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Trench Life

A blog for young professionals navigating careers in the trenches!

soft skills

Avoiding Tears and Tantrums: Giving Negative Feedback Like a Pro

December 14, 2022 by Mark Atkinson Leave a Comment

Photo of Eminem performing

You'll never forget the first time someone bursts into tears when hearing your feedback. If you care about your teams, there are few worse feelings in the world. For this reason, many of us shy away from delivering critical feedback. Unfortunately - as most of us soon find out - this only makes things worse in the long run. As someone who's had the responsibility of giving … [Read more...] about Avoiding Tears and Tantrums: Giving Negative Feedback Like a Pro

5 Ways to Manage Without Micromanaging: Avoid Being a Nightmare Leader

August 18, 2021 by Mark Atkinson Leave a Comment

Micromanagement - puppeteer

It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. Steve Jobs Micromanagement is the Achilles heel of any high-performing team. From an organisational perspective, it typically leads to a decrease in productivity, lower employee engagement, and less innovation. Simply put: if you're a junior team … [Read more...] about 5 Ways to Manage Without Micromanaging: Avoid Being a Nightmare Leader

“How are you?” – The 3 most infuriating words in the English language?

August 14, 2021 by Mark Atkinson 3 Comments

Going to War against "how are you" - Simpsons

An IM notification from a colleague pops up on your laptop. "Hi, how are you?" [Thinking: "I'm living through a pandemic and hate my life." ] "Good, you?" You scroll through the conversation history. This is the fourth time Samantha has asked you how you are... in the last 3 hours. You thought you were okay, but now you start to doubt yourself. The scenario repeats … [Read more...] about “How are you?” – The 3 most infuriating words in the English language?

Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s how to manage your workload better

October 25, 2020 by Mark Atkinson Leave a Comment

Drowning - feeling overwhelmed

Three things are certain in life:Death;taxes;and the fact that the more senior you get in a professional services firm, the more you’re going to feel overwhelmed by expectations that are seemingly flying at you from all angles.  I’m sure you’ve guessed that this article is not going to be about death nor taxes. Indeed, it’s all about something that I find myself working … [Read more...] about Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s how to manage your workload better

How to move overseas and not hate your life

July 1, 2020 by Mark Atkinson 2 Comments

If you’re anything like me, a young professional working in a globally-recognised field, you’ve probably thought about uprooting your life and moving to a new country. With travel and broadening cultural horizons front of mind, moving overseas with work is a tantalising option. But there’s something that often keeps us from taking that leap of faith: fear. We fear failure. We … [Read more...] about How to move overseas and not hate your life

How to get the performance reviews you deserve

May 9, 2020 by Mark Atkinson Leave a Comment

Performance reviews - How to stack the deck in your favour

If you’ve spent any time in a professional services firm, you’ll know that it’s a high-performance culture. You’ll also know that the trouble with that is everybody’s definition of “high performance” is different. Whether you’re a young attorney, auditor, consultant, or anything in between, you’ll be all too familiar with having regular performance reviews. Sometimes these … [Read more...] about How to get the performance reviews you deserve

The trick to telling someone they’re wrong

May 5, 2020 by Mark Atkinson 1 Comment

How to tell someone they're wrong

If you're working in any sort of professional services environment, chances are that you have to review other people's work. For those of us working as auditors, this is especially true; we are constantly looking at work done by our clients. More often than it should be, the work is wrong in some way. This means the chances are that you've had to tell someone they're wrong. … [Read more...] about The trick to telling someone they’re wrong

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