Effective Decision Making Skills for Career and Life for TakeCharge

I like helping people, especially undergrads and grads in finding their career based on their strengths.  Having 20 years HR experience from seven different industries, I've seen first hand the "unforced" errors made by candidates who I interviewed.  Not all were junior, first time interviewees.  I felt it was quite sad that they made these errors because they didn't know better. So, ever since I started out on my entrepreneurial journey, I ensured that Strengths-based Career Coaching and Career Transition Coaching were a part of my service offerings.  

I joined Take Charge about three years ago as a Mentor, to give back and help the youth.  Click here to read more about Take Charge

During a discussion with the organizing team at Take Charge, it came out that the mentees were requesting some training on topics like convincing others (Influencing), making career and life choices, and dealing with disagreements. We know that we're drowning in information, and making decisions would be more challenging for those who younger, even though they navigate the digital world better than us more experienced folks.  

I offered to do a pro-bono session on Decision-Making for them, because when one is clear about how they arrived at a decision, it becomes easier to convince others, even there is an atmosphere of disagreement.  I had the experience of having conducted two-day workshops on this topic for corporates.

My challenge here - I was given two and half hours (woefully insufficient).  I really had to slash and squeeze the content (with exercises) into that timeframe.  I designed a workbook with articles. interactive exercises, group discussions around assumptions, and made them work with a couple of decision making models.

The big plus - everyone that turned up put their heart and soul in participating in the sessions.  That made the session much more stronger than it would have been.  Here are some pics of the action:

Expectations

Their Icebreaking Questions

 

Icebreaking in progress

Sharing key points from Group Discussions

Their Insights and Actions

Participant Feedback

WordCloud for the best part of the Workshop

Post Script - Another workshop is being organized in the near future to cover other key content under this topic that was included in this session.

Stay Tuned.

The Myth of Futureproofing ANYTHING

The term Future proof is being used a lot over the past few years, and continues today.  You find it in advertisements for a number of products, like learning (Future Proof Your Job), career (enroll for this course to future proof your career), family and relationships (buy this product to future proof this relationship). Given my reading and experience, I wondered if any form of future-proofing would be possible in reality.  Here are some definitions of the term "future proof" that I checked from the net to see if my understanding matched (it did).

Future proof is a term used to describe a product, service, or business that is designed or structured to withstand the challenges of the future. www.bluestonepim.com

to design software, a computer, etc. so that it can still be used in the future, even when technology changes - Cambridge Dictionary

If you future-proof something, you design or change it so that it will continue to be useful or successful in the future if the situation changes - Collins Dictionary

As you can see, the definitions talk about the ability of something to stay relevant and useful even when surrounding circumstances change in the future.  

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The reality is that knowing what is in the future is one thing, but knowing what the future means is an entirely different matter.

Considering that the number of events that have occurred in the world over the past 8 years (like the lockdowns) were mostly unpredictable, the results of those events could not have been visualized or understood immediately.  What we know is that very little of what we have known for sure in the past has remain unchanged.  Even without the explosion of AI tools, the requirement for people to adapt has greatly increased in the past 30 years.  

The impact of AI tools is still taking place, in ways we haven't understood or imagined yet - for eg. the impact of AI systems on the planet's environment is not talked about as much as it could be.  The current war in the middle east and other domestic and international policies provide zero indication of things stabilizing, and while adaptability is once more a key skill for humans,  in reality, what are the chances of really futureproofing anything?

What can you do?

• Develop awareness of yourself i.e. strengths, weaknesses, and so on.  I've given more details in this video here - https://youtu.be/9etu02AtSJA. 
• Upgrade yourself. Keep learning things that you could possibly turn into a career and make money.
• Study trends - political and market. Review the recent past, keep an eye on current trends and attempt to discern which way the wind seems to be blowing.
• Get a mentor or coach - It always helps to have someone to talk to about such things.  If there's someone in the family who you trust and look up to for advice, then please do that, or else put aside funds to engage a professional (like me).
• Build your network - become known in the industry you work or want to work.  Essentially, it means be polite to everyone you meet, without evaluating how someone may be able to help you.
• Do your own due diligence - Beware of tall claims, should you wish to opt for one of the offers of future proofing, and take the time to understand what contingencies they have planned for, what costs are involved, including time (you definitely can't get your time back), do reference checks on your own, be clear about the benefits that are being promised.  Some of these offers may actually suit your needs, especially if they're being open and honest with you.

Finally - don't believe all the ads you see about future proofing your job, career, business, industry.  Nobody really knows the future either.