

Michael, in his late 20s will share his story and how his passion now has him setting sail to work from the Isle of Man.

Seats are limited for the exclusive webinar so please register now.

Seats are limited for the exclusive webinar so please register now.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Leadership Insights Series – Gareth Kent

Gary Ryan interviews Gareth Kent, a 31 year old Director of PRP Geelong. Gareth shares insights from his fascinating journey and in particular how a day spent creating a detailed plan for his future in his early 20s created the impetus for his success. This is a ‘not to be missed’ interview.

More webinars can be accessed by joining the OTM Academy.

Information regarding the OTM Plan For Personal Success program is available here. A new OTM Plan For Personal Success Webinar Series is due for release and will commence in late January and continue into February. You can express your interest in this program here.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Research shows that part time work and volunteering pay off

Research based on member responses and presented at the Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) showed that 83% of graduate roles were given to applicants who did part-time or casual work. The research also showed that doing volunteer or charity work is highly regarded from a prospective employers perspective as 48% of successful candidates had indicated that they had been volunteers.

Establishing your employability largely comes from your ability to demonstrate that you can work with people to achieve shared objectives. Part-time/casual work and volunteering provide opportunities to do exactly that.

I often hear young people say, “Oh, I just work in a supermarket” or “I just work in a cafe.” or “I’m just doing some volunteering for my local charity”.

There is no such thing as ‘just‘ a part-time/casual job or volunteering role. All these roles help to prove that you are employable because they all involve teamwork, communication, leadership, innovation, problem solving – the list goes on!

The evidence is overwhelming that part-time/casual and volunteering roles matter. Don’t forget it. Notice the ‘real’ employability skills that you are learning. Employers are interested and your chances of being employed are significantly higher if you understand and practice this fact.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

After Year 12, What’s next?

If you or someone you know has just completed Year 12 in Australia and would like to know which career paths are most likely to result in an available job, then you can’t go past the DEEWR New Jobs 2010 Report.

The report includes job projections to 2014/2015 for the following 19 industries, with the most growth expected in declining order:
1. Health Care and Social Assistance (3.3% per annum)
2. Mining (3.3% per annum)
3. Education and Training (2.7% per annum)
4. Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (2.6% per annum)
5. Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services (2.4% per annum)
6. Construction (2.4% per annum)
7. Transport, Postal and Warehousing (2.3% per annum)
8. Accommodation and Food Services (2.0% per annum)
9. Information, Media and telecommunication (1.8% per annum)
10. Retail Trade (1.8% per annum)
11. Financial and Insurance Services (1.6% per annum)
12. Administrative and Support Services (1.6% per annum)
13. Arts and Recreation Services (1.5% per annum)
14. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (1.5% per annum)
15. Public Administration and safety (1.3% per annum)
16. Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Service (1.3% per annum)
17. Other Services (0.5% per annum)
18. Wholesale Trade (0.5% per annum)
19 Manufacturing (-0.7% per annum)

This information can be vital in terms of the post secondary education/training choices that people make, so it is well worth keeping up to date with the report, which is available here.

It is also important to recognise that qualifications take time to be completed, so looking ahead at what the jobs landscape can be very helpful and important.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Are you prepared to be vulnerable?

Over the past few weeks I have conducted a number of teamwork programs. One of the activities that I enjoy facilitating is asking the participants to form small groups and to identify the characteristics of the effective and ineffective teams of which they have been members.

Examples can from from any team experience and I encourage participants to broader their thinking about their definition of a ‘team’. Some examples of this definition include:

  • A workplace
  • A family
  • A university study group
  • A sporting team
  • A community group
  • Travelling with friends or family

After providing the participants with enough time to share their stories, I collect the results.

An interesting characteristic that always comes up for effective teams is trust. Similarly, a lack of trust is always raised as a characteristic of ineffective teams.

Trust. Easy to say. Hard to give.

Why? It is my view that trust involves a willingness to be vulnerable. In a team concept, to trust your team members means that you have faith that they will do what they say they will do to the best of their ability. When I ask program participants to describe what it was like to be trusted, they say things like:

“He never looked over my shoulder. Even though it was the first time I was doing this task, he asked if I needed any further help and I said that I didn’t. He told me that I could contact him at any stage if my circumstances changed. If I were him I’m not sure that I could have trusted me like he did. And that was special. I think I actually did the job better because I was trusted. I found it really motivating.”

“She was the leader, there was no question about that. But when we allocated tasks and she was clear that we understood what needed to be done, she let us ‘go for it’. Her door was always open and we knew that, and from time to time we would go to her for assistance, either physically or via email or on the phone. She was always available when we needed her. But she never, ever behaved like she didn’t trust us. It never felt like she was looking over our shoulder making sure we did it exactly how she would. And this was an important project. And we knew that, and we respected that. That’s why we created such a wonderful result. We were a real team and she trusted us!”

You can’t fake trust. It is either genuine, or it isn’t. In today’s complex world it is nearly impossible to ‘go it alone’. Leaders have to trust their team members to do their job, even if the leader could do parts of the job ‘better’ on their own.

To trust, however, requires the leader to be okay with being vulnerable. Trust can’t be broken if it isn’t given. So, by nature genuinely trusting someone means that you are prepared for the possibility that they might break your trust, which in turn makes you vulnerable.

In our world of accountability and responsibility, trust can become very hard to ‘give’. If I’m the leader, the ‘buck stops with me.’ If this project fails, then it’s my fault. It’s complex, isn’t it.

I doubt there is any golden rule with regard to trust. I am a trusting person, but I am not prepared to trust ‘just anyone’. I use all my ‘three brains’ (I’ll explain what that term means in a future blog) to determine whether I will trust someone or not.

Each time I trust someone I am conscious of the choice that I have just made. Trust is behavioural, so saying, “I trust you” means nothing, if (in a work example) all I do is look over your shoulder every step of the way. Being prepared to be vulnerable is a tension leaders have to grapple with.

Are you prepared top be vulnerable?

What are your experiences of trust both as a team member and as a leader?

How have you managed the ‘vulnerability’ tension?

The chances are that if trust is not present then high performance will be a long way away. So what is the bigger risk, the preparedness to be vulnerable or the preparedness to under-perform?

Please share your experiences, thoughts and comments.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Free ebook – What Really Matters! Volume 2, Number 2, 2010

My 6th ebook, What Really Matters! Volume 2, Number 2, 2010 has just been released.

The focus of this ebook is personal and professional development.

Lessons include:

  • Why maintaining your integrity in business is important
  • Why service excellence is important and how to provide it
  • How to motivate your team members
  • Identifying and understanding service gaps
  • How team talk aids in performance
  • and much more!

Developing the skills outlined in this book will enhance your employability.

You can access the ebook and other free resources here.

Please share any thoughts that you have regarding the topics that should be included in the next ebook in this series, due for release on October 2010.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Dr Andrew O’Brien Interviews author Gary Ryan

Interviewed by Dr Andrew O’Brien, Gary Ryan, author of the new book What Really Matters For Young Professionals!, shares insights on each of the 15 practices featured in the book. This interview includes practical tips to enable you to accelerate your career.

Find out more information about the book at www.orsgthatmatter.com/WRMFYPBook

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com