How to Survive a Negative Boss

Sunday

Instructions

Things You'll Need:
• Motivation
• Self esteem

Step 1
You arrive at work and your boss rips in to you for a minor mistake. Your day is absolutely ruined. To top it off your boss continues to put you down all day. Before you explode and make things worse consider what your motivation is?



Step 2
Analyze your self worth. You are what you think you are. Your boss may be filling your head with negative degrading comments, but it is what you think you are that counts. Try to think of the positive achievements that you have made and have gotten you to where you are now. By doing this you will develop a thick skin that will shield you from that negativity.


Step 3
Have a plan. How did your boss get into the position they are in? Think about returning to school to finish your degree. Think about ways of being promoted. Sometimes your boss has a boss too. DON'T let your bosses attitude get you into a depressive state that it starts to affect your work or home life.

Step 4
Get to know your boss. Ask questions about their life. Become familiar with them, show them you care. Say hello to them every morning. It may not stop the negativity but, you will be surprised on how it will make you feel. Never give up!

By ravage
eHow Community Member

The Musketeer Approach

Saturday

Stories of intrigue, treachery, politics, lies, double crosses, and power struggles fill the history books, much like they fill today's headlines. In the world of the 17th century musketeer, life depended on who you could trust. In the world of the 21st century employee, one's livelihood may.

I'm not naïve to corporate politics, competition, or sabotage in the workplace. I've held my own in corporations where silos, turf wars and power brokers delivered indigestion, sleepless nights, and distrusting cultures. But I still don't get it. When people are more focused on what's happening in the cube next to them than on achieving corporate goals, everyone loses. When corporate politics fill emails with mixed direction stalling productivity, everyone loses. And when discretionary effort and new ideas are swallowed in pits of bureaucracy, guess what? Everyone loses. The way I see it, if the company fails, we all fail.

So, I believe the Three Musketeers got it right: "All for one and one for all!" Each understood his fate as an individual was tied to their fate as a group. Trusting each other was unambiguous. One was in trouble, they all were in trouble. One needed help, they all provided help. One succeeded, they all succeeded. The fiction of Alexandre Dumas, set in the 17th century, seems a good prescription for the 21st century workplace.

I know it's worked for me. Arriving at a new job, I discovered the boss who hired me was away, and no one expecting me. I found no office, no desk, and no information. The person I was hired to replace was in my job, and had no idea I was replacing her. Each week got worse. Information and requests flowed like water through a clogged pipe. I was out of the loop on important issues and viewed like the enemy. Turning to my boss for guidance was like stepping into a sink hole, as I discovered his credibility and the department's lacking.

I realized if I was to survive, I had to find, win over, and/or develop a handful of people I could trust. It took a difficult year, but the payoff lasted an entire career. Gradually the group of trusted colleagues grew. We never thought of ourselves as musketeers, but by our actions, we became them. Unspoken rules of ethics and integrity prevailed. We looked beyond individual interests. We shared ideas, collaborated on projects, borrowed resources, and worked together easily and enthusiastically. We wanted the best for each other and the best for the company, each of us worrying about more than our own five acres.

Unspoken commitments prevailed. If I was in trouble or asked for help, help was given. I was called upon to step up and provide help too. We all knew our musketeer roles required reciprocity. The bottom line was that helping each other succeed, helped each of us succeed. I don't know where I'd be today without the musketeer approach. My advice? Become a musketeer!

(c) 2004 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.

Sign up to receive Nan's free biweekly eColumn at www.winningatworking.com. Nan Russell has spent over twenty years in management, most recently with QVC as a Vice President. She has held leadership positions in Human Resource Development, Communication, Marketing and line Management. Nan has a B.A. from Stanford University and M.A. from the University of Michigan. Currently working on her first book, Winning at Working: 10 Lessons Shared, Nan is a writer, columnist, small business owner, and online instructor. Contact Nan at info@nanrussell.com.

An Interview Strategy: Telling Stories

Sunday

A Job Interview Is Not an Interrogation
By Joe Turner

If you read many books on job interviews, you'll notice that some feed you lists of interview questions that you should learn answers to. But an interview is not an interrogation; it's a conversation. Thus, I believe the best way to prepare for an interview is to come armed with a multitude of small stories about both your business and personal life.

Conversation Wins the Job
Competency-based interviews, as opposed to traditional interviews, have become more common today. In a traditional interview, the interviewer will ask you questions focused on whether you have the skills and knowledge needed to do the job. A competency-based interview goes further by asking you additional questions about your character and personal attributes that can better determine whether you fit their corporate culture. These are called "behavioral competencies."

A competency-based interviewer will spend about half the interview on your job skills, and about half on your behavioral competencies. He or she will be looking for evidence of how you have acted in real situations in the past. So having your stories ready to go, and discussing them during a conversation between two equals, plays very well for this type of interview.

The Interviewer's Priorities

An employer wants to find out:
• Are you an asset or liability? In other words, will you either make money or save money for the company?
• Are you a team player? Will you fit into the corporate hierarchy or be like sand in the gears? Can you take and give (if appropriate) orders?
• Will you fit into the company culture? They don't want prima donnas.

Your Story Strategy

The best way for an interviewer to get answers to the questions above is for you, the interviewee, to take the initiative. You should have several personal stories that you can tell as examples of your successes, and each story should last between 30 to 90 seconds.

You should start by developing your stories around these areas:
• Examples of when you either made money or saved money for your current or previous employer.
• A crisis in your life or job and how you responded or recovered from it.
• A time where you functioned as part of a team and what your contribution was.
• A time in your career or job where you had to overcome stress.
• A time in your job where you provided successful leadership or a sense of direction.
• A failure that occurred in your job and how you overcame it.
• Any seminal events that happened during your career to cause you to change direction and how that worked out for you.

Actions speak louder than words. Your actions in the past -- relayed in story form -- will tell a company much more than any generic response. Your stories will give the interviewer the tangible examples he or she seeks, and they will convey a very strong sense of your individuality, making you stand out more.