Our Corporate Life
December 13, 2011   •   Volume 2, Issue 25   •   ISSN: 2154-3240    

Holiday Hiatus - We’ll Be Back in 2012!

In This Issue
♦   Feature Article: Self-Management
Ask Amanda: How can I balance the needs of the business with holiday activities?
♦   Practical Tips: Review Your “Freak Out” File
 
Self-Management

Probably the hardest thing any of us has to do is manage ourselves. We have complete control over how we choose to react and respond to the events in our lives, yet very few of us consciously exercise that control. I would argue that this one skill is the key distinguishing factor between successful and unsuccessful executives—in terms of both tangibles like promotions and bonuses, as well as intangibles like satisfaction and happiness.

Self-management means actively and consciously choosing how you perceive events by managing your energy and impact, while influencing the perceptions others have of you and your leadership.

We create interpretations of events that reflect our biases and beliefs—that’s natural. It’s how our brains catalog information so that we can retrieve it. Our first inclination is to create a negative interpretation of disparate facts, and that creates an emotional reaction.
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Imagine Looking Forward to Monday

Learn More Here

 
Practical Tips: Review Your “Freak Out” File

There’s a natural impulse at year’s end to review and assess events and achievements. Goal-oriented people like to measure progress in order to make adjustments, review what they’ve learned, and decide how they want to move forward. Often, though, our view is colored by recent events, and/or we focus on whatever didn’t meet our standards and forget about everything else.
read more

    
 ask Amanda
Question:

Holiday time is a real challenge because we have to close our books and the staff is distracted by all kinds of holiday events, including our own holiday party. I don't want to be a Grinch but my performance is under a lot of scrutiny at this time of year. Ideas? A.H., Santa Monica, CA

Amanda Mitchell
Answer:

This sounds like a good time for clear communication and proactively managing both expectations and perceptions of what is expected and acceptable. Given that one of your team’s functions is to close the books, I can’t imagine anyone having difficulty accepting the importance and timing of the task. The fact that you feel extra pressure regarding perceptions of your performance means you need to be vigilant in self-monitoring.
read more

    
     
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About Us: Our Corporate Life LLC (OCL) is a company that offers a new system for reducing unnecessary workplace suffering caused by the organizational, interpersonal, and ethical issues of our time. It is founded on the belief that adhering to core human values and achieving business success are always compatible. Working with both companies and individuals, OCL helps create solutions that enable corporate employees at every level to optimize profits while enabling them to thrive in the corporate environment. OCL was founded by Amanda Mitchell to help meet the needs of people working in corporate America during this transformative moment in our nation's history. The OCL system reflects her experience and insight gained from a 20–year corporate career working with Fortune 500 companies, and as an executive coach to senior–level corporate executives. Our Corporate Life
 
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