Hello everyone, and welcome to the webinar. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Steve Nicholls, and I’m a career coach based in the UK – I’ll introduce myself properly in a couple of minutes…..Now, “Are you in right company?”…..By company I’m talking about “culture” – but what is this? What does it mean?I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn, so you’ll find the link to my profile on the attachments tab just above – click once to bring it into view, and once again to close the tab and bring yourself back to the presentation.
Ok, a bit of background about webrecruit and myself. As I said, I’m Steve Nicholls, a career coach based in the UK. How to describe myself? My passion is to help professionals to either change career or develop their current career. I’m all about helping you get the career and life that you were meant to have. I have to say though that what I offer in these webinars isn’t coaching; it’s more about offering you tools and strategies for coping and moving forward – just to make that distinctionBefore I got into Career coaching I was in b2b sales (consultancy), and project management, general & senior management. So I’ve been in the “real world” if you will, just so you know a little bit about my career. Incidentally, I’ve been through the career change process myself – including finding myself in the wrong type of company!! So, it’s a real pleasure to bring this webinar to you.I hope you all know a little of Webrecruit? First fixed-fee recruiter in the UK. Established 11 yrs, Chairman is James Caan, highly successful entrepreneur (you might know him from the UK TV programme Dragons Den). Webrecruit have also recently taken the USA by storm, and launched their service over there. Perhaps some candidates are listening from the USA? If not live, then at a future date, as this is being recorded.As I always say at a webinar - My style is down to earth and and practical. I may use a bit of humour occasionally, but, and again as I always say, I’m deadly serious about helping you, and I sincerely hope that this free webinar does help you.And, please watch the other webinars on this channel. Career Change, Transferable Skills, Video Interviews, Job Interviews, Motivation, Coping with Redundancy, as well as other great content on the Webrecruit channel. I’ve certainly learned new things by viewing some of the great webinars you now have access to.Timings Today: The webinar content itself will probably run to around 30/40 minutes, so there will be time for questions at the end, but please ask the questions as we go along, so that we’ll have a bank of them built up as we go. So how do you ask a question?......Explain
Audience is extremely diverse in both age range and experience range, from students to top executives, so im always treading the balance between the audience we have, so some points need to “general” in nature, as everyone situation is different, and Im always happy to chat over individual plans with people.We do need to explore what we mean by “type” of company, culture etc.Who are you? – Time to step back and find out a bit more about what you wantValues exercise (UPLOAD FILE ONTO BT)Great Escape – how do you plan your next move to minimize the chance of landing in the wrong type of environment again?Methods to move forward, and identify your best career or job “fit”I will answer as many questions as I can at the end, but as I said please ask them now, and any time during the webinar – but I will answer them towards the end.What else can you do to think about, discuss, explore business culture/type and best fit – for you?I suggest you have a pen and paper to note things down, because as usual theres a lot of what I hope is good, useful content for you.There’s also a worksheet I’ll explain more about, so some interactive things for you to think about.
Ok, so let’s get right into it…What’s your definition of a business culture or corporate culture, as you understand it?It’s the way a company operates, dictated by it’s board – or ownerValues and Beliefs of an organizationIt’s more about what the employees bring to the companyThe Jury is out! (undecided)Please vote now
Thanks for the vote. I found one definition which I’ll share with you. This means that I neither agree or disagree with it. I’m here to help you explore what type of company really suits you the best. That’s the whole objective of this session. What type of company are you really suited to?It is often also referred to as “Organizational DNA” or the “Organizational Soul” - very tough to put your finger on wgat that actually means…
So, to expand a bit on that definition. (Definitions are important, as it dictates how we approach and understand any given subject.)!So how does all of this affect YOU?How does it affect identifying the type of company you would be best suited to?
Why Austin Powers? Have you ever felt like you haven’t been in the right job / working with the wrong people? You may have lost your “mojo”, so to speak! – mojo means confidence in this context by the way!Austin lost his mojo and he got his back. Bothfrom my own experiences and from the many people I talk to, it’s easy for your confidence (mojo!) to be slowly eroded over time. If this has ever happened to you, you’ll know what I mean. It can be a slow, almost undetectable process, as you slowly subconsciously adjust to the way that others around you behave within the company. The wrong company. If this relates to you, I want to help you get your mojo back – by offering some very practical and down to earth ways of exploring the real you, and ensuring your needs are going to be met in a job or career.……. And by the way, if you’ve never watched the Austin Powers movies, do yourself a favour. Hilarious.
Slight pause…By the way, if you’re happy in your role / current situation, stay where you are!!That’s a given, and I’m assuming that as you’re listening to this then there’s something missing from your current “vocation”.
But…… for those of you looking for an escape plan….Let’s examine how do you identify the “right” kind of company? or change your job / career direction & look at other options?
What do you do once you’ve decided the environment is wrong?What is called for is a plan, a road map to get you from a to b, b represents your ideal company, career, job (culture)So, as I mentioned just now, lets look at a few ways of exploring YOU, stepping back, taking a bit of time to get to the bottom of what makes you tick, WHY am I suggesting that you do this? So that you can be more in tune with what type of business environment will suit you.
Each of the next few slides involves taking the time to think, so perhaps revisit these next few pages again… Why is it important to understand your values? In a very real way, we are our values. They are the often-unconscious drivers which underpin all our responses, actions and decisions. When we are honouring our values in the way we live our lives, we feel aligned and at peace. When we are not, we can feel uneasy and unfulfilled. A value is something to which you attach importance. You may distinguish between personal values and universal values – or principles. Either way, they make you who you are. Values are essentially subjective. It is you alone who accords significance to your values. Bringing our values up into our conscious mind helps us understand ourselves much better. We can identify if we hold values which conflict and then we can create priorities to lessen the conflict. We can identify values that are no longer relevant to us, which we may have been carrying around since childhood and which no longer serve our best selves. These we can consciously let go of. Best of all, we can design all aspect of our lives – including our careers – to closely reflect our most important values and thus live happily and healthily. And when you design your life and career based on your values, your motivation will be greatly increased and your chances of success and fulfilment improve hugely. POINT TO DOWNLOAD Worksheet Click green icon – file will download to desktop or default download location. It refers to coaching – obviously we’re not coaching now but the idea remains the same, except you are thinking about it yourself in this context. So, try to identify your Top Five Values and their significance to you…. Wait for a few seconds – so that’s an exercise to do…What values are important to you? Put them in the questions box, as wll as on the worksheet so I can see them
Another tool to help match you with the right type of company / careerThere’s a separate webinar around transferable skills, so I don’t intend repeating all of it during this session. This slide assumes you already have a meaty list of TS on which to draw upon, and if you don’t, then take more time to go through your CV / Resume, and extract all of your TS! …..and listen to the TS webinarBut to summarize what to do with the list once you have it?Technical: These skills tend to be technical and specialized. Very specific to your current role.Functional: data, people, and thing skills – computers, basic programmesSelf Mgmt/Soft: Initiative, resourcefulness, reliability, flexibility,Hard-working,Honesty,interpersonal skills---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------THEN: Prioritize: so if you have ten under each heading in a random order, number them so the most important are at the top, and so on – How? They have to be the skills that you feel are YOU, that you enjoy
SummaryOk, time to take a breather… we’ve looked at:Defining business culture – gaining an understanding of what it is about, and how it affects us. Either positively or negativelyValues – the importance of values in your career and life choicesSkills – Transferable skills, how to sort and rank themWhy have we done those previous exercises?... So you can have the best chance of matching yourself with the right type of career, and environment.I’m sure those three exercises have raised questions in your mind, so just a reminder to ask me via the questions tab, and I’ll be getting to them shortly.
You want more?!! Ok, then here we go – two more exercises for youPeak and troughs exercise – talk throughThe reasons are that part of the battle is finding your ‘life purpose’., what you were put on this earth to doPEAKS AND PASSIONS, LOWS AND LESSONS Allow an hour or two for this exercise. We want to look for what has worked in the past and is working now so you can appreciate the best of your experience and build on that. The questions below will help you think about your whole life, not just your working life. Write your answers to the following questions. And I do have a lot more, but here's a few…..: What is the greatest achievement of your life and why?What are your greatest accomplishments in past jobs? What was special about them? Why are they important to you?What have you learned from the highs of your life? Is there a lesson from the lows?When in your life were you at your most creative/committed/decisive/ passionate/inspired?What attracted you to each of the jobs you have done?What’s been missing in your current and previous jobs?What’s inspired you in your current and previous jobs? Make notes on your answers to these questions, and im happy to chat about them with you.
Here’s one more to help you get in a positive mind set:When I say support I mean friends, family, close colleagues, “sounding boards” – professional or otherwise, ensuring you have a rounded picture of you.Here’s another great exercise which can be an eye opener, in a good or bad way!! But usually very positive and affirming.Our greatest satisfaction tends to come from doing what we do best – from playing to our strengths. It’s important to identify your strengths so that your life and work will be fulfilling and enjoyable. Do you agree? Pick five significant people – at least two of whom know you in a work capacity - and ask each of them to tell you what they believe are your three greatest strengths. Give them time to think about it. Make a written note of what they tell you.
Defining business culture – gaining an understanding of what it is about, and how it affects us. Either positively or negativelyValues – how they are vital to attaining your true purpose, as well as very practically speaking, to ensure you’re as sure as possible that you’re a good fit for that company, and vica versa of courseSkills – Transferable ones – a structure for looking at, identifying, and putting into order your top TSPeaks and troughs – an in depth examination of your life and career to dateAsk a few friends (but in a structured way as described)I’m about to move onto to your questions so here is a last call for any questions you may have.
Questions
Please rate and comment on this webinar– we need to learn what works and what doesn’t with these webinars, and I really appreciate seeing your feedback1. I hope you’re on LinkedIn. Lets connect on there. Follow the link on the “attachments” tab above, as I explained earlier. Just click on the little green icon after you have clicked the attachments tabIf you want to have a chat about your own situation (no charge you), we can do a bit of a brainstorm, look at some ideas, because everyone's circumstances are different.Good luck and perhaps we’ll speak in due course.Thankyou for taking the time to listen live todayGoodbye for now.