Take as much as you can these holidays

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• The wisdom of crowds

• Understand what matters to your colleagues

• Song on a loop

• Take as much as you can these holidays

• Martha Stewart as career coach

ON YOUR CAREER

The wisdom of crowds

There are many great things about social media and digital communities. We can share insights. When there is trust and goodwill, there is a positive competition for ideas. We all benefit from the wisdom of crowds.

James Surowiecki in the The Wisdom of Crowds (2004) said wise crowds have:

1. Diverse opinions

2. Independent thinking

3. Decentralization that draws on local knowledge

4. An aggregation mechanism

5. Trust in the group

Wise crowds can be seen in share market predictions, citizen scientists, and developers contributing to open source software. Crowds lose wisdom when they lack quality information or experience groupthink.

The CareerCoacha community provides us wise suggestions. Last week many of you contributed responses to the question, ‘What’s your best career tip?’

Here are the 3 responses that we liked most:

COMMUNICATION

Understand what matters to your colleagues

Communication improves with our colleagues when we understand what matters to them. This requires noticing:

• What frustrates or enthuses them at work

• How they approach tasks and challenges

• What topics do they discuss most?

This effort delivers a great dividend. We increase trust, decision speed, and collaboration with our colleagues.

PRODUCTIVITY

Song on a loop

About ten years ago, I read a productivity hack from Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress. Mullenweg listens to a single song on repeat when he codes. This helps him get and stay in the zone. By listening to the same song, there is less distraction because we anticipate less the upcoming lyrics and notes.

Soon after, I had to write algorithms for a leadership assessment I was building. I played a song on a loop for most of two days in my office. It worked. I got in a state of flow. The song was Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place. Since then I have used this hack many times.

1 MINUTE TO MORE HAPPINESS

Take as much as you can these holidays

Experiences make us happier than acquiring more things. If you have a break this holiday season, seek experiences that make you happy. Simple things like being in nature, spending time with loved ones, and sleeping without an alarm bring us joy. Take as many of these experiences as you can these holidays.

GET SMARTER

Martha Stewart

A month ago, I watched the Netflix documentary Martha. It covers Martha Stewart’s life from model to stockbroker to America’s first, self-made, female billionaire. She built a media business focussed on lifestyle. Stewart also served a prison sentence for making false statements to federal investigators. She bounced back. At the end of the documentary I was left with one overarching thought - Stewart is indomitable. Her willpower has kept her going when most others would have given up. Some of her life and career wisdom: