This is a guest post by Sean Conrad of Halogen Software.
There are a lot of articles around today arguing both sides of the employee performance appraisal debate. Do they provide value to the employer and the employee? Are they an outdated HR/management practice? Do they do more harm than good? What can we do to make them more effective? Should we abandon them all-together?
I think, as with most things, that the value and impact of employee performance appraisals depend on our reasons for conducting them, and the way in which we conduct them. While our corporate culture will certainly influence …

I want you to think about your goals and find out if your goals are learning goals or achievement goals. There is a significant difference in the way these difference goals work.  You should figure out which kind of goals you should apply in order to get the best out of them. I will start by sorting out the two main differences.
Achievement Goals
An AG is a goal where you are supposed to complete something with a specific result. Let’s say you want to get an A on a test, or run 100 meters in less than 14 seconds. Complete 45 …

Every achievement ever made started with one single person. Every motion starts with one person deciding to move forward. You got a lot of power to change the world around you and I want to explain how it works. It is actually quite simple. All we need to know is some basics. When it comes to changing the world (or your world) it can just as well start with you. Are you feeling down, does your job suck? Is your personal life chaos? To clean up the mess, start with you.
The Power of One
Fact: You have the power to change …

No, I don’t hate my job, but you might hate your job. Do you know why? I am going to help you think differently about your job. There is no need to hate work; there is always a solution to job dissatisfaction and you might hold the key yourself. I am going to ask you some questions, you will provide the answers. So do you want to do something about it?
Question #1: What is your career goal?
Don’t know? You know what you don’t want to do? In my experience job dissatisfaction is often caused by lack of career goal and …

Why should you have the right attitude? There is one factor that will have a huge impact on almost everything you do in life. Your attitude will determine the outcome of your goals. Did you know that it is possible to choose your attitude? Have you ever been given a task that seemed impossible? What was the outcome? You attitude might actually prevent you from success even before you get the chance to try, why is that? Did you know that your attitude can prevent you from trying? What can we do about it?
Learned Helplessness
I have been reading Learned Optimism: …

This is “snatched” from my book in progress. I am currently writing a book with the working title: “How to Become a GREAT Employee and Succeed at Work” – This is from the preface, raw, yet unedited. I have only one ambition and it is to write around 100-120 pages packed with good tips on how to become a great employee. I am so far written 75 pages and have drafts for yet four more chapters. I hope you enjoy this little preview.

Before you start to read this book, we need to determine if you have the right job in the …