News for Professionals: Career Advice and Ideas

We get it, you’re busy. So, the Convene editors have curated the latest tips and trends in the world of work for you. Take a look at what caught our eye this past week.

The Power of Work Friends

Data shows that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, profitability, safety, inventory control, and employee retention. With the unavoidable increase in remote and hybrid work, best friends at work have become lifelines who provide crucial social connection, collaboration, and support for each other during times of change. Harvard Business Review offers four ways you can create and maintain a friendship-friendly workplace that delivers measurable results.

Dealing With ‘Weaponized Incompetence’ at Work

We’ve all dealt with coworkers who are bad at their jobs, but very good at making their incompetence your problem — from the boss who over-promises (only to expect you to do all of the work) to the colleagues who can’t quite do their job (but are all too happy to pass their work off to you). If their incompetence seems strategically designed to get you to do their work for them, here’s what to do, according to LifeHacker.

How (and Why) You Should Practice ‘Anti-Time Management’

Instead of adopting the latest productivity hack, Richie Norton, author of Anti-Time Management: Reclaim Your Time and Revolutionize Your Results with the Power of Time Tipping, suggests embracing “anti-time management.” Instead of being the opposite or the reverse, it’s a different level of thinking. “You control your time,” Norton tells Fast Company. “You decide what you want to do, when, and where. You decide if you want to create space or not.”

Want to Sound and Feel More Confident? Ditch These 11 Phrases From Your Vocabulary, Say Psychologists

It’s never easy navigating challenging times, but CNBC shares 11 negative phrases to ditch if you want to think more positively and feel more confident, according to behavioral scientists, researchers, and psychologists. Here’s No. 6: “I failed.” What to say instead: “This attempt didn’t work.”