Monday, December 11, 2006

Brazen Careerist - Penelope Trunk

I had just quoted from Penelope yesterday on her article about time management. I thought the name sounded familiar. Where had I seen it? Oh, well. Of course, it was sitting in my pending queue for things to write about here!

She writes:
When I was in couples therapy with my husband, I nearly died trying to force myself to listen to his ideas when I thought mine were better. But I realized that I had poor listening skills, and by dealing with my listening skills at home, I improved my listening skills at work.

We can learn how to build relationships at work by paying attention to research about how to build them at home.

For example, The Economist reports that men overestimate how attracted women are to them, and women underestimate how interested men are. This research comes from an article in Evolution and Human Behavior, and the conclusion is that the poor estimating is actually good for evolution, because men don’t miss opportunities to spread their DNA, and women make sure to mate with someone who will stick around.

Read the full post here.

She writes about getting references:
This rule of thumb sounds right to me. When I was hiring, if I called for a reference and the person sounded like they were reading a canned speech I discounted the whole thing and called another person on the list. I was always hunting for someone with candor.

Read her full posting here.

I would recommend add Penelope's blog to your RSS Reader.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Steve. Thank you for giving such a nice recommendation for Brazen Careerist.

Also, thank you for quoting my time in couples therapy -- that you are using it on your blog, too, makes me feel like we really got our money's worth from those sessions :)

Steve Sherlock said...

You are most welcome Penelope. Thanks for stopping by to acknowledge. Keep up the good work, it is worth it!