Bad behavior is contagious Beware of the company that you keep

Bad behavior is contagious Beware of the company that you keepBad behavior is contagious Beware of the company that you keepThe craziness displayed by senior members of U.S. President Donald Trumps administration - and Trump himself - provides a troubling demonstration that bad emotions and social norms are remarkably contagious. It still stuns me, for example, that non-partisan site Politifact has documented that 69% of Trumps statements are mostly false, false, or pants on fire while only 16% are true or mostly true.There is no need to replay how these and other destructive behaviors have infected, been excused by, and inflicted harm on so many current and past members of Trumps inner circle. It is impossible to avoid the onslaught of news about the dishonesty, incivility, and backstabbing that plagues almost everyone who enters this bizarre bubble. Of course, lying and nastiness have always been hallmarks of politics in the United States and elsewhere. But I fear that our curren t crop of top dogs is reaching new lows.Sure, part of the problem is that people who are prone to such ugliness are more attracted to and more likely to be invited to join kollektivs plagued by bad behavior - birds of a feather do flock together. But this sh-t show offers another crucial lesson for each of us - no matter how good a person you may fancy yourself to be or how noble your past behavior.Bad behavior is an infectious disease that you catch from other people - and it is mighty hard to resist. Ive written about numerous new studies that reinforce this old finding. Experiments by Trevor Foulks team found that a single exposure to a rude person (e.g., an insulting email from a customer) turns targeted people into carriers who then infect others - rudeness spreads much like the common cold.Similarly, studies by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor found that workers who worked with or sat near toxic colleagues - who committed theft, fraud, bullying, or sexual harassment - wer e more prone catch such toxic behaviors and get fired. They found when an employee was in a work group with a high density of toxic employees there was a 47 percent increase in the likelihood that person would become toxic. Minor describes this as a damaging form of ethical spillover and as a sort of virus.And, just a few weeks ago at the Harvard Business Review, management professors Stephen Dimmock and William Gerken described their study of the contagiousness of employee fraud among financial advisors who cheat customers. These researchers found that advisors are 37% more likely to commit misconduct if they encounter a new co-worker with a history of misconduct.For me, the takeaway here was best captured by the late Bill Lazier, a successful executive who spent the last 20 years of his career teaching geschftsleben and entrepreneurship at Stanford. Bill visited one of my classes years ago and offered the students some wise advice about the company they keep. As I reported in The No A**hole RuleBill said, when you get a job offer or join a team, take a close look at the people you would work with, not just at whether they are successful or not. He warned that if your future colleagues are self-centered, nasty, narrow-minded, unethical, or overworked and physically ill, there is little chance that you will turn them into better human beings or transform it into a healthy workplace even in a tiny company.Bill warned, instead, the chances are that you will start acting like them.I have been thinking about Bills advice, Trumps inner circle, and research on contagious bad behavior a lot lately. I am working harder to avoid spending time - especially working on joint projects - with people who are rude, arrogant, lazy, selfish, angry, or just no fun - no matter how successful or prestigious they might be. When I fail to follow my own advice, I start thinking and acting like the very people that I despise.After all, I am only human and few of us are immune to this contagious disease.The upshot is to take a close look at the people that you work and play with - and at those youve been invited to join. If you dont want to think and act like them, do everything you can to get out or, better yet, to avoid joining them in the first place.Bob Sutton is aStanford Professorwho studies and writes about leadership, organizational change, and navigating organizational life. Follow me on Twitterwork_matters, and visit mywebsiteand posts onLinkedIn. My latest book isThe Ahole Survival Guide How To Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt.Before that, I publishedScaling Up Excellencewith Huggy Rao.My main focus these days is on working with Huggy Rao to develop strategies and tools that help leaders and teamschange their organizations for the better - with a particular focus onorganizational friction.Check out my Stanford FRICTION Podcastat iTunesorSticher.Thiscolumnfirst appeared onLinkedIn.

How to Have a More Fulfilling Career

How to Have a More Fulfilling Career How to Have a More Fulfilling Career Success begins with being motivated to continually improve as an individual as well as improving upon your skill-sets and effectiveness at work.An engaging career entails a different reaction to events and a mora positive outlook on future prospects.There are certain aspects of your career that you cant change, such as your years of experience or where you went to college. However, regardless of what you may think, you are in complete control of your career.For just about all job seekers, having a mora fulfilling fleck starts with implementing certain practices1. Learn to Manage Stress More Effectively- The pace of modern life makes it increasingly important for you to learn how to manage your stress.Many individuals never learn to set aside emotions and fear, analyze a problem logically and focus on solutions rather than problems. Because of this, they are less upbeat regarding their future prospects and are much less apt to attack their goals with high resiliency.Among other things, resiliency mitigates stress.Of all the virtues you can acquire to improve your career, the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge is one of the most crucial.Any major or minor setback can either force someone to create barriers around remaining goals or provide a new, more clear, and more urgent goal to overcome the challenges created by defeat.StressRemediesa. Understand that stress only impedes your competency and decision making skills. Continually remind yourself that consistent stress serves no beneficial purpose.b. According to the Mayo Clinic, the first step in stress relief is making a cognitive decision to change how you handle stress. Then, it is crucial to identify your stress triggers.Sometimes the solution to solving a stressful situation will be simplistic, such as finishing a report that is hanging over your head.Other times, you wont get as lucky.Regardless, begin to bra instorm ways to reduce that irritation factor and you will be happier, more productive and respected around the office.2. Define What You Want Out of Your Job with Specificity- Do you know what you want?Getting specific is one of the most critical steps to take in reaching any goal.Do you want a promotion to management?Do you want to be paid x more dollars?Do you want more responsibilities? All of the above? Until we know what makes us happy, we cannot map out a set plan of action to achieve our goals.Remediesa. Formal career analysis.Take a few minutes and write down what you want out of your job, what you can do to obtain those desires and a firm decision regarding the course of action(s) you are going to implement to get there.Once you make this decision, dont hesitate and attack the goal vigorously.b. Then, practice envisioning attaining your goal. How will it make you feel?How will it change your life for the positive?Continually creating a vivid picture of your world after the se needs are met should aid in making you hang in there and keep trying until you succeed.3. Relentlessly Tackle Any Insecurity with Vigor- Insecurity is like a leash that tethers you to a limited experience of life and all but ruins your chances of being truly happy at work.Much of our insecurity comes from worry about the future.Its imperative to begin thinking of hurdles as events that can be overcome rather than catastrophes that threaten your ability to recognize success and happiness in the future.While hesitation and insecurity will twist your perceptions of reality and hold you in a vise, learning to not accept negativity will release positive energy, resiliency and unleash your true ability to execute.Remediesa. Posture can increase your confidence levels. By opening your chest, not hunching forward and rolling your shoulders back, you both can alter your thought process as well as how others think about you.Additionally, smiling is known to elevate moods and positively aff ect your mental function.b. Carry yourself with poise and confidence, paired with a warm, welcoming smile.Be open to new ideas be open to learning. The more knowledge you have, the more desired you will be by employers.In the EndA fulfilling career doesnt simply happen you have to work at it psychologically while consistently improving your set of skills.Remember, one of the most frustrating experiences you can have in your career is losing track of your desire to be happy. Take it one day at a time and youll get there.

Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan

Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan I love a good startup story.The odds are always huge on the personal level, because entrepreneurs have to take lots of risks in order to put their ideas to the test. And theyre fully aware that most startups fail.So when I welches on Skype with Jobscan founders James Hu and Michael Lee, to find out how Jobscan worked, I also asked a few questions beyond the technical stuff. How the idea came about, the pitfalls, the lessons Heres a bit of their story. The job search problemIt begins in October, 2013, when James welches out of a job, coming back from Asia. He was caught in the grueling process of looking for work. He researched how resumes were handled and decided to invest a lot of energy into tailoring keywords. His goal was to convince automated resume screeners that he was a good candidate. But he felt he was spending too much time, for each application, identifying the right keywords to include in his resume. Such a tedious process Being a techie, he knew this could be automated, so he got to work on what would become the core Jobscan functionality comparing keywords in your resume with those of the job listing.Not only would an automated solution improve his job search, it would also become a remarkable part of his portfolio. Two birds with one stone This was indeed a good project to showcase his technical abilities. So he coded away, by himself.For about two months and a half, he was using his keyword tool and improving it. The idea of sharing his little app became obvious While I was building this, I figured I might as well make it useful to others. Maybe its something I could turn into a tafelgeschirr one day.Once it was relatively bug-free (James and Michael like that term relatively), he started telling his friends. And thats how Jobscan was launched. In a remote corner of the web, somewhere, without blogger-magnet startup stunts like chocolate-covered grasshoppers or lying about a yoga video It was just out there, for people to use. And it grew organically. The word got out about this cool new keyword-matching app. (A very decent minimum viable product, or MVP, as its called in the Lean Startup movement in the Silicon Valley.)In the meantime, James found work. And hes leid the only one that got good results with Jobscan the feedback he was getting was positive. So he kept going, dug deeper into each ATS, despite working full-time.A year later, James quit his job and focused solely on Jobscan. The website started picking up mora traction and now needed to level up engineering. Enter Michael. A software engineer who spent 8 years with Google in New York. They met during a street clean-up volunteering event in Seattle. (Yes, it does read like something they would make up.)In February 2015, we were looking at a healthy, but still quite small project. And now that James and Michael wanted to see it blossom, they did some serious testing (Why It Works). It allowed them to deepen their understanding of how resumes were processed by computers, and to adapt their tool accordingly. Riding the waveIn the following months, Jobscan was getting more and more attention. Actually, just a few days after launch, they got mentioned on Lifehacker.com. When youre a startup, that stuff really helps. Each month, new users were coming in. Which meant that James and Michael were working hard to improve it, but were also feeling the pressure of running a legitimate startup. Heres JamesWhen you work on something thats not exactly working a product or tafelgeschirr that people dont really want, it feels like youre dragging the project along. Youre just hammering away and youre not getting traction. This time around, theres a market force. The product and the users are dragging us along. Its almost like were riding a wave, and the wave is pushing us forward. Thats a nice feeling, but at the same time, theres an obligation. A pressure to keep doing better.James realize d that he was surfing that wave while he was employed. Thats when it clicked for him Jobscan had taken off. It wasnt a side project anymore. People were really using itAnd the pressures of a real service were kicking in. The two guys were working very closely together, owning the entire project. For Michael, the main programmer, stepping out of his comfort zone used to mean customer support. But now, he needed to do some marketing and SEO. And had to learn these skills.Also, in the early days, the two entrepreneurs would personally reply to every single email they received. Now, they had extra hands for that. People they needed to hire and manage and payFor a long time, Michael was afraid of the scale of the website. Could it handle the expanding number of users? We were growing month over month in terms of traffic. But I didnt really have the background to know when the website would stop working.That does sound like a big concern when your website IS your productThere were some sc ary moments We got to migrate a couple of times (servers, service providers, etc.). Migrations are fun.To handle all that stress, James even started muay thai (martial art from Thailand). Michael enjoys driving around, something he missed out on in his years in NYC.Now, while this might look like just another tech startup story, its very different when its your story. For example, it wasnt clear from Day One whether this would actually take off. It was an adventure, far from the paths they were expected to walk. A lot of people around them thought that safe jobs at Google or Microsoft were much better than this little side project.What about your 401(k)? And how will you meet a nice young lady if youre working on this all the time? You get the picture.The purpose of JobscanIve asked them about the black hole of resumes that dreadful silence after youve sent one, ten or fifty resumes. Its sort of a hot topic in the job market space, as it deeply resonates with the unemployed. Why don t I hear anything back? What am I doing wrong?James understands both sides of the coinTheres a technical perspective and theres a human element. Ideally, recruiters could get back to candidates, to bring a human touch. No one wants to be rejected by a machine or feel ignored. But at the same time, online applications have become so easy that it causes a flood of resumes which causes recruiters not being able to respond. And then people apply more Its a cycleThe cycle that leads to the blackhole conundrumOur job is to help people know why the black hole exists and how they can improve their chances.And thats really the purpose of Jobscan. They understand how broken the job search process is, especially the lack of feedback. But Jobscan can help you navigate around the black hole (explained here). Theyve tested the impact of tailoring keywords and they know it works.Theyre quite serious about trying to help jobseekers. As Michael noted We cant solve the problem completely, because the res multiple aspects to it. But we can help job seekers surface their resumes within the applicant tracking systems.And each step forward matters.Improvement and the Seattle Nomads Caf GuideIn the first half of 2015, James and Michael were working out of coffee shops around Seattle. In order to help them choose the right one, they even created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. But they brought this spreadsheet to another level.They used the spreadsheet to keep track of each venue and its prices, but also its temperature, number of outlets, wifi speed and free parking availability. And you could sort the list according to your needsWhats even funnier is that, when they told me about that spreadsheet, it really wasnt a big deal for them. (Doesnt everybody track the number of outlets in their favorite coffee shops?)I was laughing my head off.The very specific Seattle Nomads Caf spreadsheetIt just illustrates how optimizing and improving is a natural part of their mindset.For instance, th eyve recently improved how Jobscan tracks skills, distinguishing among soft and hard skills. They also provide more and more recommendations for your resume, such as scanning for measurable results.So what does the future hold for Jobscan?More improvements, of course They pay attention to user feedback and theyre adamant about always striving for a better product. And while the ultimate vision is building the best tools for job seekers, they remain focused on their core service providing you with the right resume keywords to get past resume screeners.* * *If youve been using Jobscan for a while, James and Michael would love to hear your ideas on how to make it better for you. Send them your thoughts at emailprotectedAbout the AuthorRichard Poulin is the founder of Resume Hacking, a website and book series to help job seekers with tailored advice, by profession. One of his big ideas the 3 laws of resume writing.

How expanding your circle of awareness is an effective business exercise

How expanding your circle of awareness is an effective business exerciseHow expanding your circle of awareness is an effective business exerciseYou might be miserable at work because you dont know what makes youhappy.Hear me out. Professional self-awareness means knowing your own feelings and needs- knowing how you work best, what your goals are, and what accomplishments make you happiest. Listening to those needs and acting on them will make you feel more connected to the work you do every day.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreBut ignoring, or worse, glossing over them, can lead to misery.This happens to people constantly. Were taught from a young age to follow what others expect from us- listen to the teacher, parents, and babysitter. Then it becomes listen to the boss and we lose ourselves. We learn our wants and needs dont really matter. People end up working in situations the y hate but have no idea what theyd rather be doing. Theyve never taken time to ask themselves those crucial questions.Because few people realize they can follow their own passions.On the opposite end of the spectrum,in agile coaching, everything is done by invitation. We dont insist anyone listen to us, we ask them if they want to. So, when Im working with clients stuck in their own misery, its crucial I start with, What do you like? If their answer is, I dont know, we use that as our starting point. Together, we begin to build their self-awareness.Because being aware of your wants, needs, and desires willhelp you find genuine happinessat work, making you more engaged and productive in the long-term.But first, you have to know what actionable self-awareness looks likeIn their book,Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradbury and Jean Greaves discuss the critical importance of having a high level of emotional understanding in the workplace.A low emotional intelligence, or EQ, could le ad to defensive behavior at work or getting chewed up by your own emotions. You may not understand why you feel a certain way, or why a working relationship isnt functioning well. All of that frustration and despair can build up and cause problems, such as snapping at coworkers, lashing out, or using anger to try and control a situation.A high EQ, on the other hand, helps you successfully manage your own emotions as well as your working relationships with success.Bradbury and Greaves break emotional intelligence into four categories. Successfully growing in each looks slightly different, but is equally crucial to your long-term happiness. For exampleInternal Self-AwarenessYou know how you feel. This is at the core of all other EQ tasks or skills- without it, you can accomplish little.Self-ManagementYou know how to manage your emotions and positively direct your behavior. You understand your mental and emotional needs for your work environment and know how to ask they be met by your employer.Social awarenessYou empathize easily with your coworkers and their needs. You are able to engage in conversations of varying intensities with a great degree of social grace.Relationship managementYou understand the emotions of your coworkers and how to work well with others in any given situation.Those all sound like attributes of a happy, well-rounded, emotionally adjusted coworker, right? But no one walks into a room fully self-aware and ready to roll.It takes hard work and a willingness to look closely at your own needsThe first step to developing an acute EQ and improved self-awareness is digging deep into your own self.For a lot of people, this is going to be uncomfortable- scary even. Remember weve all been trained to gloss over our own needs in favor of what were told to do and who were expected to follow. Suddenly ripping away that protective layer to follow your own direction is terrifying.To ease the fear, arm yourself with knowledge. Make your needs and happiness an exam you cant afford to fail- literally. Taking personality tests can help do more than kill time on a slow work day. Assessments like Meyers-Briggs and the Enneagram arent foolproof science, but they can provide insights into aspects of your personality you may miss on your own.For example, according to the Meyers-Briggs test, Im an ISFJ, also known asThe Defender. This means Im sensitive but analytical, reserved, but good with people. Essentially, Im just the right collection of letters to be an agile coach, but without knowing myself, I may have ended up on an entirely different career path.After youve done the work, take notes and have them readyA User Manual for managing you as an employee can be a huge asset both for your own self-awareness and your employer.And this doesnt have to be an actual full-on 50 page PDF. It can be one page with a few bullet points that address your work style, your values, your growing edge, etc.For example,my computer-nutzer manualtells my curr ent or future colleagues that I most value inner peace, stability, and openness, while also alerting them that when I am the most frustrated, I can lash out emotionally. Now, thats a seriously vulnerable thing to tell someone you work with. Fear of judgment may make people less likely to take a risk like that.But without taking risks, you cant grow. You cant create the best possible space for your own progress. And the whole point of developing self-awareness is to do better for yourself. The more you understand yourself, the better chance you have of being in situations where you can thrive- with or without a user manual.This article first appeared on Minutes.

How to Interpret the Airport Windsock

How to Interpret the Airport WindsockHow to Interpret the Airport WindsockThe windsock, a timeless fixture at every airport, offers important information to pilots. Its necessary for an airplane to land into the wind and avoid landing with a tailwind. In addition, all aircraft have a maximum certified crosswind component- a wind speed at which flying becomes hazardous above a certain crosswind component. As such, its important for pilots to have a quick and easy way to determine the wind speed and direction before landing- like the windsock. Most windsocks are made to orient themselves against the wind when the wind speed is greater than three knots. At a wind speed of 15 knots and greater, the windsock will be fully extended and pointing the opposite way the wind is blowing. (If the tapered end of the windsock points to the north, the wind is coming from the south.) With this knowledge, you can assume that if the windsock is half-way extended, the wind might be about 7 knots. At som e uncontrolled airports and airfields, the windsock is the only indication of what the wind is doing. Most airports also have an automated weather observation system (AWOS) or an automatic terminal information system (ATIS), either of which will offer a wind speed and direction data from an anemometer or sensor located on the field. Knowing the location of the anemometer or other sensors on the field, in conjunction with the windsock data, will help you determine the wind direction and speed at different locations on the field. Source FAA AC-150/5345-27D

The Newly Leaked Secrets to Student Resume Discovered

The Newly Leaked Secrets to Student Resume Discovered New Ideas Into Student Resume Never Before Revealed With some crucial info in the appropriate order, everyone can create one. Your contact information should always go on top of your resume, so that employers can readily find it. For instance, it must have educational particulars and personal information respectively. Our student resume samples are able to help you write your own document, but when in doubt, the work listing contains all of the info you genuinely need for a particular job. Athletes, who would like to pursue a course or a job, should create their very own professional resume with care and precision. To begin with, consider the work description to see whether it indicates the form of skills the provider is seeking. You also ought to have a resume to submit an application for a new job right after finishing your educational career. Even in the event that youve never held an official job, its totenstill true that you have life experience thats applicable to the work search. Make certain you know the degree that youll be receiving and list it correctly. When you own a list of your strengths and techniques, and youve identified the critical requirements of work, it isnt hard to tailor your resume utilizing a high school resume template. The region of experience, however, is critical. Students that are in undergraduate education level can use the samples from Undergraduate Student Resume template to acquire a notion of a thorough content when writing a resume as a way to find the eye of the employers. You can also have the city and state where the business is located in case youd like. 1 advantage for employers to internet resumes is the considerable cost saving in comparison to traditional hiring methods. In case the student doesnt locate a suitable resume template, resume builders are another choice for assisting the user to come up with the resume live. Potential businesses w ill probably be scrutinizing the resume and will inform the sort of person you chance to be with what you incorporate and just how prepared it seems to be. Details of Student Resume Resumes may be used for a number of reasons, but most often theyre utilised to secure new employment. They may be organized in different ways. Students will submit an application for particular jobs, so they have to help it become very clear they have the ability and desire to do that job. They can apply for a job as long as it fits them into the available work position. Wherever you choose to place your skills on your resume, be certain to tailor your list of skills to the specific job. For any submission, no matter the position you seek, you need to concentrate on skills that will be most useful at work. Ensure that the skills are related to the job which you desire. Write down what skills you used, and the way they may relate to the job which you desire. In case you have any part-time work, th at will go a ways towards a fantastic experience section. Usually, you simply wish to include things like a separate accomplishments section in case you have three or more achievements to speak about. Try to remember, that theres no harm if your accomplishments are over by the conclusion of the very first page. Your resume will be broken into sections. A scarcity of real-world experience doesnt indicate you want to get an inferior application. If for no other reason, acquiring the resume will enable you to easily finish all the on-line profiles teams require prospects to finish. As stated previously have to pick skills that have some relevance to the job which youre applying for. A crystal clear statement about how youll utilize your strongest relevant abilities and professional experiences to satisfy the specific role youre applying for 3. Student Resume Explained Hiring managers realize that someone coming right out of school is probably going to have a whole whole lot of work experience, especially within the field. Students should know what sort of job they would like to escape school and where they wish to be five to ten years down the street. You will also receive a notion of the way to present your skills in your student resume. Everyone has desirable abilities and experiences to provide employers including you Let prospective employers know the student is prepared to do good work which will just improve with greater experience. Though most students wont have a good absprache of specialist experience, its important to emphasize the experiences they do have. The Argument About Student Resume Utilizing a high school student resume template can help you to fill your resume to your strong points. Writing a winning college student career objective is a rather simple method to bolster your application for this internship or job youve got in sight. To grab this kind of opportunity you will require a well written nursing student resume. If you re a student or recent graduate and have zero experience of the way to collect your private info, see above the very best student resume samples. Employers can learn all they will need to understand about a candidate from their school performance, which means that your Education section should reflect well on you. Nursing students will need to create their professional resume to submit an application for internship jobs or training under a trusted healthcare center. The education section will probably be a crucial characteristic of yourhigh school student resumeso rack your brain for extracurricular pursuits. Crafting the ideal Education section is essential to creating a prosperous college resume. Samples can be found in PDF file format, which can be readily downloaded and printed. Producing your resume is essential. Resume comes with appropriate format or structure, and it is necessary to follow along with the structure carefully. Student resume is essential, and so you ou ght not show unnecessary rush in the practice of writing your resume.

4 Easy Ways a Routine Presentation Can Kill your Career

4 Easy Ways a Routine Presentation Can Kill yur Career You have heard the old saying from Yogi Berra, When you see the fork in the road, take it. Theres a corporate take on Yogis words When you see an opportunity, take it. And dont squander the chance to shine. Heres an example Daryl was just informed he must step in for his boss to present the quarterly update at a senior staff meeting. Hes bedrngnis worried. He does it a couple of times a year when his boss is away.He knows he should prepare, but he feels he knows the content since he provided 90 percent of what went into the report. All he needs is a half hour to refresh himself on the document and anticipate any questions.He planned to do it in the morning except that the phone rang off the hook and someone put a meeting on his calendar and well, the morning got away from him. Maybe this afternoon? Oops, a little crisis and some critical ema ils needed his attention. Plus, that new person had a few questions. Suddenly the workday was over and the kids needed help with homework. Daryl finally took just 10 minutes to scan the report before falling asleep, convincing himself thats probably all the prep he needs.Wrong.But why does Daryl think this way? He has four reasonsI already know the material.The senior staff members already know me.I just dont have time.Not much usually happens at these meetings anyway.Again, poor Daryl is wrong. This is the trap of the routine or simple assignment.Most execs wouldnt dream of showing up for a meeting with the CEO without preparing, nor would we shortchange our rehearsal before anything like a major town hall presentation. We know a big opportunity when we see one.But the routine stuff? We might agree with Daryl. Who has time? What difference does it make?Lets take a closer look at Daryls four reasons to justify his lack of prep and look at the unintended consequencesI already know th e material. Daryl may know the contents of the report, but he spent no time thinking about what aspects are most meaningful to this audience. He neither anticipated questions, nor prepared cogent, informed answers. He missed the opportunity to show his unique understanding of the material and add value to a potentially stale discussion. If he had simply asked himself what was special about the information that the senior team would have found enlightening, he would have elevated his contribution from the routine to the remarkable.The senior staff members already know me. But how do they know him? Unless they have exposure to him beyond occasional meetings, they likely see him as the reliable stand-innothing more, nothing special. Hes known as a good placeholder until the real guy gets back. Why? Because thats what he displays every time. If all his interactions are as unremarkable as his senior staff presentations, he will be rated at the middle of the wertzuwachs review scale, even if he sees himself as above average. Unless he can shine a little more brightly, hes going to be overlooked at promotion or recognition time. Daryl needs to figure out what distinguishes him from the middle of the pack and seize opportunities to demonstrate his unique value to those who count, including his own boss.I just dont have time. Theres having the time and theres taking the time. Time is fungible. Most of us can find 45 minutes when other people make unexpected demands, but we dont or wont even give ourselves 15 minutes to think about making an impact in our everyday encounters. Consequently we find ourselves rushing from meeting to meeting, struggling mentally just to keep up with the content, but missing opportunities to read the room, strengthen relationships, or further our professional brand. If Daryl could turn back the clock, he should have dispensed with the mundane challenges and spent 30 minutes adding value to his presentation.Not much happens at these meetings anyway. Well, not for him. And why? Ultimately, its because Daryl has trained his audience not to engage (or theyve trained him) and these meetings are transaction, not a conversation. He could have shared insight that can only come from a guy who is a little closer to the ground and who really knows the content deeply. The executives may have learned something more relevant to them that could have impacted their strategic planning. He could have closed the data loop for them by contributing something and distinguishing himself in the process.Every interaction you have is an opportunity to engage others in the conversations that matter, as well as demonstrate your knowledge, experience and insight. Dont fall into the trap of the routine or simple assignment. With a little forethought, every interaction can contribute to your career momentum. When you see a fork, take it.