Lessons for a Successful Career

It’s surprising, frustrating, and disappointing when our strengths, (“I’m so organized;” “I’m very decisive”), turn out to be our weaknesses (“He’s so compulsive!” “She’s so dictatorial!”).  Do any of the following apply to you?

Career lesson #1:  No one likes the smartest kid in the room if the smartest kid makes other kids look dumb.

When you’re launching your career it’s important to establish yourself as someone who is quick, bright, and eager to get the job done right. After you’ve gotten some experience under your belt, your employer and colleagues expect you to be a team player and individual contributor. As you continue to progress you’ll be asked to manage and mentor others. To be successful, you’ll need to shift your focus from being center stage to showcasing the talent of those you lead. Encourage them, reinforce their achievements, and give them the visibility they need to progress in their own right. Bottom line: The smartest kid in the class is the one who learns how to maximize the potential in others.

Career Lesson #2: Talk a good game but play a better one.

Talk is cheap. Walk is style. Performance is substance. You’ll need all three to succeed in any job. Bottom line: Under-promise and over-deliver.

Career Lesson #3: If you want to lose time, resources, and profitability, cut first, then measure.

Whether you’re the tinker, tailor, cabinet maker, or the CEO of a major company, you’ll need to access information available to you from sources that can provide it for you. If you don’t or won’t, you’ll squander time, talent and loyalty; qualities you and your company need to survive.

Career Lesson #4: The best communicators work at the intersection of Speaking, Listening, Reflecting, Probing and Responding.

Communication is a process through which information is exchanged. How clearly it is transmitted, how accurately it is translated, how well it is received and effectively responded to, are functions of the communicators involved. Good communication takes time, patience, courage, and compassion.

Career Lesson #5: Leaders manage and managers lead.

In a perfect world, leaders dedicate their time and attention to conceptualizing the vision and mission of their companies. They don’t concern themselves with the obstacles, pitfalls, and blind-spots to success; they leave those details to employees hired to look out for them.

Wake up call: it’s not a perfect world, it’s a real world. Leaders, worthy of the name, pay for it with honesty and integrity. They ask the tough questions and listen to news they’d rather not hear. They make the changes they ought, doing the right things for the right reasons. They accept accountability along with responsibility and learn from experience.

Career Lesson #6: Members of the “Been There Done That” Society need fresh perspectives to survive.

The best employees thrive on challenge, opportunity, and possibility, whether it’s fixing what’s broken, simplifying what’s complex, or creating what’s never been. They need managers who maximize their potential, demand their best and reward their success.

Career Lesson #7:  The boss doesn’t fire you, your direct reports do.

Ouch. That’s the zinger that always stings. Managers looking for career longevity aren’t going to make it if they’re playing up to the boss while kicking around their employees. The manager’s job is to be appropriately responsive to all employees, no matter their position or power. The manager’s job is to be accountable to every person, challenging fairly, promoting accordingly. Playing favorites with some while abusing others gets you a ticket to the unemployment line, and that’s something you don’t want to get punched.

Career Lesson # 8: It takes more a week at the beach to have a balanced life.

If you’re a much different person at home than you are at work, you’re out of balance. If you give much more to your employees than you do to your family, you’re out of balance. If you deprive yourself in service to others, you’re out of balance. Give yourself a break. Give your brain some time to absorb, collate and file the information you dump into it everyday. Give yourself time to separate what’s important from what’s making the most noise.

The most successful people plan for tomorrow by leaving time for today.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Unrealistic Fear

Tom (Dick, or Harry) has a problem. He’s in way over his head. Competent, well educated, articulate, he’s scared of the slippery slope that lies ahead. He could veer off the path, but he’s chosen to stay the course. And he’s relieved it will soon be over. They’re going to fire him, he just knows it.

Realistic fear? Realistic, no, not remotely. Fear, yes, absolutely. I’ll leave the psychological evaluations to those who specialize in that, and work with the career side of the equation.

This individual is surprisingly typical of many talented employees. He masks his fear and no one knows he’s in trouble. He looks calm, cool, and externally collected. Internally, he’s a mess. He’s not sleeping and fixated on worry, thinks of little else. His ultimate concern isn’t job loss; it’s what lies at the bottom of the slope: it’s the box under the bridge. And he’s living in it.

If you’re one of the competent, intelligent, emotionally healthy and otherwise self aware employees who get yourselves in such a tangle, I have some suggestions for you:

Get real: It may be typical of you to underestimate your talents and abilities. You probably focus on what you don’t do well and ignore where you excel. Own your best stuff. Outline your strengths, describe your attributes and don’t stick a “yea, but” in there.

Delegate: One of your challenges is forcing yourself to “give it away.” You’re convinced that no one else can do it (whatever it is) as well, or as quickly, or as expertly, as you. Critical error. The more work you keep, the more you do. Yes, you did handle it all earlier in your career. Since then you’ve been promoted to positions of increasing responsibility and visibility. You’ve taken on more direct reports and more authority. And you’ve not let go of what your subordinates should be doing. That’s too much for one person to handle. Even you.

Team leadership: Your job as a leader/manager is to help guide your organization toward meeting and exceeding its goals. You have two primary objectives:

1. To provide your subordinates the appropriate training, development, empowerment and opportunity to become interdependent, reliable, accountable team players. It’s their job to overcome obstacles, anticipate the unexpected, and accept responsibility for consequences that result from their actions. Give them room to do it.
2. To be part of a leadership team that designs and communicates a compelling strategic vision that enables employees to take the action steps necessary to make it happen.

Get organized: Organize what is yours to do, not what others should be doing. If you are procrastinator, avoiding issues that are looming large, it’s essential that you engage, immediately. If you are spending the time you have on low priority projects that are more appropriate for others to complete, break the cycle. Delegate.

Take stock: How’s your health? When’s the last time you went for a check-up? If it’s been more than a year, make an appointment. It’s not that anything’s wrong with you, it just helps to minimize concerns that nibble around the edges, and your physician’s office is a healthy place to start.

Regular vacations are essential to your well being: High performance engines require quality maintenance. Why do less for yourself than you would do for your car or lawnmower? Take sufficient time away from work, phones, computers, email, and trade papers to recalibrate your body clock to sleep restfully until you wake. Recalibrate your mental models so that you can read, play, and celebrate for the joy of it.

Get out of your head: If you’re unable to focus, at home or at work, and feel overwhelmed, it’s time to get help from a professional. Sometimes all it takes is talking with someone who is both objective and empathetic. Other times it takes more and it takes longer. Be open to the process that works best for you. You’re worth it.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Stop Looking in the Rearview Mirror and Focus Ahead

If you only focus on where you’ve been and what you’ve left behind, you won’t see what lies ahead.

All she could talk about was how stuck she was; how she and her business, both successful, had slowed, then ground to a stop.

“My customers once had money to throw around and they loved to throw it my way,” she wailed. I had a high end business and my clients didn’t have to worry about where the next buck was coming from.  Now they’re either broke or think they are and want nothing to do with me. I’ve not only lost my clientele, I’ve lost my social network and my social standing. I call these people and no one answers. I leave messages and no one returns my calls. I don’t know if it’s me or it’s them but it’s all I can do to drag myself to work in the morning.”

She has every reason to be concerned; to vent about an economy that has drained the joy and the cash out of what she does and who she believes herself to be. That doesn’t mean she needs to sit atop that vent until it draws her into a place that’s hard to escape.

What can she and you do to shift focus from your rear view mirror and what’s quickly receding from sight, to what lies ahead?

“I can’t do anything. That’s it. End of story.”

That’s the end of that chapter. Your story is much bigger than one chapter. Tell me about you.

“What’s to tell? I’m fifty-one years old. I have three kids and four grandchildren and no husband. I travel, which I love, and I entertain, which I love even more. I have friends who love to be with me because I make them laugh.”

With that, she let out a hearty, delighted laugh, as though remembering something wonderful. I asked her to describe the occasion. Her eyes brightened and she smiled softly, reflectively as she told a story that was full of life and exuberance. The tension that had seemed to define her fell away, and she relaxed. She was back in balance.

“What do I need to do?” she asked. “I’m ready.”

 When stress overtakes you, emotions rule and emotions want you to survive. What you fear most (and can’t control) rises up to take you down. The feeling is so real, so frightening that your primal response to it is fight or flight. As a result, you think too little and behave too much. None of those dreadful things are going to happen to you but your emotions don’t know that. They want to save you.

When reason overrules emotion, you think before acting and move as though stuck in mud. The act of putting one foot before the other is exhausting as you inch forward, eyes down, taking care to not stumble and fall.

When you’re confronted by change you don’t expect, adapt by allowing your emotions to inform reason and reason to manage your emotions. Once you’re in balance you’ll begin to see the road forward and the possibilities that lie ahead.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at www.thecoachingassociation.com.

Rejoining Your Life After an Unexpected Layoff

I bet you know him. He goes to work early and stays late. He’s known as a company man. He’s dedicated, loyal, with a work ethic that challenges the most diligent. His only fear is failing health even though he’s never taken a sick day. (He’s never had a day that he stayed out sick. He’s had several sick days.)

He’s just been laid off and never saw it coming.

He was starting to think about retirement. Not that he wanted to, but he was losing his edge; slower than he liked, more forgetful, less enthusiastic. It took energy to be enthusiastic. He’d need to save his energy for nights that he worked late.

Retirement’s gone. He’s been laid off. Now he needs to get a job.

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If this sounds familiar, it is, and you’re not alone. The good news is, you can get your bearings, you can figure this out if you use your time and energy wisely and think differently than you have before. To get the next job you’ll need to connect with people you haven’t paid attention to in a very long while.

Rejoin your family. You need them to welcome you home. You’ll need to be as vital to them as you’ll soon find they are to you. You’ll want to have a place to be and a role to play. You’ll need to be a wise listener; an empowering husband, and an encouraging father. You want to learn about their life’s lessons, their struggles, and their successes so they’ll want to care about yours.

Take your time and stay the course. It won’t happen overnight. You worked your way out of their lives, you’ll have to earn your way back in, one day at a time.

Rejoin your community. Learn how to connect so you’ll know where to contribute. When you combine who you naturally are, with what you inherently do, and where that combination is needed most, and you give fully of yourself, you will get more in return than you can possibly anticipate.

Expand your thinking. When is the last time you read a book because you wanted to? If it’s been a long time (or you’ve never been a reader) you’re in for quite a surprise. There’s a world of information waiting for you. Explore and experience learning where other people go to learn. Go to the library, go back to school, go to a play, go to concert, google.

Take care of your heart, your head and your feet. If you’ve avoided check-ups because doctors tell you what you don’t want to hear, check-in. Tell them you’re ready to listen. And if they say it’s OK, lace up your shoes and take a brisk walk. Walk alongside babies in strollers, and dogs on leashes. Wave at children on swings and families on cookouts.

There are extraordinary ordinary people in this world who are ready and willing to assist you in your job search if you will let them know that they are important to you. Not because of what they do, but because of who they are.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at www.thecoachingassociation.com.

Don’t Just Work Hard and Be Smart: Work Smart!

Carolyn (not her real name) comes to work tied up in knots and goes home the same way. She’s worried that she won’t have enough time to get her job done. She’s worried that someone will ask her a question that she can’t answer. She’s worried that she’ll never be as smart as she needs to be.

If Carolyn were the only victim of her angst, that would be difficult enough. But she isn’t. Everyone who comes into contact with her is affected:

• Her boss. Carolyn is temperamental, so he treats her with kid gloves. No matter how careful he is when making a request, asking questions or providing feedback, he ends up feeling like the heavy. He doesn’t like the feeling.
• Her peers. Carolyn insists on working in a quiet space. If they talk loudly, she looks angry. If they whisper to not distract her, she looks suspicious. They feel like they have to tiptoe around her. They don’t like the feeling.
• Her direct reports. Carolyn micro manages and second-guesses everything they do. They feel intimidated and inadequate. They don’t like the feeling.

When Carolyn was in college she was long on honors and short on friends. She avoided anything and anyone that got in the way of her studies. Whatever she learned didn’t include managing her emotions or her relationships.

How has she remained so insensitive to the effect she has on others? Everyone just kept their collective mouths shut.

Her parents: “Leave Carolyn alone. You know how difficult smart children can be.”

Her teachers: “Carolyn is very intense and emotional, like many gifted students. People will learn to work around her and accept her as she is.”

The problem is, they haven’t and they won’t.

What’s Carolyn’s take on all this?

“I work harder than anyone else in this company. I come in earlier and stay later and take work home when I leave. I work every weekend and still worry that I won’t get it all done.

I know that people resent me. It’s obvious. But if I allow myself to be influenced by that, I’ll fail at my job. Doing my work right is more important to me than being popular.

I’m too intense? Well, I guess so! Wouldn’t you be? Now, get out of my way, I have work to do.”

Sorry, Carolyn. Despite your commitment to excellence, you are ineffective. Being smart, hardworking and focused just doesn’t cut it if no one is willing to work with you. Unless you learn how to behave differently and act upon what you learn, you’re going to be on your own. Completely.

What can Carolyn do? If she knew, she’d probably be doing it.

So Carolyn, (or Caleb, Carl or Carla) here’s a crash course in business savvy:

Stop worrying about what you can’t control. Focus on what you can. You will never get it all done or have the answers to questions that may never be asked. And if you are spending your time trying to do both, you’re spreading yourself thin and wearing yourself out.

Are you saying “yes” to the wrong things and saying “no” to the wrong people? What are your boss’s priorities? If you don’t know, don’t assume. Ask. Your productivity should correspond to your boss’s expectations of you, not what you think those expectations should be.

Are you making your boss’s requests into something more complex than he intends? Simplify. Unnecessary complexity begets complication that can gum up the works and increase everyone’s tension levels. You end up wasting time with needless delays and pointless headaches.

Are you carrying more of the load than anyone should? Who’s putting it there? If it’s your subordinates, you may be the one extending the invitation. When your do-more attitude collides with their do-less behavior, you end up doing it all. Bad idea. Learn how to delegate. Learn what to delegate. Learn to provide honest and timely feedback to those who do it well and those who need to do it better.

If you only remember one thing, remember this: People won’t remember you as working the hardest or being the smartest. You’ll be remembered for how well you played the game and how well you treated your teammates along the way.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at www.thecoachingassociation.com.

The Benefits of Social Capital in the Workplace

When Harvard University professor Robert Putnam authored the book “Bowling Alone” in 2000, he wrote that social capital (the collective value of all social networks) had seriously declined, that we weren’t visiting as much, joining as much, gathering as often at our churches, lodges, PTA’s and community socials. As a result, we weren’t as trusting, sharing, or cooperating.

Several weeks ago his concerns were echoed in national surveys that sounded the same notes of concern: that Americans are increasingly isolated, one from the other. We have fewer people in our lives with whom we share our knowledge and ourselves.

Why should we care? There are well- documented studies that describe what happens when we’re seriously “Home Alone”; there’s more crime, less charity, more anger, and more people dying of social isolation. What is the impact of social capital in the workplace and who’s working to enhance it? Front line managers who attract and retain talent and excel at turning that talent into performance.

What do great managers have in common? That’s what the Gallup Organization wanted to know, so they launched a 21- year research project in which 80,000 managers from 400 companies were surveyed/interviewed to determine just that.

In “First, Break All the Rules”, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman reported the project’s results and described 12 core elements essential to attracting, focusing, and keeping the most talented employees. All twelve involved social capital (trust, reciprocity, learning what we need to know, and creation of a we mentality): I know what is expected of me at work; I have what I need to do my work; I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day; In the last seven days I have received recognition or praise for doing good work; My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person; There is someone at work who encourages my development; At work my opinions seem to count; The mission /purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important; My co-workers are committed to doing quality work; I have a best friend at work; In the last six months someone at work has talked to me about my progress; This last year I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

The best managers consistently emphasize the benefits of social capital: trust, give and take, information flow, and cooperation. They select the right person for talent, not just experience, intelligence or determination; they set expectations by defining the right outcomes, not the right steps; they motivate by focusing on strengths, not weaknesses; and develop, by helping the person find the right fit, not just the next rung on the ladder.

Does social capital benefit the bottom line? Fortune Magazine annually highlights 100 Best Companies to Work For; companies that consistently reinforce the elements of social capital that result in employee commitment and loyalty and translate to increased employee productivity. According to Fortune, for the past ten years the average annual shareholder return of these publicly traded firms has been 50% higher than the S&P 500.

When employee climate surveys ask what employees want most and get least the typical response is “work-life balance”; time to create, maintain or enhance relationships with family and friends, to be part of and contribute to community. Until that time comes (which may not happen if they’re working two and more jobs just to stay financially afloat) they’ll seek social connection in the workplace. If they can’t find it there they’ll either change jobs until they do or disconnect. It shouldn’t take social scientists or the greatest managers to tell us what happens next.

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