Author Archives: Bill Ryan

Job Changing Considered

Posted on by Bill Ryan

For most of us, careers are built from a series of job moves. Sure, there are those who begin a life of dedication to a particular vocation from which they never deviate. Others may find they spent their entire careers as a business founder and owner whereas others may experience an entire career employed with just one firm. However, for most of us, we will construct our careers as a migration from one opportunity to another. This necessarily involves job switching, an exercise requiring dexterity and proficiency.

There is certainly incentive to switch jobs currently. An economist at Glassdoor, Daniel Zhao, has data from the Atlanta Federal Reserve showing that job switchers have realized 7.7% wage growth since November 2022 compared to 5.5% wage growth for those who have remained in their jobs. Also, as economist Adam Blandin of Vanderbilt University points out, there are about two job vacancies for every unemployed person. And many workers know from experience that job changes are one of the best ways to enhance not just pay, but career prospects. All told, it is a suitable time to consider a job switch.

There is risk in job hopping, however. Downsides can emerge when we find ourselves in a worse situation than the one we left. In general, pitfalls occur when the new job is less stellar than we anticipated. Another snag is when the new job is less stable, as in you find yourself more exposed to layoffs. Obviously, it is important to not stumble and face regret when transitioning from one job to another. Therefore, a job switch needs careful planning. Let’s look at some of the key points to consider.

Planning for change should be deliberate. It begins with a deconstruction of your current work performance and how you have worked in recent positions. This task analysis seeks to identify those aspects of your work which energize you, bring you feelings of success and accomplishment, and align with the production metrics of your employer or target market. Conversely, being clear on those work facets which drain you of energy, leave you feeling unfulfilled, and fail to consistently meet production expectations should be revealed. Such an inventory can be converted to a plan which becomes your North Star when implementing the job shift.

Be targeted when pursuing new employment opportunities. Do your research of both the employers and the industry space they play in. Know how they fare in meeting market demand and fending off the competition. Of course, there is an assumption here that their industry is your industry and presumably you know the economic viability of your professional field. If you have not conducted a SWOT analysis in a while, now is the time to do so. Illuminate as best you can the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats inherent in your industry.

Examine potential future employers like a private investigator. Google and study company employee reviews of which there are now many, reach out on LinkedIn to employees to get their take on what it is like to work there, and leverage your own professional network to get the inside scoop. When you get job interviews, ask them questions about employee engagement, career growth prospects, employee turnover rates, and their performance review program, including the metrics they use. You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Examine your decision-making style too. Reflectively challenge your assumptions. Assess where faulty decision making has led you astray in the past. As executive career coach Susan Peppercorn says, cognitive bias or more readily accepting information that matches your existing viewpoints, can impair quality decision making. Accept that claims made by the potential employer which sound good to you may carry hidden risks.

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But as you tread into the dicey, but conceivably rewarding world of job change, be as prepared as possible.

 

 

Reflections from Flanders Fields

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The morning dawned cold and rainy. I fastened the buttons of my coat, pulled my green wool cap over my head, and tightened my red plaid scarf around my neck. Did I wish the weather on that Belgian morning had been more agreeable? Sure, I did. But I was heading to Flanders Fields and the site of what was once known as the northern part of the Western Front during World War I. During the years of 1914 until the end of 1918 this was a place of unspeakable horror for hundreds of thousands of young men.

So, no. I was not going to complain about the weather on that morning of March 14, 2023, the day I turned seventy years old. I was still alive and about to pay my respects to youth who no longer were. The weather could be endured.

Sometimes the primacy of nature and nurture are hard to separate. I was born seventy years ago as a male and as a male I was raised. Strongly embedded within the experience of growing up male is the meaning of manhood. We are nurtured with unmistakable messages as boys that to be a man involves the adoption of very specific traits. High among them is to display a selfless bravery to squarely face danger without hesitation. To battle when needed. To overcome one’s foes. And if vanquished, to go down fighting, which will at least preserve honor, even if life is extinguished.

Beyond this manner of masculine upbringing, I also have speculated about the role of nature in shaping men to be men. The expectation for boys to grow into men who are virile, strapping, and courageous is a presumption that is as old as history. At some point in this long and patterned progression of raising boys to be warriors it could be that the widely associated behaviors of manhood became finely integrated into the souls of men. An a priori masculinity may accompany the birth of each and every baby boy born into this world. This axiomatic essence of dutiful manliness then simply needs to be massaged during rearing to result in a fighter, a defender, a soldier.

Whether or not a boy grows to become a crusader, a crucial part of being a man is in reconciling or harmonizing the man one has become with the type of man one is supposed to be. Sometimes this urge toward manly expression goes awry, leading to overly aggressive males. However, for most of us men we need to find causes to sustain, people to protect, and missions to fulfill. These proclivities may not be played out on a literal battlefield, but they must find expression somehow, even in passivity. Like it or not, we men are preordained to live out as best we can the manifest calling inherent in our gender. Exploring this notion was in large part the motivation and need for reflection I was drawn to pursue on that birthday at Flanders Fields.

Young men from Germany, the British Commonwealth countries, France, the Low Countries, and eventually the United States and Italy converged at the Western Front, which stretched from Flanders Fields to the Swiss frontier with France. They were there to engage in a slaughter of one another. Their precious manhood was both exploited, abused, and celebrated during this horrific enterprise. The soldiers of the First World War were robbed of their innocence, their zest for life, and in far too many cases, their very existence.

The confrontation known as the Great War or World War I was among the greatest tragedies of humankind. It did not need to happen. But it did. Most of those who fought and died during the conflict were born during the last decade of the nineteenth century. As young boys they had every right to expect a high standard of guidance from their elders. They should have been shown by their parents’ generation how to love all people and how to try to make the world a better place than they found it.

Instead, this generation of young men were let down by their elders. They were squandered, misused, and harmed. Their lives were deemed expendable and not of precious value. Those poor souls who came into this world only to leave it too soon were robbed of their manhood and of their lives. Shame befalls those who encouraged this cataclysm to happen. The decisions, values, and hubris of the elders driven by their xenophobic mindsets starkly displayed a stunning lack of morality.

Some backstory will bring clarity to what happened. However clear history may be, the justifications for this debacle will never make sense of what happened. Historians categorize the causes of World War I into four domains: mutual defense alliances, imperialism, expanded and modernized militarism, and nationalism. I tend to group all these causes under the rubric of one foremost cause, that of domination.

The world of 1914 was a powder keg of outdated and maniacal monarchies committed to a ruthless competition for control over as many people and resources from around the world as could be made possible. Command, control, authority, and supremacy were the overriding principles of the world’s leaders, particularly in Europe. European empires, along with their colonies and spheres of influence, jostled for advantage. This led to a tangled network of alliances allegedly designed to ensure domestic stability and security while providing a nationalistic influential edge in world affairs.

By 1914 the stage was set for a ruinous chain reaction. European empires had been in existence for hundreds of years led by Great Britain, Spain, The Netherlands, and France. However, nationalism as we know it today has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Nationalism is based on the idea of group identity with common beliefs, values, languages, stories, and cultural traditions. The practice of forming nation states had been exercised all over the continent throughout the nineteenth century. At least this was true of those parts not already under the thumb of an empire.

The motivation to nationalize was strong by the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. For example, by 1871 smaller kingdoms were culturally compelled to unify into the nation states of Italy and Germany. One downside of nationalism is that it can leave people of different nations distrustful of one another. Borders can help to protect and to preserve, but they also can confine and cause cultural atrophy.  Unhealthy rivalries can result based on resource distributions and perceived threats to cultural integrity. Such mistrust took hold in Europe.

The inspiration to nationalize swept across the Balkan region of southeast Europe in the years leading up to 1914. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania are among the many countries that make up this region today. At the time, the people of the Balkans were squeezed between two prevailing and powerful empires, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. These empires exerted influence and pressure in the Balkans, which only encouraged nationalistic tendencies.

Meanwhile, a complicated assortment of defense alliances was established across much of Europe. Key alliances which led to World War I were that Russia was allied with Serbia in the Balkans and also with France, Germany was allied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Great Britain was allied with France and Belgium. Such was the international stage when a Bosnian acting on behalf of Serbia assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife while they were visiting the Balkan city of Sarajevo on the 28th of July 1914. The consequent string of war declarations became the First World War.

The brutality of this war was made worse by the steady militarization of the European powers in the preceding years, which included the development of weapons marking the advent of modern warfare. Much more massive artillery guns and shells, machine guns, tanks, poison gases, and military aircraft were strategically introduced creating exorbitantly high death counts.

For those armies reliant on outdated battlefield strategies and tactics these weapons proved to be especially lethal. Along the Western Front in Belgium at Flanders Fields, infantry charged on foot from deeply dug trenches into machine gun fire, exploding shells, and even chlorine gas, which choked its victims, and mustard gas, which caused skin burns. The absurdity of asking young men to rush into such an onslaught is unthinkable.

A significant part of my wanting to visit Flanders Fields on that rainy and chilly day was to not only reflect on and feel sorry for the inhumanity inflicted on those unfortunate men, but to wonder what it would have been like for me to face the horrible challenges they did. My seventy years have never come close to war or any conflict that carried with it the risk of death or bodily injury. The stresses and strains of life that we all experience, which in my case were nearly all the result of my own flawed decision making, pale in comparison to the tensions of war.

Looking back to my younger years, I remember the confusion and uncertainty tinged with fear of the possibility of having to fight in the Vietnam War. I was on the young side of the age when unseasoned men were being drafted to fight in that conflict on behalf of the United States. My thinking was quite resolute in that I did not want to participate. The thought of moving to Canada was a serious notion I considered for a while.

My father, a World War II veteran who lost his only brother during that war and who was a proud American, said to me when I was sixteen or seventeen years old that he did not want me to fight in Vietnam. Even he could see the clear pattern of one generation after the next of young men fighting and dying in what seemed like an endless succession of foreign wars. My father’s realization of wanting to resist having his son go to war led to his distancing from the veteran’s organization, The American Legion. This memory is one of the very few where to this day I am grateful for my dad’s love.

So, had I been born in 1898 instead of 1953, and had I been born in Germany, Russia, Britain, France, or Belgium or in the United States at that time, I could very well have been confronted with the imperative that I must viciously fight for my country. I do not doubt I would have felt fear. What I do not know is if the nationalistic propaganda I would have been steadily fed would have trumped my fear.

Would I have felt that my life really amounted to a calling to “defend” my country even if it meant making the ultimate sacrifice? Would I have charged across fields of mud with a bayoneted rifle screaming a battle cry as bullets whizzed by striking down my comrades? Or would I have cowered in the trenches wide-eyed and gulping air as if each gasp were to be my last? Or would I have clung to my last shred of self-determination and committed suicide? I will never know. This deliberation will forever remain open-ended.

During that day at Flanders Fields, I paused at different cemeteries to place my hand on random gravestones. I tried to remain unrestricted and free to notice if I felt any kind of sensation or had any kind of inkling resulting from gently but intentionally touching those stones. At the German cemetery I crouched to place my left hand on a ground-level dark gray stone with the words, “Vier Unbekannte Deutsche Soldaten” etched upon it (translation, “Four Unknown German Soldiers”). I felt only pity. At a British cemetery, I placed my hand on the clean white standing gravestone of R. Porter, of the West Yorkshire Regiment, who died on the 28th of October in 1915 at the age of twenty-two. I was witness to a tragedy.

Toward the end of that day, I was at another British cemetery. The rain had stopped. Sun was breaking through the still thick clouds. A stiff breeze rendered the air from cool to cold. I was starting to feel fatigue from the long day. This time, while standing amidst the rows of white stones, I reached over to rest a hand upon the top of one from behind. I deliberately did not look to see whose stone it was. On this occasion, I felt something else. A ripple of energy coursed gently through my body. I experienced a slight disequilibrium. Was this a quantum or supernatural sensation of sentience, I wondered. Maybe it was just a symptom of not having had much water that day. I still wonder.

The flat green fields of West Flanders.

Now moist and quiet and peaceful.

Near Ypres the land rises. 

Once Germans held the high ground.

The British held the city.

Evil descended upon the area.

A half million souls lost

In a steady ugly stalemate.

Numbing.

A waste.

To be human can be severe.

 

 

 

 

 

We Are More Than Checklists

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Back in 2009 a well received book was published called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, a surgeon, author, and public health researcher. The book promotes the use of developing and utilizing checklists to enhance the quality of outcomes resulting from the execution of complex procedures. Dr. Gawande cites many examples of how the deliberate use of checklists leads to greater efficiencies, more uniform discharge of protocols, and improved protections, particularly regarding procedures in which safety is a concern.

Upon examination, causes of unintended consequences and accidents can often be attributed to missed steps in a process, which had they been followed would have mitigated or prevented the mishap. Sure, we all make mistakes. But if we take the time to analyze why a mistake was made, we often find it was because of things like hurrying too much, lacking focus, being distracted, or not having enough experience. These flaws almost always mean measures that should have been taken were not taken.

So, to deploy and to use complete checklists consistently makes perfect sense. In fact, the application of step by step lists is considered so best-practice these days that many of our careers can be seen as little more than a requirement to effectively execute a series of predetermined sequential actions. Take a look at almost any job description. It is little more than a laundry list of expected deliverables like a set of boxes to be checked. It could be said that much of our work is therefore formulaic.

To the extent that we reduce our careers to predicable, stringent, and rote to-do rosters, the more accommodating we make our careers for AI replication. Author Ian Leslie makes an interesting observation in a recent Substack piece. Responding to the fear many express about the growth of AI he points out how we assist the machines to adapt to our ways of doing things because we are adapting our work lives to the ways AI works. When human agency is overly systematized we give our replacement instructions to AI which may be better at checking boxes than we humans are.

When we model our work behavior to a simple inventory we should not be surprised when AI mimics it. AI is algorithmic. It uses models and arrangements of variables in a mechanized and calculated way. As we are finding out, AI can out-perform us over a growing number of jobs, especially the jobs that are like checklists. A pertinent quote by artist Robert Irwin in the Ian Leslie piece is, “Human beings living in and through structures become structures living in and through human beings.”

As we determined above, checklists certainly have their place. However, as people we need to look at our work lives as being beyond just an amalgamation of discreet work tasks and responsibilities. To be human, especially in our careers, must be more than that.

Our evolution requires innovation and novelty. It demands an expression of humanity which is an added value above any pre-arranged framework. It seeks to celebrate intuition and ingenuity and even uncertainty. The careers of tomorrow will thrive because they bring a richness of the human experience not easily cloned by a computation.

Romanticism arose in Europe toward the end of the eighteenth century in reaction to the heavy emphasis being culturally placed on rationalism, science, and industrialization. Instead Romanticism insisted on honoring art, music, literature, nature, and the intellectual capacity of the individual. It exulted human emotion and aesthetic experience. Above all, the message of Romanticism was that to be fully human required embracing the wide range of human expression and to not be limited to the mechanized worldview of materialists and rationalists.

The time may be ripe for a neo-Romanticism in the age of AI and checklists. Efficiencies have their place. But let’s not confuse them with being human.

 

 

AI and Your Career Considered

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Amper Music is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) application that can create music based on inputs from human users who may know nothing about music theory or how to play a musical instrument. Requests and conditions are submitted concerning the type of music desired for purposes such as podcast themes or home video soundtracks. Amper Music in turn generates original music.

DALL• E is an AI program that empowers human users to produce art and realistic images in a variety of modes and forms. Taking text descriptions which have been provided by users, the AI goes about creating stunning illustrations and depictions. Little to no human artistic talent is required to develop original art.

ChatGPT is a newly released open-source AI chatbot designed to yield fresh high quality written text on a wide variety of topics, including software code. Based on human user editing suggestions ChatGPT will even revise its text constructing multiple drafts until the output is just what the user wants for anything from a set of complicated directions to marketing copy.

Another chatbot called Franz Broseph was able to compete against twenty online players from around the world last year in a game of Diplomacy. The game compels participants to engage in political negotiations, form alliances, apply military strategies, and basically win a World War I simulation. Guess who came out on top? Yup, Franz Broseph.

We are no longer waiting to see when AI will revolutionize the world. The disruptive transformation is currently underway.

Note that I used the word disruptive above. Is this a good thing or not? Well, the term certainly brings to mind the late Clayton Christensen and his popularizing of the concept “disruptive innovation”. Christensen highlighted a process whereby a new product or service is introduced at the bottom rung of a market ladder. Eventually, it catches on and grows in usage displacing much if not all of the traditional competition. What Walmart did to Sears is an example.

In my judgment, it is safe to assume that the AI examples above are representative of a larger AI disruptive innovation which is in the process of rolling over the work world as we know it. Again, is this good or bad? Well, it could be both.

The manner in which writers, music composers, and artists have operated customarily is clearly threatened. AI is now a major new competitor on the block. To be sure, in the short term at least, consumers who prefer conventionally produced text, music, and art will purposefully acquire it and shun the AI-generated material. But eventually the innovations will seep into the mainstream and could very well become the new ordinary.

As the Borg in Star Trek put it, resistance is futile. AI engineers and self-learning AI itself will continue to breed one disruptive innovation after the next, simply because they can. Ethics or a concern for the greater wellbeing of humans, if it is ever considered, will not inhibit the creation of these products and services. If anything, these novelties will be presented as good for people.

Perhaps, these inventions will be good for people. Maybe “better” writing, music composition, and art will result. Possibly the shift we saw from an agrarian economy to a mechanized one during the Industrial Revolution will be an apt analogy to what we are now experiencing. Time will tell.

One thing is clear, however. A simultaneous adaptation to new practices and systems will need to occur such that the AI-fueled modernizations are integrated into the new normal while human careers can continue to flourish. Possibly first drafts of essays will be written by ChatGPT and future iterations will be the result of human edits and prompts bringing about a spectacular essay produced by an otherwise mediocre human writer.

The question I ask myself is, if partnering of machine and human does not lead to higher quality outcomes, then why are we bothering with AI?

 

 

 

 

Love Video Games? Make Gaming a Career With These 6 Tips

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Another Guest Post from contributor Leslie Campos

Photo by Michael Boskovski on Unsplash

 

Video games are an enjoyable hobby, but what if you could make gaming into a career? With the right skills and education, it might be easier than you think to build the career of your dreams. Bill Ryan Writings offers this career development advice for gamers who want to make their passion into a profession.

Plan Carefully

The video game industry involves countless careers and job paths. Since you want to make quality decisions in planning your career, explore the options carefully.

 

All types of roles support video game development, including art, technical, programming, engineering, business, and marketing positions (and many more). Consider your interests, strengths, and possible job paths.

 

Then, determine how much time and energy you can invest in education and skill development.

Build Skills

Playing video games is practically a prerequisite to building a career in the gaming industry, but it’s not the only requirement. Playing games does build many soft skills, notes ZenBusiness, but to be competitive in the job market, you also need to hone skills related to your career path.

 

For example, learning to code, use editing software, and check for bugs is crucial in video game careers. Yet the specific skills you need will depend on the role you want to work in. The good news is that many skills are ones you can build on your own.

 

For example, you can self-study to become fluent in computer programming languages and begin coding projects. Practicing various types of art and graphic design could improve your craft. Yet formal education may still be an important step in building your career.

Get a Degree

For some job opportunities, you might need more than casual skill-building to get an interview. Earning a degree in graphics, software engineering, game development, or another technology discipline could make your resume stand out.

 

Online degree programs let you study and earn a degree while working and maintaining a personal life. Choose an accredited school with competitive tuition; this could be the ticket to an affordable education and a new career path.

Network Online

Gaming, as both a hobby and a career, is popular around the world. That makes it easy to connect with people you can learn from and share ideas with. Video game communities exist for every type of game, as Game Designing outlines, and joining them can help you find opportunities and network.

 

Gaming clubs may also be a way to get feedback on your work. Sharing with a gaming group could help you polish up a project for your portfolio, increasing your odds of getting a gaming gig.

Create a Resume & Portfolio

Writing a clear, professional resume is the first step in any job search. Use the resume format that best fits your experience, whether chronological, functional, or hybrid. Include relevant keywords for the gaming industry, and highlight your skills, certificates, and education.

 

A strong resume is a must for any job search, but a portfolio levels up your application, especially in the gaming industry. But because video games or graphics are hard to insert into a resume, take time to build a portfolio site to display your work.

 

Buying a domain name and creating a website may sound like a lot of work, but it’s the best way to design a professional portfolio. If you code the website yourself, it can also serve as a portfolio piece.

Apply to Jobs

With the right skills, community, and degree, finding a job might be the easiest step in your gaming career journey. Especially if you enroll in a degree program, internships are readily available for on-the-job experience and skill-building.

 

Or, you can apply to be a video game tester, start in an entry-level quality assurance, art, or journalism job, or join a gaming company in an administrative or support role to get in the door.

 

A career in gaming might seem like an unconventional path. But for people who are passionate about video games, developing skills and even pursuing a degree will be worth the effort. The result is a professional path you will love and grow in.

American Business Needs Good Teachers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

A disturbing trend could befall the quality of job candidates available for business hiring in the not too far distant future. We are at risk of finding that the pool of potential hires may be deficient in language and mathematical processing skills and in their ability to think critically relative to past generations. Why might this be so? Simply put, the United States is now experiencing a shortage of highly qualified teachers. And there is no end in sight of this problem. 

A weakening of the teaching profession consequently leads to more students receiving less instruction and lower quality education. It is hard to imagine how a nation that is unable to educate its children adequately can expect to succeed commercially, especially in a globalized economy. Yet, this is the situation the U.S. is now facing. 

Tuan Nguyen, Chanh Lam, of Kansas State University and Pula Bruno of the University of Illinois in an August 2022 paper entitled Is There a National Teacher Shortage? revealed there are 36,000 vacant teacher openings and 163,000 teaching positions being occupied by underqualified instructors. They contend these are conservative estimates. 

Josh Bleiberg, an education professor at the University of Pittsburgh, claims the quantity of qualified teachers is falling nationwide and the few states seeing an increase in certified teachers are still not able to keep up with growing enrollments. 

One does not have to look too deeply to see why this is the case. Professor Bleiberg’s research discloses that teacher wages, when adjusted for inflation, have been mostly stagnant from 2000-2020, while student caseloads have been consistent. 

Also, during this time teachers and administrators have witnessed an expansion of accountability initiatives designed allegedly to improve teacher proficiency. Although some accountability measures are necessary, too many have been based on student test scores, leading to needless stress, system gaming, and dilution of curriculum. Making maintenance of teacher credentialing more rigorous with no corresponding compensation increase is bad business. 

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that students earning bachelor’s degrees in education has gone from 176,307 in 1970-71 to 104,008 in 2010-11 to 85,058 in 2019-20. And this decline is before the pandemic. 

We cannot underestimate how negative Covid has been for the teaching profession. The terms and conditions of teacher employment degraded overnight. Concerns about their own health and safety while trying to manage instruction remotely or in super-spreader classroom environments while also dealing with students who had experienced the loss of family members has been extremely detrimental. Many older and more experienced teachers chose early retirement rather than risk their physical and emotional health. 

Moreover, we now have the politicization of education and use of teachers as punching bags by those who claim students are being brainwashed with various culture war issues of a racial or sexual nature. Let’s throw in the risk of school shootings and we can see why a national problem exists. Given the relatively low pay, high productivity demand, health and safety risks, and politically oriented pressure it is no wonder many otherwise great teachers are saying, No Thanks! 

This is not just a problem for one industry. It is a potential loss for our economy if we have ill-prepared students growing up to become our available workforce. It is in the best interests of business to recognize the looming threat and to get on board attempting remediation. 

As a nation, we can start by accepting the value teachers provide and offering them the prestige they deserve. Teachers are much more of a resource than they are an expense. It is past time to honor them for being the assets they are. From there we can tackle issues of adequate compensation, reasonable employment conditions, and greater self-determination. 

It is for the greater good of our economy, our country, and our children that we get this right. 

Facing Incivility on the Job

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Many have noticed an unpleasant change in recent years when doing our jobs, especially for those who perform customer-facing work. This deterioration comes in the form of an increase in incivility among the general public. Discourtesy, rudeness, and disrespect directed at frontline service providers by customers, clients, patients, student parents, airline passengers, and many other service recipients have made working to assist and benefit the public unnecessarily difficult and disheartening. 

This observation is not just anecdotal. Christine Porath is an author, consultant, and management professor at Georgetown University specializing in optimal workplace conditions. Earlier this year Dr. Porath surveyed 2,000 workers and people who had witnessed workers on the job. Twenty-five industries were represented in the study. Here are some of her findings from respondents: 

  • 76% deal with incivility at least once per month on the job 
  • 70% see and hear incivility two to three times per month on the job 
  • 78% claim customer bad behavior is more frequent than five years ago 

Dr. Porath has been conducting surveys of this sort for some time. In 2005 approximately 50% of employees reported they were treated poorly at work at least once a month. In 2011 this number rose to 55% and in 2016 it jumped again to 62%. 

Our careers cannot flourish amidst a barrage of atrocious behavior delivered from the very individuals we are trying to help. Most jobs present plenty of inherent challenges with which to contend as it is. Work is rarely an easy and carefree endeavor even under the best of circumstances. Piling on impertinent and ill-mannered behavior risks making our jobs unpleasant and unsustainable. 

Given this situation, two basic questions come to mind. What is causing the increase in incivility? What can we do about it? 

I will go out on a limb here and make the claim that very few people, if any, are natural born jerks. Further, I think people are basically social, want to be nice to others, and want to be treated kindly in return. Fundamentally, we all understand that to make it in this world we need the help of others and the best way to receive assistance is to be agreeable with one another. 

What goes awry in a word is stress. Too many of us are mentally frazzled. There are countless reasons for our stress from unmanageable pressures at work and home, to uncertainty about the future, to the unceasing flood of bad news from media, to our politics, to coping with pandemics — the list goes on and on. 

Stress is bad for our personal health and the health of our society. It deprives us all of living fruitful lives. Getting a collective grip and learning how to manage our stress levels and their injurious consequences is critical. Life is too short to be consumed with the amount of anger we are experiencing. 

Leadership is needed at times like these. We may not be able dictate how the public should always behave, but we can have leaders help our workplaces to better cope with the burden of incivility facing frontline employees. Prepare workers for when incivility happens, not if it may happen. We need leaders to coach, train, and lead by example how their workforces can best handle the repercussions of stress from among the very customers the business or organization relies upon. 

Best practices can be identified from those industries that deal with stress all the time. Police officers, health care workers, teachers, and many others have had to learn over time how to manage the unmanageable. There are techniques, attitudes, and lessons we can learn from them. Such interventions are no longer an accessory. They need to become an essential part of any job that deals with the public. 

Instead of the workplace reeling from bad behavior maybe it can be the place from which more acceptable social interactions are derived. Alleviating incivility on the job is a great place to start. 

Freedom AND Equality

Posted on by Bill Ryan

My understanding of the founding of the United States, by which I mean the “1776” founding as opposed to the “1619” founding, is that the European Enlightenment inspired our founders to build a new democratic nation upon the fundamental values of freedom and equality. In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson wrote a line that has resonated throughout American history encapsulating these core beliefs —  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Clearly, within what was a new experimental American democracy the standard of equality was unambiguously spelled out. Also, the phrase, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, spoke to individual freedom and liberty. Can it be interpreted in these words, or anywhere else in this esteemed document, or for that matter in the overall founding endeavor itself, that one democratic value is considered more moral or weightier or more important than the other? I suggest not.

It seems evident to me that the founders concluded that for a democracy to function both freedom and equality were not only required, but were inseparable and equivalent in scope and magnitude. These principles were two corresponding pillars upon which rested the ideology and conviction of the new nation. We were to be a people who honored the right to exercise individual free will throughout the course of our lives while simultaneously respecting that this right is to be extended to all individuals.

Of course, the founders were flawed leaders despite their unique ability to systematize selected philosophical thoughts from Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Despite their infatuation with the concept of a social contract to encourage individual freedom and equality, the founders nevertheless lived prosperously under a social system that permitted slavery, Native American genocide, and concentrated power in the hands of property owning males at the exclusion of women.

These failings however, should not take away from the ideational benefits which the founders debated and documented and left for generations of Americans and other lovers of democracy around the world to ponder and use as a guide from which societies can operate honorably. As Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others that have been tried.” It is reasonable to say today in the twenty-first century Churchill’s words still ring true.

Nonetheless, there is one troubling consequence which arises in matching the significance of freedom and equality. It comes in realizing there is a natural disengaging tension between the two. We are unable to optimize and to enjoy the fruits of both freedom and equality simultaneously and in similar measure. Let me explain.

When we allow individual freedom to be maximally expressed we soon discover a troubling reality settling in. A sorting of society’s individuals occurs like the pecking order of chickens in a barnyard. Wealth and power become concentrated among a self-professed elite group. The rationales for this aggregation may be centered on race, ethnicity, tradition, or generally perceived merit, but the result is always the same. A lack of social equality is the inevitable effect. Equality becomes diminished.

Similarly, an escalation of equality can lead to detrimental impacts. There can come a point in a social assigning of equal measure to each individual in a society when an over-homogeneity results. This can be characterized as a socially stultifying blandness in which people are pressured to all act the same and not drift from rigid social behaviors and thought patterns. Difference and innovation are reduced to being oppositional and uniformity is elevated to unnatural heights. Freedom becomes diminished.

We have a conundrum. As described above, freedom and equality are both of identical importance. But when each is augmented as much as possible an essential conflict emerges. Their shared power cancels out the advantages derived from each. What is to be done?

To start, we have to accept that each value carries with it great possible reward, but also great potential hazard. So instead of seeing co-nullification as an inevitable consequence when society attempts to practice the two virtues in tandem we can rather view them as keeping each other in check. It is a type of symbiose in which democracy needs both to survive. Yet a balance needs to be achieved in order to derive as much benefit and as little downside as possible.

In America, this striking of equilibrium is practiced by the two major political parties. One, the Republicans, seek to advance the cause of freedom over equality, while the Democrats vigorously promote equality above freedom. The outcome of this tug-of-war is the closest this society comes to a consensus of the freedom-equality strain of priorities. If the electorate sees too many disadvantages from an overemphasis of one side or the other, then election cycles should right the ship, depending on the pertinent issues of the day. So, if one is a diehard partisan, one has to learn to live with the heuristic that you win some and you lose some.

The greater problem, which America and other democracies are now facing, is when one political persuasion or the other decides to change the rules of the game. When striking the delicate balance between freedom and equality is thought of as too difficult to achieve or if impatience to get one’s way becomes too unmanageable such that undemocratic tactics become justified, then democracy is in trouble. When the arts of compromise and persuasion are abandoned in favor of a raw takeover of power leading to autocratic governance, then democracy ceases to exist and an unpleasant form of fascism or communism takes over.

I am writing this piece days before the 2022 U.S. midterm election. In other words, I and my fellow countrymen and women are both observing and participating in one big case in point. On the ballot, so to speak, is the question concerning whether or not American democracy, and its history of attempting to conduct free and fair elections, is to be continued, suspended, or abandoned.

The Trump-fueled right wing insurrectionists and their supporters, i.e., the Republican Party, sound as if they feel justified in canceling the electoral tradition. They are angry American society isn’t functioning the way they want it to. Of course, they are free to have their political leanings, even if their leanings are Euro-White-Male-dominated. But why is their grievance so pronounced that overthrowing free and fair elections can be considered just?

Sorry. I don’t see it. Coming of age during the 1960s I have seen social and political unrest. It is surely an experience of social disequilibrium. And it unquestionably both agitates and frightens significant segments of the culture. There can be both sound and absurd claims made by people. But that’s life in a democracy, isn’t it?

Things not going your way? Wish more of us would adopt your view of reality? Then be persuasive!  Convince us! Don’t change the rules to suit your own narrow interest. Who the hell do you think you are?!

Hopefully, I am needlessly worked up. The next several days will be instructive. How the 2022 midterms are conducted will portend the activism of the next couple of years. A satisfying endgame would be to see this MAGA movement as but one of several social-political episodes that occur periodically throughout American history. Like other unruly digressions of the aggrieved, it will soften and diminish, but nevertheless leave its mark on policy making for some time to come.

Long term, these societal spasms are likely necessary if democracy is to survive for centuries. However, they are weighed against other constants such as unconstrained elections and the tussle between freedom and equality. Striking a necessary balance between freedom and equality is truly an exercise in making sausage. It leaves democracy messy. However, let us not forget. Despite its innate churn, democracy contains within it the most civilized and just conception of how people are to live together that has ever been devised. Let us agree that its fundamentals should not be messed with.

 

 

 

 

Energizing Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Keeping a career vibrant, meaningful, and worthwhile takes intentionality. As career-driven individuals we have an imperative to steer ourselves along a course leading to all the beneficial rewards a successful career can provide. No one can rely on being showered with blessings from afar for a fabulous career. We each need to own this one. 

We often talk about keeping our focus on a set of workplace constructs that will make the difference between being minimally engaged with our jobs or truly embracing them. So, we gauge our achievement levels in areas such as skills mastery, motivational techniques, attractive compensation, work-life balance, and team cohesion among others. However, it is possible that we may be overlooking one simple and obvious, but admittedly elusive, point of concern to best boost our careers — our individual energy levels. 

Feeling energetic is perhaps the most important attribute we can bring to any job. All our talents and expertise are diminished and less valuable if we do not have the physical, emotional, and cognitive energy to perform optimally. And it is not just our productivity that is negatively impacted by low energy. Our mood, self-concept, and demeanor can be adversely affected as well. Taking the time to assess what energizes you versus what drains you may be one of the best things you can do for your career. 

So, where to begin? The Energy Project is a workplace development firm that attempts to peg organizational improvement to the well-being of the organization’s workforce. The premise of their approach states that high performance requires highly energetic individuals. To this end, The Energy Project presents an energy enhancing model they claim is science-based and effective in promoting personal energy for busy people. 

Examining The Energy Project’s design for furthering individual energy offers insights we each can utilize toward fulfilling our own personal goal to get more energized. It begins with an understanding that our energy stems from four different domains: the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit. If we can advance conditions in each of these areas, then we can find ourselves more invigorated and better able to face challenges. 

Let’s unpack these. The body refers to our physical stamina. Yes, we are talking about adequate exercise, nutritional foods, proper amounts of sleep, cutting out or at least down the drinking, and maintaining moderate weight. Sure, you have heard it all before. But this time let us reframe these practices as ways of strengthening our careers. 

Energy is further enhanced when we can manage our emotions. Rather than being continually buffeted by external events that affect our moods and anxiety levels, we can choose instead to find ways of controlling our emotional response to the inevitable pressures and sudden demands of the workplace. So often we slip into fight or flight modes of reacting to too much strain, which ill prepares us for working at our best. 

Upgrading our ability to concentrate and focus our attention is the foundation of mind improvement in this model. Here is news you can use — multitasking diminishes productivity and distractions are ruinous! We can discover and rehearse practices leading to fewer interruptions and deeper immersion in the task at hand while curtailing disturbances that only keep us off our game. Also necessary is to allow ourselves time for mental renewals. 

Our spirit is indistinguishable from our purpose. When we care about what we do and work consistently within our values we feel viscerally connected to our careers. Such an association is energizing. Know how to prioritize requests for your time so that you are spending time on those people and jobs most important. Practice observing yourself. Know the situations that best get you to your sweet spot. 

The bottom line here is to accept the unmistakable link between our energy and our career. And just possibly, more energy may vitalize your life as well. 

Decision Making and Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The need to make quality decisions is pervasive and continuous throughout our lives. This is especially germane when it comes to the ongoing practice of our careers. All along the long-term spectrum of our careers, from our initial professional entry point through to when and how to retire, decisions need to be made to ensure our professional goals are steadily being addressed and realized. 

Over recent decades, decision making has become an identifiable psychological and operational construct. There are a variety of models and multi-step plans designed to render the decision-making process as a rational exercise, which is considered by many to be more effective than a process too invested in emotions or irrational thinking. The premise is that attaining any consequential aspiration can often be confounding and perplexing requiring application of a logical and objective method. 

Executing a career proficiently can certainly be considered among the significant goals of our lives, so it makes sense to consider an approach that fortifies how we make decisions. The range of career-related decisions we typically face involve innumerable choices such as determining areas of specialization, optimal compensation levels, acceptable stress levels, the purpose underpinning our work, a reasonable work/life balance, among many more crucial preferences we select to improve our careers. 

But before we reach for an off-the-shelf decision-making model to guide us, we need to take into consideration the premise mentioned above — by using a more rational decision-making approach, the better the outcomes will be. The truth is we are humans and not solely computational and algorithmic programs. We each enter decision making as individuals impacted by prior experience. Our singular views of reality are therefore necessarily subjective. To suggest any rational methodology will capture the only and truly best decision for everyone may be over relying on pragmatic analysis at the expense of a more viscerally human variable. 

I am not advocating for ditching all 7-step decision making plans and the like in favor of depending on gut feelings only but am proposing the better process may be a decision-making hybrid consisting of a use of logical and sequential steps that are colored and influenced by our feelings and intuitions. Skewing too much to one side or the other of this hybrid could result in low quality and ineffective outputs. 

However, both rationally-based and contemplatively-based procedures carry with them liabilities. Rational approaches assume the decision maker can clearly identify and weigh all options, alternatives, and consequences. We may try to select the choice that best finds a great solution, but we are often limited by things like lack of time, overwhelming amounts of information, conflicting opinions, and competing priorities for our attention. While rationally-based decision making processes can yield useful insights for determining the course of your career they almost always turn out to be limited to a degree. 

Integrating elements of introspection into your decision-making process means you will exercise your reflective capacity. Focus on past decisions which were successful. Extend that to your values encapsulated in rules of thumb known as heuristics. Some examples are, “Treat others as you wish to be treated”, “The customer is always right”, and “Always maintain a professional demeanor with subordinates”. 

But beware of too much reliance on just what feels right. Lurking in our feelings are biases which may warp our ability to make sound decisions. A particular liability is confirmation bias — a condition where we ignore or discount evidence that conflicts with our preconceived beliefs. This has the effect of closing off avenues which could potentially benefit our careers. 

Career-oriented decision making is part science and part art. Paying attention to how we make decisions and how that process can be improved can go a long way toward enhancing our professional selves and extending the gains enjoyed from a flourishing career.