Many of my clients, who come to me, complain about stagnation in their jobs, or even their careers. In many cases I find that they have stayed in one place or job and have not ventured out beyond what they acquired as their original educational discipline or skills.

Education plays a big role in one’s getting ready for their life’s challenges. It is, though, often a double-edged sword: on the one hand it molds your mind to deal with new challenges by equipping you with the academic discipline, knowledge, and tools—learning how to learn; but on the other, it limits your perspective with what you have learned and how you have learned it as you educate yourself in a particular discipline. To vivify your career cross-discipline engagements and activities are key to both, your personal development and your ongoing success.

So, what is the message for those who feel fettered by their education or being in one job too long to pursue new avenues to channel their creativity? Here are some avenues:

1. If you are a student diversify your coursework with topics that are way outside your main pursuit or core coursework to get a different perspective and to learn how a very different academic discipline provides a new insight. This will open your mind to new possibilities, even as you graduate, and will prepare you to do this as an adult.
2. If you are already in a career and headed towards stagnation take some courses that will not just advance your skill, but that will also open your mind to new possibilities.
3. In your professional life, venture out and take on new challenges that require you to learn new skills and to attack problems outside your comfort zone. Taking on new challenges expands your mind and gives you the confidence to tackle even greater challenges. Most people grossly underestimate their potential.
4. In one of my earlier blogs I emphasized that if you are in one job too long (without advancement for more than three years, or in one company for more than six), you must consider making a major change by taking some risk and by seeking some guidance. In today’s workplace there are so many business challenges that merely looking at job boards is not enough to consider another job. Prospectively explore how you can leverage your special and unique skills in an entirely new direction, both within your company and outside.
5. Talk to your customers and find new ways to create exciting experiences for them. Bring that knowledge into your workplace and propose changes to how things are routinely done.
6. Learn how your competitors are addressing new challenges in the market and find avenues to surpass your competitors.
7. Network with others who typically do not belong in your professional circle. Go out of the way to tap people who made a name for themselves in an entirely different field and observe how they think and tackle their challenges.
8. Find mentors in different areas of expertise and those who have accomplished something worthwhile. If you are taking on a new challenge in a venturesome direction their guidance and inspiration can help you achieve your goals.
9. Do not be afraid to fail. It is the fear of failure that holds people back from trying new things. Also, each failure—more than a success—teaches a new lesson, which helps us grow. So, congratulate yourself every time you have a setback and learn how to overcome it.

10.  While you are pursuing new avenues to grow do not lose sight of your expected mission in your job and deliver excellence wherever you are.

Getting comfortable at one station in your life is the source of one’s stagnation. So, go and venture out to seek new paths and surprise yourself!

Good luck!

1. Before you communicate, either orally or in writing, know who your audience is. Each audience has its preferences in how it processes incoming information. So, knowing the context in which the audience has come to hear you, using the right language, and employing the right messaging are important to keep the audience engaged in what you have to say.
2. Before communicating anything ask yourself what impact you want to create with your message, what do you want them remember, and why they should remember it. Once you have this figured out then design a message that does this well. People often know what they want to communicate, but the intent of their communication is often not met by their inability to ask these three simple questions. Even if they ask these questions execution can be done poorly, which has the same overall negative effect.
3. One of the most powerful ways to get people’s attention is to appeal to their emotions and not just to their logic (engineers and scientists, take heed). Often, you need both. So, prepare what you want to say first with laying out the groundwork with logical statements and then complementing that with a powerful story that appeals to the audience’s emotions. People will often forget the underlying facts you tell them, but they will always remember a good story, especially if it is delivered well. So, when you go to a job interview learn how to tell some facts, followed by a story that is well presented, using these tips.
4. When you are telling a story timing and effect are critical. Learn how to master these two elements by watching great stand-up comedians.
5. Once again, make sure that the story you are narrating resonates with the audience. So, if you talking to students tell them a story about succeeding in college or choosing the right career. A story about corporate success or retirement may not resonate as well with this crowd.
6. If you are talking in front of a group carefully watch their body language and adjust your material, delivery, and tone so that you are tuned in with their ability to take in your message. If you are not sure, pause, and ask some questions. Then, depending on the responses, adjust your message and how you deliver it to accommodate the audience’s preferences.

Great communication happens when both, good listening and good messaging are mastered. Using the material presented in these two blogs I hope that you can learn how to do both! If you want to improve your speaking skills joining Toastmasters International can be a boon to your learning how to speak more effectively.

Good luck!

1. A brand is a promise of value provided in a consistent, holistic, and impactful way
2. Brand equity is the user inertia that helps or hurts the brand
3. A strong brand attracts AND repels
4. Building brand takes focus, time, and effort; it is life’s work!
5. Destroying a brand takes just one thoughtless act!
6. Developing your own brand begins with a soulful look at yourself
7. Your résumé is one verbal representation of your brand; it is not your brand
8. Spend time and effort aligning your résumé with your brand
9. Build your LinkedIn Profile consistent with that branding statement

10.  Make your Facebook and Twitter accounts also align with that brand

11.  Be very focused in how you package your message; a tagline is not your brand

12.  Be confident in your message (age, setbacks, gaps), by dealing with them head-on.

13.  Run a short pilot before you broadcast your message to everyone

14.  Keep tweaking your message until “they” get it

15.  Learn how to project your message that resonates with all your “collateral.”

16.  Ask those close to you to read your “collateral,” such as your résumé, LinkedIn Profile, Facebook page, YouTube postings, or anything that you have out there representing you, and to tell you if what’s out there is how they see you. If they are not sure, find out why and then create the needed alignment. Seek professional help if you are not sure about their honesty or openness.

17.  Be honest to your brand

18.  When in doubt, tell the truth!

19.  Under promise and over deliver

20.  Do an occasional sanity check; listen to your own inner voice, not experts’!

21.  Be prepared to change your message, but not your brand

22.  Tough times provide the best test for your brand’s integrity!

23.  Your brand is a total experience you create in the eyes of your “customers.” So, be mindful of anything that touches your brand: your voice-mail greeting, your email signature (with your phone #), your thank-you notes, how you exit a company, and how you respond to your friends’ requests for referrals.

24.  Be vigilant, and frequently Google yourself. Don’t be surprised by anything you see from what you’ve done in the past that has now come back to bite you!

25. If you want something from someone, be forthright, not sneaky! If you err, immediately own the mistake and apologize. Then move on!

Good luck!

Hmmm! When I hear this I am often confused by their dilemma. One insight I have about this is that their role-models may be their own manager, who tolerates lackadaisical behavior from his direct reports and does nothing to keep them performing well. In so behaving they are doing a disservice to their job, their employees, and worst of all, their employer. The other thought I have when I hear this refrain is that people really do not understand the basic functions of managing. Yes, they have been codified and treated extensively in management literature.

There are four functions of managing: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls. Each function has a number of tasks under them that define how things are done within that function, and has guidelines that make doing those tasks efficient. For example, the Leading function has under it tasks that include, Motivating, Communicating, Decision Making, Selecting People, and Developing People.

The problem with most managerial promotions is that they are not equipped to start their job with the right tools to help them succeed. The focus traditionally has been on the legal aspects of their managerial role: Discrimination, Disciplining, Performance Reviews, Termination, Sexual harassment, and so on. In understanding these responsibilities, which stem from the legal aspects of their job, most incumbents do not get the right exposure to the real and normal aspects of what a manager’s job is; only when there is trouble.

A good manager knows the difference between their technical work (their expertise that got them promoted) and their management work (the four functions above). They are mutually orthogonal in their focus. You cannot solve a management problem by doing more technical work. In fact, you often make it worse. So, if an errant employee cannot write the software code to create a function needed, his manager’s intervening to help out makes that problem worse on an ongoing basis. So, not knowing their real job and not knowing how much technical work is too much in a given role, most managers face this dilemma of not knowing how to manage their direct reports. Being nice has nothing to do being a good manager. You can be a good manager and be nice!

The simple rule for being an effective manager is doing the appropriate management work (four functions), and doing the work that only you can do!

Most employees look for leadership, fairness, and inspiration from their managers. Thus, providing the right guidance so that their direct reports have the ability to grow and to reach their potential is one of the main duties of a manager. In so doing if she clearly communicates (see under the Leading function above) what is expected from an employee, provides the resources to carry out the job (Planning function), and creates clear accountabilities (setting up Controls to measure performance), then there is clarity in when an employee is delivering on what is expected from them. A manager’s role is to not intervene in the technical task that is assigned to them (that is micromanagement), but to guide them when they get stuck and to make sure that they have the right skills to do an efficient job.

Once clear accountabilities are set then if the employee does not come through, the manager has the duty to communicate (the Leading function again) and provide feedback to the errant employee. If this continues then she needs to escalate the matter, finally leading to the employee’s termination. When a manager carries her duties with this level of commitment to the management process, and helps everyone perform—especially by getting rid of the marginal performers—it creates a spirit of respect and professionalism within the team. In fact, marginal performers do better and the rest rise to the challenge, making the team more effective. The flip side of this is, if proper action is not taken in a timely way for those errant employees, it demoralizes the team and there is a performance problem across the team.

Yes, you can still be nice by being fair, being forthright, and by being consistent about how you treat your team. Actually, studies have shown that good managers are respected by how well they drive a team than they are by how nice they are to their team; those two are mutually exclusive.

Becoming a manager and rising above your peers to manage them effectively takes a growth mindset. You will no longer have the same relationship with them after you become their manager and that is how you’ll grow to your next level and beyond. Those who cannot stomach that idea even after reading this blog, will fail to become effective managers!

Good luck!

Let me explain:

Like everything else, our ability to communicate well depends on our choice of words and how we choose to arrange them. This is even more so, when one is writing their résumé. Here, one is faced with a variety of challenges, including how to make your message stand above the noise, how to convey your accomplishments without bloviating, and how to make your message forward looking–letting the reader conclude that you are capable of doing much more than what you have already done, even perhaps in an entirely new direction!

Despite a seismic shift in the overall job market during the past decade, in the employment scene, and in how people are hired from an ocean of possible candidates, not much has changed in how résumés are typically written. This blog is about a radical concept that I came up with nearly 10 years back, when I became a career coach and found then, when everyone in the Silicon Valley was struggling to reinvent to go in a new direction, that traditional résumé design was woefully inadequate to convey a fresh message that helps through this reinvention. This new concept, now proven with over 10,000-plus résumés is called an Inductive résumé. An Inductive résumé is a forward-looking message, not historical, which is the essence of a traditional résumé.  The Inductive part “induces” the reader to consider new possibilities that may not be apparent from a typical backward-looking message that traditional résumés present.

The New Design:

A typical résumé starts with a Summary at the top and then goes to describe Career Highlights, followed by Experience, which is a showcase of the person’s chronology. At the end there is the Education and Awards section, which complete a typical résumé.

The new Inductive résumé consists of the following elements, instead: Career Objective, Leadership Profile, Unique Skills, Technical Skills, Accomplishments Chronology, Education, and Special Achievements. The headings thus named for the key elements of an Inductive résumé transform its very ethos.

Let us now explore how each of these elements torques your résumé message in a forward direction and in an exciting way:

By replacing the Summary section with a Career Objective you are making your résumé forward looking. In this Career Objective you state what you plan to do tomorrow for the employer in a forward-looking message. The Career Objective statement is no more than a two-lines of your intent, aligned with the job description; it must be more about them than it is about you. Recruiters often object to this element by arguing, Who cares about what you want, just tell them what you know and have done. This specious argument is trumped by how the Objective is phrased and its focus (“them” and not you)!

The second element of the Inductive design is the Leadership Profile, which takes place of the typical Career Highlights. The difference between the two is that the latter merely summarizes you assignments and experiences, whereas the former captures a summary of your leadership stories (see Accomplishments Chronology, below). These are 4-6 bullets that summarize your leadership successes, not assignments! Some clients, who are not yet a manager question the naming of this element by arguing that they are not a “leader” yet, so this is section is not appropriate for them. WRONG!

A leader does NOT need an imposing title, but an ability to provide thought leadership and to create followership by virtue of their thoughts and actions that create value. Just remember, Gandhi, Mandela, and King had no titles, but we remember them as great leaders!

The third element of an Inductive résumé is Unique Skills. These are skills that define your verbal brand and showcase what you have done that differentiates you from everyone else. They typically stem from the stories that are presented in the Accomplishments Chronology section of your résumé. They are a two-word (typically verb-noun) pair bolded phrase, followed by a one or two-line descriptor of that phrase to explain your uniqueness in that dimension. Typically five Unique Skills capture a good cluster of competencies to differentiate you. From the one Accomplishment bullet crafted below a Unique Skill can be derived as follows (please read that section first!):

Ø  Inspire Teams: Organize and lead highly productive, curious teams by creating clear mission statements, accountabilities, and by allowing them to take calculated risks. Reward teams.

Technical Skills are presented in the same way as they are in a typical résumé, so there is nothing unique about them in the Inductive design.

The Accomplishments Chronology section replaces the Experience part of a traditional résumé. By naming this section differently you are forced to present your accomplishments, not just your assignments when presenting your chronology. Although they will be headed by the company name, your title, and the times when you held that title, the actual bullets will reflect accomplishments, not just your duties. So, let us look at a typical example:

• As a manager heading a team of 15 engineers, carried out budget, annual reviews, and other administrative duties. Reporting to the Director, communicated department matters up/down to keep communication flowing. Motivated the team through good reviews.

The problem with this bullet is that it merely states your duties (done poorly at that!), which means that if you did not do them you should have been terminated. That is not the message you want on your résumé. Instead, try writing the following:

• Upon onboarding, quickly discovered that the team of 15 engineers was demoralized because of previously delayed/failed projects. Redirected the team on a new project, creating clear accountabilities. Worked-out four non-performers and cross-trained the rest, promoting a star player to Team Lead. The smaller team delivered the project two months (of 14) ahead of schedule, a team first!

With bullets that carry this much power you do not need many such bullets, despite their being slightly longer.

For any given position you must showcase bullets with stories (such as the one shown above) that have different leadership threads. For example, the bullet above can be classified as having an Inspiring Teams thread. In fact, that could be a title of one of your Unique Skills in the third element we presented earlier, as demonstrated above. The Unique Skills must be derived from these pithy bullets.

The Education section lists your formal degrees. You can also include any certifications that are relevant to your job that you are pursuing.

Special Achievements list your proud kudos that enhances your value in the job you are after. These can include a Project Management Award or special recognition that you received from a customer.

A résumé is your proxy; it must represent you in the most positive light with enough intrigue to get you in for an interview. One reason why so many people dissemble on their résumés (estimates are that 39% of résumés have lies in their message) is because they do not know how to craft them with the right attention-grabbing messages, as I have presented here with examples. With the Inductive design described here you can use this strategy to not only get attention of a potential employer, but to also change the direction in which you want to change your career! And, in so doing you can be completely truthful about what you have done, and get what you want!

Good luck!

Traditionally, résumés (in French it means Summary) are seen as a historical chronology of one’s past with little room to show how you can take that history to move you in a different direction, such as in your re-invention. Also, a résumé is usually seen as a job-seeking tool, nothing more. Actually, a résumé can be an even more effective as a career management tool.

How?

If you learn how to pre-ordain your résumé by claiming a bullet that captures your accomplishments the way you want them to appear for a hiring manager, who wants to hire a candidate to a fill a position you are after, you can shape the work and outcome on that assignment even before you begin your task. This strategy, together with how an Inductive résumé is written,  create a forward-looking value proposition based on your past and based on creating a bridge between the past and the future. An Inductive résumé compels the reader to think beyond the obvious; it induces them to be intrigued by your message.

Here are the résumé game changers that have worked for my clients and for me in my own practice:

1.     Shift the value message from yesterday to tomorrow: You do this with a one- or two-line Career Objective at the top (not a Summary, which is always backward-looking). This statement must be focused on the employer and NOT on you! Find a way to grab the reader about “tomorrow” for them in this statement and throughout your résumé. Don’t listen to the recruiters who say, “Who cares what you want? Just state what you have done (Summary).”

2.     Verbalize your genius at the top of your résumé (“above the fold”) that showcases uniqueness about you. I call them your Unique Skills. They come from the leadership stories that you narrate in the Experience section below in your résumé (“Yesterday”). This part is your chronology with bullets.

3.     In the Experience section tell only your Aha! stories of leadership in 3-4 lines, and not just list your assigned tasks in a transactional way with dry numbers that typically do not have context. These bullets are now your leadership narrative.

4.     Use only those bullets that showcase your uniqueness, without listing all your tasks from each job. A well-written résumé is NOT a kitchen sink! This (the Aha! stories) makes the résumé concise and compelling.

5.     Learn how to transform a bullet of a routinely assigned task into a Hollywood version of your hero story! Always tell the truth; you’ll be surprised how compelling a really well-told true story reads like!

6.     Keep your résumé to two pages, no matter how many jobs you have had. Even for a fresh graduate this can create a more compelling message. Most have only one page; so you are immediately differentiated!

7.     Keep your résumé laser focused on your Career Objective and remove all clutter, no matter how important it is for you! Remember your résumé is NOT about you, but it is about the job you are after!

8.     Keep your LinkedIn Profile synched up to your résumé message. This way you have ONE message!

9.     Keep looking for opportunities to bolster your evolving résumé by seeking challenging assignments. Don’t just be an order-taker.

10.  If you have posted your résumé on a job board (because you are out and looking), refresh your résumé every week and re-post it. When a search by a recruiter provides a list of candidates they are ranked by posted dates.

Good luck!

So, why this blog?

The New York Times article missed the basic point at the epicenter of this discussion: How individual contributors evolve to become managers and how they can succeed in their new roles, despite their technical prowess, which got them promoted in the first place? This concern and managerial conundrum date back to the 1950s when a worldwide survey of nearly 14,000 managers first evinced the fact that nearly 80% of those in the managerial positions were viewed as dysfunctional in some major ways; only about a fifth of the managers were truly worth their salt!

Interestingly, not much has changed since that survey!

Although the managers themselves did not then directly admit to their own dysfunction; rather, it was admitted by proxy of how they chose to spend their time doing the work that they did. So, even today, in a typical pool of managers—at all levels—only about a fifth of them inspire their teams to grow and bring out the best in them; an abysmal stat! The problem created by the majority of the dysfunctional managers ripples throughout the corporate world—or anywhere else, where managerial hierarchy is required for an organization to function. Those 80% take an incalculable toll on their “subjects” they manage, wreaking havoc on their careers, health, personal lives, and on their well being! Why, then, despite this alarming statistics, little has been done over the years to change this situation?

I think that the reason for perpetuating this status quo is that those in the managerial position, who should be actively working to change this situation, are not even aware of it; they are living in a state of unconscious incompetence, exacerbated only by the arrogance that comes with the power they hold! They don’t know what they don’t know, and the learning disabilities that stem from the arrogance prevent them from learning anything from the carnage they leave behind in the wake of their role! In some cases they know that they know, but are unwilling to change the status quo for the sake of self-preservation. It is these managers that are very good at managing upwards and at letting their team pay a heavy price in its members’ aggravation, frustration, and grief. Often they are immune to their members’ plight! It is here that I commend Google for launching an initiative and an intervention that illuminated this problem, at least within its own organization.

So, what must the managers (those 80%) know to disabuse this notion of managerial dysfunction? Here is my prescription from my own learning as a corporate manager and as a coach who sees this daily in his clients’ plight!

There are 10 key elements for a manager to become successful:

1.     As the new managers embrace their role, first, they must understand the four functions of managing (Leading, Planning, Organizing, and Setting up Controls, with their associated tasks that fall under each of the four functions to become an effective manager). For example, the task of Communicating falls under the Leading function, which sets guidelines for effective communication. These four functions and their associated tasks must now become their new core skills, and as they embrace this new core set of skills, they must learn to subordinate their technical skills—their core skills until now, which got them that prized promotion—to their new core skills (the four management functions). In their previous role they did not have to make this conscious choice; their technical skills-set alone was sufficient. This simultaneous skill renewal and relegation of their prized skills to a “lower” status is a major struggle for most newbies. Unless this is understood and overcome early in their management careers, managers stay ineffective—even dysfunctional.

2.     The managerial work and technical work are orthogonal entities. By doing more technical work you cannot solve a management problem; in fact, you often make it worse. Managers often revert to doing technical work when faced with a crisis than doing the right management work that only they can do. This is so, often because they really understand–and are comfortable with–the technical work. They prefer doing the wrong work correctly than doing the right work poorly or by taking a risk doing it! Some of this stems from how they got there: by doing flawless technical work; they now expect the same of their management work! This is perhaps one reason why they stay away from tackling management work.

3.     Undone technical work (a broken system, a late project, an irate customer, or a badly drafted plea agreement) becomes a burning platform, requiring urgent attention to prevent it from getting worse, whereas undone or ignored management work (planning, setting up program controls, terminating a bad employee, or hiring the right attorney) quietly piles up, gradually creating more technical fires. It pushes the work down an organization creating stressful—even toxic—work environment.

4.     As a person who is promoted to a managerial position because of their excellent technical contributions secures increasingly higher positions of authority in the management chain, their technical expertise becomes their context, as discussed in #1, above (which was previously their core), and they must learn how to make that transition from “core” to “context,” with spending more time on the core and less on the context, as they move up the management ladder. Their new core now becomes what they had never done before: managerial work that only they can do, with increasing organizational impact. If they take refuge in doing only (or more than required) technical work that was previously their main focus, then they have less time to do their new core work now (managerial work).

5.     As one advances to higher levels of managerial authority the core work (management work) and its importance increase exponentially with each level, with a commensurate decrease in their technical (context) work. If they do not recognize this and keep doing technical work that those they manage can (and must) do then they are not spending enough time doing the work that only they can do. This behavior has a deleterious—even pernicious—effect throughout all levels below their locus of authority, as everyone is then doing work below their ability and authority, leaving behind a wake of undone management work. Again, remember, undone management does not usually cry for help, only undone technical work does!

6.     Managers at all levels keep going back to their old core work (technical work) in preference to the Eight behaviors, and the Three pitfalls that are their bane that Google has identified. It is perhaps because they understand what that work is and are mortally afraid of letting go of it, should they ever lose their jobs! Ironically, in many cases this fear alone results in exactly their becoming that (you become what you fear!).  To make this transition a manager at each level must learn how to conceptualize their technical work and use that in conjunction with their new core work (managerial work) to keep the right balance between technical (context) and management (core) work at each management level.

7.     Team members, too, have the responsibility to remind their manager what the division of labor is and how that should be managed. Accountability is a mutual responsibility. Merely taking orders from your manager, no matter how high you are in the hierarchy, can promote a behavior, which can be a seed for dysfunctional management.

8.     When managers do management work (the four functions again!) and focus on the work that only they can do, it frees up an amazing amount of resources for productive work throughout the organization. People become empowered, incompetence gets highlighted, and the overall team output shoots up, with everyone going home energized and coming back to work the next day to change the world. The exact opposite happens (and that is the norm) when this simple rule is ignored.

9.     Focus on knowing and doing the right management work starts at the top, so, CEOs, take heed! How much time did you spend doing technical work (guideline is 10% or less)?  For the first-level manager, at the other end, this time is 50% or less. Of course for start-ups and early-stage companies different rules apply, but they must be applied consciously.

10.  Understanding what the basic message of this blog is, together with knowing how to embrace Google’s Eight behaviors and avoid the Three pitfalls will make any manager an effective one!

Good luck!

To increase the odds of landing a job there are a number of things a fresh graduate can do differently and to get noticed in a crowded market. Here are some tips that have worked for my fresh-graduate clients in the past:

1.     Find out which companies are hiring and find someone you may know in that company to get some inside track on the hiring process, about the hiring manager, and about the job itself. There are many companies (e.g. Enterprise Rent-a-Car), which hire thousands of fresh graduates every year. Targeting such companies increases your odds of getting hired.

2.     Find out more about the companies that interest you by researching them and by talking to those who work there. Glassdoor.com is a good site for digging deeper into a company’s work environment and its reputation that goes beyond its own efforts at building a careful image through the media.

3.     Write a résumé that is packaged well and that is clear about what you want to do in your first job. Instead of filling the space with the courses you took or your campus activities, showcase your leadership stories in bulleted form that quickly convey to the hiring manger what kind of leader you are. During your summer internships and other stints convert your accomplishments into a short narrative that speaks to your leadership, your work ethic, and your interest in that task. So, instead of saying, emailed marketing message about a new product to two million customers and prospects, it is much more impactful to say, Using Facebook and social media created a new way to communicate company’s marketing message to over two million customers and prospects, with a 50% increased response rate compared to previous campaigns!

4.     Create a strong Profile on LinkedIn and post your picture with a great headline about you. So, instead of saying New Graduate Looking for a Job, say a Viral- Marketing Aficionado! Carefully craft your Specialties words at the bottom of your Profile on LinkedIn, which will result in your popping up in searches that recruiters and hiring managers do on LinkedIn. On your Facebook and other fronts manage your message to keep it professional and personal. Also, mind what you Tweet!

5.     Get a few meaningful Recommendations on your LinkedIn Profile from employers, professors, and others in your college (not your friends or relatives).

6.     Practice interviewing skills and learn how to present your story in a compelling, intriguing, and concise way. Learn how to engage the interviewer in a dialog.

7.     Don’t be too fussy about which first job you want to go after. Go after a job that is relatively easy to get. Your first job is more about how to learn about the corporate and job world than it is about developing specific expertise in the area that may be of interest to you. Many of my clients struggle through their first two or so years in their jobs because of adjustment problems to the new environment. Once you get the sense of the environment then you can also pursue something more meaningful. Seeing first-hand how different jobs are structured and are done is a much better way to understand them than to go by someone else’s opinion about such jobs.

8.     It is easy to change your line of work after you learn about how to navigate through the corporate world and then get into something more meaningful to you.

9.     Your first job is going to be a wake-up call and will change your life in many ways. So, stay engaged in your job and build good relationships with your peers, manager, and others around you. It is these relationships that will give you the support you need to do a good job and to make a job change when you are ready for the job you really want.

10.  In your new job, keep building your network, keep an open mind for other jobs—even careers, and stay in touch with those who can help you with such jobs. Find a mentor and be a mentor to someone.

Good luck!

Why is that?

As in any exchange employers are looking for someone who brings a strong value proposition to them, both from a track-record view and prospectively. A typical example of a strong value proposition is that you just did a stellar job at getting a new breakthrough product out as a competitor. Other examples are hiring top talent to manage your new group, coming up with a new idea for a breakthrough product, and identifying new initiatives to improve an existing process. In many cases it is difficult for employees to keep coming with a stream of new ideas that add immediate value to their employer and that will keep their employer ahead of the pack.

For a variety or reasons, which may include environmental conditions, such as bad economy, company’s cutbacks; and on the personal front, the person’s shifted priorities people lose their career mojo. All of these factors redound in one’s losing their career momentum and may even cause them to slip into a career coma! So, when you need to make a transition most, you are in a position of disadvantage, often due to your own doing (or not doing!). What is happening to you and to your job in the most recent period can be called your career momentum. Since one’s career is a course or progress through their history, career momentum deals with how you have evolved in your current job, where you are headed with it, and what you aspire to do.

So, how does one manage their career momentum and keep their mojo in a marketable stead? Well, here are some suggestions:

1.     If your job is merely taking orders from above, shift your mode to initiating something new that will become visible to the higher-ups because of the impact of that change. Also, make sure that when you make this change you first predict the outcome beforehand, and, after completing the initiative that you let important people know what you did. Otherwise, some politically savvy person will hijack that to their credit. This suggestion applies to everyone from an individual contributor to the CEO.

2.     If you have stayed at the same rating in your performance review for the past three years it means that you have ceased to grow. Even if you have received a string of the coveted 5/5 in your rating it means that you have become stagnant and risk-averse. This also means that you are losing your edge and have become less and less marketable as time advances.

3.     If you have stayed in a job with the same title and responsibilities for three years you have begun losing your career momentum. Even if your responsibilities increase for the same title you may be growing somewhat, but your résumé may not be able to reflect that adequately when you start marketing yourself. So, keep looking for greater responsibilities that go with commensurate titles. If a formal title change is not possible, at least change your title to something more imposing on your business card.

4.     If you are in the Silicon Valley, do not stay at one company for more than 6-7 years, in the same job title for more that about three, and in the same industry for more than 10. If you are in the US, but outside the Valley the numbers change to 12, five, and 15 respectively. Of course, these numbers are not cast in concrete, but recent examples of how my own clients were able to (and were unable to) make a transition suggest these boundaries. For example, one Silicon-Valley client, who was in a consulting company for 10 years was recently told by his hiring manager that he would be getting a job offer from the company that interested him—I had cautioned him that if he stayed in consulting for more that 10 years he may find it hard to get back into the clients-side of his business, the corporate world—but was stopped cold by an SVP, who thought that he was too risk averse for staying in one place for more that seven years. We changed our approach and pursued a contract position in a large company as a transitional strategy, which worked for him.

5.     There are several ways of building your career momentum: Becoming more visible in your professional groups by joining and actively participating in their proceedings. Another way is to become known by writing blogs about the area that interests you.

6.     LinkedIn has become a potent source of showcasing your ongoing progress in your area of expertise and interest. By constantly keeping your Profile updated, adding new connections in areas outside your comfort zone, and getting Recommendations from people that matter (not from your friends and relatives!) can significantly add to your career momentum. This is also an active way of creating your brand, and a passive way of marketing yourself. With this approach you’re not shopping around with your résumé to market yourself, which can also ding your career momentum.

7.     If you need experience in an area where you lack the background to claim a position, try volunteering at high-visibility events and claim a spot that gives you the exposure you need. Treat this experience as if this were a job you did to put on your résumé.

8.     Shift your mindset from becoming an expert to becoming a problem solver. This is especially true if you are moving from a consulting space to a specific industry. Although consulting companies demand subject matter expertise, industries are increasingly looking for savvy problem-solvers more than they are, for experts, because the technology is changing at such a rapid pace. Make sure that you focus your résumé appropriately (Problem Solver Vs. Subject Matter Expert) when making a career transition.

9.     Start a personal development plan to master the areas that you have ignored before. Such areas include improving your Emotional Intelligence, better communication, effective presentations, project management, and developing business skills.

10.  Identify your limiting beliefs and learn how to conquer them. I find that in many transitions my clients’ limiting beliefs are more a factor in their setbacks than any outside factors that they cannot control.

Good luck!

When I first reviewed this person’s responses to my Client Intake Questionnaire, along with his résumé, as is customary before I see any client, I was quite surprised to find a number of things about him that were quite extraordinary: He had an excellent track record throughout his 10 years, first as a development engineer and then as a product manager. He had singlehandedly established a business for his company that ramped-up from nothing to nearly $60 million annually in just a few years in India, where his company’s competitors were dumping products below market prices. He had launched many initiatives that would further increase his company’s brand and footprint in the BRIC markets!

So, during our first session I was curious to find out how this sudden shift in his fortunes came about for him. What he told me did not surprise me a bit. Here is his story that I have edited it to keep it generic, but true to its core to keep its integrity!

When my client started at this company five years back he saw an opportunity in the India’s exploding telecom and entertainment market. His company made products in those markets and distributed them to service providers. His company made many products, but they were seen more as a premium brand and they did not have much success in low-cost applications that Indian customers were looking for. Recognizing an opportunity my client then proceeded to meet with high-level execs at the Indian service providers and started identifying requirements that would be a compromise between premium price and consumer value. Then working with the very ODMs, where his competitors were making their low-end products, he selected a few of them to create a suite of products that hit the sweet spot for the Indian markets.

Within a few years his company’s products started taking off in the Indian market, nearly doubling sales every year for the next several years. This success got the attention of the top brass of his company and his name was being mentioned in the company’s town hall meetings. Soon afterwards he started getting direct emails and calls from top execs asking about his inputs and his progress on other initiatives.

When his immediate manager realized what was going on, he approached my client and warned him not to communicate directly with his superiors without his express approval. Even though my client told him that he did not initiate those conversations or emails, it did not matter to his manager, and he sternly told my client to refrain from such communication. Throughout this period, until then, my client had received glowing reviews and many recognition awards from the same manager.

During the most recent performance review my client’s immediate manager was acting aloof and indifferent. After the review was processed he suddenly called my client to his office and coyly told him that his performance was not acceptable and that he must show immediate improvements to continue employment. My client was taken aback, to say the least, because he was expecting a top rating similar to the previous ones he had received from the same manager. When my client asked him for clarification he curtly responded that there was nothing to clarify and that if my client did not understand the problem, he had even a bigger problem!

Totally at a loss, and at his wit’s end, my client asked his manager in frustration what he would do if he were in my client’s shoes. His manager at once responded by saying that he would immediately and quietly resign and not make any fuss over it. My client was so upset by this turn of events that he went to his office, called his wife, and tapped out an email to his boss resigning from his job!

I am now working with my client and positioning him for a bigger role at his competitors’ companies. He also wants to expand his reach and find other opportunities, which I don’t think is going to a problem for him, particularly in view of his stellar record!

So, why am I writing a blog, among many that I expect to write, on this topic? What has happened to my client is unexceptional, despite his exceptional performance! In similar cases I have found that managers, who know how to manage upwards and manipulate a success to their advantage often sacrifice people who do the real work to their own benefit, as it happened here. As I have written many times before nearly 80% of the managers are dysfunctional in some way, and some even show their manifest insecurity and jealousy as my client’s manager did. So, what is one to do to protect and defend oneself? Here is my prescription:

1.     When having a discussion about your performance with your manager or with your chain of command, stay calm and emotionless. This is the hardest part! Incompetent and insecure managers are counting on your emotional reaction to achieve their ends and prevail, as it happened here.

2.     When a manager suddenly blindsides with arguments that do not make any sense, and are not founded in facts, probe further and let them talk more about their perceptions. This strategy gets them deeper in their own thinking and they start burying themselves in senseless arguments. Allow them to indulge in that. Do not argue or defend YOUR position, as it may be tempting.

3.     As you start getting deeper into their line of thinking and argument, simply ask them how long they have witnessed this underperformance. More than likely, they are going to say that this has been going on for nearly the entire period of the review cycle. By playing into their line of reasoning, as in # 2 above, you have allowed them to express their real insecurities about your performance, and how they feel about your success. This is how you set that trap.

4.     If they continue on that path, you must stop them and ask this simple question: “If you saw this poor performance that far back, why did you not take specific steps to warn me and correct my performance to get me back on track? As my manager I expect you to let me know if you see a pattern of performance that warrants remedy. As my manager I hold you accountable for bringing that to my attention and then for taking the necessary steps to remedy it.” Most employees do not recognize this basic obligation of their managers. They are immediately willing to take the blame for any perceived fault.

5.     Then calmly say, In view of what I have just heard from you, I am first going to go to HR and then to your superiors and tell them what has just happened here! Then do just that, despite your manager’s original warning from before.

6.     If you are doing well, you must seek support from other functional areas and from your own team to shore up your position.

7.     If nothing changes as a result of #5 and #6 above you must update your résumé and start putting out the word. Update your LinkedIn Profile and keep it spruced up with great Recommendations and a strong network. You must do this anyway, regardless.

8.     Keep in touch with your competitors. Let them know your interests and what you can do for them if you were to leave your current job.

9.     Start documenting your plight through emails to your boss and to HR. This often puts them on notice to remedy a deteriorating situation, which has occurred because of no fault from your end.

10.  After a few months if the downward spiral continues for you, despite your great work, find yourself another job! In the process you have put your insecure manager in their place!

Good luck!