No one likes being micromanaged, but being a micromanager is almost worse: you know, on some level, that you’re the problem, and yet you just can’t stop nitpicking everything people do. In this week’s roundup, career experts tackle breaking the micromanaging habit, learning how to fight productively, and beating the dreaded cover-letter writer’s block.
(Photo Credit: JD Hancock/Flickr)
Dr. Marla Gottschalk on 5 Strategies to Curb Your Micromanaging Ways
“If you’ve ever been micro-managed, you fully understand the aggravating confidence-busting results that can occur,” Dr. Gottschalk writes. “Fear of impending failure, decreased motivation and complete disengagement from your work. When your supervisor doesn’t seem to understand the levity of the potential consequences — work life can become quite miserable.”
If, on the other hand, you’re the micromanager, she notes that there isn’t much in the way of advice for you – until now. These tips will help you stop nitpicking your reports and start empowering them.
Dan Erwin on Why How We Fight Matters Most
“Analysis of business conversations inevitably reveals that they are chock full of misunderstanding, differences of opinion and inherent disagreement,” Dan Erwin writes. “Yet, it has been more than a dozen years since anything significant on managing conflict has been created. But in a recent and highly awarded study UVA’s Kristin Behfar and her colleagues have provided a new, very practical approach to conflict prediction and resolution.
“Rather than focus on conflict types, such as task or relationship orientation, they found that by manipulating two dimensions — directness and intensity — they were able to predict conflict success or failure.”
Erwin explains how, here.
Alison Doyle at About.com’s Job Searching site: 100s of Cover Letter Examples
Less career advice and more toolkit for job seekers, this compendium of cover letter templates is a lifesaver for anyone who’s ever found themselves desperately trying to pitch themselves without restating their CV or boring the hiring manager to death.
In addition to cover letters for job types ranging from academic advisor to writing and marketing roles, there are examples for cold contact cover letters, for letters applying for more than one job, and for letters written by recent college grads.
Obviously, you’ll want to heavily modify any example you use – there’s nothing less persuasive than plagiarism – but if you’re stuck staring at a blinking cursor and have no idea how to get started, these templates might help break your writer’s block.
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