A few months back, my good friend Kareem Mostafa who I've featured in the blog introduced me to a friend of his - Leon Nussbaumer. Leon runs an excellent and top-rated podcast about professionals and careers called Leon & The Professionals.

Leon and I got to talking and decided to record a session as well. 

Leon was great to work with and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation which could have gone for much, much longer. 

His head was probably spinning at some point with all I kept on saying and how we kept pivoting the conversation from one topic to another. Here are some of the key things we covered:

Making the Most of Non-Linear Career Paths

When you start a new job, join a new company or a new team, others need to understand how you work. 

The earlier you get to know the people you will be closely working with and the earlier they get to know you, the smoother your work collaboration will be. 

Transparency about what you like and don't like, how you work, how you communicate, and how you make decisions at the very beginning is key for your success in the new role, company or team as well. 

Whenever I start in a new position, I try to be very open with my work style and explain it to others as soon as possible. 

My recommendation is that you have a short list in bullet points about how you work, what you value and what you need to be successful in your collaboration with others.

The Importance of Knowing Your Work Style

Even though I didn't write much here last year (although I had great intentions but ended up writing a book), the blog kept being popular with lots of views and readers so today I'm doing a review of what you liked the most in 2022 here. 

I will use this info to create new content that aligns with what you're reading the most. 

What I'm finding very interesting from this analysis is how just within a few years, the most popular posts are starting to move from those on the PR topic over to those on the Project/Program Management topic. This is evident if I look at what you spent time reading in 2022. 

Let's take a look at the most popular posts written in 2022, the most popular posts written anytime but read in 2022 and the most popular posts of all time written any time and read any time. 

5 Most Popular Posts Written in 2022

This post might be controversial for many. Some might agree. I'm sure many others will not. This post is also very vulnerable and personal. It's my take on the much-debated question if women can have it all - career and kids - reflecting on how 2022 went for me. 

Two big things happened this year for me professionally: I joined a new company starting a new job and I published my second book (on a completely unexpected topic even for me). 

Had that been pre-baby, it wouldn've been at least four big things. 

I never shied away from saying that I'm ambitious. I want to achieve a lot career-wise. I've already achieved a lot for my age, however, my curiosity and eagerness to do more and learn more pushes me forward. I get bored with the same. I need change and my brain needs progress. 

Sometimes this can have negative connotations because I put too much pressure on myself to achieve more, be better, and get more done in the finite hours of a day that I have. 

When I wasn't a mother, this didn't bother me. It pushed me beyond my limits in a good way.

Throughout my career, I've worked in three big tech companies and consulted hundreds of SMBs. 

No matter the size, most organisations tend to fail in two areas which undermine or slow their performance and growth.

The first one is what we'll talk about today and that is execution. 

Making things happen efficiently and effectively is the number one challenge for the majority of companies but unfortunately, most of them don't even admit they have an execution problem or don't place particular importance on it. 

And it's not just about how people do work. It's really about how decisions are being made, how individuals are being let to execute on these decisions and then how change is being adopted to manifest the outcome of these decisions. 

Few companies have proper project, program and change management practices used consistently in every team and every department. Most organisations tend to leave teams and departments to figure out how they execute. There's nothing wrong with giving autonomy but the result in 99% of the cases are siloed teams with disparate priorities who don't talk to each other and end up doing similar pieces of work and in the end not knowing whether they were truly responsible for it.