A thought experiment encouraging office workers to simplify. My focus is on procurement, but this video applies to any job.
Kung-Fu is the perfect analogy because evolution is mandatory. There is always someone pushing to improve and innovate. Failure to adapt = defeat.
Note: I have two versions of The New Kung-Fu, this one is a little edgy (PG-13 if you will). The more “professional” version can be viewed at The Source.
I had this idea of a plague of locusts descending on a farm over and over again… does the farmer keep trying, keep replanting? Or does there come a time when you pack up and move on?
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I haven’t made anything for this channel in a few months, so I wanted to explore this idea with my stock footage subscriptions and see what would happen.
( #Confidence, #Rant )
I was thinking about interactions I had over the last few weeks and a pattern I have been falling into: sitting in a circle and listening to friends or co-worker’s issues and offering advice. I get feedback from my social circle that I am “so confident.” This perceived confidence was all bullshit until recently and even now, it isn’t really confidence as a lack of confidence in everyone else.
I was never confident as a child – never trusted my own impulses. In fact, I spent several years of my life training myself not to follow my own instincts. One thing I always craved, produced, and excelled at was instituting order. I always needed to follow a plan or clear direction, it helped me to sleep at night. This served me well until I found myself repeatedly questioning the plans and methods of others. I noticed that other friends, teachers, co-workers, managers were just fucking winging it, and these ideas I silently kept to myself would have produced better outcomes. This my friends is not arrogance, it is the truth.
Having no confidence in yourself can produce several personalities traits, in my case I didn’t become sullen and quiet – I had enough self-hatred and well-bred Italian spite to force myself to learn. Learn what? Anything I needed to overcome that pit in my stomach because I didn’t know what to do. This involved reading, asking for advice (and learning what advice not to take), research, finding mentors, finding models to base examples from – and over the years, I have built up a decent database of experiences to draw from (either my own or through others). That internal spite and hatred was eventually unleashed at the people making my days longer and less productive. That doesn’t mean yelling and getting nuts, but I won’t lie to you – it definitely means letting people know in subtle ways that your time is being wasted.
So what does that have to do with confidence and what am I driving at? The only way to gain confidence is by action. That action might be reading a book (or building a bench), but it is a step in the direction you want to head in. Do you think the people setting direction and offering you advice are making efforts to better themselves and the decisions they make? How many people do you know at work are losing sleep over the bad, uninformed decisions they are making (unless they are about to lose their job)? The only way to avoid going down with the ship is to learn how to swim (and to know when to get off the damn boat).
PS – To keep with the swimming metaphor, learning to swim does not have anything to do with confidence, is it all about survival. There are way too many people drowning out there.
Sink or Swim.
Last week one of my close friends was asked to interview for a new position at his current employer. Since he knew that I am often asked by my company to run interviews, he wanted to bounce ideas past me. This request turned into a full on mock interview. My friend told me that my advice helped and I wanted to document (some of) it for my readers.
[Behavioral Questions]
I am often asked to run the behavioral interviews; while I follow the rules of the interview process (scoring, feedback, etc), I always rely on my intuition and instinct when recommending a candidate. For me to make a decision, I need to get to know them as well as I can in the 30-60 minutes I am allotted (not just how well they answer canned questions). I level set with the candidates and tell them general things I am NOT looking to hear. I am often asked to interview college hires and they typically use the group project example for overcoming conflict (“someone in our group didn’t do the work and I had to tell my professor/confront the person”). I politely let them know that almost every candidate will use it and they won’t stand out; I then hint at other areas they might use (since they don’t have much experience).
I notice that most people have issues with conflict questions: that is completely understandable due to the corporate world’s focus on teamwork. Most people will avoid conflict at work at all costs, so these questions are difficult to answer. My suggestion is to make up a villain in your head. Don’t pull this person out of thin air, combine a few difficult co-workers and maybe add a dash of an estranged relative or friend to give you something to work with. Think about how you dealt with several uncomfortable situations and turn them into one person. Think about this for a few days before the interview.
The point of any behavioral interview is to understand your thought process. Many of the questions DON’T have a happy ending, the questions just want to see how you can handle a no-win situation. There is no shame is calling out that you can’t satisfy the question as long as you articulate why. Always mention the added impact of attempting futile endeavors (other efforts suffer, stress on resources, etc) – it shows you know when to cut your losses.
General Thoughts:
[Job-Specific Questions]
This section is obviously harder to give advice for since specific details are needed. One of the key things I can’t stress enough for both your resume and interview is to focus on delivery. Have statistics on processes fixed (example: “I reduced customer complains by 35% by doing the following…”), money saved, people mentored… anything that shows you have been keeping track of your own personal job performance (if you are not doing that now – DO IT). When preparing for the interview, think about all the problems you have dealt with or continually face at your current or most recent job – how do you deal with them? Mistakes and problems are how people learn, use that education as the backbone for your discussion – the people you are interviewing with probably have the same problems (any maybe you got to the solution sooner).
For skill gaps, have talking points that discuss how fast you came to speed on stretch assignment at your other jobs. This is not a sure-fire technique because some things are hard requirements, but it’s better than nothing.
[Conclusion]
Keep the first date idea in your head: nobody wants to date someone who is angry about an old flame (or job), egotistical, incompetent, too shy/introverted, or just plan old weird. If you think you are lacking in a certain area, PRACTICE! Get in front of the mirror to work on your delivery and eye contract. Find behavioral questions on the internet and practice answering them (I like to type it all out and keep a database of answers). I love the interview process; if I am the one being asked the questions… being able to prove I am the best person for the job and finding that “Ah-ha” moment in the interviewer’s eyes when they agree is awesome. On the other side, finding a great candidate and helping someone move on with their career is extremely gratifying.
I know it’s hard out there and you might not be doing something you enjoy, but keep working at it by making the steps you need to be where you want. Good luck getting the job you want.
