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Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Top Stories from the last 24 hours
TNW BREAKING NEWS: Google Maps for iOS finally arrives; includes voice, turn-by-turn, StreetView and developer SDK
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How to Do a Proper Self-Review and Identify Your Professional Pain Points (Before Your Boss Does)
December 12th, 2012Top StoryHow to Do a Proper Self-Review and Identify Your Professional Pain Points (Before Your Boss Does)By Alan Henry
Self-reviews are usually the worst part of performance review season. You're already busy, and now you have to sit down and take time out to fill out a document where you don't want to be too boastful but you don't want to call yourself out on your mistakes openly, either. Here's the clincher though: self-reviews only suck because you know they can (and likely will) be used against you when it comes time to do the review. Let's take the self-review process and turn it into something really useful. In this post, we'll walk you through doing a real, private self-review, identifying your professional pain points and irritations, and then coming up with solutions that you can bring to the table when you meet with your boss. We'll also chat about how you can make the whole process even more painless next year. Step One: Write Down What You Do, What Others Think You Do, and What You Should Be Doing
Once you have a good complete picture of all of the things you do at work, make a separate list of the things that are actually part of your job as advertised. If you can, look for a copy of the opening you applied for, or for a similar one that your company may be advertising. Doing this can be illuminating because you usually stumble on something that you probably should be doing, but don't. Usually it's harmless, outdated, or some corp-speak that doesn't translate into day-to-day duties, but keep your eye on it. Once you've finished your two lists, arrange them so your most important and job-critical responsibilities are at the top. Now, assign each two letter grades from A to F to each. The first is how important and interesting the responsibility is to you. The second is how important you think the task is to your boss. If you see anything you hate doing but know is important to your company, make a note of it. If you see anything you love doing but you know it's not important to your role, make a note of that as well. Step Two: Review Yourself from Your and Your Boss's Perspectives
Review Yourself from Your Perspective: Your employer probably has a self-review form they use for this purpose. If they do, use that—it's the best tool to get yourself in the mindset that you need to be in for the real thing. Just make two copies: one you can fill out and review on your own, and one you can return to your boss. We both know that the answers you give your boss will be massaged so they're guarded but honest, so you want a copy where you can really tear into yourself—or toot your own horn without worrying sounding vain, as the case may be. At it's core, whatever your form says, you should ask yourself these basic questions:
Again, if you can use the actual evaluation form that your boss uses (like last year's copy, for example) then use that. If not, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has some great template forms that you can use for this exercise.
This may seem rough, but it's actually really useful. When it comes time for your actual review, think back to this exercise and figure out exactly how close you and your boss are on each of these areas. Ideally, your boss would answer these questions the same way you would. If you're not on the same page, or if you have no idea how your boss might think about a specific question, you may not be communicating enough with them. If you're worried about one of the questions, you may have stumbled on something you can bring up as something you'd like to improve, or get rid of entirely.
Gallup has 12 questions that measure this, published in the book First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. Some may sound silly, but they're worth thinking about:
Shoot from the hip here. The point is to draw from your gut, which is most likely to be truthful about the actual answers. For example, you should know offhand if you've been praised in the past week, or if you have someone at work you look forward to seeing every day or someone you'd invite over for dinner (eg, the "best friend.") You should know offhand whether you think your opinions matter, or if you have a chance to do work that you're really good at. When you're finished, you'll have a remarkable picture of your personal morale. HR experts like to call it "employee engagement," but you can use it as a powerful self-evaluation tool. At the very least, your answers will reveal if you're happy at work (and what you're happy with,) whether you're unhappy but things are worth trying to salvage, or if you're so jaded it's time to leave. You can use your responses to identify those professional pain points that hold you back—not just in your job, but your career as a whole. Step Three: Identify Your Pain Points and Bring Them Up To Your Boss
You also want to note the bigger career pain points that you have. If you're a software developer but you just don't have time to learn new languages or new technologies, that's not just a job problem, it's a career problem. If you're a project manager and want to get your PMP, bring it up to your manager—getting certified can only add to your value to the company. Think about your career growth overall and what may be limiting you about your current job. Bring them up to your manager, but come with solutions in mind that you can propose. Your boss may be willing to help, but having a solution to the problem in hand at the same time will go a long way towards getting what you need to be a better, stronger, more skillful you. For Next Year (and Beyond): Keep a Work Diary and Get Regular Feedback
If you don't keep a work diary, now is a great time to start. Even journaling a day or week up to your review can give you a slice of your own life on paper. You can review it at a distance, feel energized by the things you accomplished, and reflect on whether the conflicts and irritations you have are big problems or little stuff. You'll get a dose of objectivity that you can apply to your job, and easily identify the things you love or hate about it. Similarly, if you and your boss don't communicate often enough, see if you can schedule one-on-ones with them to get regular feedback and clarify your responsibilities. If you two don't agree on what's important and what you should spend your time doing, you'll never be successful. It may sound painful, but a half-hour every week or two can go a long way towards better reviews, bigger raises, and great references when you do move on to a better gig. Finally, use your review exercises as a tool to build a real career plan you can follow. Don't just go to work every day and let it be something that passively happens to you between 8am and 6pm—take control of your professional life and give it some direction. Sometimes, knowing where you're going and what you're doing is the difference between having a "job" and a "career." Click to view |
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The Smartest & Dumbest Things Nintendo Did in 2012
December 12th, 2012Top StoryThe Smartest & Dumbest Things Nintendo Did in 2012By Holden Miller Well, someone had to go first. As far as history will be concerned, Nintendo did one thing and one thing only in 2012: they released a brand new console, putting the first of three nails into the coffin of a seven year old generation. That sounded weird. Whether they have Leeroy Jenkins-ed their way into the next generation with Wii U remains to be seen, but for now we have something shiny and new. And boy do we like shiny. New hardware is always exciting, and is probably quite stressful for the people at Nintendo, who now have four major pieces of hardware on the market and ostensibly competing with each other. There were so many updates to their lineup this year, both big and small. The 3DS XL, the CirclePad Pro, Wii Mini, and Wii U... phew! Should Nintendo pump the brakes, or keep spewing forth devices until we have a whole drawerful that can combine into a mini-game Voltron? A kid can dream, can't he? Smartest MovesWii U GamePad Nintendo Direct Dumbest MovesWii U System Issues Three Marios, Three Months What did you think were Nintendo's best and worst decisions in 2012? Key ReleasesAll games were published, distributed, or developed by Nintendo Rhythm Heaven Fever - February 13th Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games - February 14th Mario Party 9 - March 11th Kid Icarus: Uprising - March 23rd Mario Tennis Open - May 20th Pokémon Conquest - June 18th Xenoblade Chronicles - April 6th New Super Mario Bros. 2 - August 19th Kirby's Dream Collection - September 16th Pokémon Black & White 2 - October 7th Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - October 28th Pokédex 3D Pro - November 8th Paper Mario: Sticker Star - November 11th New Super Mario Bros. U - November 18th Nintendo Land - November 18th Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge - November 18th SiNG Party - November 18th For these Year In Review segments, we'll be taking a look at what major gaming companies did in 2012, with summaries of their biggest news and releases, best and worst decisions, and lists of the notable games they were a part of. Check back tomorrow for another company. It'll help you relieve some pressure.  |
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Should This Louisiana TV Reporter Be Fired for Responding to Racists on Facebook?
December 12th, 2012Top StoryShould This Louisiana TV Reporter Be Fired for Responding to Racists on Facebook?By Cord Jefferson
On October 1, a man named Emmitt Vascocu wrote:
Lee responded five days later (emphasis mine):
About a month later, on November 14, another viewer, Kenny Moreland, chimed in on KTBS's Facebook page to express frustration that a KTBS video of a charity event had too many black children in it:
This time, reports the Maynard Institute's Richard Prince, Lee responded the next day, and a bit less cheerily this time:
Lee told Prince that she eventually asked her bosses to remove the second racist posting, but that they refused and then admonished her for responding to viewer comments at all. Not long after that, Lee was fired. "They told me the policy I violated isn't written down, but was mentioned in a newsroom meeting about a month-and-a-half prior. A meeting I didn't attend," said Lee. "So when I asked what rule did I break there isn't anything to point to." I emailed KTBS Station Manager George Sirven, who responded with the following statement and a copy of an email Sirven claims Lee received back in August. As you can see, that email, an informal "Social Media Best Practices policy," explains that employees are not to respond to viewer complaints on Facebook. If they do respond, the note continues, "there is only one proper response," which is to direct the viewer to call an employee at the station whose job is fielding complaints:
There's no word yet on whether Lee plans on bringing a lawsuit in this latest case, but in the meantime, the question becomes this: At what point does a company's "stay mum" social-media policy become injurious to an employee's sense of dignity? And if an employee does respond against its company's wishes, should level, reasoned responses like Lee's merit termination? Regardless, the Lee story seems to be further evidence that many companies still have no idea how to navigate the complexities of social media, despite obviously drinking the Kool-Aid when it comes to the idea that social media is an integral part of success nowadays. The result is a company getting a Facebook page in order to facilitate community engagement while simultaneously hampering its employees from engaging even slightly with that community. Essentially, they're stripping all the "social" out of "social media," and then firing employees who push back at all against their archaic policy.  |
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