What works at work

Existential

The dual threat this week of climate-change and a disease sharpens the mind, especially with attention snatchers like the following, which I suppose may be true of any time in history.

People born in the 1960s may be the last human beings who will get to live out their full actuarial life expectancies

Work

Two ways to make sure you get the most out of your career.

  1. How to be effective in the theatre of work:

    The office is a theatre, and work is an unfolding narrative on the stage.

    Many people aspire to “silent success” at work - to do work that “speaks for itself”. Unfortunately this is the wrong move in the theatre of work. Instead we should aspire to the opposite - for knowledge work, the performance of the work is the work.

  2. Podcast (skip to 17min): Network theorist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi explains the science of professional success, my favourites below:

    1. Performance drives success, but when performance can’t be measured, then network drives success

    2. Team success requires diversity and balance, however a single individual will receive credit for the groups achievement

    3. With persistence, success can come at any time

In short, maintain your (diverse) network, persevere, take chances and make sure to take credit.

Who is Matt Arderne

I’ll be posting these here for further discussion