eZine

Number 199

Most savvy careerists understand the importance of getting off to a great start in a new job. But many don’t take full advantage of that other opportunity in a transition: the chance to tie up loose ends in the old job and turn your experience into a substantial building block for the future.

A young lawyer I’ll call “Bill” was let go from a law firm after the leaders of his energy practice group left the partnership, taking their clients with them. Bill started his week as an associate with a bright future but by Friday he was ushered out of the office with a small severance payment and a cardboard carton of personal items.

Bill was stunned, and then angry. But, on the advice of a mentor, he controlled his emotion and quickly launched a plan that paid off later. Bill saw that the firm’s lawyers were furious with the departing energy group, and associated him with the traitors, even though he wasn’t invited to join their new enterprise. And he recognized he’d been unwise during his time at the firm in not making an effort to get to know colleagues outside the busy energy practice. Most worrisome, he feared that lawyers who weren’t his friends would talk about him as not competent enough to either stay in the firm or be invited to join the departing unit.

Bill launched a process that not only led to a new job but also changed the way his former colleagues regarded him. In the days after his departure, he methodically contacted the law firm leaders and staff and found ways to thank each of them for something. Even though it often felt like a reach, he wrote notes expressing appreciation for the collegial atmosphere, the training in managing client accounts – for any kindness or strength he could describe without feeling positively silly. And as a few years went by he stayed in touch, even referring a little business to his old firm.

What Bill did was reframe his law firm experience in the minds of his colleagues. Most of them probably didn’t remember him vividly, but they did think of him positively. And when they eventually brought in a new wave of energy work they remembered Bill and recruited him to rejoin the firm, this time as a partner.

Whether you’re sad to go, or can’t wait to get out the door, it’s normal in a career transition to focus more on the future than on the past. But if you’re smart you’ll do what it takes to create a classy departure. In today’s fluid job market it’s inevitable that you’ll bump into some of these people again. And, when that happens, what they may remember is your last few days on the job. Here are five tips for leaving your job like a polished professional:

• Give proper notice. Once you’ve decided to accept another opportunity, tell your boss immediately, before word gets around. Your boss won’t like being surprised by your departure, but it’ll be much worse if word drifts in through the grapevine. Give as much notice as possible – two weeks or a month are common, but more could be better. And follow up your conversation with a brief resignation letter that clearly states your last day.
• Resist the urge to speak up. You may have fantasized about how great it would feel to tell the team what you really think. But don’t do it. Your goal now is to end things on a good note, not point out the error of their ways. Even formal exit interviews should be approached with caution, because you can’t really count on confidentiality.
• Finish your work and leave a trail. Your last days on the job are a great time to show that you have what it takes. If you can’t complete your projects, leave them in good shape, so the next person will know where to get started. Leave notes about your tasks, contacts and responsibilities, to help your co-workers or replacement keep things moving.
• Say “thanks.” Think about every person, at every level, who has been helpful to you in some way. Don’t over-dramatize. But write notes, stop by your colleagues’ desks, or find other appropriate ways to thank them for what they have done or what they have meant to you. The more specific you make your “thank you’s,” the more effective and appreciated they will be.
• Make plans to stay in touch. Make sure everybody has your new contact information and confirm that you have theirs. If you haven’t connected with them on LinkedIn, do it now. You are likely to see many of these people again, but don’t leave it all to chance. Think about the people you most want in your future, and promise yourself that you will find ways to make it happen.

Number 198

The trick to redefining your career is to create a disciplined change process and stick with it. I’ve read a lot of research about how change happens, but when I work with coaching clients I often suggest a simple process that I’ve been exploring since I was a teenager.

As a child, I followed my New Zealander parents’ example and drank lots of tea. I liked it loaded with milk and sugar. But as a young teen I started worrying about the calories. I didn’t want to give up my habit of drinking cups of tea every day after school, but kicking my sugar habit seemed too tough.

Then one day I was inspired to reduce the sugar volume so gradually that I’d never miss it. As I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the heaping pile of sugar on my spoon, I decided to start by removing just a few granules. In the following days, I estimated earlier volumes and tried to remove a few more grains. I kept at it, progressively lessening the amount of sugar from two or three spoonful’s to none. It took nearly a year, but I learned to enjoy sugarless tea without ever feeling deprived.

I was intrigued by the power of creating change through small, painless steps and applied what I called “the Sugar Grain Principle” to other aspects of my young life. For example, I became better at keeping my room neat by building little habits, like routinely shutting the closet door or spending just five minutes cleaning each morning.

I remembered the Sugar Grain Principle years later, as a senior at Ohio University. An injustice in the way women students were treated motivated me to somehow support equality. I didn’t expect to actually change practices that were widespread, but I thought the Principle might help to frame a satisfying gesture, just for me.

So I promised myself to every day do at least one small “Thing” in support of greater equality for Ohio University women. It didn’t have to be much. A Thing could be as small as a sugar grain. But I needed to come up with something – anything – every single day.

It was easy at first. A day’s contribution might be as basic as speaking about equality in class. But over time it become more difficult to find my daily Thing, and I was forced to move out of my comfort zone. To meet my quota of sugar grains, I enlisted friends and spoke to any class or club that would have me. I started doing radio interviews. And I became the first woman to enter the MBA program.

As I scrambled harder to define new Things, I worried less about failure and became more creative. Eventually, the university president noticed, made me his assistant, and asked me to write a detailed report on the status of women. Most of the report’s recommendations were accepted, and ultimately I led Ohio University’s implementation of Title IX, the landmark federal legislation outlawing gender discrimination in education.

In my job, I met with many individual women, often encouraging them to embark on career paths traditionally dominated by men. Still in my 20s, I was called upon to give advice to faculty members and other women who were far older and wiser. And of course I had no training in career development.

So once again I relied on my experience with gradual change, and I developed a model that, at least inside my own head, I called “the Sugar Grain Process.” Over the years I’ve worked through the Process while navigating my varied career. And I’ve shared the Process countless times, as a mentor, manager and coach.

I understand that The Sugar Grain Process is not unique, and that many similar models can create success. But I have 40 years of experience in fostering career change with The Sugar Grain Process, and I am absolutely confident that it works. Here’s how:

1. Start with a vision of the career you want. Begin the Process by creating, as clearly as possible, a picture of what you desire in your next career phase. You needn’t define a precise destination before you get going, but you may be surprised at how much you already know. Try these techniques to get at your vision by building a wish list:

• Note what you do know. List the elements you want in your work. One way to begin is to identify the good and not-so-good aspects of your current situation. As you find the negatives, rephrase them as positives for your next job wish list. For example, if you keep thinking that you’re bored with the same old thing, reframe that thought into, “varied and interesting.”
• Think about how you’ll need to be. As you contemplate the kind of situation you want, consider what kind of shape you’ll need to be in, in order to excel. Of course that includes being energetic and in good physical shape so you can work at your highest level. But you will also spot other areas where you’ll want to grow, like by developing new skills or building a broader network.
• Jump ahead and look back. Imagine it’s three years from now, and the years 2014, 2015, and 2016 were professionally satisfying. Envision yourself feeling very successful as 2017 approaches. Now describe what made the past three-year period so productive and satisfying. What did you do to bring you to this good place? Do you want to add some of those elements to your wish list?
• Ask what else you want in your life. Consider whether certain values or interests should become more important in shaping your career. If you want to spend more time with your kids, maybe “no weekend work” should go on you vision list. Or perhaps you want to live in a different kind of place?

2. Organize your vision. Once you’ve created a long list of details, break your wish list into categories. It can be helpful to do this by drawing a diagram that not only illustrates key aspects of your ideal career, but also puts it in the context of a life that supports your success. I often ask clients to do this by creating a “mind map,” a colorful, branching diagram with the power to quickly portray complex concepts or projects. Start your mind map with an image or keyword in the center of a page. From that center, draw main branches, spreading like the spokes of a wheel. Label each branch to represent a sector of your life, and fill out the details by adding smaller branches to the main branches.

3. Add a category for your job search. Now that you have a vision of where you want to go, add a branch on your map (or a section on your vision list) related to your possible job search. If these items don’t show up anywhere else, you may want to include:

• Expanding your network.
• Reconnecting with folks you already know.
• Building your social media presence.
• Developing new skills or acquiring certifications.
• Methodically exploring professional fields that are a step or two removed from your own.

4. Commit to a pace of Things. Once your have a picture of where you want to go, decide how quickly you need to move. That will determine how many Things you commit to doing each day, or week, or month, for each category you’ve identified. This is important: the power of the Process comes from your commitment to keep up your pace even when you feel like you are out of ideas or don’t have the time.

5. Begin a list of Things for each category. Start a list of Things – small “to-do” items – for each area on your map. As you come up with your first Things, keep these points in mind:

• It doesn’t matter where you start. I don’t call these little items “steps” because they aren’t linear. Things won’t take you in a logical order along a direct path. The Things on your list needn’t be related to one another, and sometimes they’ll feel pretty random. But as you do more and more Things, patterns will emerge.
• Examples vary. Things might include sending an email to an old contact, attending an event you’d typically skip, spending one hour setting up your LinkedIn account, or exercising for 30 minutes.
• Things will lead to other Things. For example, if you attend a dinner where you meet somebody interesting, your next Thing could be to send a follow-up note.

6. Maintain records. Keeping track of your Things is important to the success of your Process. Your recordkeeping will help you see your progress, bring you new insights and inspire additional Things. How you do it, whether it’s on paper or in the Cloud, is your choice. In addition to holding on to your lists of completed Things, consider using:

• Logs. They work. It’s well established that keeping a log can sustain your efforts to build new habits. For example, whether you’re making notes on your calendar or maintaining an Excel spreadsheet, you’re more likely to stick to an exercise or other program if you record each minute you spend. Logs can illustrate your efforts, reinforce your commitment and help you see the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
• Journals. They can promote self-reflection, help you explore and keep track of new ideas, and give you a way to manage frustration and setbacks in the course of your transition.

7. Enjoy the Process. The most difficult part is getting started. But once you build up a cadence of Things, the Process seems to generate its own energy. You’ll start to trust the Process, and feel confident that it’s taking you somewhere interesting and important. Often a client who has completed a career shift will say something like, “I’ll kind of miss the Process. It was getting to be really fun.”

Number 197

Do you sometimes have a hard time moving forward because you can’t get your boss’s attention? Do you head home feeling frustrated because your boss won’t listen to you? Or, even worse, does your career feel off-kilter because you and your leader are out of sync?

No boss is perfect, most leaders are too busy, and some are flat out weak. But complaining won’t get you anywhere, and you have too much at stake to just throw up your hands when the communication process breaks down.

Part of your strategy as a successful professional is to communicate well with your bosses and clients, even when they’re hard to reach. Your goal is to successfully deliver your key messages even when it doesn’t seem fair that you have to do so much of the hard work.

Even if your communications are flowing well, these tips may make your messages sharper:

1. Be succinct. Assume your boss is busy and won’t want to waste time. If you ask for three minutes to discuss something important, but then talk for five before reaching your point, the boss could be feeling impatient or annoyed by the time you make your case.
2. Plan ahead. Before your conversation, be clear in your mind about your message and ready to state it simply and directly. To prevent confusion or distraction, limit the number of points you intend to raise. If you’ve requested a meeting where you’ll discuss several items, propose a brief agenda. A simple email with a sentence about each topic can set up your conversation in a good way.
3. Be clear about your goal. Sometimes you have to choose between having your say and having your way. It can be tempting to use your face time for venting about your problems, but that might not lead to solutions. Be strategic in the way you frame your issues, and focus on positive proposals that will support your specific objectives.
4. Understand their communication preferences. If you don’t get through, it may not be your message so much as how and when you deliver it. Different people take in and share information in different ways. For example, bosses who are extroverts may be “external processors” who want to use you as a sounding board while they explore their own thoughts. While in processing mode they might not pay much attention to your agenda, so you should wait. And introverts may find listening to be tiring so don’t make your pitch after they’ve been through exhausting meetings. The Myers-Briggs^© assessment is a useful tool for exploring your communication preferences and seeing how your style may differ from others. A workshop for your whole team could enhance communications all around. And you can take the assessment for yourself, on-line.
5. Be a mindful listener. Strong communicators are active listeners. Your bosses expect you to listen carefully, and good listening helps you understand what they want. But sometimes when we think we’re listening we’re mostly focused on something else, like what we want to say next. You’ve probably experienced someone who is not listening in a mindful way, like the colleague who keeps glancing at his phone throughout your conversation. When listeners are mindful they seem centered, respectful of the speaker and engaged in the moment. To practice mindful listening, resist the temptation to worry about the past or the future, and keep bringing your focus back to the conversation you’re in right now.
6. Let go of frustration. If the boss doesn’t seem to listen, you actually have two challenges. The first, of course, is to break through the logjam by becoming an even better communicator. But there is only so much you can do, and much of this is about the boss, not about you. So the next challenge is to learn how to not let it bother you so much. Writing in a journal is one way to examine your emotions and let some of them go. Meditation techniques like a few deep breaths can help you release some of the tension.
7. Be a courageous follower. At times you may need to deliver difficult messages, like when the boss is on ethical thin ice or about to make a major strategic mistake. For excellent suggestions on how to stand up to your leader, read the classic book, “The Courageous Follower,” by my insightful colleague Ira Chaleff.

Number 196

Did somebody tell you that if you work hard and do a great job it won’t matter what you wear to work? They were probably wrong.

The way you present yourself to other people has an impact on how they evaluate your accomplishments and potential. And your personal style – your clothes and your grooming – influences how you show up, and how you’re perceived.

Among the situations when your style is obviously important are job interviews and presentations. Thinking about these occasions, I went to an expert, my sister, Libby Vick.

Libby spent 10 years in politics and public relations, and for more than 20 years has been on the faculty at Northern Virginia Community College. In her Business and Professional Communication classes, students of all ages and backgrounds explore how they come across on the job or in the job market.

Whether you’re making a speech or trying to make a good impression, she says, “your audience may focus less on your words than on your non-verbal message. In addition to things like posture and facial expressions, personal style is a part of that message.”

Having great personal style doesn’t mean you have to spend lots of money, Libby says. You look stylish when it’s evident you thought about how to put yourself together. For example, if your budget is tight you can still look stylish if you wear mostly black, making sure your clothes are always clean and pressed.

You’ll feel better about yourself when you know you look good, and you’re likely to perform better. Libby says that in her early teaching days she didn’t require students to dress up for presentations. But then she realized, “the speeches students give when wearing sweats or ripped jeans to class are nothing like the speeches they give when they know they look good.”

But everything comes back to understanding your audience and recognizing that all good communication is audience-centered. So give some thought to what you want to communicate and how it might be best expressed to the people you’re trying to reach.

You might want to kick your style up a notch if you:

• Work with younger people. If you still dress like you have for years they may assume your thinking is back in the 90s, as well. Notice what your hipper young colleagues are wearing, and adapt their choices to create a style that suits a person your age. If you don’t know where to begin, ask for advice from a friend or personal shopper.
• Work with older people. It won’t help your career if you look like a kid. Get rid of the flip-flops if your colleagues think casual dress means you don’t mean business.
• Interact with clients or customers. You won’t make much of an impression if you’re dressed like you don’t really care. You’ll be more credible if you look like you considered all the details, including what to wear.
• Should be a good example. In today’s tough market, young job seekers “need to have every little thing on their side,” Libby says. And knowing how to look good in a work environment is part of being competitive. If you teach students, mentor interns or work with young people, your style might be the one they learn from.
  
  
• Are making a speech. Libby says it’s tougher than ever to make a presentation, with audiences yearning to check their phones and tablets. And no matter how well you know your material, you’ll lose your audience at the start if you look sloppy, uncertain or unprepared. Dress up a bit, in an outfit that makes you look and feel good, and you’ll get off to a strong start.
• Want to move up. If you’re hoping for a promotion, dress like you’ve already moved up the ladder. Instead of blending in with your peers, take a cue from your bosses, or their bosses, and dress as if you’re one of them.

Number 195

Even if you’re a naturally organized person, the systems you use for staying on top of things may occasionally need some maintenance.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload it’s time to tweak the way you do things. Pause right now and ask yourself: does my to-do list have me tossing through the night? Do I have nagging fears about things I forgot to even to put on my list? Am I buried under paper and email? Am I faced with different or challenging circumstances? Would I feel happier with less stress and a greater sense of control?

Your work process is like your car. Even if it seems to be running pretty well, a regular tune-up is a good investment. Stepping back and trying out new ideas may relieve pressure and free up valuable time. Why not give it a try? Take these steps to tune up your productivity:

• Start with your goals. Sometimes when we’re feeling harried it’s because our frantic activity doesn’t have much relationship to what is most important. Begin your tune-up with this exercise to clarify your goals:
  • Jump forward and look back. Imagine it’s December of 2014, and the past year has brought you tremendous success. Identify the accomplishments that contributed to your success. What are the best things you’ve done in the last year or so?
  • Frame key goals. Return to today’s date and write a list of three to seven objectives for the next 12 to 15 months. State your goals succinctly and post your list where you can frequently glance at it.
• Write it all down. Next do a brain dump. Write a massive list of everything you have to do. For now, don’t worry about how your list is organized. Get it all out – your tasks, projects and all the details you need to track. You’ll feel a little better once you’ve captured everything in a single place.
• Choose a system for tracking tasks. Think about how you’ve been managing your to-do list. Has your system broken down? Do you have a problem getting everything onto the list? Is the list so cumbersome you don’t really use it? There’s no single best way to maintain your list, and sometimes what works for a while stops being effective. So give some thought about how you’ll arrange and keep up your list going forward. Ask yourself:
  • Paper or electronic? For some, the act of writing a to-do list on paper is linked to organizing the project in their mind. But it’s worth exploring options for keeping your list in the cloud. It’s a little complicated for my taste, but I’ve played with OmniFocus, a popular app that allows me to store, categorize and shuffle to-do items on my Mac, my iPhone and my iPad. And many folks swear by the free to-do templates in Google Docs.
  • One list or many categories? Some people manage well with a single long list of all pending tasks. My preference is to break my list into sections. Sometimes I squeeze my current list, divided into 4 to 8 categories, onto a single page of grid paper. I keep separate lists for long-term projects, moving action items to my current list.
• Control your schedule. Whatever method you use for keeping your calendar -- whether you still love your wire-bound planner or you’re wedded to Outlook – the key is how you fill out those hours. It’s easy to keep busy and so tempting to say “yes” to everybody who asks for a meeting or a conference call. But your goal, as you tune up your game, is to better align the allocation of your time with your own goals. As you study your calendar:
  • Find the prime time. Consider the time of day when you’re most likely to be productive. Are you sharpest in the late morning or do you leap into action at 4 p.m.? And do you typically use this prime time for your most important projects? If not, create productivity zones in your work week dedicated to your highest priorities.
  • Create space. Opening windows for what matters most might mean reducing meeting times, setting aside blocks of time for rushing through batches of low priority tasks, and simply saying “no” to some opportunities.

 

• Start with the rule of three. Each morning, look at your calendar and to-do list and identify three action items most likely to move you toward your goals. Find time on your calendar for getting them done.
• Choose your capture tools. Your to-do list identifies action steps and your calendar structures your time, but how do you save the gems in each day’s relentless flow of data? And what do you do with the ideas flitting through your mind? A classic strategy is to maintain capture notebooks. Instead of reaching for sticky notes, always have a handy journal on your desk or in your bag for saving each day’s flow of names, numbers and other vital bits of info. Then go further and explore apps that will make it easy to remember interesting items that pop up on your phone, computer or tablet. My favorite is Evernote, which lets me keep track of web clips, links, documents and images, and access them whether I’m at my desk or on the go.

 

Number 194

 Innovation is among the benefits flowing from collaboration among people with different views and skill sets. In today’s workplace, one way in which managers are learning to foster creative thinking is by partnering expert professionals aged 45+ with tech- and social media-savvy 20-somethings.

As Kerry Hannon wrote in a recent New York Times article, entrepreneurs are among those finding the power of multi-generational partnerships. Boomers are launching start-up businesses at an amazing rate, and some are looking to younger family members to co-lead their enterprises.

Work teams that cut across generations have so much potential that it’s a shame the trend isn’t building faster. One barrier to cooperation across the decades is that people of different ages communicate in different ways. In response to my recent post on reciprocal mentoring, a few readers seemed to doubt that a real dialogue is even possible. And, let’s face it, sometimes Boomers and Millennials find each other boring.

Recently I was talking with a group of Boomer friends about the tedious conversational patterns of our age cohort. In particular, we all confessed to indulging in prolonged accounts of our various aches and pains. We bore even each other with this kind of talk and could drive a Millennial out of the room. So we invented a game to remind each other to avoid annoying old person talk:

• Code Blue (for blue hair) is our signal to break the habit of complaining about sore body parts. I’m not talking about a serious talk with a dear friend about health challenges. Rather, the goal is to resist the temptation to mention your sore back or sleepless night when the conversation should focus on something else. In you want to play, empower your friend or partner to give you a gentle “Code Blue” reminder should you rant about the state of your body.
• Code Green is a signal I wanted to use while eavesdropping on the next table at the local bistro. There, a prosperous looking young couple was buying dinner for the man’s mother, a woman of about 60+. Instead of expressing appreciation for the great choices, Mom embarrassed her son by going through the menu loudly complaining about the prices. When the waiter took her order, she said, “Well what I really want is the swordfish, but I’d never let him pay that much, so bring me the pasta.” When your spouse once again shares the discovery that prices have gone up since 1984, offer a gentle reminder: “Code Green.”
• Code Golden Harvest is the contribution of our friend Paula Miller, who says it drives her crazy when people interrupt a conversation about something current with yet another story of what it was like back in the day. “Golden Harvest” was a wildly popular color for appliances and décor from the 60s into the 80s. But there’s a reason people stopped using it and we’re all still tired of it. If you know you tend to reminisce when future thinking is what’s needed, let your colleagues know it’s OK to call a Code Golden Harvest.
• Code Sparkles is what Merry Foresta suggests we use to remind each other to enjoy the moment. It will come in handy if your friend decides to eat cake at the office birthday party, but accompanies every bite with a monologue about the calorie count and evil impact of sweets. Merry – a creative art museum visionary who works well with colleagues of all ages – says the trick is to stay fully engaged and enjoy what you’re actually doing right now. If you choose to eat cake, do it with gusto, enjoying every moment. If you can’t manage engagement, at least stop talking, so others have a chance to stay in the flow.