Career Survival Skills
Career Survival Skills Russell Connor, Dynamic Link The Scenario One minute, you are enjoying a lovely walk in the forest. The birds are singing and there is dappled light coming through the canopy of overhead branches. Life is good and nature benign. The next, you suddenly realise that the path you are on has petered out and the return journey is too long to make by nightfall. One minute, the business is going well and then suddenly, the world changes. The equivalent of the nice summer breeze cools and thunder clouds form on the horizon. What have survival skills got to tell us about dealing with the unexpected in a career context? The Survival Steps Step 1 – Identify the Survival Situation Recognition of a survival situation is the first step in helping you cope. You need to quickly gain an understanding of the predicament you’re in and to accept it. Survival experts have the ability to reduce the internal stress levels that would lead most of us to take panic measures that only compound the problem. Before a decision and course of action is determined the cool-headed will literally take deep breaths, steady the breathing rate and ask 'What has taken place?', 'Who is affected?' and 'How is this affecting us?' In the jungle, you need to know what is noise and chatter and what a really serious threat is. Facts are important. So too is an understanding of the assumptions that are being made. Ask yourself, how do I know that I know? It’s vitally important that you understand the environment and the specific challenges that you face. Once you know these and the likely timescales to resolve the problems the more likely it is that you will be organised to meet these.
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How close is this to a business context? The loss of a key customer, the drying up of once easily available credit or the arrival of a new technology that makes the current products obsolete can put your job at risk. This can feel like being crashlanded high in the Andes. Survivors in a business context need to recognise, acknowledge and accept the reality of the situation. In the initial crisis, survivors need to make use of fear to focus their energy and not be ruled by it. Keeping a sense of humour enables the emotions to be held in check and infectiously keeps others cool that are prone to panic. Step 2 – Explore, Analyse and Plan Once you have identified how the situation has changed, you need to explore the alternatives that will help you cope with the situation better. You need to assess your environment carefully to fully understand the boundaries and possibilities that you face. Once you have a clear understanding of the scope of the challenge you will be able to review important dimensions such as the resource requirements and the amount of coordination that is needed. You need to explore all avenues and understand the types of vegetation you can and can’t eat as well as considering other survival techniques such as the possibility of fishing or of trapping animals. It’s also no time to be choosy so you should also be prepared for the possibility of having to eat insects and grubs. Although the thought of that might be abhorrent, they will provide you with vital proteins to give you energy. You will be able to tap into the natural resources in terms of finding a food supply to avoid starvation and to be able to survive in the event that your predicament lasts longer than you anticipate.
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Career Survival Skills
Although you can actually survive for far longer without food than you can without water, it’s often the psychological effects, even more than the physiological, which are likely to cause you complications. Learn quickly to separate out what is a psychological problem from a real one. Whilst on the subject of separation, learn to think about the nature of the problem and the means of resolving this as two separate strands. Don’t start with a defeated mindset because you haven’t got this or that tool in the kitbag. After weighing up all the pros and cons, you then need to create a course of action to which you’re ready to commit for survival. How close is this to a business context? Change can induce knee-jerk reactions. Survivors react against this tendency. The ability to notice what has changed is key. Working to an old mentalmodel of how things should work is useless if the world has suddenly and profoundly changed. Survivors work on the basis of what they see and know. Facts are important but so are feelings and hunches and these are listened to and analysed like any other input. Step 3 – Commit to Action and Review Commitment to a course of action is very important. Even deciding not to act has to be done with clarity and commitment. However, learn quickly whether this direction is helping or not. If you are cutting through dense jungle then look out for small signs such as fresh tracks. Be prepared to reassess. It is better to stop briefly and check than to forge on only to find that the direction is making the situation worse. If you find that your course of action has not achieved the results you had hoped for, you need to evaluate where things might have gone wrong and devise more suitable solutions for those areas which might need improvement. If you are in a group then maximise the resources of others that available to you. Allocate important decision making rights to the best placed person. Assess quickly what you need to do and what you can hold others to account for and make sure that;
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They are clear about what they are expected to do, They are left to get on with it in their own way using their own skill and judgment, You review the input. Determine whether this helping to head you in the right direction and at the right pace. Avoid crowding out others or taking control of everything. How close is this to a business context? Survivors are able to transform thoughts into action. They will be bold and cautious at the same time. They may have a big goal but especially in a crisis, this is broken down into small manageable tasks. They deal with what is in their power to change and they leave the rest behind. Career survivors recognise that they are not in a vacuum and work with and through others to maximise their chances of success. Step 4 – Persist to Survive You must adopt the mentality that there is no such thing as ‘can’t’. People only fail because, ultimately, they give up trying. That’s not to say that they are a failure themselves but there is always likely going to be a solution or at least a resolution of some kind if people pursue one through to its natural conclusion. As long as you never give up, there is always going to be hope that a satisfactory conclusion to any predicament can be reached. If you’re faced with a survival situation one of the things you’re going to have to do is to find water. Your body loses around 2 to 3 litres of water every day through sweating and urination and this can be even greater if the weather’s hot and/or you’re using a lot of physical energy. Therefore, in order to prevent dehydration, it’s important to find water to replace these lost fluids quickly. Have you seen any animals in the area? If not, what about animal tracks? If you’re able to spot some tracks which all tend to travel in the same direction, this could be a sign that the animal has headed for a place to drink. Flocks of birds gathering in the same place and even a swarm of insects often means that there is water close by.
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Career Survival Skills
How close is this to a business context? The body fluid of a business is money and sometimes the clear and flowing stream can dry up. Just as with water in an arid landscape, money can still be found if you can read the signs. Survivors are not taken up with your own importance to follow the signs to new resources even if it seems less plentiful than before. Survivors have a belief that they will survive, learn from the experience and come out of the predicament stronger. They are focused on matters in hand and high performance in the execution of tasks, yet they are not obsessed. They can draw upon resources to stimulate, calm or entertain their mind. How close is this to a business context? Just as survival in the outdoors requires persistence so does career survival. Frequently Asked Questions Why Do Some of Us Find it Easier to Survive Than Others? We are all familiar with somebody who’ll probably be a friend, a work colleague or just an acquaintance who seems to thrive on adversity. No matter what difficulties and challenges they face, they approach them head on and tackle them until they’ve conquered them. There are adventure pioneers who have lost toes and fingers to frostbite and who’ve gone on to scale the likes of Everest and face those hurdles again. There are other less noticeable examples of people who seem beset with one struggle after another but who overcome them and still have a smile on their face. For many who find it difficult to ‘survive’ any given situation, quite often they’re defeated before they’ve even had to face the challenge. The change that they face apparently looks like they will lose ‘control’ and it is the fear that this brings up which makes survival in any given situation seem impossible. However, for those who seem to face adversity time after time in good spirits, it’s usually because they embrace the concept of change. They have learned that not only is there little to fear by change and that this is a natural evolution but that in embracing the concept of change, it instils an even
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greater courage and steely determination in them. Letting go of the fear of being out of control- paradoxically puts you in control. It is this same quality that enables survivors in a business context to cope when faced with an emergency situation. In addition they have the mental resilience and approach that enable them to evaluate the situation and make decisions when to others, the outcome is clearly ‘hopeless’. How Long Can You Live Without Food? There is no strictly defined time limit as to how long you can survive without any kind of food whatsoever. It all depends on a number of variables. If you’re already in good physical shape and have been keeping physically active as well as eating a balanced diet, you’ll be at an advantage. Your metabolism will also play a part. If you’ve already got a slow metabolism, this will stand you in good stead as your body will naturally respond to a shortage of food by lowering its metabolic rate to compensate whereas it becomes more difficult to survive for longer if your metabolism is high. Survivors in the business world recognise that it is not so much how much you take in as how much you expend. Learn to conserve what you have. Cash- flow is king. What Are The Effects Of Starvation? Without food it won’t be long before you start becoming irritable and your morale will dip sharply due to hunger. Beyond that stage, you’re going to become more lethargic and weaker and this can soon progress to feelings of confusion, poor judgement and total physical exhaustion. Your immune system will become weaker which will make you more susceptible to illnesses, more prone to diarrhoea and if you can’t regulate your body’s core temperature, you could end up with hypothermia or heat stroke. In an advanced state of starvation, you could end up experiencing hallucinations, muscle spasms and convulsions and your heartbeat may become irregular. These are all strong indicators that your organs are starting to fail. Survivors in the business world make sure that they have done everything possible before the receivers are called-in. They are not left wishing that you had conserved the rations or explored alternatives before it was too late.
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Career Survival Skills
How do I keep the axe sharp? Prevent the head rusting by keeping it dry; in bad weather rub it over with the end of a wax candle. Occasionally apply boiled linseed oil to the helve. Never lend your axe to a novice. Do not leave your axe stuck into a log for any prolonged time or it will become blunt. The situation may have changed but it is the tools and resources that you know well that will keep you safe. How are your various blades doing? Your skills, your knowledge, your mind, your physical body, your relationships, your motivation, your commitment, your capacity for enjoyment, your emotions — are all of them still sharp? If not, which ones are dull, and what can you do to sharpen them? Survivors in the business world keep the cutting edges of their expertise sharp!
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