April 2, 2013 • Volume 4, Issue 7 • ISSN: 2154-3240

In This Issue

♦	Feature Article: The Power of the Pause
♦	Ask Amanda: How do I deal with whiners?
♦	Practical Tips: The Terrible Toos

The Power of the Pause

We place a premium on speed. As consumers we expect instant gratification and at work we’re not much different. We expect ourselves and others to react and respond quickly. While doing so is sometimes appropriate, doing so habitually shortchanges our growth. We need time to think, to let our head catch up with our emotions. You’ve probably heard, “Experience is the best teacher.” Not so. Evaluating experience is the best teacher—not having the experience itself. If you don’t convert your experiences into insight, you’ve missed a major growth opportunity.

Stopping to reflect has many benefits. It allows you to better understand the significance of what you’ve experienced so you can course-correct and better teach others.
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	You can't change what you don't acknowledge.

Practical Tips:
The Terrible Toos

Life is full of good days and bad days. It’s very important that you self-manage when things don’t go your way. When you’re under stress it’s very easy to get caught up in the “terrible toos”—too overwhelmed by work, too stressed to reach out for help, too certain that you can’t change your situation, too sure you’ve made wrong choices in your career. Nip that type of thinking in the bud. You are in charge of your attitude. And research has shown that the more positive your attitude, the more successful you will be.

I manage a team with lots of complainers. They say things like "I haven't been trained enough" or "I'm getting mixed messages," wah, wah, wah. I feel that at some level they have to figure their jobs out for themselves. What is my role in this situation? Do I have to do their jobs too? D.A., Parsippany, NJ

I would be less concerned about the whining and more concerned about the fact that their complaints indicate they are not taking responsibility for their performance. In both of these examples, there are things they could have done to resolve the situation themselves. The question is, why didn’t they?
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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.