Teryl @ Work

Resignation – avoid burning those bridges It has been a great pleasure working with a colleague like you. Now, you are off to your next big challenge! Good luck and farewell! Isn’t that what we all want to hear when we leave?  We were appreciated and we will be missed. The need for all parties to maintain professional conduct in the event of resignation is critical, particularly now when we are working within an unsettled socio-economic climate. Employees should avoid damaging relationships, and employers need to adopt a neutral approach and ensure that there are policies and processes that enable the separation to be objectively handled.  For example: ·        A formal resignation letter is required ·        A formal acceptance of resignation is issued confirming any special conditions ·        An exit interview takes place ·     ...

How accurate are CVs/Resumés? Once, a long time ago, I knew a young man who had come to South Africa from England.  He was a television technician who landed up sharing a house with two draughtsmen.  They were earning better salaries than he was, so he decided that it was an excellent career choice. They taught him the basics and off he went and got a job as a draughtsman.   He was fired at the end of the first week!  Undaunted, he tried again.   Six months, and 5 jobs later, he was a draughtsman and still is today. I am not sure if this would still be possible, nor if there is a moral to this story, maybe amoral is more like it.   He did work extremely hard to improve his skills, though, and shared his questionable career path with the final company.  They decided to take a chance, and the rest is history. The value of secure employment within challenging economic conditions creates an environment where people resort to...

The lesson of the snake queue If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it or Leave well enough alone.  But do we?  Oh no, we are always trying to improve on things, no matter how well they work. Progress does come from constant improvement, but it needs to be an improvement! Hence the lesson of the snake queue… I know that life isn’t always fair, I also don’t believe that everything happens for a reason (see below). However, the advent of the snake queue made me feel so happy.  I knew that, once I was in it, I would get served next.  I didn’t have to decide which shopping trolleys in front of me had more items, and pick a line accordingly, I simply joined at the rear and waited my turn. Those stores who have duplicate snakes facing each other do add a small element of stress in terms of which one to select, but I cope quite well with this one if I have my Kindle…. The same at airports, pharmacies and banks, such a fair system. Then, a colleague and I ...

Shambolic – it simply sounds better to me than chaotic .. Do lots of people have favourite words or just a few of us nerds? As everybody is starting to think holidays ( or maybe you prefer to vacation), it seemed a good time for a different type of blog. Have you noticed how many words with pleasant associations sound more attractive than those that describe the negative. Watching a TV quiz show the other night made me wonder. The contestant hated bulbous and gusset ! There have always been some words that appeal to me, triskaidekaphobia being one. I now know that I had the meaning wrong! I thought it meant fear of Friday the 13th, but it is simply a fear of the number 13, so how does paraskevidekatriaphobia grab you? That is the real word for fear of Friday the 13th. Love it! Now I prefer rural to bucolic , but Robert Beard (see below) selected the latter as one of his favourites. Effervescent is a gorgeous word, so descriptive and onomatopoei...

“We” vs “Them” – relationships in business Somewhere, sometime, I read an article that referred to “creating a stronger we” by “identifying a them”.  We seem to do it in all levels of our lives, both business and personal. In its extreme form it can become dangerous! In business, sport or life in general, when building teams or a strong culture, us and them scenarios form a significant part of a winning strategy. Obvious stuff. However, in a world where we have opened the traditional barriers and borders via social networking, new networks are being forged every day.   People belong to multiple groups and are aligning themselves in a different way.   The traditional concept of brand and group loyalty is changing as a result.  While loyalty levels to the groups might vary, most of us have a strong desire to belong.  The global village offers unbelievable opportunities for building powerful networks, regular contact with people from al...

This morning, as I was packing my boot to go to work, I felt a few drops of water on my arm. I looked up into a clear, blue sky.. Maybe it came off the car? I went inside for my goodbyes, came back out, and there it was, a steady drizzle seemingly coming from a cloudless sky. It seemed impossible. Our knowledge about our world, and the possibilities, is extensive, and yet we are often limited by what we believe to be possible. It is something I think about all the time, particularly when viewing my guilty pleasure, magicians and mind readers. How do they do it? Our holding company Telkom:Business Connexion has the mission of making the impossible possible through technology. And it is happening! Every day, we become aware of some amazing new development that only a mind like Da Vinci's could have conceptualised in advance. I would love to hear some impossible stories! Please let me know if you have one that made you gasp with disbelief. Personally, though, I...

Working at home – Lifestyle AND Career Choice It’s becoming easier.   Technology enables working from anywhere.   Go into any coffee shop and see the number of people working at laptops, holding meetings and sharing cell phone business conversations with the world at large… But if you work for a corporate and are planning a big career, do the advantages of missing the daily commute and the noise and buzz of open plan space outweigh the disadvantages? I do not believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder in the work environment.  In fact, just the opposite. Teams work because they are close together.  You don’t build ability in a sports team by everybody practicing in separate venues and coming together five minutes before a match.  The same goes for a choir. Or is that changing with social media?   Are people able to build up great team spirit and work effectively without proximity? I think it’s possible unless the model...