Your Mojo and The Workplace

By Annabelle Reitman

“Mojo” as defined by Wikipedia is ones self-confidence or self-esteem. It is really the level or strength of belief in oneself in a situation.

Do you radiate self-assuredness in the workplace as you interact with your colleagues, staff, and/or supervisor? What about your clients or customers? Without mojo or with a weak one, how can you expect someone else to have confidence in you or your capabilities to do your job?

With a strong mojo, you have a better chance to handle a work situation that maybe difficult or frustrating as well as dealing with any negative results. When you believe strongly in yourself and your abilities, you are able to manage yourself and future actions, change or influence what you can, and accept what is not in your control.

Think about work circumstances – In general, are you satisfied with the results? For example: How did your performance review go? Did you get the promotion or assignment that you wanted? Are you satisfied with your client or customer working relationships? How would you rate your standing with your boss, staff, or colleagues? What is the effect of your self-confidence upon influencing outcomes?

One basic question to ask your self is. “Does my mojo need strengthening or enhancement, and if so, how can I make this happen? Components that contribute to your mojo include:

·Identity: To create a strong, competent, individualized identity, you need to know yourself – your strengths, skills, knowledge, personal characteristics, work styles, communication styles, values, and priorities. Make a list of your perceptions of your self (NOT what other people think of you, but what you think of you). Share this list with family, friends and colleagues and ask them if this list is in sync with the image they have of you. How close is the match? Where differences exist, think of the reasons for them. How can you improve your ways of projecting your “brand” so that your authentic self is the one that people see and accept?

·Risk: Everyone wants to get more out of life that occurs only if you welcome growth and improvement. Changing and striving for self-actualization involves some risk – you may fail, you may not reach the heights you aim for, or you may be disappointed things do not turn out as expected. Willingness to risk is related to self-esteem – in that it is personal and subjective. The way you perceive your self determines level of risk-taking.

·Brag: Do you talk about your achievements? Do you take credit for what you have done? Bragging is a necessity – not a choice if you want to do more than just exist at work, that is, advance up a job ladder & arrive at the top. Bragging is not conceit; it is being forthcoming about who you are, what you have done, and what you are capable of doing. Given constant changes in the workplace – management reorganizations, retirements, mergers, downsizing – you need to keep people up-dated on who you are and what are your achievements.

Being aware of the components: identity, risk, and brag, you can strengthen your mojo leading to more positive reactions to you and your work.

Email comments to: Annabelle Reitman, Ed.D.
Career Management Strategist, Author
anreitman@verizon.net

TRUST: One key element in talent retention

For employees to commit to supporting and helping one another to grow their individual and collective talents benefiting the individual, work groups, and organization, trust becomes the necessary springboard for:

· Finding innovative ways to quickly build trust development among co-workers, supervisors, and leaders, especially when involved in short-term projects and/or virtual realty teams.

· Building loyalty to the company and commit to its culture and values.
· Promoting open collaborative communication among diverse work team members to develop and grow talent.

· Establishing credibility and reliability for talent’s “believability” in a promising future with the organization and identifying with its “brand”.

TRUST DIMENSIONS: What are the elements?
· A general definition: the reliance in a person or group’s honesty, dependability, strength or character is authentic.

· Confidence that an individual does posses the ability or knowledge claimed in a specific area or specialty.

· Belief in an individual or group commitment to being supportive and encouraging of each other’s efforts, work and success.

· Sincere and meaningful intentions and agendas of individuals and groups.
· All are in firm agreement about what are the project or team’s goals, methods, process, and roles.

· Active caring and respect of each other – that is – feel that they are a family.
· Alignment of an individual’s feelings (inside) with actual actions (outside}.

TRUST & THE WORKPLACE: A Survey
Regarding your relationships with people in your organization:
The following questions are from a trust survey that Charles Feltman conducted:
Please use a scale from 1-10 where:
1 = Can rarely or never be trusted 10 = Can always be trusted in all situations

QUESTIONS and RATINGS

How would you rate:
a. YOUR trustworthiness? ____
b. The average trustworthiness of the people
you work with as a group? ____
c. The trustworthiness of your immediate
supervisor? ____
d. The trustworthiness of your company’s
top management in general? ____
e. The trustworthiness of your peers? ____
f. The trustworthiness of your staff, if you have any
direct reports? ____
g. The trustworthiness of others below your level
of responsibility in your organization as a group? ____

(From The Thin Book of Trust by Charles Feltman, Bend, OR:2009, p.10.)

Are you satisfied with your assessment outcomes? Were you surprised by any overall general attitudes that emerged from this short survey? If you believe that the levels of trust can or should be improved,, what do you think you can do?

In summary, if trust is not happening on a one-to-one basis, it cannot happen on the organization level. If trust is not happening among and between employees, horizontally and vertically, then individuals will not trust the organization’s entity.

Email comments to: Annabelle Reitman, Ed.D. Career Management Strategist, Author: anreitman@verizon.net