Archive | February, 2005

The Reflective Commute Part Two: Confidence with Clarity

by on February 28, 2005 in Career, Work

I knew there was a part two to this, it just took a couple of days to get it out…

I found the Fast Talk of the March 2005 issue of Fast Company to be particularly fascinating. Since this is Oscar month, they profiled folks who work in the business of moviemaking. While everyone appreciates the creativity of the actors, set designers, costume designers, etc., the folks who really work behind the scenes demonstrate their own sense of artistry. There’s something very interesting to me about working within the film industry; I can relate with the individuals they profiled and their persistence to make things happen. To me, they offer reminders of how necessary it is to have a strong sense of faith and commitment to your vision, confidence in your abilities and intuition, and a very thick skin for rejection.

I liked what Meredith Finn, the   Director of Acquisitions and Production for Fine Line Features/ New Line Cinema   said:

In my work, it’s so important to remain confident in my own ability. I didn’t go to film school, I didn’t know I was going to work in film, but I’ve always been very opinionated and passionate. It’s other people’s role to question my opinion; they wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t doubt me on some level.

It’s easy to get frustrated and angry when others doubt our opinion and question our abilities (perhaps even more when we’re in the middle of a career transition). But, that can only help us make stronger cases for ourselves. It can set us on fire to improve not only what we do, but be more clear about who we are.

The Clear Leader is the title of the article by Marcus Buckingham who has an intriguing book coming out called The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success (why do business books have such long titles?) Based on the content of the article, I gather that the argument he makes is that great leaders know a thing or two about clarity. One idea that really struck me was this:

Somehow, many leaders think their job is to analyze the world’s reality and complexity and reflect it back to their people. Not true. As a leader, your job is to make people more confident about the future you’re dragging them into. To that end, you need to tell them why they’re going to win.

It reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about when it comes to interviewing. A good interview is really a conversation rather than an interrogation (though I have been in ones where the hiring manager never realized the difference). Just as the hiring manager is trying to determine whether we are a fit for their organization, it’s important for us transitioners to consider what we represent to them. We are the future and we bring something new to their culture. We need to help them feel confident about the future and clearly define why together we can succeed.

The Reflective Commute Part One: Disruptive Questions

by on February 26, 2005 in Career, Work

It’s been way too long since my last entry. Reason is I’ve landed a short-term gig with the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, DC. The work is nothing too glamorous, but I get to contribute to a good organization and use some of the expertise I’ve built up over the years.

Getting to work means a fairly lengthy commute (pretty common for us DC Metro residents) and I tend to take public transportation so I have a chance to read. If I’m not reading one of the books you see in the left column, I’ll pull out a magazine. Right now, its the March 2005 issue of Fast Company. I know its a good issue by how many pages I have dog-eared and this one’s been well marked up.

Here’s the March issue link: http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/92/index.html
It’s too soon for this issue to be free and open to the public, but log-in if you’re a subscriber.

Here’s one of the highlights for me:
Marshall Goldsmith’s article called Do You Love What You Do? Besides the fact that the article talks about loving your work (not much of a surprise that I’d be interested in something like that), I was drawn to something else. He begins the article with a story about Warren Bennis when he was President at the University of Cincinnati. Goldsmith writes that Bennis was addressing a university audience when a friend asked him, in front of everyone, "Do you love what you do?" After a long, uncomfortable pause Bennis answered that he didn’t know.

What Bennis’s friend did was ask him a disruptive question because it prodded Bennis to deeply question his assumed career path. Goldsmith writes:

That revelation plunged Bennis into deep reflection. It dramatically altered his path through life. He had always thought that he wanted to be the president of a university. It had not dawned on him that after he got there he might not actually enjoy the life of a university president.

This is one of the most effective tools in the coach’s toolbox. As a career coach, my goal is to ask one disruptive question each session. Sometimes I’m successful and sometimes I’m not. I’m also  conscious of the inherent risk when asking clients a disruptive question because it’s ALWAYS uncomfortable to have assumptions challenged. But, that’s the type of question that a client ultimately comes to coaching to be asked. It’s highly difficult to ask yourself a good disruptive question; it lingers in your blind spot – close by, but outside of your immediate awareness.

So, if your career is not what you want it to be and deep down there’s something gnawing at you, it’s time to find someone who can ask you some disruptive questions. Whether that coach is me or someone else, you owe it to yourself to love what you do.

What’s Up With The Kids These Days?

by on February 22, 2005 in Career, Life, Work

Don Blohowiak at Leadership Now has a post today called Coddlers. He writes about how twentysomethings just entering the workplace are not truly ready for its demands. He calls it the generation influenced by the evil twins called Needy and Fragility:

The managers lament goes something like this: These kids don’t want to take responsibility. They don’t want to do anything that’s hard. They want positive stroking for the littlest accomplishment, and literally cry at the slightest hint of criticism.

While I take sharp offense by the tone of the post (guess I’m having lunch with Fragility), I can’t help but think that there is some truth to his message. I’ve had this article form MSNBC bookmarked for a couple of weeks and it seems to support at least part of Don’s argument: Prep your child to become an adult. It has an extended excerpt from the book Ready or Not, Here Life Comes by Dr. Mel Levine. He argues:

We are in the midst of an epidemic of work-life unreadiness because an alarming number of emerging adults are unable to find a good fit between their minds and their career directions. Like seabirds mired in an oil spill, these fledgling men and women are stuck, unable to take flight toward a suitable career. Some are crippled before they have a chance to beat their wings; others have tumbled downward in the early stages of their trajectories. Because they are not finding their way, they may feel as if they are going nowhere and have nowhere to go.

So Don’s probably right, there is something going on. But rather than instantly assuming the parental (or perhaps more appropriate paternal) role that traditional managers seem to hold fast to, today’s managers must first understand and attempt to empathize with what’s going on with their younger employees. Consider this from perspective from Mel Levine:

There are dramatic differences between the unwritten rules for growing up and those governing careers. For one thing, a child is encouraged to be well-rounded, while adults are permitted (even required) to commit to specialties. So long as grown-ups are effective within their chosen niches, the world will overlook or even fail to notice their gaping flaws elsewhere…

A sizable hunk of a child’s success is measured by her ability to comply, to learn what she is expected to learn, and to do what she’s told to do. An adult must be able to chart her own road maps. The odyssey leading into adulthood can be a lonely and harsh voyage, especially if a startup adult is naive and uninformed, if he’s never learned to be a mapmaker.

Mel Levine’s book is intended more for parents and those who care for our children than it is for managers. As a parent and a coach who works with emerging professionals and leaders, I understand the deeper issues of what’s taking place right now. I also see where we need to refocus our work as parents. If our children are not ready for adulthood, that’s our failing and no one else’s. One of the chief responsibilities we have as parents is preparing our children for what comes after being a kid. We need to look for opportunities in which they can experience the fact that being an adult can be challenging, arduous, lonely as well as fulfilling, exciting, and fun. That way, when they encounter managers who complain about “kids these days,” they might be able to smile and say, “Yeah, tell me about it…”

Our Own Personal Biography

by on February 21, 2005 in Life

Perhaps its the frustrated historian in me, but the title for this article in the Christian Science Monitor caught my eye. It’s titled Presidents’ Day Thoughts on Monuments to Decent Lives and written by Joseph H. Cooper. It’s a thoughtful take on the idea of personal biography and what we can leave behind. Nothing is more powerful than our own stories.

It takes a special kind of following to warrant being memorialized on a postage stamp, let alone on coin or currency…Still, each of us, in our own way, carves out a bit of history that should be set down – for our own edification, and for each of our families and a few friends.

He pens some thoughts for his son at the end and I immediately thought of my two daughters. There will be times in their growing lives that they will wonder who their father was: what he saw that amazed him, what he experienced that influenced him, and he did that made a difference. And there’s room to include the less than perfect moments that taught hard lessons.

This isn’t an exercise that needs to be put off for when we reach a certain age. Consider it an organic document, one that lives to be added on to. Consider how he ends the article:

Appraisals of one’s worth or contributions do not require book-length memoirs. Monuments to a decent life do not require marble or granite. And nothing you set down has to be written in stone.

Something New…Even In Repetition

by on February 19, 2005 in Career, Creative

I absolutely adore Kathy Sierra and her thinking. I have to admit sometimes I’m afraid to visit her blog Creating Passionate Users because I know I’m going to have to think deeply and maybe, just maybe have to rethink some assumptions.

So, on this beautiful, but cold Virginia Saturday morning, I visit and find another thought-provoking post. I couldn’t but leave this comment:

Once upon a time I was a non-profit manager in charge of membership services. One of the reasons I left was because of the monotonous repetition of the work. Not like doing the same thing day after day after day, but there’s a sort of schedule that you maintain. Each month you know what needs to be done. What I craved was more variety.

Now as I reflect back on that work and reading your post, something interesting has entered my thoughts. I think love and passion are essential, but so is curiosity. I wonder if the Finns get curious each time they perform "Don’t Dream It’s Over" and ask whether they can add something new to it. Not like use a new lyric or sing a different note, but something deeper. Can I explore a new place in my soul when I sing this beautiful song?

And so it has me thinking about how I would moan about the fact that I had to keep doing the same work over and over again (I’ll always seek variety, though). But if I ever find myself in similar situations or jobs, perhaps I can ask that question. Can I explore a new place in my soul, discover a new form of creativity, develop a new method for connecting with my customer/member when I do this task?

Thanks for bringing me back to a deeper place, Kathy.