Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change

About

Features

The first start-to-finish guide to personal success in an era of non-stop change.

° Practical, personal, "water-level" techniques to help you navigate the rapids of change and have more fun doing it!

° How to protect your career, improve your resilience, set your own course, and lead.

° Based on the experiences of hundreds of leaders in industries ranging from telecommunications to energy to health care.

Description

Selected by IBM Competitive Edge Book Club Selection. 

"The beauty of this book on top of its life-saving timeliness is its capacity to give the reader concrete steps to live the good life and enjoy it.  The book made me understand that work can be more fun than fun.”

–Warren Bennis, Ph.D., University Professor, University of Southern California, coauthor, Judgment: How Great Leaders Make Winning Calls and Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor

Change. It’s your job. It just won’t stop. It’s relentless. It keeps coming at you like never-ending rapids in a permanent whitewater river. Change will burn you out if you don’t learn how to handle it. This book is not, however, about mere survival.  It is about thriving amidst the challenges of your permanent whitewater world at work. 

•Protect your career, improve your resilience, and seize the opportunities in turbulent times

•Take charge, learn to pace yourself, set your own course, and lead others in ad-hoc teams

•Ride the rapids and rediscover play and adventure in today’s demanding work environment 

•Learn from research and the experiences of hundreds of professionals in industries from energy to telecommunications to financial services to health care

There’s nothing abstract or cute about the way this book talks about change: This is practical, grounded knowledge for managing your life in a business world that’s churning with change. Gregory Shea, Ph.D. and Robert Gunther show how to keep your working life on course instead of being pushed beyond your limits...find fun and fulfillment...regroup and rebound from failure...protect yourself from events you can’t predict...take charge of your life, an your future!

Sample Content

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages

Table of Contents

Preface: We Surely All Will Die xix

CHAPTER 1: AN ESKIMO ON THE TITANIC 1

    Dangerous Waters 3

    Sailors and Paddlers:Your Real Job Is Change 6

    The Limits of Flat-Water Thinking 9

CHAPTER 2: WORKING THE EDDIES: Pace Yourself to Preserve Your Sanity 13

    All Hands on Deck 17

    We Are Drowning in Change 19

        The Impact of Exhaustion 22

    Strategies for Pacing 25

        Create a “Not To Do” List 27

        Build Breaks in the Action 30

        Get Good Sleep 32

        Take a Nap 33

        Enforce Vacations 35

        Avoid the Perils of the Crazy Brave and Phony Tough 38

    Keep a Roll in Reserve 41

CHAPTER 3: MASTERING THE ROLL: Prepare to Fail Gracefully and Recover Quickly 45

    Failure Is the Only Option 48

    Strategies for Failing Quickly and Recovering Gracefully 52

        Treat Your Career as a Series of Experiments 52

        Minimize the Risk of Failure 54

        Master the Emotions of Failure 56

        Practice Failing 57

        Prepare to Learn from Failure 59

        Make Your Mistakes on the Move 60

    Failing and Play 62

CHAPTER 4: THE POWER OF PLAY: Optimism and Resilience 65

    The Play’s the Thing 66

    The Power of Optimism 70

    Strategies for Unsinkable Optimism 71

        Create Optimism and Avoid Learned Helplessness 72

        When All Else Fails, Paddle Like Hell 74

    Choose Your Equipment for the Right Level of Fun 75

        Patience: Keep Your Feet Up and Go With the Flow 77

        Recharge by Paddling 79

        Create Time and Space for Play 80

    Cultivate Exuberance 81

CHAPTER 5: PERSONAL FLOTATION: You Are Responsible for Your Own Se