Penelope Trunk

Archives

Video blog: Everyone suffers from low performers, so get rid of them

Posted to: Management
February 28th, 2007
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Bruce Tulgan tells the four reasons you have to fire a low performer, and the best way to get low performers to leave on their own.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

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The Madison update (and the Britney update)

Posted to: Networking | Office Politics
February 27th, 2007
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A lot of people ask me how living in Madison is going. For those of you who don’t know, I moved from New York City to Madison, WI about six months ago. I can’t believe it’s already been six months, because I still feel like I’m in culture shock.
It is shocking, for example, that five …

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Make life more stable with more frequent job changes

Posted to: Job Hunt | Productivity
February 25th, 2007
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It used to be that finding a good paying career was the path to adult-life stability. Those days are over. What we think of as stability has to change, and how we get to that stability has to change.
Here’s a summary of the new employee of today’s workplace: Most will change jobs every two years. …

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Beware: Incoming poem

Posted to: Fulfillment
February 23rd, 2007
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My friend Dylan sent me a warning that poetry can ruin your career.
But before I knew that, when I was a blogging beginner with no idea what to post, I posted workplace Haikus. And my career was not ruined. So here’s another poem, from my friend Ben:
Employed
She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a …

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Friday smorgasbord: Summer jobs

February 23rd, 2007
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The first summer job idea is you better get one. If you are in college, now is the time to gather experience so that you will have some idea what you want to do with your life when you get out of school. Graduating from college is a very hard transition. One way you can …

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Branch out to find work you love

Posted to: Finding a career
February 22nd, 2007
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When you look for a job or change careers, what you’re really looking for is a way to improve things in your life. But it’s hard to figure out what will really make things better and what will only make things worse.
There are some things we all know: People who are in love are happier, …

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Redesigning a blog is about communicating with the designer

Posted to: How to blog | Management
February 21st, 2007
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When I was a new manager, one of the steepest learning curves I had was how to adapt my communication style for the various groups I interfaced with: Technical, creative, executive. Fortunately, I had learned from my days as an arbitrage clerk that each group of workers requires a specific type of communication, so I …

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Video blog: 8 things good managers must do

Posted to: Management
February 21st, 2007
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Bruce Tulgan runs through 8 things in 2 minutes — tactics that will make you feel confident and effective as a manager.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

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What Obama means for the workplace

Posted to: Office Politics
February 19th, 2007
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Barack Obama is dissing the baby boomers. But he’s doing it tactfully. So he’s got a wide range of people talking about generational issues in politics, and I’m eagerly anticipating spillover into the workplace, which also needs this frank discussion.
One of the companies I founded was an online marketplace for city governments. My business …

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4 new ideas for becoming more effective at work

Posted to: Self-management
February 18th, 2007
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It used to be your workplace identity was tied to your company. “An IBM man” is a phrase that comes to mind. Companies kept track of best practices, hot management ideas, and recent innovations in the business world.
Today our identity is separate from our company. We manage ourselves with the care that used to be …

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New design for Brazen Careerist

Posted to: How to blog | Productivity
February 17th, 2007
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Ta-da! It’s my new blog design. This is a big moment for me because when I started blogging, I never dreamed that it would matter so much to me that I would actually pay to have a custom blog design.
There is an important lesson here about starting something new. Many people who have successful businesses …

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Friday smorgasbord: 4 how-to’s

Posted to: Self-management
February 16th, 2007
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I just want to tell you about these links. Each of them made me really happy to find. Maybe one, or all four, will make you happy:
1. How to ruin your image with your signature file.
This is a great post about the stupid fonts people use in their signature file and what those fonts mean …

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Manager’s guide to growing happy employees

Posted to: Management
February 15th, 2007
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At a point when I didn’t have the money to hire an assistant, I ran an ad for an unpaid intern. I ran it on a lark, thinking I’d be lucky if anyone in the world would want to work for free.
The number of responses I received was incredible, not just in quantity, but also …

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Job hopping: How much is too much?

Posted to: Job Hunt
February 14th, 2007
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Between the ages of 20 and 30, most people have more than 8 jobs. This is a positive thing for a number of reasons. First of all, Daniel Gilbert, psychologist at Harvard, says that we really don’t know what we’ll like until we try it. So having a lot of jobs when you start your …

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Video blog: Non-financial compensation

Posted to: Management
February 14th, 2007
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Bruce Tulgan is back. Here he talks about what to ask for and what to give when recognition is deserved and the coffers are empty.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

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Don’t be an annoying white person at work

Posted to: Diversity
February 13th, 2007
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One of the most dangerous ideas in the workplace today is that racism is gone. Because it’s not.
Jesse Rothstein, professor of economics at Princeton University, shows the prevalance of racist thinking, even today. “Some people think racial discrimination is something that ended in 1972 or something. Some people think that segregation persists because minorities cannot …

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The ill-advised but often-sought business-trip tryst

Posted to: Office Politics
February 12th, 2007
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When I was younger and traveled more for business, I got hit on by just about every man I traveled with. This is not uncommon among women I know.
Of course, most times it’s not that bad. The guy usually looks a little silly, and the next day the girl usually feels a little more powerful …

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Strategies for a sleep-deprived workday

Posted to: Productivity | Self-management
February 11th, 2007
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Chances are half of your colleagues at work are desperate for a nap. Many adults don’t get enough sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation, the problem particularly ”acute” among younger workers: one in three struggle to get out of bed each morning.
What’s keeping them up at night? Not work worries. Marie Gagnon, 24, is …

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Take the pressure off the process of choosing a career

Posted to: Finding a career
February 9th, 2007
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Most of us will change careers. Most young people will change careers at least three times — after they find one, when they are thirty. So work life is really about a series of careers, and we all need to get good at the process of choosing a new career. We all need to get …

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How to deal with a bad boss

Posted to: Managing Up
February 8th, 2007
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Here’s what a bad boss is: Someone who lies, cheats, steals, or touches you after you’ve told him, in writing, not to. If you have one of these bosses, quit complaining and start applying for other jobs.
All other bosses aren’t truly bad — you’re just bad at managing them.
A Boss-Management Decalogue
One of the most important parts …

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New video blogger for Brazen Careerist: Bruce Tulgan

Posted to: Management | Managing Up
February 7th, 2007
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I know, I know, I spent a whole post ranting about how almost everyone should not be video blogging. So it’s surprising to hear that I’m launching Bruce’s video blog here, right?
The reason I love Bruce’s video blog is that he is a great speaker, and he has great ideas, and he gets them out …

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Recognize when you’re being a nutcase

February 5th, 2007
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One of my best friends, Sharon, is a hairdresser. She is not a normal hairdresser. She’s a big-shot hairdresser in Los Angeles. And one of the most important moments in my financial life was when I moved from client to friend — I started saving $100 on a haircut and $150 on color because she …

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Be memorable by telling good stories about yourself

February 4th, 2007
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When someone says, “So tell me about yourself,” a lot of people stumble. When you craft your answer, you have 10 million hours of information to choose from. Many people actually hate getting this question because it’s so hard to zero-in on an answer.
This is an honest question. Someone wants to know about you. You …

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Pay attention to your critics — at least some of them

Posted to: Self-management
February 2nd, 2007
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Take a look at my Yahoo! Finance column for this week: 239 people rated it an average of two stars out of five. Which is an improvement, because yesterday the average was one star. Also, there are 94 comments, which can be fairly represented by the one that I copy and paste here:
“I think this …

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How to ask good questions in an interview

Posted to: Interviewing
February 1st, 2007
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Here’s the structure of an interview: The interviewer asks you a lot of questions about you, figures out what you like, what you’re good at, and customizes as he pitches the company and the job to you.
This structure works fine if you are not all that interested in the job. But if you go into …

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The worst interview in the history of job interviews

Posted to: Interviewing
February 1st, 2007
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Business 2.0 reports in it’s best-of-the-year roundup: “Last May The BBC invited technology expert Guy Kewney to its studios for an interview about Apple’s iTunes Music Store. But when the cameras start rolling, the BBC correspondent found herself talking to the wrong Guy – Guy Goma, a computer technician who was waiting in the lobby …

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