DO GOOD WORK: Use my best talents to serve the world through my profession. Perform work of the highest ethical and technical caliber

My relationships at work have deteriorated. I have been battling depression all year and my performance at work has suffered. I’m now known for being unreliable and moody and several people are nursing a grudge against me.

As if that weren’t bad enough, all of our jobs are threatened by the end of our original grant. If we don’t get more funding, our program will end in five months and our jobs will end with it. How can I do GOOD WORK in a climate like this?

Here are some pathways

1. Repair my relationships
   1. Spend more time talking; about work, about personal stuff, and about everyday chit-chat and gossip
   2. Be careful to keep my commitments. Make public commitments commensurate with good teamwork and follow through on them.
   3. Write a description of “A great teamplayer is…” and memorize it
   4. Try the 5:1 experiment (Shoot for five positive interactions, for every negative interactions, per person)
   5. Be there, helping
   6. Make sure I’m not being paid any more than anyone else
      
      
2. Lean on my strengths
   1. Analyze the hell out of situations, problems, and opportunities…make this thinking public
   2. Write vivid descriptions of the possibilities for our program in the next ten years
   3. Be more persistent about learning about youth development programs. Blog what I learn regularly.
      
      
3. Do the core work of our program with excellence
   1. Set up a killer “at the Museum” cycle
   2. Help Rockey, Sammie, and Gabe make the drop-in program more succesful
      
      
4. Help the team write excellent grant proposals
   1. Use my research to strengthen our proposals
   2. Work on the bibliography
   3. Work on the program design

I took a two-day break from working; one day to sink into depression and one day to climb out of it, thankfully. Now I have to go repair some of the damage my broken brain did. I badly want to be seen as competent and reliable, but these episodes don’t help.

I’m going to tidy up the studio, finish a project for the display, connect with one of my staff, and write a plan for the week.

• I will spend most of my adult life working…I want my work to reflect my best character
  
  
• It is only through the diligent application of my talents that I will leave a lasting mark on the world
  
  

1. Work to identify my talents. Find ways to use them every day on the job. Be persistent about following my “strengths-path”
   
   
2. Go through my list of work goals—make them reflect my “strengths-path” as much as possible
   
   
3. Start a file describing “good work” in the field
   
   
4. Read biographical accounts of people with virtues similar to the ones I want to develop. Read “Genius” about Richard Feynman and Ray Monk’s biographies of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein.