Taking Control During Uncertain Times

Welcome to episode 70 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss taking control during uncertain times.

Original Recording Date: 03-08-2020

Topics – Taking control instead of feeling frozen during uncertain times

0:56 Intro

• Last week we discussed working effectively from home
• This week we’re talking about avoiding fear and taking control during times of uncertainty
• It’s too easy to be overwhelmed by things we don’t have control over and miss things we do have control over
• Here’s our topics
  • Do your job well
  • Help your organization
  • Help your network

4:16 Do your job well

• Assess yourself
  • 360-degree review, official or unofficial
  • Interface with other working groups
  • Set up metrics for success
    • Co-developed with your manager or organization?
    • Remind and reassure yourself with your past positive reviews
• Commitment and accountability
  • Keeping promises; They affect your professional reputation
  • Giving timelines and communicating updates
    • John is reminded that true action items have an action, an owner, and a deadline
  • Communicate anticipated misses as soon as you know about them
  • Communicate percentage of completion if you’re going to miss as well
• What’s your feedback on doing your job well?

14:05 Enhance your larger organization

• Assess your team
  • How are you doing as a group?
  • What can you do to enhance that as an IC?
    • Can you help out peers who are overwhelmed?
    • Even emotional support is helpful
    • Can you help your manager?
• Assess your next level organization
  • What can you do to enhance that?
  • Centers of excellence
  • Innovation Centers
  • Example of the VMware CTO Ambassadors
  • Understand what groups who are outside your team want/need and figure out their goals
  • Understand what your company does outside your technology bubble
  • In operations, we get caught up in saving money, but there are other ways to deliver value
• What other ideas do you have for enhancing your larger organization?

23:46 Enhance your network

• Refresh your connections
  • Catch up
• Ask what you can do for others
  • Help who you can how you can within your resources
  • Perhaps share articles or news which reminds you of your peers

Contact us if you need help on the journey.