High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Your 12-Month Guide to Building Your Side Hustle This Year

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• Your 12-Month Guide to Building Your Side Hustle This Year: "If you want to put your diligence toward your own gig or big idea, the best way to build it is to have a plan. Even if you’re setting your own hours one day, a huge part of entrepreneurism is self-reliance and focus."

• 5 Hiring Trends to Watch in 2019: "candidates will be selected based on their potential career trajectory and not necessarily what they did or didn’t achieve educationally."

• 10 Business Books You Need to Read in 2019: "They include new offerings from business celebrities Clayton Christensen, Simon Sinek, and Marcus Buckingham--and one from Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer, who wants to look deep into your eyes."

• How to Manage Someone Who is Totally Disorganized: "how messy your employee keeps their desk — no matter how much it grates on you — is, in most cases, probably not that big of a deal."
• 5 Easy Ways to Boost Your Mental Health in 2019:"Don't be so hard on yourself that you forget to enjoy the life you have. Whenever you find yourself ruminating, refocus your attention toward all the things you have, goals you've already accomplished and people who love and support you."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Ace a Side Hustle While Working Full Time

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• How to Ace a Side Hustle While Working Full Time: "Similar to performance reviews with your boss, sit down with yourself on a regular basis to evaluate your time and resources. Is the side hustle serving its purpose? How is it impacting other areas of your life?"

• 13 Ways to Take Care of Yourself Every Day: "Focusing on work is a great excuse for not taking care of yourself. I have set specific time slots where I won’t work and will instead spend time on my family and me."

• Stop Doing These 10 Things if You'd Like to Be Happy: "Focusing too much on past events doesn’t allow you to live in the present or strive for the future. You can’t change the past."

• How to Manage Somebody You Just Don't Like: "Your role as their boss is to help them be successful in their role. You don’t need to like them to give them feedback, make sure they know your expectations, and be there to help them develop and perform."
• 5 Essential Steps to Changing Jobs Without Burning Bridges: "Refrain from researching open positions on company time. It comes off as incredibly unprofessional. Use personal time outside of work for job hunting."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Building Mental Strength

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• 8 Things to Do Before Starting a Business: "Rather than ditching your job, setting up shop for yourself and just hoping that the clients come, try out your business idea on the side first – while you keep your day job."

• The New Rules of Being Professional in the Workplace: "Dependability means you follow through by doing what you say you're going to do. This quality will help differentiate you from the masses. Being a person of your word is a valuable reputation to establish."                                                      
• Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid: "Mentally strong people don't complain (much) about bad traffic, lost luggage, or especially about other people, as they recognize that all of these factors are generally beyond their control."


• What Inexperienced Leaders Get Wrong: "Good management is a series of well thought-through actions including phases, communications, checkpoints, customer-impact-testing, metrics, contingencies, and feedback loops, designed to produce specified results on time and on budget, based on known circumstances."


• How to Inspire Your Team on a Daily Basis: "One of the key qualities when it comes to leadership is the ability to be decisive under pressure. Leadership is all about making decisions and sticking to those decisions."

Reinforcing safe communication: last in a series

The ability to create and maintain a safe space where communication can occur uninhibited is a terrific workplace skill. After coming to terms with what you are up against and obtaining buy-in from your team to design a safe psychological space, the last step is to reinforce the behaviors that lead to unparalleled group communication. Regardless of your position within the organization, as a leader you have the ability to reinforce this new group dynamic, one that will enable quick cohesion and allow productivity to soar.

Step three: reinforcing safe communication
There are two distinct things you can do to reinforce the behavior that you want to see: mine for conflict and reaffirm others' behavior.

Mining for conflict
When you mine for conflict, you turn your listening up to a different level. You are not only hearing the words that are said but also the intent behind the words. Further, when mining for conflict you become acutely aware of the "energy" behind the words and the energy of the group. When someone answers with a response of "possibly," the person's tone of voice when giving the response speaks volumes to what they are really thinking. When mining for conflict, it is your duty to bring those issues to the surface and have a discussion with them in an attempt to get stronger buy-in from your group.

A great question to ask to mine for conflict is "why won't this work?" It forces the team to bring up what they are already thinking about: possible aspects of failure or what they are saying "yes" to or "no" to when making the decisions that have to be made.

Mining for conflict isn't a hindrance in that it brings up conflict; the conflict is already there. It just brings it to the surface sooner so that it can be worked through.

Affirming conflict
When conflict comes up, sometimes the discussion can get heated. Ideas clash and personalities can become forceful. So long as no one's character is being attacked and only the ideas and concepts are being debated, this is exactly what the group needs to happen. Thus, you are encouraged to - while in the middle of a debate with a group - to say "this is good. This debate is exactly what we need to have." This sends the message to group members that what they are debating are important things and that the conflict isn't something to shy away from: it will make the output stronger, and it will make the group stronger knowing that they can have these unfettered discussions with respect and in the interest of their goals.


Communication is an essential component of the workplace, but we do not often talk about what we mean when we say "communication." It's those unarticulated expectations and standards that can quickly derail communication. By intentionally designing a space of psychological safety and diligently reinforcing it, positive group dynamics are created and output soars while group members feel closer and stronger.

Assignment: in your next meeting, turn up your listening to hear what is being said behind the words: worries, intent, and other avenues for conflict. Further, ask the hard question "why won't this work?" to evoke an even deeper conversation between team members.

Designing a safe space for communication: second in a series

In my last post I discussed the importance of creating a safe space for communication as an important leadership practice, whether you are a front-line worker, a manager, or a senior executive. A critical component of developing strong relationships with others and a team-oriented work environment, psychological safety builds trust among and engages team members productively. Not every work culture embraces psychological safety, however, which is why it is important for leaders at all levels to know what they are up against (i.e. power dynamics) before setting upon this course. 

Once that dynamic is acknowledged, the leader needs to proceed to the next step: 

Step two: Designing a psychologically safe space

Designing a psychologically safe space does not happen naturally: it takes faith, time, and clear communication on behalf of the leader. The latter of the three is critical as expectations and group ground-rules should be considered, discussed and agreed upon.

A discussion like this can seem like a strange one, as many just assume and follow the common practices of organization culture (which are oftentimes harmful to psychological space). You, as a leader, should initiate the discussion to create this space.

To begin, ask the group for permission to address the topic, and articulate the notion that groups can oftentimes be waylaid by communication issues, and you wish to address them now before they can become problematic. Most will agree with you outright, and those that do not will be intrigued to listen further. 

Once you have the group listening, say that you would like to create a group space of safety, one where  anyone can communicate ideas that are considered positively or negatively by the group. No person is to be ridiculed, but no idea is to be free from discussion.

Another point of discussion should be the roles that group members play. Regardless of the organizational "rank" of the individuals in the group, the group's goals outweigh them. Thus, everyone in the group should have he ability to speak-up freely without fear of reprisal. 

After articulating your vision, practice what you preach by opening it up for discussion. What are you gaining by agreeing to this new way of working? What are you losing? To what level of responsibility is the group now aspiring?

When the discussion ends and the group appears to have come to a consensus on its norms and expectation in this new way of thinking, address one more aspect: the invitation. What you are asking them to do is to embark on something extraordinary...and different. Can they step into it? By accepting the invitation, they are making a commitment to do so and to take responsibility for what comes up.

Assignment: create a conversation patterned after the one above, one that designs a space of psychological safety. Discuss what happened in the comments section below. 

Communication and getting to the truth - one in a series

If you have ever been in a leadership role in your career - whether as a supervisor, unit head, project manager, or some other role where you are leading an initiative - inevitably a thought is going to cross your mind: am I being told the truth?

It's an excellent question...and one that can make or break a leader.

Creating an environment of psychological safety - where your team members can speak up freely about their thoughts and opinions on a topic and not fear condemnation or reprisal - is at the heart of outstanding group communication and being told the truth. Managers - from CEOs to front-line managers - struggle with this component of their jobs more than any other. It's one thing to make claims about wanting others' opinions to be heard, but it's an entirely different thing to create an environment where it is true.

Building a safe psychological space requires an acknowledgment of current organizational dynamics, a shift in perspective, intense intentionality, and constant reinforcement. In this series, I will delve into these different components individually and provide you with assessment questions or assignments to help you strengthen psychological safety for your work unit.

These steps can be helpful to managers, or to front-line staff who have the courage to talk with their supervisors about this important component of teamwork.

Step one: Acknowledge the power dynamic
Since most organizations are hierarchical (with a top-down reporting structure) and possess a culture (the rules - both written and unwritten - that dictate how communication is handled, tasks are accomplished, and where power lies) that reinforces the power of the supervisor, I believe the first and most critical thing you can do is to understand and acknowledge this, particularly if you hold performance review and/or firing power over your team.

Through understanding and acknowledgment, you become aware of what you are up against. Fighting hierarchy and culture is a difficult proposition. You could get some push-back from peers or from your supervisor. Further (and possibly even more daunting) you will be fighting with your more skeptical and jaded team members. They are not bad people: they likely have been hurt before by those before you who told them that the space they worked in was psychologically safe...only to be shown that it is not.

Creating a space of psychological safety can seem like an uphill battle and - at times - not worth it. But witness the output and dynamic of any high-performing group and you will see a space of extreme psychological safety.

Assignment: reflect on these questions before committing to creating a space of psychological safety:

• What is in it for me?
• What is in it for the team?
• What am I willing to let go of?
• What will I need to persevere against?
• How far am I willing to go?
• What are the benefits of doing this?

Five Skills You Must Develop if You Want to Become a Manager

I have talked to several customers this week who have stable, well-paying jobs in very popular industries. However, no matter how good their job may be, they want to do "more" with their careers. If you are feeling stagnant in your career and want to move forward into a leadership role there are several steps you must take.

The first of these steps is to let your goals become known. Ensure your manager and human resources knows of your aspirations so they can help you develop a plan of action. Show the leadership team of your company that you are serious about your goals by developing your skills in these key areas.

Communication and Listening
No matter how good you are at managing tasks or projects, if you can't communicate effectively with people, you can only go so far in your career. A good manager must be able to interact effectively with all members of their team. You need to be able to communicate with your employees, your customers and your own manager. You must be flexible and adaptable enough to know how to change your own style of communication to connect with everyone at all levels.

Effective managers must emphasize listening as much as talking. No matter how important you become, a manager's job is much more than telling people what to do. The art of listening - both to what is said and what is not - is critical to knowing what is really going on around you.

Training and Coaching
Ask for opportunities to mentor and coach new employees. This is an excellent way to gain experience in training and will allow you to demonstrate that you have the skills to develop new employees - an important skill for being an effective manager. If these opportunities do not exist within your organization, consider joining an professional organization that will match you with someone you can mentor.

Initiative
Taking initiative is another way to demonstrate your value to the organization. Look for inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement in your organization. Put together a comprehensive plan for overcoming these obstacles and ask your manager for permission to present and implement your ideas. Try to anticipate your manager's needs and take care of the details of your current job without ever being asked.

Problem Solving
Managers are most often problem solvers and "firefighters" resolving the issues of customers, team members, and higher leadership. Show your ability to determine the source of issues and be proactive in resolving not only the problem, but the underlying root cause.

Leadership and Management
People often use these words interchangeably, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Managers plan, organize, and coordinate while leaders inspire and motivate people to follow them. Managers focus on the short-term priorities where leaders have their eye on the long-term goals of where the organization is headed next. You must be able to do both - especially in today's economy where companies try to do more with less.