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Effective Communication-II: The Power of Storytelling!

Sep 11th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

In my August 14 blog I focused on effective inbound communication, where I wrote about how to improve your listening powers using the six tips presented in that blog. As a follow-up to that blog I am going to present another six ideas here for getting your point across through effective outbound communication.

  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!

Posted in career growth, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, Helping Others, Interview Skills, Job Search, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring, Resume | No Comments »

Mentoring: A Path to Accelerate Your Own Growth!

Sep 4th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

If you want to learn something well, try teaching it—Aristotle

As a career coach my clients often ask me about how to find a mentor to help them in their growth. Most professionals in need of mentoring have a one-sided view of what mentoring is: finding someone, who can help them grow and who can help them through their challenges.

They often forget that regardless of where they are in their growth path they can seek someone out to mentor and grow in the process, as they are seeking to find a mentor for themselves. I have many examples of clients who wanted to get specific help in certain areas that they had targeted for their own growth, who ended up helping themselves by actively mentoring someone in that very area. Offering to help someone in the area in which one wants to grow and mentoring them through their challenges is the best growth tool that there is, as the quote at the top famously reminds you. Not only did they surprise themselves in how effective they were in mentoring someone in an area relatively new for them, but their own curiosity and their ability to openly learn in real time allowed them to grow in that very area.

So, here is my guidance to those who are actively seeking a mentor for their growth:

  1. Define your area of growth and development need and identify someone who can be your mentor.
  2. As you navigate through the process of engaging in a mentoring relationship for yourself, open yourself to mentoring others.
  3. Reach out to someone and engage with them in a dialog that will allow you to become their mentor in an area in which you also want to grow or learn. Do not wait to mentor someone if you are not able to find yourself one.
  4. Even if you are not able to find a suitable mentor for yourself do not stop the reverse mentoring process and actively and confidently engage in a mentoring relationship.
  5. As you continue your engagement with your mentee you will learn how mentoring really works and also about the area in which you are mentoring.

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Enterpreneurship, Helping Others, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring | No Comments »

Disabusing Micromanagement!

Aug 28th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

On the heels of Steve Jobs’ departure as Apple’s CEO many have written about his and Apple’s success. In many of these articles the word micromanager has appeared as his preferred management style—and the “secret” to Apple’s success. I think that in most cases that is an overreach!

Why?

As a career coach I work with many clients who come to me because how their managers manage them. Often, there are two extremes: Complete permissiveness, with little or no accountability on the one hand, and obsessiveness about minutia to point of suffocation, where people have no breathing room to create and enjoy what they do, on the other. In either case the manager has failed to provide the right environment for a person’s growth and has done a grave disservice to their place of work.

So, what is Micromanagement? Before I answer that let me explain what management is: A manager provides the right environment for their team to produce the greatest amount of value to their place of work. They do that by knowing and understanding the functions of a manager (the four functions I have often written about: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and providing Controls) in a way that allows those under them to provide the most value to each other and to their company, and an environment of growth through creativity, risk-taking, and learning new things. As a manager moves up the ladder they are expected to do progressively more management work, and less technical work.

With that understanding of what management is let us now look at some behaviors micromanagers exhibit:

A: Focus on the “How,” and not on the “What”

This characteristic of a micromanager has to do with how their team and each member of the team do what they do. Instead of focusing on providing a specific result of what needs to be accomplished as an end objective, micromanagers provide some vague guidance of what is expected from the team, and they keep checking on them as they shape their own view of what their boss really wants from them over time. Here, they focus more on how anyone on the team is going about doing what they are working on, than on what they are doing and why. They will obsess over the minutia such as when they come to work, how long they take their breaks, how they write their emails, and so on.

In the case of one client her manager expected her to respond to any email he sent to my client within two hours regardless of the time of the day or the week. Here, my client was a project manager in a development group, not a manager of a 24×7 operation. His boss was an obsessive compulsive individual with no family and no outside activities. In this case after guiding my client and coaching her on how to deal with this boss did not work, she had to move to another group.

B: Lack of consistency of expectations

Most people will respond to what is asked of them if it is communicated clearly and both parties agree that it is doable, or at least worth attempting. Micromanagers lack this basic discipline, but providing inputs as they make up the end objective over time and keep changing the requirements of the assignment. This makes it very difficult for their team members to function, as there is no clear vision that is driving the overall team. Many team members are frustrated by having to re-do what was previously done with no clear end in sight. This type of micromanaging is pernicious and causes much stress to all who are on the team.

C: My way or no way

Here, the manager has not grown out of his individual contributor mind-set and has not embraced bringing in the four functions of managing I have mentioned earlier, as a part of their growing into the new role. As an individual contributor the manager had achieved certain proficiency in their skill. So, now as a manager they expect all their team members to do what they did using the same methods and approaches. Instead of focusing on the right outcome they focus on the means and methods (once again, the How). This type of micromanagement stifles team members from learning new ways of doing things more efficiently or differently.

This is by no means a complete catalog of behaviors micromanagers exhibit, but merely a sampling and some underlying drivers. There are many other ways a manager can stifle a team’s creativity through various ways of micromanaging it.

Now that we have seen the behaviors of a micromanager, would it be fair to call Steve Jobs a micromanager? Absolutely not! Those who have clarity of purpose, a clear vision of the outcome, an ability to challenge the team to surpass its own limits, and a passion to deliver nothing but the best, a better descriptor would be “practical perfectionist,” not a “micromanager.” If Steve Jobs were a micromanager in the sense described in this article, then he would not have been able to attract the gifted team that surrounded him, and been able to achieve what he did for Apple!

Posted in career growth, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring, Office Behaviour | No Comments »

Learning to Plan Your Career!

Aug 21st, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.

—Charles F. Kettering, Inventor, businessman (1876–1958)

Most professionals do not plan their careers as well as they should. They decisively choose a certain track during their early academic life with care, but once they graduate and land their first job, they often rely on resources at their company or on their company’s career advancement process, attending local conferences, and searching for various online resources, which they think may be helpful to propel them forward. This is not the most effective way from what I have learned over the years guiding thousands of professionals in their careers! As the quote at the head of this article suggests only your imagination can limit how far you can go in your career (corporate, academic, or entrepreneurial).

Here are 10 takeaways from my own experience to think about:

  1. One of the common myths about career plans is that such a plan requires you to anticipate how the future is going to bring changes to technology, economy, business, and the world. Change is constant, so learn how to see patterns of change and how they will affect your future growth opportunities.
  2. A career plan is based on your own growth and on creating increasing value to the business in which you are employed (this also applies to entrepreneurs, solo professionals, and business owners). So, making a growth plan is the foundation of a solid career plan. A growth plan requires a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset (Read Carol Dweck’s, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)!
  3. If you lack clarity in your vision for yourself, look around and see after whom you can model your growth. Talk to people that you think are successful and seek their guidance—even mentorship—in creating your own vision for yourself. Do you have a role model who inspires you? Can you get them to mentor you? If not, can you follow their blogs and activities online?
  4. Once you nail down your vision, break that into a time-based action plan. Then look for career paths (on LinkedIn, for example) of those, who are already there.
  5. As we advance in our career we go through different points of inflection. Each point of inflection requires a specific mindset and an intervention. For example, going from an individual contributor to a manager requires not just doing great work as an individual contributor, but also an ability to fundamentally shift how you pivot around that success to become a people manager/leader and an ability to get work done through others. A similar point of inflection occurs when you are moving up from being a manager to a senior executive. Here, you need to learn how to shift from being an effective manager to running a great business.
  6. Find mentors, who can work with you to help you in your career and share your plan with them. Learn from their experience to accelerate your own growth. Be a mentor to someone else.
  7. Volunteer your time to some cause that is important to you. In many volunteer organizations it is easy to be working alongside with someone, who has already made a name for themselves in their field. Become visible by doing great work in your own area of expertise, or use that platform to professionally grow in a direction that is new to you. Volunteer organizations rarely ask to see your résumé, but that experience can be showcased in your résumé for your own growth!
  8. Learn and acquire some of the basic skills that are expected in your position of increasing responsibilities that come from your career-growth plan. For example, as an executive you are expected to have excellent communication skills and executive presence. These are learned skills and not nature-given!
  9. No matter where you are in your career and on your growth plan, never assume that the next promotion is automatically yours to have. Do great work by first stating what you are going to do, exceed the expectations, and then claim your prize. Do not assume that you are going to get it just because you did great work!

10.  Above all, be nice to others, respect them as you respect yourself, and have fun!

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, Job Search, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring | No Comments »

Effective Communication: The Power of Listening!

Aug 14th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

Regardless of how brilliant our ideas are and regardless of how smart we think that we are, our ability to get those ideas across to others is at the heart of good communication. Just look around you: those, who are successful achieve their success more because of their ability to communicate better than those who are equally capable, but are not as effective in communicating what they have on their minds. Learning to communicate effectively is life’s work and one must constantly work at it to improve their overall communication effectiveness.

There are two parts to effective communication: Outbound—our ability to package our message that we intend to convey; and Inbound—our ability to listen to what others, including we ourselves, are saying to us. I plan to write a separate blog about our Outbound communication and how to improve it. But, for the purpose of this blog, when it comes to listening, the TED talk by Julian Treasure is a great way to understand an effective listening process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSohjlYQI2A

This video is worth watching to understand how one can improve our listening abilities.

I am summarizing below the prescription Julian provides in his excellent talk: The five ways to improve your listening. I am also providing one more element that is not in his list of five; an element that is perhaps the most important.

The reason I am adding this sixth element is because of what I have learned from coaching thousands of clients, one-on-one. In my career and life coaching practice the guidance I provide my clients rarely comes from something insightful that I provide my clients; it often comes from their own listening to themselves during our dialog. I merely provide them an enabling environment for them to listen to themselves. So, here is my list of six factors based on Julian’s original prescription of five:

  1. Silence: Learn how to be completely silent three minutes each day to understand the power of silence and the power of sounds!
  2. Mixer: Isolate sounds from the ambient noise and learn to focus on what is important to the exchange that is taking place between you and the source that matters to you.
  3. Savoring: Find meaning in mundane sounds and find ways to sharpen your overall listening.
  4. Listening positioning: This factor has to do with what filters you apply in your listening process: Active/Passive; Reductive/Expansive; and Critical/Empathic
  5. RASA: Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask. This is an effective way to engage with others and get the most out of a dialog. It benefits both parties equally.
  6. Listening to Self: Many people often forget that we have the innate ability to find answers to our own complex problems. Yes, we cannot always have the expertise we need to analyze some of our problems, for which we need to seek an expert, but we are accountable to ourselves for taking a course of action resulting from that discovery. So, my guidance to everyone reading this blog is to learn to listen to yourself, once you have figured out what the problem may be after what an expert has to say. Do not blindly follow the expert’s advice, just because they are the expert.

In today’s increasingly noisy and conflict-ridden environment we are losing our ability to listen to the right signals, including our own. So, to counter this wave we must learn how to sharpen our abilities to listen, to act decisively to move forward, and to succeed.

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Interview Skills, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring | 1 Comment »

Dealing With the Glass Ceiling!

Aug 6th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

I have many clients, who have reached Director/VP-level positions in relatively short order, but now they see themselves up against the proverbial glass ceiling. Although each client has a unique set of parameters that they are dealing with to overcome this mythical barrier, I have come to realize some common elements that become showstoppers, when being considered for their next level of promotion—into the inner circle. This article presents these commonly encountered barriers, collectively labeled as the Glass Ceiling, and provides some experiential guidance on how to deal with them:

  1. Breadth Vs. Depth: Most professionals focus on their own area of expertise to be recognized as the authority in their specific area of activity. This is a good strategy to get promoted up to a point, but then what matters more than just expertise in one area is the person’s ability to have a broad perspective to formulate more impactful solutions and to have an appreciation for different facets of their company’s business. This comes often from taking a detour, learning new skills, and showing that in a completely uncharted area you can also be an effective leader. If you want to pursue senior executive roles in your company and if you are not tapped for such roles to expand your perspective, find avenues to get yourself that experience. For example, if you are in Product Management, get some experience in Customer Support. If you are in Product Development get some experience in Field Ops.
  2. Telling Vs. Asking: When you are operating at a director-level role, you are expected to provide expert answers to the problems that face your functional area. This is how you move your agenda forward and help your group stay in the forefront of your company’s business activity. The problem that this style of leadership creates is that your people are looking at you for answers and are not contributing to the company’s growth through their own independent thought leadership. One important change that is worth learning at this stage of your leadership evolution is to shift from giving answers to asking the right questions.

    Of all the behavioral changes one must make in transitioning into senior executive roles, this single change is pivotal and the most difficult.The reason for this difficulty in behavior change is that your knowing the right answer to any challenge facing a group or a team is what made you unique in your current role; in fact, this what got you there! So, to shift from giving the needed answers so that the team in trouble can move forward with the right solution, to guiding that same team to find its own answers takes a conscious effort. Many people instinctively feel that by enabling others navigate through their own problems and helping them reach a good solution is wasteful, especially when you have a ready answer. Avoiding this temptation and guiding others to achieve the desired outcomes through good mentorship is the right path to your own leadership growth, and to those around you. Great leaders want people around them to discover the power that lies within each one to make a difference, and not want to have a monopoly on answers to every problem within their own area.

  3. Respect Vs. Affection: Many operate under the myth that leaders ought to be cool, detached, and analytical. They also believe in “macho” leadership, where you have to be tough—even brutal—to achieve objectives. Love, affection, friendship, thoughtfulness have no place in running a business is also part of that legend. Another refrain you hear from leaders is, I don’t care if people like me, I just want them to respect me! Contrary to these deeply ingrained notions about the relationship a leader holds in the eyes of others, who work with them, the real leader genuinely cares about those who work with them. In a study done over a decade ago the single factor that differentiated the top leaders from the bottom was expressed affection, contrary to the myth of the cold-hearted boss that does not care about their people’s feelings. The highest performing managers consistently showed warmth and fondness towards others around them.
  4. Management Vs. Business: When you get promoted from being an individual contributor to a manager, there is a step-wise change in your responsibilities. You must shift from knowing how to manage your own time, to managing those who now report to you. You must learn how to get others to do the work that you did yourself, but without redoing what others are doing! As a head of a functional area (Director or VP) your focus is on optimizing resources through application of good management and leadership practices.When you are looking for a senior executive role you must make a similar transition from focusing on management (people, technology, resources) to focusing on learning about the business (markets, competition, globalization). This, again, is a scope and perspective change that you must do seamlessly and show that you can, when promoted.
  5. Credit–Giving Vs. Taking: This is yet another key factor in one’s ability to break through the glass ceiling. Upwardly mobile leaders feel secure enough to openly credit others for their achievements and communicate the roles others played in their success. This attitude creates its own energy and spirit of cooperation (not competition), and helps their company with new levels of achievements.
  6. Failure–Admitting Vs. Concealing: When one is on the move, they are likely to encounter defeats and even an occasional failure. Truly inspired leaders quickly acknowledge their failure without blaming others, and publicly admit to their shortcomings. They also openly discuss their lessons from these failures for others to learn.

This list is by no means complete. But with the experience I’ve had with hundreds of senior-level clients who wanted to get to the next level dealing with these barriers and overcoming them helped them more than even they realized. Many factors go into being invited into the inner sanctum of a company’s management. Although the list of items mentioned here is not sufficient to overcome the glass-ceiling challenge, it is a good start!

Good luck!

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

The Perils of Prevarication During Job Search!

Jul 30th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

Prevarication: n; Avoidance of plain dealing or straightforward statement of the truth; evasion, quibbling

I often find that during job search the anxiety to get an offer heightens as my clients find that they are losing valuable time in the “long” selection process. It also heightens when there is much activity on different fronts, but without a solid offer from anyone. The level of anxiety is high for those, who have been out of work for a while. So, they often call me with a sheepish tone in their voice to check with me if they can precipitate action by either misleading their potential employer (I just got an offer from another company I was pursuing, but your company is my preferred choice) or by jumping the gun and discounting themselves (I am willing to consider a lower position) to panic them into action.

In all the cases I have witnessed these shenanigans rarely work. In fact, they often backfire (“In that case I suggest that you go ahead and accept that offer.”)

Why is that?

I think that the main reason for this reaction to a misleading statement is two-fold: when the employer is not ready to move forward it is difficult to “blackmail” them into action, no matter how ready you feel that they should be to make you that offer; and, secondly—and more importantly—no matter how clever you think that you are at concealing the reality of your situation there is often a telltale odor to that lie, which they can smell. Either way it is game-over for you! And, the worst part of this outcome is that you will spend countless nights lying awake wondering if you might have handled this differently to create an outcome you really wanted.

So, what have I learned from these experiences from hundreds of clients who have suffered this fate? Well, here is my summary:

  1. When you are job searching create a planned pipeline of prospects and manage that pipeline in a strategic way. At any given time you must have 3-5 targets in line for action at or near the same level of activity (initial screening, second interview rounds, etc.).
  2. You must learn how to leverage the momentum from one front onto another (“I just got a second-round interview call from Google, and they seem to be moving faster than I expected”). I have found that this often works well unless of course, here, too, you are prevaricating!
  3. As these interviews and the selection process steps are ratcheting up to conclusion, keep in touch with each target that you are pursuing. Find a champion at each target and keep in touch with them with honesty and openness. I find that these champions can often help you finesse the final action that would be hard for you to do on your own. Do not ever lie to these people, because if you do, again, it is game-over for you!
  4. When you send thank-you notes explicitly state why you are so interested in their company and in joining their team. Simple pleas like, I sincerely hope that you’ll consider bringing me on board as a key member of your program team, and seeing the difference I will make in how projects will be released on time, carry far more weight than any call you make under the pretext of action on another front.
  5. Always remember that hiring someone is rarely a priority for most companies. Everyone is too busy fighting the daily fires. Many hiring managers consider hiring someone as a major imposition, despite the relief they get when onboarding a new person on their team. Also, if you are out of work and trying to get back in, your perception of elapsed time is highly warped (one week gone may seem like a month to you); exactly the opposite it true at the other end (I thought we just saw you last week, and not last month!). So, be patient.
  6. Being honest also applies for all matters related to your job search: salary, title, responsibilities, and duration. With the open LinkedIn Profiles it is much harder to hide the reality of your past. Even salary can be checked indirectly. In fact, many companies retain a third-party background investigator, who may ask you for your W-2s. Here if you are caught in a lie then it is much harder to explain that lie. You do not want to blow your chances at this advanced a stage of the selection process.
  7. Do not hold your past salary, title, and responsibilities hostage to your next job. It is not that difficult to provide a clear statement of your value in the job you are seeking and then anchoring the salary, title, and other parameters to that discussion. This way you do not need to exaggerate your past; you merely promise what you can do and then deliver on that promise—a much more practicable approach to getting what you want.
  8. Do not overreach during the selection or interview process. You may turn off the hiring manager by your boastful manner; under promise and over deliver.
  9. Learn how to negotiate when you get multiple offers. Do not merely focus on the compensation as your final selection criterion. Look at how the new job will help you gather some career momentum in the right direction.

10.  Once you make the final selection be gracious about declining the other offers. Treat them as though you would be interested in joining them at some other time.

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Consulting, Enterpreneurship, Helping Others, Interview Skills, Job Search, leadership, Life & Living | No Comments »

Dealing with Some Common Interview Challenges!

Jul 24th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

After the initial job-response process is completed, including the phone-screening interview from a recruiter, you are invited to meet with the hiring team, which often includes the hiring manager. Many of my clients are looking for a change because they do not like their current manager. Somehow, they often assume that almost anybody else would be a better manager than what they find in their boss. They are often wrong! Some are also looking for a different work environment from what they experience at their place of work. Once again, they go by what they have read about the new place or what their friends, who work there tell them. Here, too, you cannot extrapolate what you read or hear into what you may end up facing in your own job in that same place.

Why is that?

My experience is that during an interview the focus is so much on knowledge/skills exploration (highly technical questions, specific to the work area) that candidates often feel victorious when they ace those questions. They do not realize that acing such questions is only half the battle. The rest is exploring what is important to them before they realize that they have made the wrong choice after joining the new company. So, what are some of the key things to remember during the interview process? Here is a list that may help you:

  1. If you are making a job change, be very clear about why you are making such a change. Too many people make such changes without the required clarity and without articulating for themselves what some of the key non-negotiable items are in the new job, lest the very things you are getting away from, repeat themselves.
  2. If your manager is the main reason for your seeking a change, then be clear about what characteristics are objectionable in your current manager. Then work hard to identify if the prospect manager displays the same characteristics. For example, if you are trying to get away from a micromanager then you must ask specific questions in your interview about your prospect manager’s management style. No one is going to tell you that they are a micromanager. In fact, if you tell them that you are looking for a change because your current manager micromanages you, you will hear what you want to hear: I am not a micromanager, from your interviewer, even though they may be even worse than your current boss. So, it is best to ask for specific behaviors, and not labels. To explore this, create a hypothetical scenario and ask your potential manager how they would manage in such a case. That will be much more insightful than asking questions that do not result in useful answers.
  3. Now, coming back to the company culture: Even though a company may be known for its culture, the local management, specifically your immediate manager, drives how that manifests in their particular work area. I have had many clients who went to join companies because of their reputation for a great and open culture, only to be disappointed by how their tyrannical manager made their life a living hell!
  4. During the interview with your manager or a peer, see if you can take a tour of the work area, where you would be working. During this tour keenly observe people’s interactions and the general mood of the place. Do not comment on anything, but merely note how people look, act, and carry out their work as a part of your observation. If something does not seem right, or you get a gut feel that something is not right, trust it. In such cases our instincts are often right on, and we must learn to respect them.
  5. Visit sites like glassdoor.com where you are able to see comments about the workplace posted by employees (current and past). Try to correlate what you observed during your visit with those observations and draw your own conclusions.
  6. During the interview it is perfectly acceptable to ask your hiring manager if your position is new or you would be replacing someone. Then ask about your predecessor and the circumstances for the change (why they left, how long did they stayed in that job, etc. can shed much light on the culture).
  7. Learn how to finesse some of the more tricky questions during an interview: Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years, for example. A typical response to such a question is, I see myself as becoming a Senior Director in that timeframe. The problem with such a response is that if the interviewer feels stuck there as a Director for several years, they are going to see you as threat to them. Besides, who knows how an organization is going to evolve in that timeframe! So, a safer answer is to say, I am more interested in growing by tackling challenging problems and creating ongoing value, than I am going after a particular title. So, as long as I feel that I am growing, learning new things, and have increasing responsibilities, that is what I really care about. Such a response will raise fewer eyebrows than the other response. Such a response will disarm even the most cynical interviewers, allowing you to probe more openly about things that are really important for your success, before you are surprised by discovering them on the job!
  8. If you have learned something that is adverse about the company, do not bring it up. If it is in the media then most people within that company are already aware of what is out there. Bringing this up in a negative way can backfire and create unnecessary impediment to your sailing through the process smoothly. If you do get an offer, you will have enough time to assess what the right course of action is.
  9. Do not be obsessive about salary and title in your next job. Here, again, if you focus on the value you bring and the value you get to create in your new role, and the responsibilities you expect to discharge in that role, the salary and title fall out of those discussions. It is best if the hiring managers proposes these parameters before you do.

10.  Be clear about how you are going to be measured during your first year, and also ask what some of the key expectations are, by asking a questions such as, If you hired a perfect candidate, how would they be measured and what will their performance look like at the end of the first year. If the answer to this question is not specific enough then you may want to seriously consider not joining that company, or at least being open to working with the manager to define it with more clarity after you start working there.

Throughout the interview process it is best to assume responsibility for knowing as much about the job and the company as they want to know about you. That way you are less likely to be looking for yet another job in a short period of time after you start your new job!

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Enterpreneurship, Helping Others, Interview Skills, Job Search, Life & Living | No Comments »

Leading and Trailing Indicators of Trouble at Work!

Jul 16th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

When clients come to me for something that is happening at their job, it is often too late for them to launch a well-orchestrated recovery campaign. They come asking for ways to get their career momentum back, or sometimes for ways even to hold on to their job! When they come with that much urgency in their tone, it is often too late!

Why?

When I explore with them the recent history of their setbacks at work, it is often that they can recall a series of episodes that progressively got them out of favor, despite their being well-engaged in their jobs previously, and where they felt that they had much more control over what was happening to them. This is what I call leading indicators of a downward spiral, and the pattern of signals is often unmistakable. So, why do we wait so long before realizing that we need to do something to get our career on track and change our wayward treatment at work, well before the onset of the “trailing” indicators?

I think that one reason for missing the early cues from the leading indicators, which are often unmistakable, is when we go into denial over our plight. We are also too close to what is happening around us, so despite the unmistakable signals we lack the ability to discern the change and to proactively do something about it. When your situation crosses over to the “trailing indicators” zone, it is best to get out, as it is often too late to do anything about it.

This blog is a summary of the leading and trailing indicators of a downward spiral that can tank your career:

Leading Indicators (Still time to do damage control and proactively work on recovery)

  1. Your regularly scheduled meetings with your boss get inexplicably canceled or indefinitely postponed. This is often coupled by your boss being suddenly too busy or on a series of business trips.
  2. Your boss is taking longer to respond to your email requests for a decision, often with a response: Let us discuss this when we next meet. These meetings are now not happening, so you cannot get your boss to give you any meaningful guidance.
  3. Your workload slowly begins to lighten. Soon, you start seeing free time on your hands, and yet your boss keeps reminding you of “slowing down,” and keeping “a good work-life balance.”
  4. Your boss does not make an eye contact with you as you pass her in the hallways. She sees you, and quickly pretends that she is answering her cell phone, ignoring you, and showing you her index finger, rather than the usual smile and a wave!
  5. You are suddenly scheduled for a long trip overseas to work with an errant vendor or a partner, you did not even know existed within the realm of your regular work.

Trailing Indicators (Too late for a meaningful recovery action)

  1. When you are in a meeting with others your boss acts like she does not see you. She also ignores any comments you make in the meeting, pretending she did not hear you.
  2. Meetings that involve your project or activity, and which involve other department or functions, suddenly start taking place without your being even aware of them. When you ask your boss, as you cross her in the hallways about this, her answer will invariably be: Oh, Joe suddenly decided to call this meeting to status the project, and I did not want to burden you with this, as I know how busy you are! You later find out that your teammates had received the email notice a few days before that meeting from your boss.
  3. Your boss starts making decisions that you, typically, made until now: moving team members and assigning them to different projects; changing priorities on tasks that are already scheduled, without notifying you; changing project scope, with your learning about it from those, who either report to you, or from those who are on your project.
  4. In your next performance review, you are either passed over, with an excuse that somehow there was no time for doing a proper review in this cycle, or that you get a low rating with no explanation. You later find out that all your colleagues got their reviews on time, and that they met with the manager.
  5. Your manager meets with your direct reports to give them the news of their promotion and salary increases. You hear about it when they come to thank you for what they got.

When any or all of these treatments for you are manifest at work, it means that you are on your way out. In the above list, first set of items #1-5 are leading indicators (still some opportunity for a solid recovery plan), and the second, are the trailing indicators (too late for a recovery plan; you must leave!).

Actually, it would be much easier for all concerned if your boss told you that you are not performing well, and that you should look for another job and leave the company. But, in most situations that dialog requires the boss to provide leadership and to hold you accountable, which takes work on their part. So, the easy way out for them is to accord the treatment similar to the one listed in the items above, and hope that you would get the message—and resign.

So, what is your course of action when you start seeing these leading indicators for your being booted out of your job? The most forthright one is to not going into denial over it, and any change in how you are treated at work must be dealt with forthrightly, by seeking a redress meeting with your boss. Waiting to see if things improve on their own can be career suicide!

Good luck!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Helping Others, Job Search, leadership, Life & Living, Mentoring, Office Behaviour | No Comments »

The 10 Habits for Effective Career Management!

Jul 10th, 2011 by Dilip Saraf

During the past 10 years, as a career coach, I have worked with over 5,000 professionals globally. Many of those clients have stayed with me over time and have come back now and then to keep their careers growing and to share their successes. With enough such data points I have now codified the success pattern of these individuals, and this blog is about the most common behaviors—habits, actually—I see in those who have done well in their careers. Here is a list of those 10 most common behaviors, which became their habits:

  1. Be Clear: The most common success element in those, who have achieved good career momentum is developing clarity of what they wanted. This also means de-cluttering your mind with what you also do not want. Before developing this clarity some were conflicted about the path they should take. For example, some individual contributors were not sure about whether they should take the management route or pursue the technical ladder. Dispelling some misperceptions about each path helped them develop the clarity they needed, which increased their focus to pursue what was important.
  2. Have a Plan: Even with the clarity of purpose, having a detailed career road map helps develop an action plan that can be developed for accelerated growth. Most professionals work in the state of “unconscious incompetence,” working in the trial-and-error mode. This is wasteful, and the lost time in such experimentation can never be recovered. Knowing key waypoints in your career growth and what resources are needed at each step of that growth plan to go to the next level are important elements for staying on track.
  3. Be Curious: In my Client Intake Questionnaire one of the items they respond to is to write down percentage breakdown on three items, which define how they work: Order taker, Influencer, or Following their Vision. I am often surprised by how many senior executives put their work as mostly (> 50%) “ Order taking,” which is disheartening. This shows that even at senior levels these people have little control over how their work gets defined. Being curious forces you to look for things that your company must do to stay ahead of your competition. This, in turn, provides you an opportunity to take on tasks that are “outside” the scope of your role. This is a great way to grow and to put a shine on your résumé.
  4. Foreordain Your Résumé: I find that successful professionals write their résumé bullets even before they embark on their tasks. If they want to move up in a certain direction they look for the job descriptions for that position and start taking on assignments that will give them the bullets they need on their résumé that allow them to claim accomplishments as if they are already functioning at that level. Yet another behavior I see in successful professionals is that when they run into obstacles they do not run away from them, but learn how to deal with them.
  5. Start Networking: Build your professional network, not just to reflect your current interests, but those that are on your career growth plan. For example, if you want to move in a certain direction three years from now, start bringing thought leaders from that area of work into your LinkedIn (or other) network. This habit will force you to constantly seek out those professionals, who can help you in the direction you want to move.
  6. Have a Champion: Develop a relationship (or two) with someone well placed within your company to guide you on an ongoing basis, not just in troubled times. Companies are fraught with political intrigue. Don’t just assume that if you do good work that you will be rewarded. You must work this angle into your overall plan and understand how to work within the system that will help you go where you need to go.
  7. Acknowledge Others: When someone does something great, make a point of acknowledging their success in a public way. You could be an individual contributor, and still you can send out an email to those that matter about someone’s (who can be at a higher level than where you are) accomplishment in an open way. This simple (and free) act makes you get noticed, and you can become an influencer if you do this judiciously.
  8. Market Yourself: Constantly update your LinkedIn Profile and keep yourself marketable. Keep your résumé up-to-date with your latest accomplishments, even with some foreordained bullets I mentioned above.
  9. Learn a New Skill: Even if you are at the top of your field—and you must learn how to do that—always look at the skills you must acquire to grow and to keep yourself marketable. Many clients often come to me asking if they should pursue an MBA to get on the management track. There is never a clear answer for this, but some simple inquiries can allow you to answer this question to develop the clarity you need. Anyone who is on a constant learning path never becomes irrelevant.

10.  Mentor Someone: This is yet another habit of successful professionals. No matter what their station is in life, they find some way to mentor by empowering themselves. We all have the power to listen to others and to guide them in their pursuits by asking them the right questions. You do not need specialized expertise to mentor someone, but just a good listening ear and an ability to ask the right questions. Most clients tell me that this simple act of mentoring others has helped them in their own growth!

When I look at those who take their career seriously, I am often reminded of a billboard I once saw many years ago on one of the Silicon-Valley highways: “There are those that make it happen; there are those that watch it happen; and then there are those that wonder what happened!” Then it went on with a plea to join the company that put up that billboard inviting prospective employees to join its employee ranks who “make it happen.”

Now, no matter where you’re working, Make it happen!

Posted in career growth, Career Repositioning, Career Tips, Consulting, Enterpreneurship, Helping Others, Job Search, leadership, Life & Living | No Comments »

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