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So, What Is So Unique about You?!

Aug 28th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

At a recent college job fair one of the career counselors was talking about how to differentiate in this crowded and highly selective market. She exhorted, among many things, that each graduate must find what is unique about them and to put that on their résumé. To find this out, she urged her audience to ask their family members, neighbors, and professors to tell them what made them unique and to put that response on their résumés.

I have a different approach!

What makes you unique should be something so central to your value proposition that you MUST know what that is. This concept does not just apply to fresh graduates, but to everyone who is managing their career or life, in this job market or not! If you do not know (and this is the norm) what your uniqueness is, then you must discover what that is, own it, and learn how to verbalize it in a compelling way on your résumé with supreme confidence. So, how do you find out your unique gifts and how do you build a credible value proposition that is the centerpiece of your résumé?

Our uniqueness stems from our innate gifts that allow us to do things in ways that clearly differentiate us from others. I call those gifts our genius. The dictionary definition of genius is, the tutelary or attendant spirit in classical pagan belief allotted to every person at birth, or to a place, institution, etc. that gives it special powers and protection. So, there is both, good genius (A Picasso) and evil genius (A Charles Manson) as either of the two mutually opposed spirits or angels supposed to attend each person. Hence, genius is a person or thing that powerfully influences another with the power of this spirit. Talent, on the other hand, is something that evolves from applying efforts to grow in a particular way (musical talent, artistic talent, etc.).

In this blog we are going to explore how to discover your genius and how to verbalize it in your message to differentiate yourself in a crowded market. I call it your verbal brand. Since your genius is a tutelary spirit that is always present to protect you, it allows you to create outcomes that have an immediate Aha! to it. It is this Aha! that gives us the window to discover our own genius.

So, how do we uncover our genius, given this genius and its Aha! connection?

One way is to reflect back in your various past efforts that have resulted in outcomes that created those Aha!s. You do not need to ask others what they were, but you know within yourself that when you worked on something and created an outcome that there was that inescapable Aha! Once you are able to see these episodes clearly, then you can classify them in different categories and find a way to verbalize them. This is how you verbalize your genius. Your genius is thus a cluster of a few unique skills that are crisply verbalized to appeal to the reader.

When these unique skills are showcased on your résumé, they must be packaged to align with your intended job pursuits. So, having a way to artfully verbalize these unique skills, torqued in the direction of the job’s needs is the important first step in building a strongly branded résumé. The reader of your résumé can now relate to how you create value in the context that they are looking for, because now it becomes manifestly obvious to this reader. All of this can sound simple, but it is not easy!

Why?

We live with our genius every day. So, to step back and to look at how we create those Aha!s in our everyday pursuits is something that needs special effort to objectify it in ways that becomes easily owned and communicated. One way is to write stories of our accomplishments in a detailed format. In one of my previous blogs I talked about your leadership narrative (So, What is Your Leadership Narrative, blog of July 18). We must learn how to narrate our story of a leadership success. Once that story is verbalized it is much easier to extract your genius from that story so that you can own it. This is the hard part of the entire process. Because we live with our genius every day it is hard for us to see it. It is these stories or leadership narratives that allow us to peek into that window to give us the insights we need about verbalizing our genius.

Most spend a few hours crafting their résumé to look pretty and to capture their stints, sometimes even their accomplishments. Many often seek the help of a professional résumé writer to make their résumé more presentable. No amount of money you can pay to such a writer will get you that insight about your own genius unless you do your own story telling and go through this trouble to extracting your genius as we discussed here. Writing a genius-based résumé is much harder and takes much longer. But, once this process is conquered your verbal branding will be much stronger and highly differentiated. Once you own this outcome you do not have to rely on others, including your mother, to tell you what your genius is!

Good luck!

Posted in Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Job Search, Resume, Resume Writing, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

If You Think that Bad Bosses do not Kill You, Think Again!

Aug 23rd, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

A 2009 survey in Sweden of 3,122 employees over a 10-year period showed that those with bad bosses were likely to be killed by a heart attack 20-40% more than those who had good bosses! The truth is one does not need a scientific survey to assert this fact: bad bosses can kill you without suffering any legal punishment! Even worse, those who survive the wrath of toxic bosses often lead a miserable life because of the work environment their bosses unwittingly create for their employees: coming home in bad mood, taking out your frustrations on your family, feeling depressed and de-energized about working, resorting to substance abuse as a result, and undermining your boss at work. All these symptoms can stem from only one cause: a bad boss.

Many studies have shown that nearly 80% of employees are unhappy about their jobs. This often results in poor job engagement and the attendant performance that is below average. The same applies to those in managerial position. This 80% number includes everyone in an organization. So, if bosses are included in this calculus then it is clear that nearly equal fraction of bosses are also in that performance category. This means that their performance affects everyone below them.

So, what can you do about a bad boss?

Before answering this question let us examine the behaviors of bad bosses: They typically exhibit the following patterns:

  1. Professional incompetence: Often many bad bosses do not understand the technical details of the work content and hence are unable to energize the team from a thought leadership perspective. There is no substitute for expert leadership; no amount of consensus building can compensate for lack of strong technical leadership. Such managers often create mediocre outcomes.
  2. Authority over influence:  Bad bosses often wield their managerial power to force things on their subordinates. No resistance is tolerated, even when team members suggest constructive ideas to solve a problem. Because if they do they feel undermined by their own insecurity.
  3. Undermining others: Bad managers often openly undermine their own team members in meetings and other public forums to “keep them in their place.” Such behavior often results in team members clamming up, stifling any open exchange of constructive ideas.
  4. Failure to Recognize: When someone does a great job and the whole team looks good, the bad manager keeps silent hoping that higher-ups and their peers will see the manager as the hero.
  5. Appointing an inferior foil: Bad managers often set themselves up to look good in contrast by appointing even worse employees as their immediate subordinates. They take delight in basking in the glow of how much better they are than their carefully chosen subordinate.
  6. Upbraiding incessantly: Bad managers constantly chide their team members in meetings and undermine others for trivial reason bringing down their self-esteem and confidence.
  7. Interrupting others: Bad managers take great pains to constantly interrupt their subordinates in meetings and foist their mediocre views on the team. They also make cryptic pronouncements hoping that someone will figure out what they are meaning to convey and then act on it!
  8. Managing upwards: The reason bad managers stay in their role unchallenged is because they have mastered the art of managing upwards. They keep their bosses happy with sweet talk and taking care of their needs at the expense of providing poor leadership to their own team.
  9. Internecine rivalry: Bad managers keep the team members engaged by pitting one member with another by giving them identical or very similar assignments and seeing who beats whom.
  10. Overworked teams: This is one of the hallmarks of bad managers. They make sure that each member of their team is so overloaded that they do not even have time to catch up. They reason that if their team members are so burdened with work that they will not have time to look around for other jobs.

So, what are your strategies to deal with such a toxic boss and how can you get from under them? Well, here are some strategies that work:

  1. No Denial: Many employees do not know how to effectively deal with a bad boss. If you see any of the symptoms listed above you have a bad boss. Do not go into denial over it. Do not ask others if they experience the same behaviors; if you see it, believe it!
  2. Create Plan: Make a plan to either move within your own company or start looking outside. If you are looking within your own company check out the reputation of your potential manager by talking to those who have already worked with that manager. If you are going outside, your best bet is to update your LinkedIn Profile and get yourself showcased well in the job market. LinkedIn has the ability to create the “pull” you need from the market, without having to chase open jobs.
  3. Perform well: You must keep your career on track by not getting into fight with your bad boss or complaining about them to HR. These strategies simply backfire and create problems in your career later.
  4. Seek out assignments: Find assignments that you can do (beyond what your boss orders you to do) so that both you and the boss look good to others. Such assignments will also put a shine on your résumé.
  5. Do not complain: A simple rule: Do not complain; do not explain works wonders when you are caught in the grips of a bad boss. Just keep the vision of getting out from under them and do a good job on each assignment.

There is such a plethora of bad bosses in the workplace that it is hard to avoid them. But, using some of the strategies of early detection and following a plan of action for change can prevent you an early coronary and can help you with a happier personal life!

Good luck!

Posted in Career Tips, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

To Improve Your Career, Find Happiness Where You Are, but, Be Impatient!

Aug 15th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

I have many clients who come to me when they feel stuck in their jobs.  They are impatient to take on another, more challenging job, both inside their own company and out, to move up in their career. When I explore further, I inevitably find that their main source of unhappiness lies in how their organization, including their manager, is treating them and that they are running out of patience. This sense of impatience exacerbates when their manager repeatedly tells them to wait for the next opportunity or that promotion that is going to open up for them. Most managers admonish their employees to defer their unhappiness and to be patient with what is coming to them!

This blog upends that admonition and makes a case for you to be happy where you are, but to be impatient about the change that you want to make, first starting with yourself!

In this context one of my clients recently came to see me and to tell me how bad her manager was and how there was no growth opportunity in her group. She also surmised that despite being a part of a high-visibility group at this blockbuster company, there was no place to grow. Her company had broken every sales record in the past decade and its stock had taken an over twenty-fold hike in the same period.

After exploring further we both quickly realized that the change that she was seeking was not needed from the outside (a promotion, a new assignment, new co-workers), but from within her own self. This is where one of the Gandhi’s famous quotes about change hits home, Be the change in the world that you wish to see!

Within the span of our session we both realized that, yes, she was getting bored with her routine at work and not having any challenges to conquer in the way her work was structured. Her boss, who was a strict command-and-control micro-manager, further compounded this. So, she started losing patience and was increasingly feeling unhappy about her job and about her overall situation. She was beginning to question her career choice.

After some discussion we agreed that if she now made a change to her external environment (new job, new assignment, new boss) then she is likely to repeat this pattern after that new environment became a routine once again, just as the current one did. Without changing her basic view of how she deals with her environment and reframing it, we both agreed that there was no sense in making a change in her external environment. So, we agreed to the following plan, which was both practical and was driven by her own desire to change, not by some outside agent that would want her to be patient to see that change. The strategy was to create and find happiness within her own environment by making a change, but to make the necessary change on her own terms, not someone else’s:

  1. Identify top three development needs that she could pursue on her own to improve her overall effectiveness as a professional, who is getting ready for a higher leadership responsibility. She identified those three areas as: Better communication, improving her own work environment, and connecting with new people.
    • For improving her communication she agreed to join the local Toastmasters club and actively participate to learn good communication skills.
    • For improving her work environment, she agreed to make a list of special projects that would help those working in her group to improve their productivity and output. She was confident that once her manager saw that list that he would suggest the priorities in which she should prosecute those projects and support her pursuits. Since this was work beyond her assigned duties, she could pace it as time allowed and as her own interests drove the effort.
    • Since she felt stagnant with the friends that surrounded her, she agreed to make new friends by frequently visiting the company cafeteria during lunch, instead of eating alone every day at her desk. She also agreed to be open to connecting with those attending her Toastmasters group to expand her circle of friends.
  2. Start writing stories of her accomplishments for her résumé to realize how much she had contributed to the success of her team and her organization. Her current résumé showed many bullets in a very dry, factual, and transactional way. They lacked any juicy story that excited and intrigued its reader. By moving the focus from writing a one-line bullet for each task, to writing a short story (3-4 lines of leadership narrative) would create a new energy around her message. Having such a résumé would invigorate her to undertake even bigger tasks to pursue what is listed in #1b, above. These tasks would now also provide further ammunition for her résumé, making it even more powerful.
  3. Change the mode of working on a task in her current role from mere order taking to proactively seeking the assignments that added value to her organization. This was going to require more insight and initiative, but she agreed to this mode of taking on new tasks.
  4. Provide mentoring and guidance to those in her group that would benefit from it. Even though she had no one reporting to her, her natural inclination was to share her expertise and to make things better; the very reason she came to seek my advice. Taking that a step further, if she could mentor more junior members in her team her role would become more valuable to the manager, the team, and the organization.
  5. Send emails to the manager reporting the progress on special projects and seeking his guidance in critical areas. This would keep her both visible to her manager and on a growth track.

We often surrender our plight to many external forces as this client did. If she had changed her job or transferred to another group or company, without making the changes to her own style of working, in just a few years, we could have had another conversation, very similar to the one that started this chain, because nothing fundamentally was changed. When you start the change from within, the change you really seek comes naturally and a lot sooner than you realize. Here, now, you are in charge!

So, find happiness where you are and be impatient with the rate of change, by first starting the change within yourself.

Good luck!

Posted in Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, Mentoring, Office Behaviour, Resume, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

Managing a Critical Career-Inflection Point!

Jul 26th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

In my May 20 blog I talked about the seven points of career inflection in one’s life. In this blog I am going to focus on one such point of inflection that is perhaps the most critical if not the most defining of one’s career. The reason I think that this is the most critical inflection point is that it will not only define the kind of manager you will make coming out of this change, but also how many lives of those you manage will be affected by how you do what you do from this point forward in your career. Being an effective manager is a rare commodity, so once you establish that reputation, your career success is guaranteed as a manager and as an executive, no matter where you move.  On the other hand, the most defining point of inflection in a career occurs before you chose which career option you are going to pursue as you decide how you want to graduate and how you want to land in your first job. I plan to defer this topic to another blog.

When an individual contributor is promoted to become a first-level manager that change signifies a profound shift in how one needs to manage their work from then on!

Why?

An individual contributor is acknowledged for excellence in their work by promoting them to a first-level manager. The company’s management is granting this rare reward because it sees the individual contributor’s value and their management potential. The person getting this promotion is not entirely sure of what that entails other than knowing that suddenly they will be responsible for managing the work output of those reporting to them, a first experience that is not grounded in any preparation other than perhaps remotely watching their own manager and others around them as to what is expected of them as managers. Most newly promoted first-level managers are under the misapprehension that since they have been promoted for their great individual contributions they must do more of the same to be seen as doing well as a manager in their new role. Since no one has told them what the functions of a manager are they assume that other than directing their subordinates on how they should do their work there is nothing different about doing management work to do well in that role!

They are dead wrong!

For starters, there is no correlation between management work and the work of someone as an individual contributor. A manager is expected to perform four functions of management:

Lead,

Organize,

Plan, and

Set up Controls.

Each of these functions, in turn, has a number of activities that fall under them. For example, Lead subsumes under it: recruiting and developing new talent, communicating, initiating change, motivating people under you, making decisions, among others. Other three also have their own tasks that, together, make an articulate and inseparable system.

The only place where an individual contributor’s technical work is relevant in a manager’s role is in making the right work assignment (the “what” and the “who”) and evaluating the work done by their subordinates (using Controls and objectively measuring their output). This does not require that the manager re-do the work already done by their subordinates so that it looks like what the manager might have done as an individual contributor, but to check for its accuracy and quality, providing constructive feedback to improve the skill levels of those who report to them. Not knowing this, many first-level managers often roundly pan the work done by their subordinates and then spend wasteful time redoing it the way they might have done it; all of this without adding any value to the process! In fact by so doing, they suck the very oxygen from the process that grows the team and to create an environment of positive leadership. Since a first-level manager is responsible for several individual contributors the amount of time they need to spend to re-do everyone’s work (unnecessarily) is inestimably large. Also, in the process of doing this they have not only alienated their team, but have also created a morale problem.

What a manager should do, instead, is set parameters around the work their subordinates do (Lead, set up Controls) and create clear expectations about how that work will be evaluated (Plan, Organize), holding them accountable and giving them feedback to improve their skills (Set up Controls, Lead). Shifting one’s mindset to apply your energies in new direction (from an individual contributor to a manager expected to perform these four management functions) requires a disciplined mind and shifted perspective, which is not always easy to come for someone who has never done this before. Herein lies the rub for most first-level manager’s leadership growth: How does one quickly shift their outlook from doing hands-on work to setting up ways to get this work done by others without your having to redo it? How do you inspire others to do better than they would do on their own, without redoing what they do? This is at the heart of what a first-level (or any level) manager must do.

So, here is my prescription for new first-level managers and their bosses to become effective managers:

  1. Understand the difference between management work and technical work
  2. Understand the four functions of management and what their breakdown tasks are
  3. Find the balance between the technical and management work you must do at your level. The balance shifts in the direction of more management work as you move up the chain.
  4. Do the work that only you can do and delegate all other work
  5. Shift your focus from “right,” “wrong,” to understanding the context and from shepherding technical minutia to managing relationships.
  6. Understand how to manage upwards and maintain a good balance between managing upwards and downwards
  7. Hold people clearly accountable. Those who consistently fall short must be removed from your team (even terminated) to keep the team morale high.
  8. Seek feedback from those around you (360 degrees) and learn how to become an effective leader. Not all managers are effective leaders. Management is not merely barking orders and punishing people. If you understand the four functions of management you are half-way there!
  9. Get help from others who are seen as good managers and see if you can develop your own management style.
  10. Understand the difference between leadership and management and keep working at being an effective manger until you get it!

Good luck!

Posted in Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Mentoring, Uncategorized, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

So, What is Your Leadership Narrative?!

Jul 18th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

Narrative: Noun; an account of a series of events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them; a narration, a story.

Most prospects and some clients often approach me and ask why they are not able to get any upward movement in their careers. Those out of work think that it is the job market, those stuck in their careers think that it is the internal politics, and others simply wait for their manager to promote them when the timing is right! In the last instance, frequently, their manager goes away in a year or so and that cycle begins all over again, often thwarted by the new manager’s bringing their own protégé with them!

In most cases the simple reason for this cycle of hard work, promises of advancement, and new manager (or being suddenly laid-off) continues and many professionals surrender to this reality by blaming everything external to their plight: bad economy, cutbacks, bad manager, too much politics, and bad timing! Although some of their reasoning has merit, most get sidelined for reasons entirely created by their own handling of their career and how they project their message of leadership through their work, résumé, and their everyday behaviors at work.

Let me explain:

As an employee of your company you have an obligation to create value for your company and grow in the process. This growth, in turn, creates greater value for your company, creating a virtuous cycle. This does not mean that you must get increasingly more challenging tasks or greater responsibility to demonstrate your potential. What it does mean, however, is that you show initiative in understanding your own mission for continually creating greater value for your group, department, the organization, and ultimately, your company. This requires that you not merely take orders from your manager to comply with each order, but that you show initiative to descry what is not happening around you and find avenues to make that happen. This undone or ignored work must connect to improving the customer experience, making things better in your own organization, or advancing the state of knowledge in your area of work. This is what leadership is and this is what one is expected to do; not just do the work from your Job Description!

Now, once you are able to change your mindset to understand your responsibility to create greater value for your organization, that accomplishment must be presented in a narrative that captures your leadership and shows how you think, how you find opportunities, and how you deliver value above and beyond your mission. This, now, becomes your leadership narrative. Without this leadership narrative, you are just a cog in the wheel and are there at your place of work for a paycheck!  Looking at the above definition of “narrative,”  having this story with a constant thread of insightful actions stemming from how you see your work, not as merely following orders your manager gives, but as an endless mission of creating increasingly greater value to please the customer (or to please yourself if you do not have a direct customer connection).

So, what are some of the behaviors you must embrace to be able to showcase your leadership narrative in your own everyday work? Here are some suggestions:

  1. Understand what business your company is in and how that translates into the work that your immediate work group does. Find out how what you can do makes a difference to the end user or customer. The answer to this question may not always come as doing more work faster, but as doing different work differently! Find a greater purpose in your own area of work.
  2. Look at what you do and find out new avenues to do that work. Look at the workflow and see how the input and the output from where you sit affect those at the two ends of the mini-supply chain. Reach out on both sides and see if you can optimize that loop.
  3. See what your group is struggling with in everyday work. If it requires a new process, take it on as an assignment; if it entails approaching someone higher-up to get them to rethink what has already been decided, then learn how to get your point across and influence their thinking to make a change; if it is miscommunication between groups find out ways to create a better communication process. The opportunities are endless!
  4. When looking for opportunities for improvement start with the ones that affect what you do the most. That way you can claim a bullet about that in your résumé. A bullet that reads, Discovering that analyzing field failure data took too long to incorporate that into the ongoing design improvements for the next product release, decided to go to the source and gave Field Engineers an online method of capturing data, eliminating the paper entries, and making each entry available in real-time, will put a shine on your otherwise dull résumé! Similar bullets with such stories will now make up for a strong leadership narrative.
  5. One way to motivate your actions is to foreordain a bullet on your résumé and then take on that task to honor your commitment to yourself.
  6. Frequently meet with your manager and review your “above-and-beyond” contributions, so that they are aware of your value. Also, send out an email to those that matter touting your accomplishments. If such emails are written in recognition of the work others did to support your cause it becomes politically more acceptable and those who helped you will get due credit in the management’s eyes. Remember, the real hero here is YOU!
  7. Compare your résumé with those of your peers (especially those seen as stars) and see how your narrative compares with theirs. If you cannot compete with their formidable, raw talent and the depth of their technical contribution, trump them with your perspicacious business outlook and value added to it by improving how things happen! If you do not have access to their résumé, looking up their LinkedIn Profile can be an acceptable proxy to this. Always keep your LinkedIn Profile current.
  8. Look for the job description for next level of promotion and try to bring that language in your résumé as you do your current job. It is much easier for your manager to champion you if you are already performing at a level where the opening lies or can be created to accommodate your desire to get promoted.
  9. Always keep yourself marketable and become a passive candidate. Manage your LinkedIn Profile and spruce it up with strong Recommendations from those that matter.
  10. Do not get too attached to your own job. If you follow this approach you’ll become highly marketable as you do your everyday work, without even having to look for another job to get yourself promoted!

Good luck!

Posted in Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, Job Search, Resume, Resume Writing, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

Advancing Your Career Without Quitting Your Job!

Jul 13th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

A 2010 survey of nearly 15,000 professionals by the HR consulting firm of Towers Watson reveals a new trend in how employees prefer managing their careers. This new survey upends the previously held beliefs about how employees managed their careers, perhaps because of how the repeated cycles of uncertain economic times continue to now challenge us. This survey reveals that nearly 80% of those surveyed showed their preference to stay where they are rather than moving to another company to advance their career. Just a decade ago, just before the dotcom bubble burst, a similar survey provided exactly the opposite responses: people were ready to move to find new avenues to advance their careers.

Even though nearly 80% of employees continue to be unhappy in their jobs to some extent (and this has not changed in a long time!), this statistics from the 2010 survey is a new revelation of what most  have now come to realize: There is no greener grass! Any gains achieved by jumping from one employer to another are temporary at best with an added risk of getting laid-off if the situation were to change at the new place. People are also increasingly cautious about fitting into a new culture, starting afresh with a new seniority cycle, and about taking the risk of dealing with the unknown.

Now that staying at your current place of employment is the chosen option, what avenues do you have available to advance your career?

Plenty, actually!

One reason why people looked to bailing out of their companies to advance their career in the past was that they did not see ready opportunities at their own companies and were counting on their boss to come to them with an opportunity for advancing their career. Although it is your boss’ job to help you with your career, often the boss is worried about their own situation and is reluctant to push for someone’s promotion, unless it reflects poorly on their leadership not to do so. Bosses are also now taking less time and effort to focus on developing their employees’ needed areas of growth with specific ideas.

The best strategy now is to not rely on your boss to present you with new opportunities, but to uncover such opportunities from the vantage point you already have. The strategy to be used here is to build enough career momentum in your current job with aggressively seeking new assignments that, in a short time, help you increase your value contribution in your current job. If your contributed value exceeds what your role requires for you to do in your job, then you clearly stand out from the rest of the crowd. If that does not make your boss uncomfortable enough to seek some advancement or at least some recognition for you, then you are ripe for making a move to another job within the same company or even outside that company. If you are able to uncover new opportunities and conquer them right where you are, then your ability to generate value in your job becomes a key factor in how you apply yourself in your job and about your leadership. Demonstrating this leadership skill is even more important that showcasing your already recognized skills in your job.

So, acknowledging the recent preference for employees to continue to stay at their current employer, despite their desire to advance their careers, the following suggestions are presented to increase your marketability and your chances for career advancement:

  1. Look at your most recent Employee Performance Review (EPR) and look at the suggested areas of development. Make a prioritized list of those areas and identify what opportunities exist within your own area of work to showcase your ability to take on new challenges and to demonstrate that you are developing well in the areas of concern. If you are not able to glean from what you see or know, talk to your boss and ask for guidance and volunteer for some task that will make your boss look good by working in an area already identified in your EPR. If you boss is too lazy to conduct a meaningful EPR please meet with your boss to explore this and find some actionable inputs. They would be too willing to help if you tell them that you are doing this to help them look good and to grow.
  2. Keep doing your regular job well and keep making progress on the newly undertaken tasks. Keep your boss in the loop and keep communicating your progress, seeking guidance as needed. If you can “apprentice” in some other functional area find some avenues to engage yourself that way.
  3. Be open to taking on new assignments that go beyond what your boss has identified and stay on track with improving your skills documented in your EPR.
  4. Manage your LinkedIn Profile by updating your accomplishments and getting Recommendations from those who would benefit from your newly embraced responsibilities. Increase your connections on LinkedIn to reach out to your colleagues at competitors’ companies and other targets that you are interested in. Do this discreetly and on an ongoing basis. A sudden change in Profile, with a slew of Recommendations on LinkedIn can raise red flags to your boss.
  5. Increase your visibility in your own company by taking on assignments that go beyond your activities in your job. Volunteer for a company event. Take an active role in the United Way campaign. Join your company’s Toastmaster’s group.
  6. Get recognition by giving recognition: If someone has helped you in your ad hoc assignment generously acknowledge them by sending emails to their bosses and copying others in management.
  7. Mentor someone: Find someone to mentor within your own group and find yourself a mentor. Do not use the mentor connection to advance your agenda, but to benefit from the mentor’s wisdom.
  8. If the outside recruiters/hiring mangers query you as a result of your LinkedIn showcase, keep them interested by responding and inviting them to join your LinkedIn network. You become more desirable to them if you become a passive job seeker, not jumping on their first overture to lure you in!
  9. Keep an open mind about how opportunities are shaping for you, both where you work and outside as a result of this strategy.

10.  If you get an offer from the outside that is attractive, talk to your boss and evaluate what options are available. You should keep yourself in the position of having the first right of refusal if you boss comes up with an offer that matches what is available outside as a result of your “campaign.”

Managing your career is not a spectator sport. You must take charge and be in the driver’s seat at all times in how you manage your own career!

Good Luck!

Posted in Career Tips, Job Search, Mentoring, career growth, leadership | No Comments »

Avoid These 10 Mistakes in Your Job Search!

Jul 5th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

Even though the job market has eased-up a bit, especially in high-tech and consumer web areas, it is still a tough market. One reason is that when the job market eases up, those working, who had previously hunkered down as a result of the tough economy to make their move to another job decide to take risk and to make their move. It is well known that nearly 80% of those working are unhappy to some degree in their jobs and about 30% are unhappy enough to make a move to another company. These numbers overwhelm any unemployment rates that we are used to seeing since the Great Depression, so as a result, an easing job market does not always bode well for those out of work and looking! Studies have shown that those out of work and looking are at a disadvantage over those who are working, for a variety of reasons.

So, regardless of your current status what are some of the mistakes to avoid in conducting a productive job search? Here is a list that I have compiled directly from my experience working with clients during the past year. Not all clients sought my advice from the get-go; many experiences came out of their frustration from being out of work too long, or for getting stuck in a particular stage of the hiring process—many interviews but no offer!

  1. A Generalized Résumé: Many take the easy way out by creating a generalized message for various job categories that they can pursue. Each category of jobs must have a unique résumé that showcases your value in the strongest way you can articulate. Do not insert factitious words in the Keywords section of your résumé just to get past the screening. It is best to have the Keywords as a part of your narrative throughout your résumé. Also, use variants of the same words to get through this screening process: Project Management, Program Management, and Project Lead, as an example.
  2. A Mundane Cover Letter: I strongly recommend writing a cover letter when applying for an “A” job or company. The most common mistake applicants make is to repeat what is in their résumé and the job description to make it easier to submit the cover letter. A cover letter must show some deep and studied insights about the job, the company, and the challenge it faces in today’s environment. This takes time and is not always easy.
  3. A Shotgun Campaign: This is where you respond to any job that remotely corresponds to what you do with a generic résumé, hoping someone will call you. Your campaign must be well designed with a clear understanding of who the “A,” “B,” and “C” targets are.
  4. Not Following-up: If you are responding to an “A” target with a great message (résumé and cover letter) find ways to get your message in front of the hiring manager through some clever means. Find a friend or someone (do they get a referral bonus?) who can do that for you and then get the hiring manager’s name to call for a follow-up. I have written extensively in my blogs (and YouTube postings) about how to follow-up without coming across as a stalker. Use these methods.
  5. Unprepared Interviews: Most go through these interviews only occasionally in their careers. So, do not assume that you can finesse them without good practice and some coaching. Find someone to video record you doing an interview and catch your own mistakes as you watch yourself on the screen.
  6. Acting Anxious/Desperate: Being out of work is difficult, so any chance to face an interview is a tempting opportunity to hurry-up the process and to get to the offer stage. Ease-up and show your confidence in how you come across. It is quite easy to sense the anxiety and desperation even though you may do your best to stifle it. Certain degree of being nervous is normal, but do not let that translate into any other behavior that will not serve you!
  7. Discussing Salary/Title Prematurely: If the interview train is gathering speed, do not rush to discuss salary or title until they are ready to do so. Here again, do not throw out a number to show them your confidence or value (as you see it). Once the interview screening is coming to an end the question of salary will come up. This also means that they are ready to move to an offer stage. Here it is best to first find out what role (title) you would be playing in the new job. Then asking about the range for that job is a good start. DO NOT ever lie about your current salary, but negotiate what you want in the new job, based on the value you create.
  8. Not Sending Thank-you Notes: Sending these notes (email or otherwise) allows you an opportunity to clear up any misapprehension that may come out of the interview discussion. Also, very few people know how to write impactful notes, so if you can write a good thank-you note, it is one more arrow in your quiver!
  9. Abandoning Your Campaign: This is the most detrimental step to concluding your campaign successfully. The best strategy is to organize your campaign so that you have three-four targets where you are interviewing during your final stages of the campaign. With this approach you can easily parlay the advanced stage of one target into generating action with others. Without this strategy you are at the mercy of their timeline. I cannot tell you how many times clients abandoned all other efforts, once one target moved rapidly through the interview process and then nothing happened for a long time. This is where you can leverage the action you have on other fronts into where you want to get your job offer. Repeatedly calling the hiring manager/recruiter rapidly erodes your desirability as a candidate and makes you look that much more desperate.
  10. Not Negotiating the Package: When you have managed your campaign well, you should have action on multiple fronts and several offers in a short window. You must learn how to negotiate to get what you want regardless of the economy. It never hurts to ask if there is any room for negotiation. Not doing so will compromise your own value in the minds of your prospect employer.

It is not easy being out and looking for a job in any job market. Even if you have a job and are looking for a better opportunity the suggestions above apply equally!

Good luck!

Posted in Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Interview Skills, Job Search, Resume, career growth | 1 Comment »

Learning from Leadership Failures!

Jun 27th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

Looking at how BP has handled the catastrophic failure of its Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent blow up of the oil well nearly one mile below the ocean’s surface one wonders if this was a failure of technology or of something else. What makes this failure particularly egregious is how its top management has handled the entire episode from the get-go. It appears that BP has failed on both fronts: preventing the disaster in the first place and then properly managing the fallout from the explosion and the ensuing oil spill.

Reflecting on the events of the past few years, BP is not alone in this failure, which stems more from the failure of its management to provide proper leadership to both its ongoing operations and during a major crisis. When taken into perspective BP’s plight is not isolated; it is merely amplified by the sensitive nature of the disaster and the long-term effect it is going to have on our lives for years to come. In my opinion the failure is not of technology but is of poor leadership. BP’s failed leadership can be paralleled to the recent failures of the Wall-Street giants and that of the mortgage, housing, and auto industries.

What are the commonalities?

In each case the failure appears to be that of the basic understanding of the management process. A manager’s job is to deal with everyday technical problems by dealing with them and from getting them from becoming worse on the one hand and to show leadership in identifying the lurking problems and preventing tomorrow’s disasters. Because the technical problems are visible (they are the ones that scream the loudest: unhappy customers, broken products, delayed shipments, etc.) they get management’s immediate attention. But, management problems quietly pile up with no visible signs of trouble. A manager’s job is to create a management process where both problems are handled with appropriate urgency and to prevent a meltdown, as it is now happening with BP and has happened with yesterday’s Wall-Street firms and with our automobile industry.

My prescription for avoiding such problems is outlined here:

  1. Understand the difference between management and technical problems
  2. Create a clear escalation process for technical problems that do not go away and solve them with an appropriate management intervention
  3. Create accountabilities throughout the organization and set clear examples of leadership.
  4. Reward people by not what is measurable, but also by what is not and what cannot be measured. Many solutions to management problems do not show their effects in a visible way. They manifest as lack of crises on an ongoing basis.
  5. When a crisis does occur quickly own the responsibility and take swift actions to remedy the situation in a proactive way.

Dating back to Enron’s meltdown nearly 10 years ago there has been a steady drumbeat of failed companies that have not adopted sound management practices. The auto, housing, and mortgage industries are the more recent casualties. BP is now leading that pack because of the suddenness of the crisis, its severity, and the pervasiveness of its bad management decisions.

Posted in leadership | 2 Comments »

Jun 25th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

Posted in leadership | 1 Comment »

How to Get the Right Help at the Right Time in Your Career!

Jun 20th, 2010 by Dilip Saraf

Rev-1: June 21, 2010

Recently, I wrote an article about the seven points of inflection through one’s career lifecycle (my May 20th Blog).  As a career coach I often get asked if I also mentor my clients. When I ask them to explain what that means, the most common answer I get is a bit curious: “I have been told and I read often that for one to advance their career they must have a mentor. I never had one, so would you be my mentor, please?”

This article is about my perspective on the various resources that are available as one navigates through different phases of their career and what role a mentor can play in one’s career. This article is also about other types of help available and what their roles are in different parts of one’s career.

So, when someone approaches me to be their mentor, in response, I ask them what particular challenge they are facing in their career. What I get, in turn, is typically their immediate challenge to overcome a particular career obstacle, such as getting that next promotion or getting that assignment that will make their résumé bloom. What they fail to realize is that although a mentor can provide that guidance, a career coach can be much more effective in providing that immediate answer that is actionable. A mentor may be able to provide some guidance, but is not always expected to give them an action plan that will take them there. Although I provide both sets of expertise, I want my clients to be clear about the kind of help that is appropriate for their specific needs.

One factor that is critical to a better understanding of a mutual relationship is that a mentor-mentee bond must be built over time with their interactions typically less transactional than they would be with their career coach. Mentors have the knowledge and the wisdom to understand and to deal with their mentee’s situation, but they often lack the delivery skill and the process that make their knowledge and wisdom actionable in ways that the mentee can benefit. Without that express skill and the mentee’s savvy to internalize that guidance in a specific situation, the advice, applied in a misguided way can backfire; mentees often lack the skills to translate the inputs they get from the mentor to make them usable in an effective way. They need more hand holding than that is available in a typical mentor-mentee relationship. So, if you have a burning career issue and you need quick guidance, a career coach, not a mentor, is your best option.

As I reflect on my initial conversations with my prospects and my clients, I am compelled to ponder the basic question: How many people really know the difference between the various resources that are available to career professionals in advancing their career and in getting the right guidance?

There are five different resources that can guide a person through their life/career needs: therapist, career counselor, career coach, life coach, and mentor. Although there can be considerable overlap in different resources, their mainstay function is what is relevant in seeking the right help. So, each one has a unique role in how they can help:

Therapist: A therapist is a licensed professional, who is most effective when one is stuck in their past. If we are looking at two categories of people, one dysfunctional and the other, functional, then a therapist can help a dysfunctional person become whole with therapy. Sometimes, the dysfunction does not always come from unresolved issues, but it is a dysfunction stemming from lack of basic skills. In such a case some basic training and education can be a good start. Therapy has mostly to do with unresolved issues that a person is not able to get past and move ahead as a fully functional being. So, if what happened in your past life remains unresolved and you must move past that, a therapist can be the right person. Seeing a career coach without seeing a therapist in some cases can be counterproductive, even harmful. So, to summarize, a therapist can help you with your Yesterday!

Career counselor: A career counselor is a degreed professional (a degree in career counseling, often followed by a license or a state certificate) who helps their clients in career selection. Typically, high-school or college students meet a career counselor, where they go through a battery of standard tests to help the counselor understand their aptitudes and learning preferences in how they can apply their knowledge and skills in a given profession. This is, of course, not an exact science, so a counselor’s assessment cannot be taken as a definitive guidance in choosing a lifelong career. You must insert your own judgment into the process to make this useful. Career counselors deal with the “here and now.” They usually cannot predict how a given profession is going to continue over a person’s life span, nor can they predict how economic forces will morph the need for that profession.

The US Department of Labor publishes its Occupational Outlook Handbook that compiles projections of different job categories and their future landscape and their earning potential, including demand/supply projections over time. Working with a career counselor, reading the OOH, and then talking to a few professionals engaged in the career of your interest can be a good combination for gathering useful information for you to decide how to move forward. The final choice must be yours and not anyone else’s, including those of your parents and relatives!

In other countries resources available to understand similar projections are unknown to me, so if any of my international readers are willing to share what they know I’d be happy to include that in the blog. Please use the Comments section to provide that input.

Career Coach: In general coaching refers to the activity of a coach in developing the abilities of their clients. Metaphorically, a coach takes their client from where they are now to their desired destination (a carriage or a horse-drawn coach is just that!), including a short jaunt. Coaching tends to focus on the achievement by clients of a goal or a specific skill. Methodologies for coaching are positioned away from the directive or the facilitative and rest on accompanying clients within a dialog that will allow emerging patterns and solutions to surface. If the coach also has the expertise needed to analyze the different possibilities the client uncovers as they dialog, the coaching process can be even more effective in guiding the client to a specific course of action by their avoiding trial and error. Coaching belongs on the scale between mentoring and training on the one end, and psychotherapy and counseling on the other.

There are many applications of coaching ranging from sport, to business, to niches such as divorce or motivational speaking. Sessions may be either one-on-one or in a group setting, in-person, or over the telephone, or by electronic means.

Today, coaching is a recognized discipline used by many professionals engaged in human development focused on achieving results. Although there are certifications in specific areas of coaching by accredited institutions, most coaching professionals operate in an unregulated environment.

Career coaching is one aspect of this profession to be discussed in this article.

A career coach is an experienced professional, who has the pulse of the current job market and who understands how to work with a client and translate what they need to change to move in the right direction with minimum trial and error. A career coach can provide valuable guidance during a career transition (as from a job loss), navigating through one’s career challenges (stuck career, dealing with a bad boss, etc), and selecting a right course of action when there are alternate choices that are confusing. Although some career coaches provide assessments and show clients what their options might be in moving forward, sessions that result from using such tools are usually not valuable to the client in decisively moving forward. They are also often a waste of time and money! A good career coach is quickly able to grasp your immediate career challenge and to provide help to move ahead with confidence. In summary, a career coach helps you with your Today!

Mentor: A mentor is an accomplished professional who has interest in sharing their wisdom gained from their years of experience in dealing with situations in both their personal and professional lives. Good mentors also have a broad view of how to deal with personal and professional challenges and can guide their mentees (although mentee is the preferred term, an alternate term is protégé) in navigating through some of these challenges. Mentors often lack the detailed knowledge of how their mentees can use what they are recommending or suggesting so that the mentees can utilize their wisdom in advancing their career or in solving a particular problem they are dealing with. One reason for this limitation is that a typical mentor has just one or two mentees that they are helping at any time.

A career coach, on the other hand, has a much richer experience with different clients (often, thousands) to know what specific action plans can work in each situation. Because a career coach’s effectiveness lies in how they codify their varied experience with many clients in formulating an action plan for their clients and then delivering it in a customized way, they often spend much time and effort in making their knowledge and practice principles easy to understand and implement for their clients. A mentor does not always share this obligation.

So, although a mentor brings rich knowledge in the mentor-mentee relationship, it is up to the mentee to translate that exchange into terms that become actionable and useful in the mentee’s context. This is not always easy because mentees lack the experience that the mentors have in making the advice practicable. In most cases, a mentee is operating in their state of “unconscious incompetence,”(they do not know what they don’t  know) so, when their mentor suggests a course of action that is obvious, for the mentee making that workable can be a challenge.   Yet, despite this ostensible limitation mentors are good at showing long-term vision to their mentees and in giving guidance about how to deal with some of the challenges that they are likely to encounter in the future. In summary, a mentor helps with your Tomorrow!

It is important to appreciate the differences between instructing, coaching, and mentoring. Instructing deals largely with the dissemination of knowledge. While coaching deals primarily with skill building, a mentor is one who helps shape the outlook or attitude of the individual for a better tomorrow! A mentor often inspires with new possibilities, whereas a career coach can show you how to seize the ones that appeal to you the most. If you carry the previous metaphor of the coach as a physical carriage, then the mentor illuminates the path that you are using to go where the coach is taking you! Mentoring is thus providing a lighted path to the mentee for their future success. A coach would help out with work and career related issues, providing specific tools and guidance to help their client navigate through today’s challenges. A mentor, on the other hand, would focus on issues pertaining to career and life, mostly helping their mentee avoid some of the obstacles that the mentor has conquered or has recognized as their own learning evolved. Mentoring can also potentially promote spiritual development, without injecting their personal religious beliefs.

There are two main mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between partners. Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to a structured process supported by the organization and addressed to target audiences. Youth mentoring programs assist at-risk children or youth who lack role models and sponsors. In business, formal mentoring is part of talent management addressed to populations such as key employees, newly hired graduates, high potentials, and future leaders (this is where the appropriate noun is protégé). In formal mentoring, matching of mentor and mentee is done by each choosing the partner in order to avoid creating a forced and inauthentic relationship.

There are formal mentoring programs that are values-oriented, while social mentoring and other types can also focus specifically on career development. Some mentorship programs provide both social and vocational support. In well-designed formal mentoring programs, there are program goals, schedules, training (for both mentors and mentees), and evaluation.

There are many kinds of mentoring relationships from school or community-based relationships to e-mentoring relationships. These mentoring relationships vary and can be influenced by the type of mentoring relationship that is in effect. Mentoring relationships can develop under a cloning model, nurturing model, friendship model, and apprenticeship model. The cloning model is about the mentor trying to “produce their duplicate copy.” The nurturing model takes more of a parent figure, creating a safe, open environment in which mentee can both learn and try things for on their own. The friendship model is more based on a peer relationship rather than being involved in a hierarchical relationship. Lastly, the apprenticeship model is about less personal or social aspects and the professional relationship is the sole focus (here, again, the correct usage is protégé).

It is not unusual for one professional to have several mentors at any given time. Each relationship provides specific guidance (career advancement, professional expertise, general counsel, and just wisdom from having lived a varied and rich life!). It is, however, rare for one to have more than one career coach at the same time.

Life Coach: Life coaching is a practice with the aim of helping clients determine and achieve personal goals (these may not include career or professional goals). Life coaches select from among several methods to help clients set and reach personal goals. Life coaches are neither therapists nor consultants; psychological intervention and business analysis are outside the scope of their engagement. Life coaching has its roots in executive coaching, which drew on techniques developed in leadership training. Often, a Life Coach is a cheerleader, inspiring their clients with frequent doses of motivation to keep their spirits up and to keep their focus on the goal at hand. The coach may apply mentoring, values assessment, behavior modification, behavior modeling, goal setting, and other techniques, including the use of their own tools that they have developed as a repertoire in their profession, in helping their clients. Since life coaching can be viewed as an intervention sought to improve quality of life and for increasing the effectiveness of available resources to the client, it is also seen as something that helps their client in their today for a better tomorrow! More importantly, a good life-coaching intervention can take a person to higher levels of personal actualization than is possible on their own.

Good help, as one needs it in different phases of their life and career, is difficult to get. But, having the clarity on the type of help one most needs can be a good start in avoiding the ones that are less likely to be useful and a waste of time and money!

Posted in Advice to Parents, Career Mentor, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Job Search, Life Mentor, Mentoring, career growth | 1 Comment »

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