Dear Dana, I’ve recently been promoted to an executive position in my company and I read your article about how senior women can help change corporate culture regarding gender and sexual discrimination and harassment. In my new position, I now see things that are walking the line of sexism and unconscious bias. Your article was insightful, but I’m a man. What do you suggest I do to help change our macho corporate culture from the top without undermining myself and being positioned as a goodie-two-shoes? I really want to help create change. My daughter is just entering the workforce and I can see that the culture my peers are creating would be unfair and uncomfortable for her. – In a Bind in Boston
Dear In a Bind,
Thank you for your inquiry! You’ve identified a key issue. If more men asked the question you’re posing here to change the corporate culture from the inside, we’d see more change happen faster! Men and women both have a role to play in creating gender diverse workplaces where everyone feels comfortable contributing their best. Women are more aware of the problem than men right now and I believe that when men become more fully engaged we’ll start moving quickly towards a solution.
The core of my advice is for you to learn more about unconscious bias so you can help other men and women see their unwitting contributions to unintentional workplace discrimination. Use this knowledge to demonstrate to your peers and direct reports what it looks like to lead and achieve results without resorting to the kinds of bullying and disrespectful behavior the current culture permits. The more you treat others with respect while at the same time showing that this does not mean being weak or a “goody-two-shoes” the more others can begin to sign on to the culture shift you represent. Below I’ve given you three ways to begin to think about how you can shape the culture generally and with respect to the subtle forms of discrimination and bias you’re seeing. (more…)
Maybe you’re a little bored. Maybe you’re too comfortable. Maybe you hate your boss. Maybe you’re about to be laid off. Maybe you’re just operating below your top capacity. Maybe you’re not sure it’s time for a job search, but you’re thinking about it anyway.
Wherever you’re at, even if you’re relatively new in a job, it’s never too early to ask yourself, “when is the right time to start a job search?”
Your answer should always be a personal one, and it’s never all about the job itself. There have been times in my career and my husband’s career where we both “hung in there” with work that wasn’t our dream job because other things in life–family commitments, personal needs, the balance in our home life—were a more important use of our energy than starting up a job search.
BUT, whenever I was in that situation I was always keeping my ears open for opportunistic opportunities to move into jobs that were a better fit for my lifestyle, ambitions and needs. And a couple of times, those opportunities found me! My husband had a similar experience.
When you do this, stay open to possibilities, recruiters call you a “Passive Job Seeker,” which just means that you’re not actively seeking new employment, but you’d be open to moving if the right opportunity came along. With today’s constantly in-flux job market, we should really all be passive job seekers. And if you know it’s time for a move, then by all means, become active!
Plus, in my experience, the secret to career satisfaction has been always considering myself in some form of “career transition.” Here are the three phases I’ve seen in my own experience and my clients’. Which phase are you in and are you putting yourself “out there” in the right way for the phase you’re in?
When you’re enjoying your job and growing, you want to be sure to get the most out of it. Happily Employed is a great time to put this particular job at the center of your career-life intentions and personal vision. This helps you perform the job you love with an intentional focus on how it’s contributing to your longer-term career vision of success. At this phase you’re a passive job seeker. The way you present yourself to the world can help you plant great seeds for your next job search:
Network to succeed today and build connections you can call on later
Make sure your LinkedIn contact rules* are set to “career opportunities,” so you hear about openings that might be good for you to think about moving to next—when you’re ready
*LinkedIn is always updating their navigation, which can make it tough to find this setting. As of now, you can find the setting by doing a search for “edit contact settings” and look under “communications” and “messages from members”.
At some point in everyone’s career the job gets a little routine or you see a life change on the horizon that will make your current job less satisfactory. When this kind of itch starts, it’s important that you get proactive about the beginning phases of a job search. When you’re proactive, you start doing some of the legwork to research the kinds of opportunities that would make a good next step. And the good news is that you can do it at a comfortable pace, without the underlying panic that a deadline is approaching. At this phase the way you present yourself to the world can help you plant great seeds for your next job search:
Keep networking –for your current job and with the intention to gather data on your next career move
Start researching job trends and opportunities in your field and begin to construct your idea of the “perfect job”, which will guide your efforts to find such a thing
Stage 3: Start Looking (Active Job Seeker)
When it’s time to go from passive to active status in your job search, it’s best if you have a good idea about what you want (see Phase 2) and can start the process of getting it. This is when you tweak your online profile and resume into shape to share with recruiters and network contacts that can introduce you to people in a hiring mode. You want to do your homework and be ready to go to an informational or job interview on 24 hours notice (or less). At this phase you’re actively talking to contacts* about what kind of opportunity you’re looking for, researching opportunities online and asking your network to introduce you to people who can help you. Make sure you’re:
Networking every day
Constantly refining your online profile and resume to stay current with what you’re learning about how to present yourself for the jobs that you want most.
* If you don’t want your current employer to know you’re on the hunt, be extra careful about who you tell about your job search. Make sure you tell people you trust to be discreet. Don’t submit your resume to large online databases because (1) your employer might find you there and (2) most people don’t find jobs that way anyway.
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Coaching Tips: How to Avoid the Most Common Career Mistakes
Executive coaching is the new state-of-the-art for career development. It’s like having a professional mentor–but much more.
I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable.” ― John Russell, Managing Director, Harley―Davidson Europe Ltd.
Traditionally executive coaching supports very senior leaders, so most of us don’t have much experience with the process. That model is changing, however, with the availability of more group coaching and online resources available to individuals and companies alike. So no matter what your level, it might be a good time to explore what executive coaching is, and what it’s not. Here are some truths about Executive Coaching. (more…)
Every woman reaches a point at least once in her life (most of us, many more), where the frustration of sexual discrimination, subtle undermining or personal self-sabotage we learned at the knee of the dominant culture smacks us in the face. You know it. It’s that moment of wordless disbelief, where we grit our teeth and hang for a moment on the brink of eruption. It’s the moment we stand on the edge between power and powerlessness.
I’ve felt it before when I saw myself and other women discriminated against for promotions and kept my mouth shut. Even though I don’t keep my trap shut in these instances any more, it happened to me again when I found myself procrastinating on recruiting speakers for a TEDx Women event InPower Women was co-sponsoring because I was unconsciously afraid of standing in my own power. How could I DO this to myself?!?!!? Was it possible I was unconsciously contributing to sexual discrimination in my professional community? (more…)
Every time I do a leadership training seminar at least one person in the room always has the same light bulb go off when I introduce the Conflict Management idea of RIGHT vs. RIGHT, described in Chris McGoff’s The PRIMES. You can see it in their eyes when they are able to perceive an alternative to making every disagreement conclude with a winner and loser. They smile and you can almost tell that a weight just lifted off their shoulders because they now understand how to access more power through their leadership style. Immediately, they can see how to achieve a win-win in almost every conversation.
As the job market tightens, and growth plans become constrained by the inability to hire people, many executives are talking about the importance of employee turnover and engagement. On the one hand I’m happy to see this. Employee well-being is key to a healthy business. However, I’m dismayed to see that, while the issue is front and center in strategic discussions, based on many of the messages in my inbox from clients and prospects looking for new jobs, so few employees seem to feel cared-for as a result.
Of course, my experience with unappreciated employees is anecdotal. As a coach I tend to interface with clients who are either in the best situation (high-potentials who are being groomed for greater things) and the worst situation (sick of bad bosses and going-nowhere jobs) so I’m not pretending to see a scientific sample. That said, Gallup is still reporting that 85% of global employees are disengaged, 51% of U.S. employees are looking for jobs and only 5% of employees with 10+ years tenure are engaged.
If you’re out to build something great with your business, these figures should be sobering.
What does engagement really look like?
I know talent development executives who read these stats and feel hopeless. People in companies with skyrocketing turnover rates have told me, “I’m not even sure I know what employee engagement looks like anymore.” So I thought I’d tell you about Bob.
Bob is a fictitious millennial made up of several real-life millenials I know personally.
Bob loves his job. He is getting his M.A. at night and working 10 hour days. He wouldn’t have it any other way and is helping recruit his friends to work at his company. I asked Bob why he is willing to work so hard and promote his company when he’s got so many demands on his time. Here is what he says he loves most about his job:(more…)
Recently I posted a video on how to future proof your career, but I only addressed the career planning aspects of how to prepare for an uncertain future. As an executive and career coach, I also see the personal toll and challenges that people encounter when creating a “Plan B” in case of reorganizations, layoffs and other hard-to-prepare-for disruptions. Most of these personal challenges come in the form of various kinds of discomforts in dealing with change. In the video below I address each of these core challenges and make some key coaching recommendations about how to future proof yourself.
Do you know the feeling when you’ve had a big “win” at work? When you’ve served with your whole heart doing something you love? It’s pretty exhilarating, right? That feeling doesn’t have to be fleeting. It’s possible to capture it every day when follow your passion and work for your “hire purpose.”
If you’re like most professionals, you’re looking for more than simply long-term job stability. You probably want to do meaningful work and be valued for who you ARE, not just for what you can PRODUCE. In other words, you’re seeking a career that generates passion, not just a paycheck.
Let’s face it. Today’s employers are doing their best to stay competitive. That means they want to keep people in roles where they are successful, whether or not that role fits their career goals. But don’t judge employers so quickly. It’s actually not their fault. Most leadership books tell executives to promote people based on their strengths. The assumption is that if someone is STRONG at something, they naturally want to do it? Right? Wrong! There are plenty of tasks we do well but don’t give us energy. (more…)
Reorganizations, layoffs and new (bad) bosses, oh my! It seems like every day I hear about people who were in stable jobs they thought they’d have for a long time when their work situation is disrupted and they found themselves feeling unprepared for a newly uncertain future. Most of the people I hear about have not taken action to create a future proof career. Today it was a government worker who thought she was in a job for life, until she learned she had two hours to clear out her desk (along with about 1000 other workers, nothing personal.) Now, I am a coach so I am probably prone to hear more of these things than the average bear, but these anecdotes track with what I’m reading about the workforce and the job market in general. Change is a-coming, even if it hasn’t already hit you, personally.
Here’s a short, 10-minute video with my core advice for how to future-proof your career.
Whatever you’ve planned for your career, plan again. I say this because I’ve noticed a trend lately among my individual and corporate clients: whatever they planned for the next year is changing as fast as they can get ready for what they thought was going to happen, but doesn’t. Doing more research into how technology is advancing quickly and challenging us to lead and manage in new ways has confirmed that the traditional idea of “career planning” is pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird (even though Harvard Business Review still believes in the 5 year career plan!)
Unfortunately, unforeseen (and some foreseen) changes are impacting the job market and people’s individual careers more quickly than they can “plan” for them. Here’s what the unable-to-plan for career reality looks like to most of us:
Jobs you “grow out of” in a year or two
Job opportunities you were promised that never materialize
Layoffs and reorgs that hit you (or close colleagues) out of the blue
Business/career development strategies that used to work, now don’t
Here are the things that I see people do to weave career planning into their everyday lives to help them deal with ongoing change and an unpredictable future.
Look for a new job every year
Does it surprise you to learn that the average job tenure is 3.7 years in the private sector? If you’ve been at your job for a few years it may be time to start your next job search anyway.
Why look for a job every year? Although no employer wants to hire someone who’s going to leave in a year, just because you look for a new job doesn’t mean you need to take one, does it? The point is not to change jobs every year but to plan to be doing work next year that’s different from what you’re doing right now. This can take several forms including stepping up to new challenges and opportunities next year that you’re not ready or able to take on right now, positioning yourself for an internal promotion or finding a dream job.
When you take on the challenge of always planning to be in a “new” job next year, your planning horizon moves closer. You’ll pay more attention to what results you can produce in the short term (and how it positions you for something new). You’ll start paying more attention to what skills and experience employers are seeking for the jobs you want to be doing next year, which helps you seek training opportunities and new experiences. It makes your networking more goal-directed and relevant to both your current job and the job you think you want next year (networking can help you focus on exactly what you do want to be doing in the future.)
You can do all these things whether you change jobs next year or not. This practice will keep you sharp and aware of what makes you competitive in the employment market, and thanks to the Internet, staying abreast of employment opportunities has never been easier!
Always have a motivating vision of success and tell your boss
Putting your head down and doing a good job is always a good thing and it used to be a decent career strategy. People who produce good results create more opportunities for themselves, right? Sure. Sometimes. But when doing the work blinds you to trends and changes that may affect your job or career, it’s not a good thing at all. It can make you complacent in your current skill set, for example, and distract you from developing new skills in your current job. Also, many employers see someone who just does good work and doesn’t appear to aspire to more as someone they don’t need to invest in.
You don’t want to create that impression! You want your boss to know what you’re striving for. Ideally s/he will help you gain the experience and training opportunity to become better at what you do and get ready for what you’ll do next.
Of course, you may or may not trust your boss with this information, so take this advice with a grain of salt. Some bosses will use it against you or think you’ve got one foot out the door. My advice in this case is (1) confide to your boss about the skills you’d like to work on that will help you do your current job better and contribute to the team and (2) get a coach to help you with the rest of it! Whichever route you choose, don’t get caught blindsided because you never spoke up about your goals.
Set aside small amounts of career development and networking time every week and every month
Of course you don’t always have time to be thinking ahead when today’s work and life takes so much out of you. But I guarantee you that if you set aside 30 minutes a week to think ahead, and 1 hour a month to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going, you’ll start moving closer to your future more comfortably and quickly.
Here’s a weekly 15-minute checklist to put in your planner:
What meetings do I already have coming up this week that I can use to help me move toward my goals? (Add a career-related intention to your calendar items to remind you)
What ONE activity or conversation can I add to my week that is primarily career-related (e.g., shoot an email to an old boss to see if she will be at the conference next month and wants to meet for coffee)
What ONE new opportunity (e.g., training, job opening, industry event) can I research this week (schedule the research time on your calendar)
Here’s a monthly reflection exercise to put in your calendar on a recurring basis (1 hour):
What career-related activities did I accomplish last month?
What did I learn?
Are my career intentions still solid or do I need to adjust them?
Next month when I do my check in, what do I want to have learned that I don’t know now?
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Coaching Tips: How to Avoid the Most Common Career Mistakes
