Let’s begin with the “Don’ts”:

Don’t engage in a whisper campaign against management. In fact, don’t whisper about anything, even surprise parties. Don’t huddle in small groups, or large groups, or groups of any size.

Don’t hide. Don’t keep your head down. Don’t duck responsibility. Don’t shrug your shoulders. Don’t argue, defend, or attempt to explain why you’re arguing, defending, and explaining.

Don’t look for your boss. And if you locate him, or her, don’t make unreasonable requests (“You’ll protect me, right?”) or ask questions they can’t answer because 1. They don’t know and would rather not say, 2. They do know and have been told not to say, 3. They don’t know what they don’t know and that’s pretty embarrassing.

Don’t hang out with dooms-dayers, nay- sayers, boss bashing, hair tossing, eye rollers and co-workers prone to public meltdowns. They’ll drain the energy you need to stand upright and get your job done.

What should you do?

Push the negativity aside. There’s plenty you can do, and ought to do, every day to stabilize yourself and the people who work with you. Opt for solutions instead of problems. If you want to ask questions, ask what you can do to help in the transition. If you want to stay busy, focus on increasing the company’s revenues or improving its profitability. If you want to manage your emotions, control what you can and let the rest of it go.

The company is reorganizing. You should, too. Take inventory of your habits, behaviors, systems and processes and determine the ways you can save yourself and other’s time, energy, money, and aggravation. Instead of saturating yourself with blame for the situation you’re in, do something about it. If others are advancing because they appear to know more than you, do what they do; study, learn, and apply what you know in ways that can make an immediate difference for the organization. If they have the style and you have the substance and style appears to be winning, improve your style. Invite others to speak, to share their opinions, and add yours to theirs. Build bridges with ideas and connect ideas to actions that benefit the company.

If others appear to be advancing because they know the people you don’t know, do what they do. Put yourself out there. Introduce yourself to people you need to know and reintroduce yourself to people you need to know better. Go to meetings, get involved, get going on initiatives, and get back to the team with what’s happening. Get to know people who easily connect to people who have influence. Ask them what they need, and respond by telling them what you’ve done and can do and how you can be part of the solution.

If others are advancing because they have something to say; say something. Register opinions, offer perspectives, and advance ideas without having to be asked. Say what you mean like you mean it, without apology, hesitation, or fear of being second-guessed. Say it because it’s part of the answer, not part of the problem.

If others are advancing because they make decisions, be a decision maker. Get involved and involve others. Be informed and inform others. Re-affirm, re-think, re-invent, and re-organize yourself so that you add value to whatever comes next.

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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.

If you’re creeped out where you work because half the population is whispering and the other half is hiding out, do yourself a favor, tune it out, turn it off, and do your job. Focus on what’s in front of you and encourage others to do the same. Take care of yourself but remember some rules still apply: conduct personal business on personal time.

If you’re looking for a job, you need to know what the right one looks like. Combine your strengths with your skills, your likes with your values and you’ll begin to see the where, when, and how you add value.

“Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.” People will treat you as you treat yourself. If you downplay your abilities, understate your attributes, keep your head down, and your voice on mute, others will likely think that you haven’t the will or the want to do more. Speak up, take credit for what’s yours, share credit for the rest, and ask to do more of what you do best.

This is the time to let go and glide. Life might be taking you down corridors you’ve not traveled, to places you’ve not wanted to go, but if you’re flexible and go with the flow you might arrive at destinations far better than those from which you have departed.

Make a job of looking for a job. Shower and dress for your search. Conduct it outside, in the light, with people you know and people they’ll introduce you to. Get away from your computer, get out of your slippers, and take off that ratty robe. You have work to do in networking meetings, with job search groups, and at job fairs.

Turn down the noise and tune out the static. Pay attention to facts, not opinions. Pay attention to actions, not rumors. The more you listen to a cacophony of voices that know less than you but talk as though they know more, the more you’re stuck in the quick sand of stress. Take action.

If you think you’ll lose your job, don’t worry about it, do something about it. Assess your strengths, update your resume and polish up your self esteem.

Pretending that all is well when it’s not, won’t make it so. If you substitute worry for awareness, and distraction for action, you’re an accident waiting to happen. Ask questions and seek counsel from those trained to provide it: Financial Advisors, CPA’s, Career Coaches, Therapists, Social Workers, and Religious Counselors. Take one step, then another, until you regain your sense of equilibrium with the world as it is, not as you fear it might be.

* * * *

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.

When you call and email questions about jobs and your career, you want to talk about change. Some of your concerns focus on the future, some are about practical necessities, and some are fundamental to your systems of belief. You want to change jobs from the one you have to the one that’s a better match to what you aspire, do best, or value most. You may not be able to describe or define what change looks like (“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I just know it’s got to be better than what I’m doing…”) but you do know this: 1. You are no longer satisfied with where you work or 2. Where you work is no longer satisfied with you. Something has to change.

When employers ask for team-building workshops, they want to focus on change. They’re changing the ways they do business; changing the expectations they have of employees; changing because everyone else is changing and to stand still is to fall behind. What does change look like? What are those expectations? They don’t say. What they do say, is what currently exists has to change, for the company to survive and thrive.

When companies hire and promote, they want those employees to enhance the company’s ability to assess markets, drive competitive advantage and seize opportunity. They want them to articulate vision, design strategy, consolidate power, and embolden teams to drive through to success.

Bottom line, they want to hire, train, and promote employees who can think strategically, design innovatively, and anticipate competitively. They want employees who are primed for change; who are and have demonstrated themselves to be intellectually and emotionally flexible, responsive, able to learn, go and grow in whatever direction necessary to both lead and respond to rapidly changing markets and economies.

If you’re looking for a job, this changing market demands that you change with it. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your foundational values or pragmatic responses or imaginative impulses. It does mean that you become increasingly mindful that openness and flexibility are more than buzz words reserved for interviews and performance reviews. Openness and flexibility can make the difference between getting hired or passed over; advancing or getting placed on the ‘do not retain’ list.

Openness: Your co-workers are as likely to live across the world as they are across town. You may speak to them daily and never see them. They may define time differently than you; they may not share your preference for action or your sense of urgency. They may prefer to go more slowly, to develop relationships, consider options, and process possibilities, over time instead of just in time.

Open your thinking to different ways of seeing problems before you begin to solve them. Shift from the limiting perspective of your comfort zone to the possibility that others see the world and its challenges differently from you. Open your thinking so that you listen and understand before you prescribe. Accept that the outcome you want or the problem you see can be different from what others experience or want to address. Open your thinking so that you understand that people of other cultures may be more rule regarding or open-ended, more deferential or authoritative, more direct or indirect in communicating ideas, than you. Recognize that insistence creates resistance and when that happens, nothing changes.

* * * *

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 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.

How did he get into this mess and how does he get out?

He had a great career (his words, not mine) with a large, hierarchical, autocratic company (my words, not his). He lasted for 10 years. Lasted, because he was able to dart around downsizings, jump over mergers, and duck behind large bosses. Finally, he ran out of time, luck and quick reflexes. He was on the street.

Pete went with the first company that would hire him. He needed a steady job and a good salary and this company fit the bill.

Pete didn’t care if he could do the work as long as he could pay the bills. He learned pretty quickly that he did everything but his job (his boss’s words, not Pete’s) and without his job he couldn’t pay the bills. Pete landed back on the street.

Pete went with the next company that would hire him. The work looked steady, the pay was fair, it paid most of the bills, and that was just about good enough. Pete still didn’t care if he could do the work so it wasn’t long before the boss found out and he told Pete. That put Pete back out on the street.

Pete went with the third company that would hire him. The pay was paltry, the position was pitiful, and this time the business folded before Pete did.

Now Pete’s on his 5th job in his 5th company is just over 5 years. He’s having a terrible time of it.

What can Pete do that he’s not already done? Plenty.

Being glib, quick and confident works well in a shell game. It takes more than that to work in an organization.

Pete, figure out what you do well and what you don’t. It’s a match game, not a con game. Match your strengths to what your company needs. Work hard. That’s how you get a job and how you keep a job.

When was the last time you enjoyed your work because you were good at it? When was the last time you got an attaboy?

Go back as far as you need to find the answers.

There was a hobby, a sport, a summer job, a college course that you liked and did well. The clues to what your work should be are embedded in that experience.

What is your long term goal? What are you hoping to achieve?

You say you want work and a paycheck. That’s a means to an end. It’s not the end. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up back where you started. And you have, Pete, you have.

What are your short term goals? What objectives do you have for your first week on the job, your first month, your first year? How will you measure success?

What’s your action plan? How are you going to get from here to there? How will your short term goals connect to your long term vision? What must you do to get what you want?

Pete, are you willing to work hard enough to make it happen?

Do you have the courage to admit that you don’t know it all and you can’t know it all?

What kind of continuing education or specific skills training do you need? Where can you get it? Are you willing to do what it takes to learn it?

What drains your energy? Are you worried about ailing parents and aging debt? Are you willing to find and accept the help that you need?

Pete, you said that you’re miserable, stuck in a nowhere job in a nowhere company, doing boring work you did years ago. Who did that to you?

You’re too good a person and have too much talent to play a blame game. You dug yourself into this mess. Check your watch. It’s time to dig yourself out.

* * * *

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 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.

He thought the subject was closed. He made his point. What was left to say? Plenty, apparently. He was informed that he was to apologize, immediately, to the management team, or be denied the promotion and salary increase that he had so long worked to attain.

He was willing to meet, he said, to explain his position. “Not good enough,” he was told.

“Why should I apologize?” he screamed into the ear that I was holding at a respectful distance from the telephone receiver. “Why am I the bad guy and these idiots get away with making it so? Why should my career be threatened because they don’t know the truth when it smacks them in the head and kicks them in the behind?”

“Do you want me to respond or do you want to keep venting?” I asked.

“I want to know how to answer them without feeling like I’m giving in,” he said. “I want to explain myself. I realize I was too emotional. But I won’t apologize for anything else.”

“What’s your ‘end’ in mind,” I asked. “What do you want to have happen as a result of that conversation?”

Silence. I didn’t hear him breathe.

“Good question,” he said. “And I don’t have an answer.”

I knew then he was ready to listen.

“Being ‘right’ isn’t reason enough to demand that others agree with you. Being ‘right’ isn’t sufficient cause for others to abandon their perspective.”

“Okay. Maybe you’re right. What am I supposed to do? I’ve got integrity and I won’t compromise it to pander to people I don’t respect.”

“If you don’t respect the people on your team, why are you working for that company?”

“I misspoke. I do respect them. They’re smart, they’re smooth, and they’re sophisticated. To tell the truth, and I hadn’t thought about this until just now, I don’t think they respect me. That’s why I get angry.”

“Why wouldn’t they respect you?”

“Well, they went to ivy-league schools and have advanced degrees. They know how to dress, and what to say. They pick the right restaurants and choose the right wines. They’ve got class. I don’t. I didn’t get that in my house. Believe me, I wouldn’t trade my parents or my life, because that’s how I’ve gotten as far as I have, but I sure could use a little more polish.”

“What would polish do for you?”

“I’d be more patient, more understanding, I’d listen better because I wouldn’t feel like I always have to prove myself.”

“What do you have to prove?”

“That I have a right to be in the room. I have a right to a seat at the table. And I’ll fight for that right because I’ve earned it and I’m not going back to how I lived or where I lived, ever again.”

“It sounds like fighting for that right will guarantee you a ticket to where you don’t want to go.”

“Looks like it.”

“You’re smart, you’re quick, you connect the dots while others are still arranging them on the paper. You’re creative and passionate. You have everything that you need to succeed but…”

“But?”

“You have lessons to learn:  There are more ways than your way to solve problems, craft visions, and initiate processes. You can be intelligent and have viewpoints that add value and not be demeaning to others. It’s about professional maturity, not social sophistication.”

“It’s about winning as a team and beating the competition instead of beating up the team and losing my chance to play.”

“You’ve got it.”

* * * *

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 executiveand 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 TheCoachingAssociation.com.

What’s the point of leaving if you don’t know where you’re going or what you’d do once you’d get there? The last thing you want is to end up in the same sorry mess you’re in now.

There are plenty of reasons people stay in the wrong careers:

They may like their job, dislike their boss; like their boss, dislike their job; like them both, dislike their colleagues; like none of them but need the money; like the money, can’t do the job. Whatever the cause, they’re not making a contribution and they know it.

You and others like you, are burning out, dragging around, working at 50% potential, making yourself and everyone around you miserable.

Burnout isn’t terminal, it’s grown up ‘time out’. It’s a place to think and regroup when you’re not where you’d like to be.

Can you be productive in time out? Yes, you can. That’s what it’s for, that’s why you’re there.

What happens? Your brain goes to work, organizing, cataloguing, figuring out stuff that it will tell you about later.

What can you do in the meantime? Hard work. In order to progress to networking and then interviewing, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses; what brings out the best in you and what brings out the worst.

Although you’d probably like to figure that out by sitting alone in the dark, don’t. Haul yourself out of hiding and ask for the opinion of people you trust, who know what it’s like to work with you. Need more help? Ask more questions. It’s a good idea to write down what they say because, chances are, you’re going to be surprised.

What’s next on the agenda? Take what you’ve learned about yourself, pore over old performance reviews, add what you already know and prepare your case.

And your case is? Your rationale for seeking a different career opportunity; strengths that you bring to the table; ways that you can contribute to a company’s bottom line.

Are you ready to interview? Not yet.

Work on your style. Ask others to tell you how you’re coming across: your body language as well as your voice pitch, tone, tempo.

How do you look? Like last week’s laundry? Treat yourself to some new duds. Exercise, socialize, read more and watch less television.

Where’s your resume? Find it or write it or update it. Format it to highlight the strengths you want to emphasize in the future.

Are you ready for primetime? Not unless you’ve practiced for interviews. That means doing role plays, answering open ended questions. (They’re the ones that sound easy but aren’t, like, “tell me about yourself”; “what do you want to be doing in five years?”’ and “what qualifies you to work for us?”)

Rehearse with mature humans who have held responsible jobs. Enlisting the services of your cat, your baby, or your baby sitter’s friend may be convenient and non-threatening, but not a good reality check.

Networking. Come to grips with how to do it right.

We’ve got to come up with a better word than networking. It conjures up images of sweaty palmed, glad handing back slappers telling everyone in earshot, “give me a call me if you hear about a job.”

That’s not networking. That just tricks you into thinking you’re looking for a job while you’re really wasting your time and everyone else’s.

What is networking? Come back Thursday and we’ll continue your job search. In the meantime, do your homework.

* * * *

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.

“If the last 50,000 years of man’s existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately sixty-two years each, there have been about 800 such lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves.

Only during the last seventy lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another – as writing made it possible to do so. Only during the last six lifetimes (375 years) did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last four (250 years) has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only during the last two (120 years) has anyone anywhere used an electric motor.

And the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in daily life today have been developed within the present, the 800th lifetime.”

You’d think with that perspective, everyone in your organization would feel overwhelmed by change.  But, as we all know, it just ain’t so. Some folks thrive on it. Particularly those who are in charge of making it happen. The rest find themselves somewhere along a continuum: some frozen solid, some grudgingly moving along, some gasping for air while running as fast as they can.

How about you? If  you are stuck, why are you? And what are you still holding onto?

If you lead a team and they’re stuck; why are they? What are they holding onto and why won’t they let it go?

Take the time to figure it out. Relentlessly pushing yourself and your employees won’t get you “there”  faster when you’re not ready to leave where you’ve been.

William Bridges, a leading change management consultant and author of several books on work transition issues, is complexity simplified when he writes, “It’s the transition, not the change that people often resist. Every transition begins with an ending. We have to let go of the old thing before we can pick up the new – not just outwardly, but inwardly, where we keep our connections to the people and places that act as definitions of who we are.

Bridges’ Seven Principles of Transition Management elaborate:

1. You have to end before you begin.

2. Between the ending and the beginning, there is a hiatus.

3. That hiatus can be creative.

4. Transition is developmental.

5. Transition is also a source of renewal.

6. People go through transition at different speeds.

7. Most organizations are running a “transition deficit.”

Does it help to change the word “stuck” to the word “transitional”? It should, if the description better fits the condition.

Anyone who has lost a long held job or meaningful relationship, knows and understands grief. Grief fills a transitional period that separates what was from what is yet to be.

Wise managers understand and acknowledge that time. They realize that many employees grieve their losses as sweeping change moves across a formerly stable workplace.

Wise managers help their employees gain closure. They know that denigrating the past or those who represented it only extends the period of mourning.

Wise managers remove excuses to hold onto the past. They make their case for why change is necessary; what is at risk if change doesn’t happen; and what the future direction will be.

Wise managers figure it out. They involve more minds than their own. They consider solution options and assess the upside and downside impact of each.

Wise managers make their decisions while developing  an organized plan of implementation. They incorporate multi-level feedback loops and adjust as necessary.

Wise managers communicate more times than they think it’s necessary, then communicate some more. They say it, write it, and say it again.

WHY we’re making these changes;

WHAT are the means and method for making them;

WHO will play a part in moving the organization forward;

HOW it will look like when we’re done.

A sense of urgency is enough to stimulate some to action; others just need a road map. The majority need a reason why. Give them what they need and there’s a better chance they’ll follow you into the future.

* * * *

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.

“Could you do that?”

You may have known others who walked away from seemingly comfortable careers and life styles to follow a dream. Their stories didn’t end as well. They lost their savings and worked several jobs just to pay bills. They’re miserable.

“Could that happen to you?”

How come it works for some and not for others?

The most successful career changers take the time necessary to know what they’re leaving and why they should. They know where they’re going and most of the steps it takes to get there. They’re emotionally prepared (as one can be) for personal and professional setbacks. They are sufficiently capitalized to get through start up without having to compromise their basic savings. They are calculated risk-taking optimists with one eye on the future and the other on the road.

Successful transition begins with self-awareness: an ability to objectively evaluate your state of being in conjunction with your state of doing. In other words:

Are you well matched to your work?

You perform tasks and interact with people. Do you have a proper balance between the two? Do you need more of one and less of the other?

What do you value most about what you do, where you do it, and who you do it with? How do your values compare to those demonstrated by your business leaders?

Are you optimistic about your career’s future? Do you believe that your area of specialization will continue to be in demand?

Are you doing what you need to keep pace by taking essential courses, reading, and learning from others?

Your continued career satisfaction is enhanced by your ability to objectively respond to the above and to determine where you stand.

It’s not unusual to find that people can be well matched to their work, share values with their organization, have the proper mix of tasks and people in their workday, believe their career’s future to be relatively safe, and still be unhappy.

How do you fare when you put these into the mix:

Recognition. Are you acknowledged for your work effort? Are you fairly compensated? Are you perceived as accountable as well as promotable?

Economic security. Are you concerned about your financial future? Do you fear that your company will be closed or purchased by a company with deeper pockets?

Control. Does your authority match up to your responsibility? Are you second-guessed or micro-managed? Conversely, are you pushed beyond your capacity in both your role and your learning curve?

Belonging. Do you feel that you are an essential player on a well managed team? Does the team communicate effectively and synergistically? Are managers communicating directly and honestly? Do you agree with the direction the company is taking?

What do you have in your career that you want to keep? What are you missing that you want to have? What questions do you have that you want to have answered?

* * * *

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.