The Executive Update

Ask the Coach: From Entrepreneur to Intrapreneur

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando.

One caller asked about how to position his entrepreneurial experience? If you have experience with a start-up, is it marketable?

Don’s response was, “Yes, in the right circles.” Don prefaced his comments by saying he has two  rules of job search:

1. "Nothing is guaranteed" "If someone guarantees you anything turn around and walk away!!" Job placement is too subjective a process to come with a guarantee.
2. There are no black or white answers!! There are always exceptions to every situation.

With those two rules in mind, Don explains that large companies are not fond of entrepreneurs as a rule. Those coming from a start-up environment might be considered loose cannons – Employees who cannot follow orders and are not team players. However, smaller companies that tend to rely more heavily on their executives to step out of their specific roles are more open to hiring entrepreneurs. They appreciate the varied experience required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Coach, Not Crutch

I have to give a nod to Steve Roeseler and his recent observations on All Things Workplace. I have been working with job seekers and career coaches for many years, so I found Steve’s recent post, “When Did the Executive Coach Become a Player?,” most poignant. Steve highlights a trend that some industry experts have identified, where the executive coach (as opposed to a career coach) actually starts taking on the responsibilities of the executive. Steve cites an article from the Wall Street Journal which:

"...describes how some executives’ coaches are now inserting themselves into certain executive functions, such as the hiring process. According to the article, some are actually conducting interviews of job applicants and exercising – or being given – vetoes over hiring decisions."

Here Steve and I are in agreement: if an executive coach starts assuming the job responsibilities of his client, then he or she is no longer coaching, they are managers themselves. The whole concept of coaching or mentoring is to effect a knowledge transfer; to help executives become better managers by revealing new thinking and new approaches. Once the coach assumes the responsibilities of the executive, then that coach has crossed the line.

Why “Am I A Success” Is the Wrong Question

A brief thought for Friday – I ran across an interesting blog post by on Bob Sutton’s Work Matters. Sutton references a paper by Karl Weick of the University of Michigan which offers the following observation:

“… people who are preoccupied with success ask the wrong question. They ask, “what is the secret of success” when they should be asking, “what prevents me from learning here and now?” To be overly preoccupied with the future is to be inattentive toward the present where learning and growth take place. To walk around asking, “am I a success or a failure” is a silly question in the sense that the closest you can come to answer is to say, everyone is both a success and a failure.”

This is great career advice. When you are thinking about your current job, or your career in general, shouldn’t you focus energy on the here and now and what makes you successful? After all, you can act only in the present, not in the future.

One of the challenges facing most job seekers is a tendency to be overwhelmed thinking about a long-term strategy. When you look at the big picture, remember that it is made up of individual brushstrokes. While it is important to have a roadmap for the future, it’s the day-to-day accomplishments that will lead you to your objective. Just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so does your career path begin you’re your accomplishments in the here and now.

Learn from your experience today, and your path for future success will become clear.

Ask the Coach: It’s About Work, Not a Job

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Peter Engler or the Engler Career Group.

If you check out Peter’s web site, you will see a lot of content for job seekers over 50, so not surprisingly, this week’s call included a number of older job seekers seeking advice.

If you are looking for companies that tend to hire older workers, start with their web sites and see if they have an “older feel.” Look at the staff bios and get a sense of what kind of senior management is in charge.

If you are going to apply to a company, Peter prefers to determine if age is going to be a problem and get the “no” responses out of the way as quickly as possible. It saves time and your ego. When you make contact with a prospective employer, be sure to highlight the merits of your age, your accomplishments, and what you have to offer that your younger competitors don’t have. You shouldn’t have to compete with those who are less experienced. As Peter often says, at 45+ you are looking for work, not a job; leverage your experience.

Reframe Your Job Search

As you are thinking about your career and career management, you can find inspiration from various sources. I recently ran across a book by Erich Joachimsthaler, Hidden in Plain Sight, which offered insights in how to drive your company’s growth strategy. If you think of your career as a company, and your job search as a growth strategy (see my last blog post), then some of the insights from this book can be applied  to your own career management.

The premise of the book is that corporate success tends to hide new opportunities for growth; that companies need to look beyond customer need to understanding behavioral ecosystems that dictate people’s lives. Joachmisthaler calls this the “demand-first innovation and growth” model. In practice, this means thinking about your customers in terms of how they lead their lives, e.g. it’s more important to know that people exercise twice a week than what sneakers they wear; or the fact the Starbucks has become more than just a coffee shop, but a “third space” that functions between home and work. It’s not about features, but the framework in which the products operate.

Now think about how this applies to job search. First you have to think of the job environment as your customer, and then reframe your opportunity space. Define your job search strategy from the outside in, creating a demand framework for your skills, and then identifying that key inflection point where someone needs the skills you have to offer. Joachmisthaler identifies three basic components to the demand-first innovation and growth model, and they can be readily applied to job search:

Ask the Coach: A Leadership Profile Fills In the Blanks

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is a post contributed by Deb Dib, The CEO Coach.

Executives are a rare commodity. They are the leaders in their field; the movers and shakers, problem solvers, innovators, profit generators, efficiency drivers, motivators, visionaries. They are the drivers of business. They are among the elite, and not everyone can do their job. 

If you are an executive, there is a company out there looking for what you’ve got. You need to be sure they understand that you’re the one who has it! 

A resume can go far in making your case for the perfect fit, but a resume packaged with a Leadership Profile (an addendum of top accomplishments) is a powerful presentation that says, “This is what I’ve done, how I’ve done it, and I’ll prove I can do it for you!” And here’s more!   

Are You Running Your Job Search Like a Company?

Why is it that professional expertise seems to go out the window when people start looking for a new job? I don’t know how many seasoned professionals I have worked with over the years who, when faced with the prospect of looking for a new job, forget everything they ever knew about developing a strategy, writing sales and marketing plans, or building a business.

If you think about it, there is no real difference between selling a product or service and selling yourself. The most important go-to-market plan you will every undertake is your own career strategy. You should be prepared to sell your expertise and unique value proposition just as you would sell any invaluable product.

I think a large reason most professionals aren’t smarter about how they approach their job search is shell shock. In today’s society, people’s sense of self-worth and identity become so closely associated with their professions that when they lose their job, they become disoriented as well as demoralized. They not only lose their self worth, but they lose access to those skills that were second nature when they were on the job. They forget how to apply what they know to the problem at hand – branding themselves and selling tehmselves to a new market audience.

Ask the Coach: Transition Firms – Caveat Emptor

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Kim Batson, The CIO’s Coach, and Deb Dib, head of Executive Power Brand.

In this week’s Ask the Coach call, one NETSHARE member asked about Career Transition firms.

There are firms that offer to help with a career transition, for a hefty fee. They offer advantages such as access to “under the radar” jobs, and they promise to get your name in front of hiring executives that no one else has access to. Can these claims be true?

Deb and Kim advise, “Please be careful.” There are many types of legitimate service providers providing these kinds of professional introductory services at economical rates. Others require a substantial investment; up to several thousand dollars. The more legitimate firms can give you excellent value with the amount of coaching you receive, help with your marketing documents, and entrees into the right places. You should check them out – their references will be solid.

Who Was That Masked Man?

During my years with NETSHARE I have observed that people who often have the greatest impact on whatever organization they join tend to look for jobs more frequently. I shared this concept earlier this week with Molly Wendell, founder of two executive networking groups, Arizona Executives and San Francisco Executives. Molly and I had a long and interesting conversation about job search and executives who look for work, and what makes them tick, and we agreed that those people who are most likely to be looking for work are those who are most effective in an organization; people Molly summed up under the heading change agents.

Those who come into a new job looking to shake up the establishment, ideally for the better, are often the most effective people in an organization, and those most likely to move on sooner than others. They introduce fresh ideas and a new perspective that can improve efficiency, increase productivity, and shake things up in a way that leads to new innovations. Of course, there are pros and cons to introducing change in any situation, and those innovators who shake things up will find allies among those who see the need for something new, and foes among those who like the status quo.

“…but I wouldn’t want to work there!”

How do you spot a bad employer? The interview process could be an easy first tell. Here is a list of tips taken from the Edu411 career site that should provide some obvious clues. Think about these on your next interview:

• Your interviewer is more than a little late and doesn't feel it necessary to apologize.
• It's clear that your interviewer has never looked at your resume or application.
• Your interviewer is constantly called from the meeting to handle an office crisis.
• Your interviewer takes phone calls during your meeting, rarely makes eye contact, and shows little interest in you or what you bring to the table.
• Other workers enter the screening room with pained expressions.
• Your potential boss talks only about his/her accomplishments, and discusses the shortcomings of other staffers.
• The interviewer never focuses on direct skills, but your potential boss says you'll receive specific directives once you're on the job.
• Your interviewer is rude to you and brusque to existing employees. Or, worse, stress sizzles off of subordinates on the interview committee.
• Your interviewer insists on asking personal questions that are not job related about your home or family life, your age, your health or potential disabilities, your race or national origin, or your court and financial records.