5 Tips for Making it Through Your First Few Weeks on the Job

5 Tips for Making it Through Your First Few Weeks on the Job 5 Tips for Making it Through Your First Few Weeks on the Job Starting a new job is bound to be a little intimidating no matter how long you’ve been in the game; you don’t know anyone, you’re not sure how things are done or what will be expected of you, and everything from the lunchroom to the photocopy machine is unfamiliar territory. If you want to make a good first impression and set the stage for the rest of your time with the company, though, it’s important to come prepared and make the first few weeks count. Here are a few tips for doing just that. 1. Make an effort to introduce yourself and establish connections Getting to know as many people as possible will make your transition into the new workplace easier, so try to get out of your comfort zone by greeting and introducing yourself to those you cross paths with. It’s especially important to find out who you’ll be directly working with so you can have a little chat, find out what their roles are and open up clear lines of communication early on. If you’re invited to go for lunch or drinks after work, make an effort to join in even if you’d rather eat on your own or go straight home, as it’s a great way to show your new coworkers that you’re genuinely interested in getting to know them. Collaborating on tasks can also be an easy way to bond, so don’t be too quick to turn down offers of help, even if it’s something you could probably figure out on your own. 2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions During your first few weeks on the job, you might be tempted to try to figure things out on your own rather than ask for help, but rest assured that no one is going to see your questions as a nuisance. It’s perfectly normal to have questions, and the more you find out now, the more efficiently you’ll be able to do your job later down the line. If you do find yourself with multiple questions and would rather not take anyone away from their work for too long, make a list of everything you’d like to have explained in more detail and then ask your manager or overseer when it would be convenient for them to sit down and go over it with you. 3. Write things down While there’s nothing wrong with asking questions, writing everything down will ensure that you never have to ask the same question more than once. You’ll be taking in a lot of new information during your first few weeks and your brain can quickly become overloaded, so even if something doesn’t seem complicated at the time, take notes every time you’re given an answer or explanation or learn of a new company procedure or rule. You can also take down your coworker’s names along with a brief description of what they do to avoid any mix-ups. 4. Take some initiative No one expects you to solve all of the company’s problems or singlehandedly increase profits during your first month on the job, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take some initiative and show your employers that they made the right choice when they hired you. If you haven’t been given any tasks to work on or have finished your initial assignments earlier than expected, don’t just hang around waiting for someone to tell you what to do next. Be proactive and ask what you should tackle next or volunteer to help out with a specific project.   5. Stay positive and try not to compare You don’t want to be that person who is stuck in the past and constantly harping on about the way they did things in their previous job. It will take some time to adjust to your new work environment, of course, but try to stay positive and avoid comparing your new workplace with your old one. Keep in mind that while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making constructive suggestions if you think something could be done more efficiently, you do need to go through the right channels or you’ll risk coming across as negative, arrogant or both. Author bio: Marianne Stenger is a writer with  Open Colleges, one of Australia’s leading online education providers. She covers everything from life hacks and career development to learning tips and the latest research in education. You can connect with her on  Google+  and  Twitter, or find her latest articles  here.

Congratulations Letter Example for a Promotion

Congratulations Letter Example for a Promotion Congratulations Letter Example for a Promotion Did one of your co-workers or business associates recently receive a promotion? Consider sending a letter of congratulations to acknowledge and celebrate the good news. As well as being a lovely gesture thats certain to be appreciated, your letter of congratulations lets the recipient know that you care about his or her career and happiness. Its also a great way to keep in touch with people you may not see or interact with on a regular basis. What to Include in a Promotion Congratulations Letter Here are some things that you can include in your letter of congratulations: Your Positive Feelings About the PromotionOf course, congratulations are the main reason youre writing the letter! Including your congratulations and best wishes is the most important thing to do in your note. Where You Saw the NewsParticularly if you are getting in touch with someone after not having spoken in a while, its nice to mention how you found out the good news. You can say things like, I saw on LinkedIn that you were promoted to  Marketing Manager, or I was thrilled to see the good news in the latest company bulletin about your new job title, or I met up with Tanisha Jones from sales, and she mentioned youd just received a promotion. ComplimentsIts very common in a letter of congratulations to mention how well deserved the promotion is, and to include praise for work that you know the person has done. Your ThanksA note of congratulations is also a good opportunity to express thanks for any assistance a colleague has provided you in the past. If they have been a member of your department, think of examples of how they’ve helped you or contributed to your team so that they’ll know they will be missed. Your letter can be brief and straightforward - the most important thing to write is your good wishes and congratulations. You can send your letter either through email or mail; it adds a more personal touch if you take the time to handwrite your note on a purchased card or a nice piece of stationery. Use the congratulations letter examples below to help get started writing your letter to the promoted colleague, customizing them to reflect your relationship with the recipient. Formal Congratulations Letter Example for a Promotion Your NameTitleOrganizationAddressCity, State Zip CodeDateNameTitleOrganizationAddressCity, State Zip CodeDear Name,It was with great pleasure that I heard of your recent promotion to District Sales Manager through an update yesterday on LinkedIn.You are inheriting a great team, and Im sure that your ability to lead by example in motivating others will make them even more effective and productive. I expect we’ll be hearing about some stellar sales growth at the regional conference next year.Congratulations and good luck in your new position â€" onward and upward!Sincerely,Your Name Expand

The Rise from Robot Combat to Robot Company

The Rise from Robot Combat to Robot Company The Rise from Robot Combat to Robot Company The Rise from BattleBot to Corporate Robot For 16 years Icewave has ripped, hacked apart, torn limbs, and otherwise mangled the likes of Razorback, Chomp, and Ghost Raptor. The destruction has taken place on the television program BattleBots, a show that features robots going at it gladiator style. BattleBots aired for two years beginning in 2000 (and has seen two revivals, the most recent in May 2018) and has brought countless kids to engineering. Some of those competitors have taken what theyve learned from creating the most hellish bot possible, and created successful careers and companies. Icewaves creator, Marc DeVidts, is one of them. I saw BattleBots on Comedy Central in high school and like most technically oriented kids I thought it was the coolest thing ever, he said. I wanted to build one of these things, and I wanted to know how to do it. DeVidts reached out to robot builders who posted build logs in the early days of the internet. Before long he was competing on the show. His creation is essentially a spinning blade powered by a combustion engine. It fought its way to the top of 600 wrecking robots, takingfirst place at one of the BattleBots IQ college competitions. After that, the show went off the air. But the roboticists who participated kept building. Builders across the country wanted to keep doing this said DeVidts. People started having their own arenas. To help the burgeoning community continue their skirmishes, Devidts created the Builders Database as well as other software to assist robot builders interested in running events. The next thing I know, people are flying me out to events to help them organize a show, said DeVidts, who was in his senior year of high school at the time. Along the way he became friends with David Cann, a software developer who worked for BattleBots. When the iPhone first hit the scene, DeVidtswas working for a medical supply company. Cann decided they should capitalize on the coming touch screen revolution. What they created is a plush toy that kids could interact with through the phone. For You: Autonomous, Robotic Boat First to Sail Across the Atlantic While trying to get the toy produced in China, the pair wished they had a robot of a different kindnot for fighting or for playing, but for remote communication. They found just what they were looking fora screen and camera on wheelsfrom a company called Anybots. We said, lets get one of these things. Wait . . . hold on . . . its $15,000, said DeVidts. At the time they were each paying $1000 to rent a 13-square-foot shop in Miami. The Anybot bot was well out of their price range. During that time, the second generation iPad was released. While trying to sell the robot theyd created, DeVidts and Cann discovered that the toy market to be incredibly cut throat, with low profit margins. So they put their skills and money into creating an iPad driven telecommunications robot. The Double telepresence robot. Image: Double Robotics The prototype was a golf caddy that a friend had found, DeVidts said. We put an Arduino in there, and put the iPad on the part where you put your score. The YouTube video of the robot driving around got a lot of buzz . . . enough that someone at BMW saw it and called the duonow Double Roboticsasking if they could make them a few. Eventually they took their idea to Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that has funded the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox, and Reddit. Trevor Blackwell, one of the Y Combinator cofounders, also happened to be the creator of Anybots. We said, theres no way they would accept this, said DeVidts, who submitted, the robot anyway. Blackwell said its an amazing idea, something he would have done if he had started today. Now there are 10,000 Double Robotics bots roaming factories and offices. DeVidts had to put his BattleBot knowledge to use to get this far with his company. When you build Battlebots for 10 years of your life you become very good at building products that take abuse, said DeVidts. The number one thing is iteration. With Icewave weve been fortunate to not get completely destroyedwere using the same design year after year. Other skills learned from the world of robot combat have less importance for an office robot, like covering holes with foil tape to protect its innards from the likes of a flame thrower. Aside from a few years in college studying computer science, DeVidts has no formal training as an engineer. But passion leads to knowledge. For DeVidts, having a portfolio of the work hes done has helped him as much as a degree. Theres never been a better time for being able to show the things you can make instead of having that piece of paper, said DeVidts. The advent of Youtube and social mediaall it takes is building something cool and showing it to the world to get you anywhere you need to be. Michael Abrams is an independent writer. Read More: The Upswing of Innovation Mechanical Engineer Salaries Rise How to Decide to Fight a Forest Fire or Let it Burn For Further Discussion I saw BattleBots on Comedy Central in high school and like most technically oriented kids I thought it was the coolest thing ever.Marc DeVidts, co-founder and CTO of Double Robotics

Got an offer on the table Dont say yes just yet.

Got an offer on the table Don’t say yes just yet. Got an offer on the table Don’t say yes just yet. Don’t overlook the one thing that will make or break your success.The salary is right, the title is right, the benefits and location are right. You like the people you’ll be working for. But what about the people you’ll be working with? Your colleagues and team members? How do you feel about them? If the answer is that you’re not sure, you should probably find out. Here’s why. Happiness.When you take a job, you’re basically joining a social network. Your co-workers become a huge and influential part of your life. They’re the people you spend most of your day with. You kind of need to like them. It’s the difference between dreading going into the office every day or looking forward to it. A study from employee engagement company, TINYpulse, found that employees overwhelming responded “team members and colleagues” when asked what they loved most about their jobs. Growth.You are who you associate yourself with. It’s true. If your co-workers are unmotivated and unin terested in doing a great job, their attitude toward work will rub off on you. You will subconsciously try to assimilate yourself with your group. Also, when you join a group where you feel like you don’t belong, chances are, you won’t be able to get ahead. While it’s a totally reasonable request to ask to meet with your co workers, it’s also not something most people do. So be careful how you word it. Something like this is the best way to approach it: “I’m really excited about the position. Before I formally accept, would it be possible to talk with the people I’ll be working most closely with to get a sense of how everyone works together? A quick meeting over coffee, or just a quick  informal chat?” A good hiring manager should appreciate you wanting to make sure it’s a good fit for you. If your request is turned down, that says something about your boss and maybe even the company. It’s really hard not to see it as a red flag. Either your boss doesn’t think your happiness at work is important, doesn’t really care if you take the job, or she’s hiding something about the culture that she’d rather you didn’t know. No reasonable person commits to marriage without getting to know someone. And no reasonable employee should commit to a long-term relationship with co-workers they haven’t even met. Considering the amount of hours you devote to it, the quality of your professional life should be just as important to you as the quality of your personal one.

Babies learn persistence watching grownups stick with challenge

Babies learn persistence watching grownups stick with challenge Babies learn persistence watching grownups stick with challenge You’re at home trying to make fresh tomato sauce, but can’t seem to get the tomatoes out of their plastic container from the grocery store. The bottom latch is not opening, so you pull harder. Although you’ve never seen this type of tomato container before, you have opened many similar ones in the past. After a minute of trying, you stop to consider the situation â€" should you keep pushing and pulling? Should you ask a friend for help? Should you give up on fresh tomatoes and just open a can?We make decisions like this all the time. How much effort should we expend on something? We have only so much time and energy in the day. Five minutes fumbling with the container is five minutes taken away from reading a book, talking to your family or sleeping. In any given situation, you must decide how hard to try.Developmental cognitive scientists like me are interested in how we make decisions about effort. In particular, how do young children, who are constantly encountering new situ ations, decide how hard to try?If at first you don’t succeed, then what?The importance of effort extends beyond our daily decisions about time allocation. Recent studies show that self-control and persistence increase academic outcomes independent of IQ. Even our personal beliefs about effort can affect academic outcomes. Children who think effort leads to achievement outperform those who believe ability is a fixed trait.Given the link between persistence and academic success, decisions about effort are particularly important in childhood. Yet relatively little research has explored how young children learn what’s worth the effort.We all know that infants are keen observers of the social world. But they’re not just idly watching; infants are tiny learning machines. They can generalize such abstract concepts as causal relationships and social roles from just a few examples. Even a 15-month-old infant can outperform a high-level computer in such tasks.Could infants also make bro ad, generalizable inferences from a few examples when it comes to effort? If so, then maybe “grit” isn’t simply a character trait. Maybe it’s flexible and adaptable based on social context.Just give up … or push through failure?To explore this question, my colleagues and I showed 15-month-old babies one of two things: an experimenter working hard to achieve two different goals (getting a toy out of a container and getting a keychain off a carabiner), or an experimenter who effortlessly reached each goal.Then we introduced the baby to a novel “music” toy that looked like it could be activated by pushing a big button on top. (The button could be pressed down but didn’t actually activate anything.) Out of sight of the babies, we turned on the music toy with a hidden button so that they heard that the toy could make music. We gave the babies the music toy and left the room. Then coders, who didn’t know which condition each baby was in, watched videotapes of the experim ent and counted how many times babies tried to activate the toy by pressing the button.Infants in the study try to activate a musical toy.  Julia Anne Leonard, CC BY-NDAcross one study and a preregistered replication (182 babies in total), babies who had seen an adult persist and succeed pushed the button about twice as many times as those who saw an adult effortlessly succeed. In other words, babies learned that effort was valuable after watching just two examples of an adult working hard and succeeding.Part of what’s exciting about this finding is that the babies didn’t just imitate the adult’s actions; instead, they generalized the value of effort to a novel task. The experimenter never demonstrated pushing a button or trying to make music. Instead the babies learned from different examples of effortful actions (opening a container or unlatching a carabineer) that the new toy probably also required persistence.However, most of the time when a parent is frustrated, he’s fo cused on the task at hand and not on trying to teach his child the value of effort. Can babies also learn the value of effort from adults who are not deliberately demonstrating to them?To address this question, we ran the experiment again, eliminating any pedagogical cues such as eye contact or child-friendly speech. Again, the infants tried harder on their own task after seeing an adult persist and succeed. However, the effects were much weaker when the adult didn’t use any pedagogical cues.Learning tenacity by watching tenacityEducators and parents want to know how to foster persistence when children encounter challenges. Our study suggests that persistence can be learned from adult models. Babies attentively watch those around them, and use that information to guide their own effortful behavior.Yet babies don’t simply learn they should try harder at everything. Just like grownups, babies make rational decisions about effort. If they observe someone trying hard and succeeding, they try harder. When they see someone effortlessly succeed, they infer that effort may not be worthwhile.So what does this mean for parents? We can’t presume that our results would work for parents in the home just as they work in the laboratory. However, if you know your toddler can achieve a task if she tries hard, it might be worth modeling effort and success for her first. Let us know if it works! We’d also like to know how lasting these effects can be, whether infants might generalize the value of effort to a broader range of contexts and how adult models of effort compare with explicit messages about the importance of effort. We hope to explore these questions in future studies.Finally, this study suggests that parents don’t have to make things look easy all the time. The next time you struggle to open that tomato container, it’s OK, maybe even beneficial, to let your child see you sweat.Julia Leonard, Ph.D. Student in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Inst itute of Technology. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Lehman Sweats it Out

Lehman Sweats it Out Lehman Sweats it Out Last week, as temperatures in New York preparedto roll toward 95 degrees and Lehman Brothers' share price fell further, the big independent investment bank run by Dick Fuld was busy trying to close a deal that would give it a much-needed infusion. The estimated $6 billion in capital is expected to come from a variety of investors, including the New Jersey Division of Investmentsthe manager of the state's $80 billion pension fund and investor in fellow struggling investment bank, Merrill Lynch. Previously, with Lehman's travails due to the subprime fallout topping headlines, industry observers had speculated that the bank might be looking for a JPMorgan-like savior to buy the firm out right, or for a government-owned fund to buy an equitystakesimilar to deals struck by competitors Morgan Stanley (which received billions in Chinese capital), Citigroup (which took an infusion from Abu Dhabi) and Merrill (which got its multi-billion dollar boost from Singapore). Unlike these firms, it ap pears Lehman didn't have to go very far to get its billion-dollar Band-Aid. Instead of going overseas, it justcrossed the Hudson River. Although mounting losses, a dismal stock price and a dry deal market doesn't bode well Lehman insiders, there are some bright spots at the firm. Lehman is expected to post severe drops in investment banking and capital markets revenue for the second quarter, and with losses this deep, further job cuts in these divisions seem inevitable. However, the firm's investment management division is expected to report ahealthy rise in business for the quarter, so insiders in that unit have much to celebrate, and should be able to count on their paychecks to keep on coming. Speaking of investment management, we're days away from revealing the results of the second annual Vault Investment Management Survey. So stay tuned to find out which firms insiders rank as the top 25 in the industry. (Hint: Lehman is one of them.)

Here is why the best leaders encourage dissent

Here is why the best leaders encourage dissent Here is why the best leaders encourage dissent Why do the best leaders encourage dissent?In the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographical book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, author and American historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, tells the story of President Lincoln’s decision to fill his cabinet with political adversaries, namely the men who ran against him in the contentious 1860 election.Lincoln’s explanation for this decision was that the country needed the strongest, most capable men to lead it; collectively, these men could offer that. From Lincoln’s perspective, just because they had been bitter rivals during the election didn’t justify depriving the country of their talents and leadership.His determination was both unprecedented and reflective of Lincoln’s own advanced leadership and high-degree of self-confidence.Fast forward to 2018 and this approach to policy-building and leading a nation could not be more divergent.Sadly, many political “leaders” and populists have embraced an autocrati c, “with me or against me” approach, demanding blind support. They surround themselves with “yes men” and “yes women” who tell them what they want to hear and reinforce their existing positions and beliefs.Interestingly, today’s most successful and admired business leaders do just the opposite.They are more approachable than any other time in history, recognizing the growing ineffectiveness of the command-and-control leadership style. They are far more transparent than their predecessors were, typically operate in an open-book style, and welcome feedback and criticism provided by their employees, clients, peers and partners. And the very best understand how to harness those insights to stay ahead and create new solutions and products.In other words, they want to get it right, not always be right.Ray Dalio, legendary investor, founder of Bridgewater Associates and author of the one of the most invaluable leadership books, Principles, writes about the importance of build ing a team that is comfortable with conflict and challenging each other. He also addresses the danger of confirmation bias born from surrounding ourselves with people who tell us what we want to hear.Dalio believes that “the greatest tragedy of mankind comes from the inability of people to have thoughtful disagreement to find out what’s true.”One of his principles for life and business is called “believability-weighted decision making.” This approach seeks to get all ideas on the table, but at the same time, give more weight to people who have demonstrated repeated knowledge or authority on a subject at hand.Like Lincoln, the best leaders triangulate their view with believable people who are willing to disagree and challenge their closely-held assumptions and beliefs. They do this because they want to significantly raise the probability of the best outcome or decision.The late senator, John McCain, personified this principle in both his personal, professional and political life. Some could argue that he channeled Lincoln posthumously by asking three of his political adversaries - George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden - to deliver a eulogy at his funeral.Bush and Obama both defeated McCain in his two attempts to be president; Joe Biden was a long-time political adversary of McCain’s in the Senate and also one of his closest friends.If you are building a team anywhere in your life or business, ask yourself, “Am I looking to surround myself with the ‘most capable’ men and women? Or am I looking for an echo chamber?”The answer to these two questions could ultimately determine your legacy.Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners and the author of the international bestselling book Performance Partnerships. Join 40,000 global leaders who follow his inspirational weekly Friday Forward, invite him to speak, or follow him on Twitter.This post first appeared on Quora.