Franchise Speak

Change Concepts: A Reflection

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution, which rejects progress, is the cemetery. “~Harold WilsonMy consulting takes me sometimes to organizations that seem to love the status quo. They will cling to it, fight for it, and drown anyone who tries to rock their boat. It is not easy. My role is made even more difficult by the fact that I am usually being hired in order to look into this status quo and initiate changes.

Organizational Change

I normally ask; why these things are being done this way? Alternatively, why does the system go that way and not the other way? The typical answers I get: Well, you have to admit that things are as they are. Followed by a frowned forehead and shrug of a shoulder. Why do people react that way? For the last 5 years, that continues to puzzle me. No matter how prepared you are to preclude objections and have clarified your objectives, people will naturally resist change.

Change is inevitable. I remember a company whose motto is “innovate or stagnate!” How profound! If you resist change, that is for the better, you will surely degenerate and be relegated to a cemetery as Wilson pointed out. An organization can only compete in a highly competitive, unpredictably ever-changing, and globalized market if it is willing to adopt to and adapt with changes. Otherwise, it will be left behind, overran by its competitors, and eventually close shop.

Personal Change

A person’s maturity does not come with age. Maturity is not the product or result of experience either. Maturity is the result of learning from life’s experiences and from that of the others. Maturity most of all hinges on our ability to adopt and adapt to changes (I mentioned this earlier). Have you heard the maxim: Everything is changing except change? True! A mature individual is one who strives to find ways and means to improve and who tries to influence and initiate positive changes around him. He is not the product of change itself but the mover of change.

However, having said that, I have to admit that there are things that cannot be changed (I know, this will be easily construed as contradicting my premises above, I must admit too). Given that, I will go with Mary Engelbert’s admonition:

“…if you cannot change it, change the way you think about it.“

Article Byline: Practical Tips for Young Urban Professionals

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction for some stems from the challenges in the job or a sense of purpose while for others it’s more extrinsic and, for example, may be measured by the money they make. For others it may come from the learning that takes place or from knowing that their work matters or from helping others. Still for some simply having a job to go to everyday in order to have “other” things in life is fine, and it’s from “accepting” that they can derive their satisfaction.Defining the factors for your own job satisfaction requires you jumping all the way back to the beginning and walking through your career life, but instead of identifying duties, responsibilities, job descriptions etcetera as you might to create an outline for your resume or vitae. This time only look at your successes and the underpinnings of those successes; for example instinctive skills – the automatic – the intuitive, creative, type skills perhaps that you drew upon at that time, or learned skills. When you take this walk-through, don’t limit it to successes in the workplace either. Consider too alumni associations, community and civic organizations, councils with which you may have been involved and teams on which you played or Boards on which you served through the course of your life. Once you have all these successes out on the table, you can identify the actual skills, personal and professional characteristics and knowledge areas, inherent or learned, that you drew upon to succeed – “underpinnings” to your successes as it were, or, success attributes; but you don’t stop there.

You need to divide those success attributes into two groups – those you are interested in perpetuating in your career and those in which you have little or no interest … motivated and unmotivated success attributes we’ll call them. Very simply, the success attributes of interest are those you not only do well but enjoy doing – you’re “motivated” to do. The others may also be things you do well, maybe very well, but are not interested in doing – you’re “unmotivated” to do. Say for example you’re terrific at editing research reports but don’t enjoy it. If you’re caught on the job being very good at it and it becomes 20% of your job, well…there goes 20% of your job satisfaction, right out the window. Too many people get caught doing something well that they don’t enjoy, it becomes part of their job, consequently, and depending on how much a part, will determine their level of angst – the most severe being that which requires them to pull themselves out of bed every morning. How many people do you know like that? They live for Fridays and vacations. Hey…Life’s too short!

Once you have defined and thus classified your success attributes you have laid the groundwork and are well on your way to defining the “best fit” positions for your next career step. When you know what it is you CAN do, WANT to do and will ENJOY doing most you are in the best position to capitalize on the opportunities that await you; and why? … Because we are at our best when doing that which we enjoy doing most.

Article By:  Rob Taub

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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Jobs On and For the Web

Article Byline: Affordable Website Design & Maintenance

Many people want to break away from the traditional 9 – 5 desk job so that they can work flexible hours out of their home. The web offers many opportunities especially for freelance web designers, developers and copy writers.

There are so many opportunities available that it can be difficult to know where to start looking. The problem you will find is that a lot of freelance job opportunities that are posted online do not compensate well. Others, you have to pay for (and it’s hard to know which services are worth paying for and which are not).

Since all time spent weeding through jobs board postings is time you are not able to bill we’ve narrowed your search. Here are our top freelance job board picks, based on number of projects available, pay scale and quality of jobs.

http://odesk.com
Jobs are constantly being posted to this website. Some jobs pay a fixed price, and others pay an hourly rate. Either way, you bid on the jobs that you are interested in. You can also showcase your skills by taking tests that validate your knowledge and capabilities. ODesk also has software that monitors your work activity to make timekeeping a breeze for your hourly projects.

http://www.elance.com/
Elance has an amazing amount of opportunities available for web designers and programmers.

http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/
Freelance Switch requires $7 a month in order to apply for jobs. You can browse a list of available jobs before deciding whether or not to subscribe.

http://authenticjobs.com/
Authentic Jobs is a job board for “standards-aware designers and developers” and “the companies seeking to hire them.” There is no cost to apply for these jobs. Most of the time the employers post their direct email addresses on the project announcements.

http://www.sologig.com/
SoloGig is excellent for finding any kind of freelance work, whether it be for web design, or nursing. There are no project fees, and there is no bidding. You just choose which projects you are interested in and negotiate the pricing directly with the employer.

http://guru.com/
Guru.com lists a ton of freelance opportunities on anything from web development to illustration or accounting. As a basic free member you are only allowed to apply for 10 jobs a month, but as a subscriber (between $29.95 and $99.95 a quarter) you are allowed to apply for 100 jobs a month, and Guru.com charges you a smaller project fee.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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I Need Specifics…

Hi all,

I’ve read this entire blog and have some questions re: Corporate.

Many of you stated what Corporate has done well (i.e. Curriculum), however, none of you cite specific examples of what Corporate has done wrong besides communication and nepotism problems. What was actually promised for the $30k that they did not deliver? Many of you feel that you are not supported, so, in what specific ways are you not being supported by Corporate? What specific problem(s) is Corporate NOT addressing?

We are very excited about this concept, but after reading what you all have to say, we are thinking of simply going out on our own. Any advice? Thanks!

Posted in Young Chefs Academy | 1 Comment »

Thinking Big

Article By: Karen Burns, Working Girl

Here’s a thought: Huge, exciting, challenging, unique goals are easier to attain than smaller, more ordinary goals.

First, there’s less competition for the fabulous goals, because most people think they have to be sensible and realistic.

Second, there’s more competition for the ordinary goals, for the same reason.

Third, a big goal fills you with energy because the potential payoff is big so you try harder. A mediocre goal produces mediocre effort.

So what are you waiting for? Think big, people. Here’re some other goal-attaining tips:

Make your goals specific, not general. “I want to live in San Francisco, work in the software industry, and buy my own condo” is a specific goal. “Gee, I’d like to live in a big city someday” is not specific.

Write your goals down. This will help you to make them specific. And help you to do the next step, which is:

Figure out your mini-goals. Mini-goals are all the things you need to do to get you to the big fabulous goal.

Figure out your daily goals. You should do something that moves you toward the big goal every single day. These daily goals need to be doable and unintimidating. Daily goals lead to mini-goals; mini-goals lead to the big kahuna.

Tell other people about your goal. This has two effects: (1) if people know what you’re going after, they might help you–probably will help you, because everyone likes and admires a dreamer, and (2) it will be harder to give up on your goal–think of the public humilation!

Think about what you might do when you’ve attained the Big Goal. Weirdly, there’s often a little letdown when you get something you’ve been chasing a long time. You should always be working toward a goal.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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