Be open-minded and ready for organisational changes.

Whenever changes are announced, be positive and display a leadership role in executing new policies and strategies. If you participated in planning of changes, then you were forewarned. But even if you experience unexpected changes, be first to look out for positive reasons for such changes and to influence others around you to accept it with positive attitudes. Defending superiors and higher management will increase your leadership status and trustworthiness. In a political sense it will display your role as siding with management against disgruntled crowd.

Arrange and organise your paperwork.

A good filing system allows you to retrieve required documents and information fast for own use or for use by other parties. It is a reflection of your efficiency and your ability for sound logic thinking. If you surround yourself with paperwork to impress on others how busy you are, you are making mistake of your life. It can be interpreted in many different ways, like you cannot cope with workload, you cannot delegate, you spend too much on time wasters, you are too slow and worst of all you cannot manage yourself or others. If you cannot get rid of papers, you will not find time to attend to needs and development of your subordinates. You will also not find time to liase with colleagues or to discipline your section or department. You will be a walk over and ripe for being misused by subordinates not respecting you. Rather be a reliable source of information with time for training your subordinates and others. Clean up your desk to make time for others.

Read up on principles of supervision and management.

Familiarise yourself with knowledge on how to be a good supervisor or manager. If you can display management capabilities, you will sooner be identified for promotion. It is better to be promoted for your managerial capabilities than for your technical proficiency. It will allow you to perform your managerial duties better. Apart from being technically proficient, prepare yourself in advance for possible promotion. Make yourself ready and available for your employer and future needs of your organisation.

Confidential information.

Your treatment of confidential information is going to be a good gauge of your character. You only have to make one mistake in this area, not to be trusted ever again. If you have a problem in this area, rectify it quickly. Your superiors and employer have to trust and rely on your discretion with confidential information. Some information must be kept confidential or secret until it is time for disclosure.

You must proof your ability for discretion with this type of information, so that they know they can trust and rely on you. Let them know and understand that you are part and parcel of management.

Show initiative.

Make suggestions to improve methods of work and systems. See problems as opportunities for improvement. Do not just report problems, but analyse it wisely and make recommendations for improvement. Recognise opportunities for improvement and development and utilise it.

Be honest, open and direct.

Harboring a secretive attitude of slyness with hidden agenda’s, will not remain a secret for long. Other persons will eventually detect it and despise you for it. You can just as well fire yourself, because that is where you will end up. Nobody will trust you after you have been exposed. Be open and direct in your communications and handling of conflict situations. Do not be afraid to air your opinions, as long as it is genuine and true. Truthful mistakes can always be remedied later on.

Summary:

Life is ever so short that nobody can really afford to remain average in obscured crowd of nobodies. Make yourself stand out as someone with strong principles and work ethics, so that others can rely on your strengths. Qualifications alone, without work ethics, are totally worthless. Make following words part of your life and your philosophy on your outlook of work:

Tenacity – keep on trying Conscientious – keep on thinking about ways to finalise and improve your work Humorous – make life bearable and enjoyable Urgency – you must finalise your work with speed and accuracy Trustworthiness – proof yourself to be a reliable and dependable person Openness and honesty – be a person of honour and proud of yourself

Digital Immigrant teachers typically assume that learners are same as they have always been, and that same methods that worked for teachers when they were students will work for their students now. But that assumption is no longer valid. Today’s learners are different.

The people sitting in their classes grew up on “twitch speed” of video games and MTV. They are used to instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging. They’ve been networked most or all of their lives. They have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction.

So is it that Digital Natives can’t pay attention, or that they choose not to? Often from Natives’ point of view their Digital Immigrant instructors make their education not worth paying attention to compared to everything else they experience – “Every time I go to school I have to power down,” complains one student – and then they blame them for not paying attention! And, more and more, Digital Natives won’t take it.

So what should happen? Should we force Digital Native students to learn old ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators learn new? Unfortunately, no matter how much Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely Digital Natives will go backwards. In first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn new language easily, and forcefully resist using old. Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in “old country.”

So unless we want to just forget about educating Digital Natives until they grow up and do it themselves, Digital Immigrants had better confront this issue. It’s time to stop grousing, and as Nike motto of Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” If you don’t know how, just watch your kids!