At some point you just have to make the call, stop hemming and hawing and decide that it’s time.At some point you have to stop getting ready to get ready to make the career change that you fully intend to do once you’re ready. You have to stop telling yourself that you will do it…once you’re not so busy/once you graduate/once the kids graduate/ once your closet is finally organized and life is perfect.Consider one study tha...

Unfortunately, making things complicated is easy to do. Take something pretty straightforward, like weight loss. I don’t know about you, but if you gave me a donut for every time someone said, “All you have to do to lose weight is eat less and exercise more,” I’d be up to my eyeballs in powdered sugar. I’d also hate to admit that something so challenging has a pretty simple solution, particularly after spending time and mo...

What would it mean to your business if¡­.Sales professionals had better conversations with prospects?Leaders had better conversations with clients?Managers had better conversations with their teams?Employees had better conversations with each other?It isn¡¯t any secret that it makes bottom-line sense to have great conversationalists within your organization. Did you know:¡Ì Organizations who rate high on communication skil...

We’ve been told to be assertive, and ask for what we want – but do we cross the line when it comes to our careers? As a former fundraiser, I was taught to ask for the money – we can’t expect people to read our minds or to hand over their checkbooks. And, I’ve seen enough ‘Oprah’ by now to know that, no, I can’t expect my husband to know that, yes, I really did want to get a huge bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day, not...

The next time you’re looking for a little fun at the office, try this one on for size: Prowl around a few cubicles and sneak up behind an unsuspecting employee or two. Then, quickly, before they have time to think, bombard them with a series of questions: “How would you define our brand? How does our brand differ from our competitors’ brands? How do we support our company’s brand on a regular basis?”If you’ve got a sneak...

Planning to leave the office? Jump ship? Head on to greener pastures? Happens all the time. Here’s what doesn’t happen all the time: The Graceful Exit. When you consider the various ways you’ll say goodbye to your current employer, don’t overlook your exit interview. Consider:Before you walk into an exit interview, prepare. If you’ve never been through one of these before, know that from an HR perspective, an exit i...

Let’s imagine you work for a company called, “Counting the Minutes Until Quittin’ Time,” or “I Really Wish It Was the Weekend So I Wouldn’t Have to Be Here”This is what I found myself wondering at an airport T.G.I. Friday’s the other week, eating a Tropical Splash Salad (so good) and being served by a very courteous, efficient gentleman named Evan. Sure, the operation seemed to be running smoothly, and given the number of f...

Hard to believe we’re almost at year’s end, because it may only just feel like yesterday when you sat down and pledged to land a new job, launch a new business, or achieve some other goal you set for yourself. The question is, how did you do? As we review the year we’ve had, let’s resolve to give even more to getting what we want. Whether it’s really getting serious about your career or devoting more time to building your b...

“I’m not here to make friends.” More than any other phrase, the no-friends one is what you’ll hear again and again on reality TV. Check out VH1 blogger Rich Juzwiak’s amazing montage of the phrase uttered (or screamed) here – or hear his discussion of it on Act 2 of the “Frenemies” episode of This American Life on National Public Radio.“I’m not here to make friends” works well on Reality TV – but careful if you’ve got the s...

Can you negotiate salary (or even ask for a raise) in this economy? You can and you should. Here’s the real question: Will you? Because salary negotiation is tough, many of us are using the economy as a reason to avoid it altogether.The bottom line: Don’t be one of these people. No matter how badly you want the job, have been out of work, or would be thrilled to have any kind of salary at all, those feelings will soon pass...