Author Archives: Michael Boronowski

Leaving a Job & Building Connections – Part 2

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Previously on Lost in this series:

  • We avoided self-righteous indignation
  • We said nice things to people
  • Locke totally isn’t Locke, he’s the smoke thing OMG AMIRITE!!1!ONE1!

Ahem… Focus

Part Two

Put on your blinders and blinkers boys and girls.

One Track Mind

Maintaining focus during the wrap-up period is one of the most difficult, and most important, parts of successfully leaving a job.

As much as it’s tempting to start taking it easy and wind down to the last day, actually cranking it up is by far the better option.

The reason for this is twofold:

  1. You won’t look back with any guilt over your last few weeks or days.
  2. You’ll leave with a much stronger foundation for your reputation.

You won’t be able to complete everything, and what you can’t complete will need to be handed off.

With that in mind get a notepad and pen, and keep it with you 24/7. A notepad is simple, reliable, and perhaps because of it’s lack of wifi, one of the best ways to keep yourself focused.

Out of Focus

FOCUS!

Starting at the front make lists of projects and how you’ll finish them off or at least prepare them for the next person. Starting at the back, write down a tips list for your replacement.

A good list of tips and lessons learned will be invaluable to your replacement, or replacements if your work is being spread across several positions.

On your second to last day go through that notepad. Transcribe the tips, and make a special note providing brief details for projects you just couldn’t complete or prepare for handing-off.

You’ll have kept yourself focused, and left a solid foundation for both the person(s) taking over your position, and your reputation. Much like the tips from the first post in this series, it’s all about building your professional network the right way. You’ll probably meet your colleagues again, do it as friends and mutual admirers.

Leaving a Job & Building Connections – Part 1

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Over the next few weeks I’m transitioning from one workplace, where I’ve been for the last five years, to a new job. This move means I will have left, on good terms, ten jobs.

Not that it’s a major accomplishment that I’ve had that many “serious” jobs since high school, that’s increasingly common among my generation. Unfortunately, what’s also quite common among my peers is an astonishing lack of tact and class when leaving a position.

This post, and those to follow in this series explore how we leave, and what we leave behind.

GTO Judge
Unless you are actually a judge, or this car, which is a judge keep it to yourself

Part One

Grab not the gory-gavel of post-position pontification.

Employment advice abounds on the ‘net. From LinkedIn to Monster, from blogs on building your personal brand to career coaching services. In general, the focus of career-sites is on “reaching the next step.”

That’s great, but gracefully leaving an organization is nearly as important – and growing more important every day – as tactfully joining another.

Why?

If facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, bebo, orkut, google buzz, and this blog right here have anything to teach us at all it’s that we’re all connected. Our connections and relationships are public record and offer a reflection of our character for all to see.

Regardless of how tightly you control your privacy settings.

Which brings us to the permier point:

Zip it.

Seriously, unless you’ve got something positive to say keep your lips sealed.

Sure, a new opportunity is empowering. But regardless of how strong the temptation to pass judgment out loud might be, remember that you yourself will be judged and remembered based on your actions during your time of transition.

Stay positive, and stay quiet. Outside of actually having done a great job for your about-to-be-former employer, it’s your best chance at being remembered in a kind light.

Monster Planning Session
Imagine your rep is Japan, an unprofessional exit from employment helps build a community not unlike that pictured above…

Your colleagues are far more likely to reconnect with you throughout your working life than your manager, director, or boss.

Harm done to these relationships will bring no good.
Wrap up everything with as much positive energy as possible and you will build a very real network of valuable connections.

I’ve witnessed every kind of negative departure, from the office-wide up-yours-email, to rants at meetings, to hushed cc’d and bcc’d emails pointing out flaws, to drunken blabber at goodbye bashes. Without fail, these actions cast a shadow over any positive accomplishments made during one’s tenure.

Without fail.

If absolutely must say something to someone about their performance during your last few weeks, make it positive. Let someone know they were great to work with, or let someone’s boss know.

Be cool, be classy, and be quiet.

Your goal should be to create a community of micro-mentors, and your reputation as a cool and classy lass or lad can only help, especially when it comes time to poach the best and brightest from former employers for your amazing new venture.

Sure, you might have built a few friendships. That’s great, but greater than that is a wide network of professionals whose last experience working with you was positive.

In just seven days I’ll be back with another segment. If you have tips or advice drop it in the comments section or email me at mvboronowski at gmail.com. And really, I have nothing but great things to say about my current-for-the-next-two-weeks employer. If you ever want to hear about how fantastic the people at BCIT are just ask. Also, if you’re interested in leaving jobs, or jobs in general, check out this post by the  fantastic Theo Lamb.

Libraries, Literacy, and Community

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Literacy, both reading-and-writing and community literacy, are critical components of a strong community.

Informed discussion, enlightened imagination, and literal comprehension are the pillars of an active and engaged people. They enable organization, planning, and debate; all of which are critical to a healthy and functioning society.

Public Domain - Vancouver Public Library 04

CC publicdomainarts on flickr

It is difficult to overstate the importance of libraries and literacy.

While it is true that communication tools have led to improved access to information, the effectiveness of that access in terms of promoting local community development and community literacy is greatly diminished by the quest for monetization and the decentralized and isolated nature in which we receive it.

One of the great defining aspects of libraries, beyond providing access to a wealth of information, is that they are communal in nature. Scan the offerings at your local library and you will find activities, courses, support, services, and events that help build strong communities at a grassroots level.

Helping parents raise literate and informed children, helping students and teachers with research and access to information, and opening our eyes to publications from around the globe that provide insight into every aspect of our lives. All provided not for profit, but for our collective good.

Libraries serve as a critical grounding during a time where we are all-to-easily distracted by links of the day, explosions on television, and celebrity gossip publications.

They reveal and support the best in us all. The loss of any of these services would be detrimental to our communities, yet at the moment we find that loss a very real possibility.

BC provincial public libraries have not yet received their 2009 annual operating grants from the provincial government, nor have they been told how much money they will be receiving – both of which usually happen earlier in the fiscal year. There have been strong indications that the Province has decided to stop funding libraries and that this funding may be cut from the current and subsequent budgets.

http://www.stopbclibrarycuts.ca/public.htm

With articles in community publications across the province, the reaction to this holdback by media points to the importance of libraries to our communities.

Hopefully that coverage leads to informed debate and action that results in a long-term plan to support libraries and the communities of British Columbia.

It’s our chance to support those that support us, to bring positivity to a political debate that is all-too-often debased with uninformed comment, and to steer our representatives towards a very real way they can support the communities from whence they came.

You can find out more about what funding means to British Columbia’s libraries, and how you can become engaged through the British Columbia Library Association. If you’re interested they have an official response and list of other resources as well.

Expanding the Grey

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Diversity is underappreciated.

What’s that you say, but we love diversity. Heck, we’re lowermainlanders, (those of us not off plundering the rich bounty of the sea anyway) we’re all about that stuff.

On the surface that may be true, we celebrate lunar New Year alongside Robbie Burns day. We appreciate the different smells, flavours, and the rich patina of a multicultural landscape. What we don’t seem to truly appreciate is mental diversity.

It’s not that we don’t recognize the breadth in our varying capacity to learn, cope, empathize, love, and generally thrive amongst our peers. The issue is that we have created a divisive atmosphere focused on the extreme. We built a black and white landscape where we’re either gifted or handicapped, and thus celebrated or medicated.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, partially because of the rough waters in the k-12 community.

The B.C. Labour Relations Board has ruled that not administering FSA tests amounts to illegal job action, yet a substantial number of parents and teachers oppose the tests. Part of the problem is the tests don’t properly account for diversity in the classroom.

We’re not just talking social diversity here, but the breadth in maturity and capacity to thrive in a traditional learning environment.

There’s a whole grey area that comes into play between gifted learners and those with significant challenges. Our resources go to coping as best we can with those on either end of the spectrum, while to a great extent those in the great gray are ignored.

This mirrors life outside the k-12 community as well. In order to get support people are pushed to align themselves with one extreme or another.

There aren’t a lot of groups or programs dedicated to helping average people succeed, which is leading to the diagnosis and treatment (which all too often means medication) of ever slighter variances from the norm.

Feel awkward in social settings?
It’s not that while being told you were a unique snowflake during your formative years you found yourself amid a sea of indistinguishable yet equally unique snowflakes. Find the right diagnosis and you can be medicated for your pervasive developmental disorders.

Worried to the point of exhaustion?
That’s not because your education and upbringing didn’t equip you with adequate coping mechanisms for the realities of an uncertain future. It’s an anxiety disorder and you need TCAs and SSRI

I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t strive to recognize and address mental illness. I’m sure each and every one of us has seen or felt the effects of mental illness at some point in our lives. I’m saying we should appreciate mental diversity as we appreciate physical and social diversity.

Those of us that are awkward, nervous, or prone to worries need patients, caring, and appreciation for what we bring to the table.

A complex grisaille.

So expand the grey. Find beauty in its complexity, and opportunities to help all of us who exist within its gauzy borders to thrive. After all, grey is a common companion to us landlubbing lowermainlanders for the better part of the year.

-mikeB