Effective

Navigate the weird, chaotic world of modern work, no matter your position While there's no shortage of advice on being amazing or avoiding burnout, what if you simply want to get things done in a workplace that feels increasingly impossible? Effective is here to help you get your job done well without losing your mind. Drawing from up-to-date research and provocative interviews with employees across industries and levels, renowned people consultant Melissa Swift offers a positive, well-illuminated path through the dark forest of destabilizing workplace changes. Effective provides readers with: Strategies to triumph amid four trends making work tough today: work intensification, emotional inflection, hyper-transparency, and sheer chaos Practical, research-backed approaches to improve their daily work life, from entry-level employees to CEOs Tips for maintaining competence in a working world seemingly designed to make you feel incompetent Insights on how to make sure your personal sources of effectiveness don’t get disrupted by technological change Lessons to be learned from jobs where you simply cannot screw up, such as firefighters and air traffic controllers, and how to apply them to a corporate environment Effective delivers useful content for every level of seniority, teaching readers a new paradigm-shifting approach to thrive in the modern world of work.

Preface ix Part I Being Effective 1 1 The Simple Power of Being Effective 3 2 Building Your Effectiveness Architecture to Withstand a Changing World 25 3 The Ground Floor of Your Effectiveness Architecture: Knowledge and Methods 37 4 The Second Floor of Your Effectiveness Architecture: People and Technology 55 5 The Shockingly Consistent Playbook for Effectiveness in High- Stakes Jobs 77 Part II Combatting Forces That Challenge Effectiveness 99 6 Effectiveness Through Battling Work Intensification 101 7 Effectiveness Through Managing Workplace Emotion Appropriately 121 8 Effectiveness Through Harnessing Transparency Properly 139 9 Effectiveness Through Wrestling Down Chaos 163 Part III An Effective Future 185 10 What to Do (Next) When Effectiveness Is Not Possible 187 11 The Future of Effectiveness 205 Appendix: The Effectiveness Self- Assessment 213 Notes 217 Acknowledgments 229 About the Author 233 Index 235