This cast gives our guidance on how to deal with conflict with internal support providers.

Internal support providers (IT, Security, Printing, HR, Accounts and so on) are valuable resources in companies. They are what allow sales to do their thing, manufacturing to do theirs, and customer service to do theirs. Without both, companies don't exist. But, the relationship is often, if not outright antagonistic, then decidedly difficult.

In this cast, we're going to give you a strategy which will reduce the conflict and help you work together with your support provider in the interests of increased efficiency and effectiveness.

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This cast tells you how to prepare for a meeting.

This is one of those casts in which posit such a simple action, that we almost hesitate to suggest it. But since the majority of your peers' preparation for a meeting consists of refilling their coffee cups, this simple action is one that can have a disproportionate influence on your career.

Too many meetings is a common complaint. In this case, it's a good thing, since you'll have lots of practice and get good really, really fast.

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This cast completes our series on how to create and use a Career Management Document as a key part of your career management system.

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This cast tells you how to create and use a Career Management Document as a key part of your career management system.

We've often mentioned the need for everyone to have a Career Management Document, but we've never dedicated a whole cast to what it is, and how and when to use it. This cast sets out to rectify that.

In essence the Career Management Document (or CMD) is where you keep your record of your career. It's never seen by anyone but you, and it's not your resume. Having a CMD is not enough though. We need to use it as part of an entire system of Career Documentation which results in an effective resume.

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This cast describes how to decide which jobs to apply for.

We have noticed that there are two types of job seekers, those who will not apply for anything they are not 100% sure they are qualified for, and those who apply indiscriminately for any role. We understand though, that as a job seeker, it's difficult to understand the reaction of recruiters to our resume, especially when we've been through the confusing situation of being asked about roles we're not interested in or rejected for roles we thought were perfect for us.

To help you with making the decision, whether to apply or not, we've converted our experience as recruiters and hiring managers into an exercise which will help you make the decision. It will take some extra time initially, but going through it a few times will help you understand the thinking required to make appropriate applications. To help you understand the model fully, we're also going to give you a worked example.

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This cast describes how to deliver effective customer service by over-communicating.

The first rule of customer service is well known: 'the customer is always right'. The Career Tools second rule of customer service is 'be nice', which is less well known and much less adhered too, unfortunately. The third rule: over-communicate, could easily be renamed the 'Amazon' rule, after our favorite internet bookseller, which sends us emails at every step of our buying process. In fact, the third rule goes further than that, and tells us to communicate in between steps.

The promise of this technique is that, despite initially appearing as if it will cause extra work, it will actually reduce the amount of time you spend dealing with your customers. When Wendii used this technique in a customer service role, she cut the number of calls from customers by half. Considering she was getting thirty calls an hour this was a significant improvement in her ability to satisfy her customer's needs.

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This cast describes two simple communication behaviors to help determine roughly what someone's DiSC profile might be.

We get lots of questions about DiSC profiles when we provide them to clients or at conferences. Those of you who have taken the DiSC behavioral profile know why – it's amazingly accurate, and it's not about personality.

Knowing your own behavioral tendencies is helpful when working, either by yourself or with others. A core technique we teach at our ECC conference is how to analyze others' behaviors. If you don't know someone's profile (they haven't taken it or shared it), it's still not that difficult to determine their primary tendency enough to be able to significantly reduce the chances of miscommunication and conflict with them.

So what are a couple of simple behaviors we can look for that help us communicate with others?

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This cast describes how to effectively handle getting feedback through a 360 degree review.

We've said before that we think that 360 degree reviews can be very effective, but that they are often done poorly in terms of administration. In other guidance, we've cautioned about the risks of being completely candid if you're providing input. In part our recommended caution was a function of poor administration, largely around confidentiality. The other part of it is how we have seen SO many managers use the input unprofessionally, attempting to suss who said what.

But what about getting the input? What's the professional way to handle 360 input. Too few companies help managers who get such feedback. But we do.

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This cast concludes our series on how you can approach your manager in order to get training budget.

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This cast describes how you can approach your manager in order to get training budget.

It can be incredibly frustrating to be an individual contributor and KNOW you could do more if only you had the training. Or perhaps you're someone who works really hard, your career is very important to you, and you'd like to be rewarded with training budget the company says it doesn't have. Or you see people in other teams going on 'jollys' and no matter how many times you ask, you never get to go. Or you REALLY want to go to a Manager Tools conference and your manager will just not agree ☹

This is one of those casts where we can tell you the best way to approach the situation, but we can't guarantee the outcome. BUT, approaching the situation in the best way will raise your esteem in your manager's eyes and will increase your chances of getting budget in the future.

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