Want to Get Ahead? Take 5. Learn to Be Quiet.

Seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? When we want an opportunity or a raise, we need to ask for it. If we’re being mistreated, we need to speak out. When we see wrong being done, we need call attention to it. 

So how can being quiet help us get ahead? Crack this case and reap the benefits! 

Size up the situation 

The workplace is a din of noise. Everyone’s tuned into to multiple channels at the same time: 

• Engaging in live conversation
• Texting and taking cell phone calls
• Checking email on mobile devices 

We believe that staying “in the know” is essential to success, so we’ve become gourmands of information in a buffet without limits.

When everyone around you is gobbling up and spitting out the details, tidbits, and finds, you’ve now given yourself a career edge. 

Ideas and innovation move careers. S/he, who can put the pieces together to solve problems and create something unique, earns the reward. 

Quiet is your ally. 

You don’t miss things when your mind is quiet, you discover them. 

Quiet is a lot of things, particularly the absence of noise, turmoil, agitation, and trouble. What we need for our careers is internal quiet. 

When everyone else keeps their thinking fragmented, swatting at bits and pieces of disjointed communication, you need to use quiet to intensify your focus.  Zone into your internal strategist and set out to make your mark. 

Putting quiet to work 

Quiet is a powerful tool when you use it effectively, so: 

1. Listen and ask—We learn from what we hear, so it’s up to us to be quiet and listen to what others have to say. That’s where the insights are. The better you listen and the more you ask, the more you learn. When we’re quiet, others will talk.
2. Listen to yourself—We spend an amazing amount of time talking to ourselves instead of staying quiet within. It’s better to listen to our inner voice than to think over it. When we quiet our minds, give our subconscious a chance to reveal its insights, it will deliver powerful aha moments. Skeptical? Just try it.
3. Remove distractions—Learn to be alone with yourself. Distractions get in the way of your internal listening. If you’re scoffing at this, think of the last time you sat alone with no one around and nothing to distract you. If you can’t remember that’s a message to you. If you do remember and the experience was uncomfortable, you need to figure out why.
4. Stop forcing thoughts—Self-imposed pressure to come up with new ideas and solutions often becomes internal noise that blocks the quiet you need. If you have to come up with an idea, pronto, do something unrelated to your job: go work out, read a novel, take a walk, or take a shower where many good ideas are revealed!
5. Pick up on vibes—Vibes pierce the quiet. It’s what happens in the spaces between the noise. We get vibes about people, risk, and opportunity. Even when we’re in the thick of things, a quiet mind gathers up those vibes and triggers our next move. When we’re distracted, we miss those vibes or misread them, so it’s in our best interest to stay tuned in. 

Quiet practice 

We’ve been conditioned to run a fast pace. We’ve come to believe that the faster we run the more success we’ll have. Just look at the movers and shakers where you work. Some may have “arrived” by running over people, but most had their wits about them and showcased their focused, clear-headed, and centered way of getting the job done. 

So we need to practice internal quiet. Career success is, in large measure, about differentiating ourselves from others, by standing out through the way we achieve essential outcomes. Not only does learning to harness quiet help you to get ahead, it also helps you the manage stress. Now shush…. 

Photo from jumpinjimmyjava – iKIVA via Flickr

Losing Your Shirt and Other Consequences of Career Naiveté

No one wants to look inept, but sometimes we are. It sticks out like a sore thumb when we: 

• Lack experience and skills
• Don’t know how the game is played
• Align with the wrong people
• Say the wrong things inadvertently
• Suggest ideas that can’t work 

Sure, we can try to hide or finesse our naiveté, but in time, word gets around. 

The good guys and the bad 

If we’re lucky, we work with a boss and colleagues who have been in our shoes and want to help us get our bearings. If not, it’s like being a sitting duck. 

The more competitive our workplace, the less time we have to get from naiveté to savvy. The price of being “stupid” can get steep. 

The business world holds fabulous opportunities along with risks of failure. There are terrific people at all levels of organizations where we find priceless mentors, leaders, and friends. 

The business world can also be a mean street. Survival is a daily concern, employees want desperately to hold onto their jobs, everyone wants to get ahead, and competitors are always lurking. 

If you want a long and successful career, you need to be smart about what’s going on around you. 

Start by not falling for these hollow assurances from your boss or anyone else: 

• Just work hard and the rewards will follow
• You can trust management to have your best interest at heart
• The company leadership’s got everything under control 

Remember: The company watches out for itself first. It takes care of its stakeholders in order of priority, starting with investors and ending with employees. 

So we all need to learn how to read between the lines and figure out how best to align our capabilities with what needs to get done and with the right people. 

Hang onto your shirt 

If you’re wondering if you’re being naïve, ask your self these questions: 

• Do I have a false sense of job security?
• Am I deluding myself about how valuable my job is to the company?
• Is my performance really good or could I be easily replaced by someone better?
• Am I being taken advantage of by my boss and coworkers?
• Have others been promoted over me? If so, do I know why?
• Do I confide too much in people I’m not sure I can trust?
• Am I working for less money than others doing similar or less work?
• Do I really understand what’s driving business decisions? 

The consequences of naiveté are significant and varied: 

• Job loss or stagnation
• Neither promotion nor lateral movement
• Questionable work assignments and/or work load
• Business decline or shuttering, if you’re an entrepreneur
• Personal brand damage by your detractors 

Your career is a precious asset that you invest in everyday. It’s important that you protect it just as you would your hard earned dollars. 

You’re not alone 

Everyone gets burned along the way, some worse than others. When I started out in the race horse breeding business, the veterans could smell my naiveté a mile away. Bloodstock agents, trainers, jockeys, and even buyers found a way to cheat me, but only once. 

As an equine art gallery owner, the artists I represented told me about how they’d been cheated by dealers who stole both their artwork and their commissions. I taught them how to protect themselves by the way I worked with them. 

When I was a corporate manager, I got stung by colleagues who would try to sabotage my projects, scoop an announcement, undercut my influence, and off-load their accountabilities on me. 

Experience turns naiveté into savvy, but only if we figure out how to put it to work in constructive ways. The best thing we can do for ourselves, our careers, and our employers is to work smart on every level. That’s what it means to be business fit, dressed in a well-fitting shirt! 

Photo from h.koppdelaney via Flickr

Want to Serve on a Non-Profit Board? Put Your Business Hat On.

It lifts us up when we do “good” for others: Help our neighbor, donate money to charity, volunteer at an event, or serve on a non-profit board. 

Non-profit board positions are platforms from which we can lead, engage support, and help more people. 

Some people “collect” board appointments to look important and influential. Others can’t get beyond operational details to focus on the long-term. Many are so uncomfortable with risk that they obstruct growth. That’s not what non-profits need. 

Non-profits need board members with a strong business sense. 

A non-profit is a business 

“No, no,” some say. “We’re not a business because:  

• We’re publicly funded.
• We have a mission to fulfill.
• We don’t compete with anyone.
• We don’t need fancy business processes.
• We’re a small agency, more like a family. ”

The reply: 

“You’re a business when you need money from someone else to pay the bills.”

Non-profits are in the business of doing good work. So they need to operate like a business and board members need to ensure it.

The challenge for non-profit boards is to understand how to merge: 

A mission-based model where the: 

• bottom line is social change
• revenue stream comes from donors, grantors and/or members
• work is done by paid (perhaps) and unpaid staff (volunteers)
• approach requires partnering

And the business model where the:

•  bottom line is profit
• the revenue stream comes from customers and/or investors 
• work is done by paid staff 
• approach is competitive 

Plenty of non-profits compete against each other for the same dollars and support, accumulate large surplus dollars, build endowments, and have significant staffs and property. That’s how we know that the business model is alive and well in the mission world of non-profits. 

The mission is your business: It’s what the non-profit exists to do.  

As a board member, your job is to look at the organization’s performance results and determine whether or not they are delivering on the mission. 

Lead: Don’t meddle 

Board members aren’t executive directors. They don’t handle day-to-day, operational matters. Effective board members understand their role is governance, meaning they: 

• Collaborate with the Executive Director/CEO (their employee) If there is no paid staff, the board president and/or executive committee are default leadership staff.
• Raise and/or contribute money
• Provide fiduciary oversight
• Ensure mission advancement 

Board leadership needs to focus on: 

• Defining the realities facing the organization 
• capabilities and risks
• environmental/political conditions
• financials
• Setting direction and communicating with constituencies 
• Demonstrating:
• Ethics and integrity
• Decisiveness and commitment
• Respect for people and viewpoints
• Accountability for outcomes
•  Goal setting that turns good intentions into real outcomes 

As a board member, you make sure the organization doesn’t lose its way. Your job is to treat “doing good work” like any other product or service, using the same rigorous business best practices, tough decision-making, and calculated risk-taking that you’d undertake at a for-profit business.

Make a difference 

Non-profit board positions are precious opportunities to lead with a purpose. If you want a taste of leadership for your career growth, there are few better opportunities. If you want to drive change, non-profit boards are powerful platforms.

The challenges are great. Too many non-profit boards flounder for lack of business acumen, skill, or courage. They need you.

Our communities can’t afford to have its non-profits go out of business or to perform below their capabilities. The work is too valuable. Non-profit organizations are our collective way to better world. Let’s make them better. 

Photo from hoshi7 via Flickr

Baby-sitting Your Job or Owning It? A Career Differentiator

Jobs are precious these days. Most careers are made up of jobs we’ve loved and others that felt like a long trek across the desert with an empty canteen. 

It’s tempting to grouse when we see our jobs as: 

• Boring and repetitive
• Uncreative and confining
• Unchallenging and limiting 

If we’re not complaining that the work isn’t exciting enough, we’re dissing on the boss who isn’t doing something about it. 

It’s our work. 

It would be wonderful to have a boss with the time, energy, and ability to tailor our jobs to fit what we most want to do. Truth is, no one’s doing that for our bosses either. 

Businesses run on the processes and tasks required to make their products and deliver services. They need us to produce results that create the revenue and profit needed to keep it going and us employed. 

This may not be a very sexy scenario but it’s the way it is. 

We are essential to the success of the business and the business is essential to ours. We’re in this together. 

Baby-sitter or owner? 

Baby-sitting for someone else’s kids is a big responsibility, but it’s not the same as being the parent. A baby-sitter spends a specific amount of time with the children, performs basic care duties, gets paid, and goes home. 

When we approach our jobs as just a string of tasks completed over a set period for which we get paid and then go home, we are a bit like a baby-sitter. Our perceived commitment to the lifetime success of the business would appear minimal at best.

 We differentiate ourselves at work in ways that get us noticed when it’s evident that we truly own our work, whether glamorous or mundane, out front or behind the scenes, challenging or simple.   

So, I’ll repeat: “It’s your job, so own it.” 

When you work your job with zeal like it’s your own business, you demonstrate its value, bring attention to it challenges, showcase your capabilities, win the regard of colleagues, and set a positive example. It gets you noticed. 

Your job—your business 

If you haven’t looked at your job from an entrepreneur’s perspective before, here are several business aspects that you own: 

Products and services: Your output (i.e., data, ideas, reports, transactions) is what you’re selling to your boss, coworkers, and perhaps customers. So the quality of your work product is a measure of your contribution to your main customer—your employer. The better is it, the more value you’re adding.

Customer relationships: Your internal customers (boss, coworkers, peers, other departments) make or break your ability to succeed. They either applaud your work or criticize it, contributing to either a positive or negative brand. You need positive relationships that become your loyal support foundation.

Marketing: Your work reflects on the company and you. Everything you do needs to reinforce the standards, quality, integrity, and principles that underpin the business and your personal brand. A good reputation is currency for your future growth.

Fiscal Responsibility: You have an impact on the company’s bottom line by the way you use resources, apply your time productively, adhere to rules, and protect company property. You don’t need to be spending budgeted dollars directly to affect the bottom line.

Administration: Every business has back office work (reports, filing, records, accounting) that ensures its efficiency and effectiveness. In your job you need to be known as someone who meets deadlines, is accurate, and careful about your paperwork. 

Freeing yourself 

When we own our jobs, we end up freeing ourselves from the idea that we are somehow under the thumb of the company. We recognize that the work we do is in our control, a reflection of our ability to get results though our own energies. 

When we own our jobs, the leadership sees a difference in us, in our ability to understand the business, and our part in it. It showcases our skills and abilities in unique ways. That can be the perfect formula for your next move—up! 

Photo from twodolla via Flickr

Gutsy or Wimpy? Your Choice | Purposeful Risk-taking

 “What am I made of?” Ever asked yourself that question? The answer is often elusive. 

We face career tests all the time. Our bosses may assign us to: 

• Moderate a contentious meeting
• Host an important customer from out of town
• Analyze mounds of disjointed data
• Hire, train, and supervise a group of interns 

When these challenges are outside our jobs, we may need to stretch, navigate uncharted waters, and overcome self-doubt.

 Our results can either help or hurt our prospects for career growth. 

Careers are a crap shoot. 

That means that there are times when you have to roll the dice. If you don’t take chances, you won’t progress. 

Career risk-taking tests our: 

• Self-confidence
• Skills and knowledge
• Relationship with coworkers
• Decision-making and judgment
• Tolerance for stress 

When our boss pushes us out of our comfort zone, we want to believe that s/he: 

• Wouldn’t ask us to do something we couldn’t do
• Will have our backs
• Thinks this is the right time for us 

So you’re ready to go, right? 

Truth is: plenty of people wimp out. They make excuses or explain: 

• why they aren’t ready
• why no one will accept them in that role
• how the risks are too high 

Here come our fear of failure, lack of confidence, and nagging insecurities to block us again. Even coworkers with what look like strong egos and plenty of swagger feel their blood run cold when faced with a high-risk career assignment. 

It’s about the stakes.   

There’s no risk if nothing’s on the line. When we know we’re wagering our career future on a big assignment, we pause. Instead of believing that we’ll win, we worry that we’ll lose. 

This is when you must ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen if I flub this?” (The real answer is never as dire as the one in your head.) Then ask, “Why do I think I would?” (Get ready to stand there thinking for a while.) 

I was promoted to director of customer service at a time of significant upheaval in the department. I was also a fish out of water, knowing precious little about our customer call center, collections, and dispatching. The company was carrying over $64 million in overdue accounts and facing testy questions from regulators. 

I was in the job for eight weeks when my boss (the senior VP) told me I needed to make a board of director’s presentation on these issues. I was panic-stricken. 

I knew the bare minimum about how the corporate financials were being impacted. Board appearance protocol was completely foreign to me, and the internal political pressure was daunting. I could have begged off but decided to gut it out. 

I was more than weak-kneed as I waited “on-call.” My prepared information was solid. (The executives made sure of that!) It was the Q & A period that worried me. 

I made my best effort, but more than once, corporate execs leaped to my aid without making me look bad. They often anticipated that I would not know the context for board questions and headed off awkward moments. 

I survived this ordeal and so did my career. It wasn’t my best performance, but it was good enough. 

The upside for me was the respect I got from employees and colleagues for having the guts to stand up and be accountable for the business functions on my watch. 

Showing courage carries weight no matter what the outcome.

 Go for it. 

It’s not easy to stick your neck out, but it’s necessary. I’ve lost count of all the stomachaches I’ve had because I was unsure of myself. I still get them, though not as often. 

You just can’t let your doubts stymie you, unless you want to stay where you are forever. 

You get real points for trying. So here are 100 from me to start you off. The rest are up to you!

Photo from debaird at Flickr

What’s the Word on You? | Reputation as Career Stalker

We’ve all heard lead off questions like these, “Did you know that: 

• The candidate you’re interviewing is a big partier? Just look at his Facebook page.
• The customer service supervisor stood up for her employees being criticized by the marketing department?
• No one working at SAS ever wants to leave? The working conditions there are fabulous.
• You can always count on Alicia and Mark to help you, even when they’re swamped?” 

What’s being said about you? 

We’ve been building our reputations for years. We’re all legendary for something that we’ve done or failed to do. 

In business parlance, it’s about personal brand-building. People describe us, label us, and categorize us so they know what to do about us when we cross their paths. 

We’re all positioned to take charge of our reputations and manage them.

 If we don’t know what’s being said about us, we don’t know what to enhance and what to fix. When it comes to our careers, there are plenty of signs when our reputations aren’t the best: 

• Reference letters we request are weak or not provided
• Our performance reviews are lackluster, especially on the behavioral side
• No one asks us for input or seeks our association
• Opportunity is slow in coming or ends in disappointment 

Everyone weighs-in all the time about what they believe we stand for—our peers, supervisors, customers, and even suppliers. We’re all someone’s paparazzo and they ours. Their truth is often just what they see. 

Own it! 

Building a reputation to be proud of requires our attention, commitment, and discipline. It’s a reflection of things we value most and live by: 

• Our principles—like not looking the other way in the face of wrong
• Code of conduct—like not being rude or abusive when we’re poked
• Integrity—like not cheating, lying, or ignoring the rules
• Productivity—always giving your best effort and then some
• Appearance—presenting yourself as a professional, no matter what your job 

Like it or not, each of these leaves impressions that stick and accumulate. 

I’m sure you remember kids from high school whom you thought were untrustworthy, bullying, caring, high achieving, or enthusiastic. 

When you go back to a reunion, don’t those memories come back before you replace them? 

Sometimes it’s not a reunion but a business encounter that resurfaces our earlier reputations. 

I’d been a high school teacher for 10 years before switching to a business career. I was amazed when these events happened: 

• I discovered that a supervisor in a call center I was managing had been a former student.
• As a consultant, I was proposing services to a non-profit leadership staff when one of the managers gasped. She suddenly realized I’d been her teacher.
• I got an e-mail from a woman who figured out after several “close encounters” and conversations about me with others that she was a student of mine while in another state. 

We were people who reconnected after more than 20 years. Because our shared reputations had been positive, we easily became champions for each other in our careers. 

Imagine how this might have turned out had we carried negative reputations. 

Protect your “self”! 

Who we are matters to others, so our reputations should matter to us.  If you don’t know how you’re regarded, ask people whose opinions you trust, not just people who’ll tell you what you want to hear. Talk to friends, coworkers, your boss, family members, and neighbors. 

When we know how what our reputations are, we can make the right changes and build on our strengths. 

That might mean reconsidering whom you affiliate with at work, how you act, what you say, the way you treat people, and how you respond to change. 

Please take time routinely for introspection. Decide how you want to be thought of. Make self-discovery a high priority. It’s the best gift you’ll ever give yourself. A great reputation has long-lasting, asset value, exactly what your career needs to grow.

Employee Coaching: Reality or Just Talk? | A Wake-up Call

Careers are about growth. The better we become, the more options we’ll have. 

We expect our career growth to follow these steps: 

• Take jobs that align with our skills and knowledge
• Complete training on processes and technical requirements
• Apply learned skills and knowledge
• Implement performance feedback
• Repeat these steps 

This is the “science” of career growth, but that’s only half of it. 

It’s the art of doing your job well that delivers lasting success. 

Training programs teach job mechanics and requirements for representative situations handled by “typical” employees who aren’t you. 

Your success is influenced by your work ethic, communications skills, interpersonal behaviors, values, and personality. These are your art. 

We need coaching 

Our supervisors (coaches) arrange our training to make sure we know how to play (do our work). While we’re in the game (our jobs), they watch to see how we do. As we play, they support, correct, encourage, reinforce, and direct. That’s coaching at work in an ideal world. 

Alas, the pity! In the real world, supervisors aren’t doing much employee coaching, using excuses like: 

• It’s too time-consuming (or not worth the time).
• Employees are uncomfortable with my individual attention.
• I don’t have the skills (or the patience) to coach, so I’ll do more harm than good. 

It’s time to wake up and do what needs to be done. 

Without coaching, there’s floundering. 

The pace of our professional growth is a function of the amount and quality of coaching we receive. 

Employee productivity and morale flat-lines when we don’t grow. Supervisors with stagnant employees will deal eventually with eroding performance.  

Unbeknownst to some supervisors, it’s the employee who does the work associated with the coaching. The supervisor as coach provides support, encouragement, and direction in areas where employees aren’t performing “artfully.” The employee transfers the direction on how to improve from his/her “coach” to the job. 

Everyone wins when supervisors coach. 

Be systematic. 

Keep your coaching process simple, focusing on what the employee needs to do better to move forward. Remember: You’re coaching for career growth. 

Start by focusing initially on no more than 3 employees. 

1. Schedule individual meetings and ask each employee to bring a list of 3 possible areas for coaching. Prepare your own list of three.
2. Start by asking the employee  to share his/her list and the reasons behind the choices. Follow with your list and reasons.
3. Agree on which areas will be addressed.
4. Ask the employee what specific actions s/he will take to improve.
5. Ask what kind of coaching support s/he will need from you. Agree on what’s reasonable.
6. Identify how you will both know if there is improvement—measures, observations, feedback from others
7. Establish a timetable for meetings (Put the employee in charge of scheduling and running future meetings.) 

If the employee is not committed to his/her own growth, then your coaching time is better invested in someone else. So don’t chase after employees showing no initiative. 

Even as you’re coaching these employees for growth, you’re still providing performance feedback, formally and informally, to all employees, intervening when there are performance problems. There’s no rest for the weary! But it’s all good.

Recognize achievement 

The best part of coaching is seeing the growth. By recognizing the employee’s successful efforts, you: 

• Build self-confidence and sustain motivation to continue to grow
• Encourage others to want to be coached
• Start to build a culture of peer coaching and self-developing teams 

Recognition can be a hand-written note from you, a gift card, or a formal celebration with his/her team, depending on conditions. 

Make coaching a reality 

A lot of organizations give lip-service to coaching. Employees know when they’re being sold a bill of goods. If employees are told the company believes in coaching for growth, then deliver. 

I bet you’ve coached a child on how to tie his/her shoes or a friend on how to use a social media widget. Coaching isn’t rocket science; it’s support, direction, encouragement, and guidance. Not only can you do this, it’s your obligation. Done well, it becomes part of your legacy.

So please give coaching for employee growth your best effort. It’s personally satisfying and very good business.

Career Going Nowhere? Ask for What You Want

Do you keep repeating the same old lines about your career?

“I work hard but I’m going nowhere. I want to: 

• Earn more money
• Be promoted
• Get interesting assignments
• Work somewhere else.” 

Who are you actually saying this to? Yourself, close friends, coworkers, and even strangers at a party (how sad is that?). Is it helping? My guess is, “no.” 

Exactly what do you want, anyhow? 

We have an easier time saying what we don’t want than what we do. 

At work, no one is assigned to read our minds. (Where’s Johnny Carson’s Carnac when we need him?) 

We’ve likely spent little or no time thinking, planning, or positioning ourselves to be considered for real opportunities. On top of that, we haven’t told anyone specifically what we want or asked for help. 

Now what? 

We have to plan our own course: That includes making decisions and acting on them, being fully invested in outcomes, and not being afraid. 

Start with these steps which aren’t as easy as they sound: 

• Decide on the kind of work you want to do and where
• Find out the salary growth potential of that work
• Understand the progression line of jobs that you’ll need to follow
• Look at growth opportunities over the next 5 years
• Commit to developing your knowledge, skills, and experience 

This is the front work that hardly anyone does. 

Be decisive. Commit to a specific career path for the next 5 years, even though what you want may come sooner or a little later. Follow your plan, capitalizing on opportunities and learning everything you can.  

Now, ask for what you want! 

“Asking” makes what you say you want real. That scares some people.   

It also means meeting face-to-face with the people who can help you, saying the words, and committing to a course of action. You’re now entering into a unique kind of partnership. 

Your first “asking” conversation would likely be with your boss or an influential colleague and should be big picture focused like this: 

“I want to grow in my career and be recognized for my contributions. I’m committed to doing the work that’s necessary. I specifically want to position myself for opportunities (like______) and am looking for guidance/support/mentoring (depending on whom you’re talking to) from you. Would you be willing?” (The follow up ask: “If not, can you suggest someone else?”) 

As things start to unfold, you’ll want to have targeted “asking” conversations with your boss and others like these: 

1. “I would like to create more stretch goals for myself this year so that I can continue to demonstrate my value. I would appreciate your input/support on these 4 new goals.” 

2. “During the year I took on additional duties outside my job description which was a cost-savings to the department. I would like to be considered for a raise and/or an exceptional contribution award for that work. Is that feasible?” (The follow up ask:” If not, what will it take to get a salary increase?”). 

3. “I would like to be considered for an XYZ position when a vacancy opens up. What additional knowledge/skills/experiences should I work on to make me the strongest candidate. Would you be willing to give me routine feedback?” 

4. “I’ve always wanted to participate in the development of a new product launch. I see that the company will be forming a team this summer. Would you be willing to appoint/recommend me?” 

Asking is the first step: Reminding (not nagging) is the next. We need to keep our wants and expectations visible and in the right context. 

Remember, it’s your career 

We don’t always get what we ask for, but that doesn’t mean we give up. However, if things don’t progress according to our timetables, we may need a change of venue! 

It never hurts to ask. The worst that can happen is that someone says “no,” an important bit of information for your on-going decision making. 

How about taking a fresh look at the direction of your career? Then ask specifically for something you want. You might actually hear “yes”!

Survive Workplace Bureaucracy by “Orbiting the Giant Hairball”

Sounds a bit gross, I’ll admit. A giant hairball is not your typical metaphor for the workings of a business. But are you in one? I was! 

In 1996 Gordon MacKenzie, a 30-year veteran creativity manager at Hallmark, wrote his timeless book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace. He’d spent his career resisting the gravitational pull of endless corporate controls that can suffocate creative people. 

Death by rules 

Rules are supposed to protect things from going awry, spinning out of control, and turning into chaos. Rules come from bosses, lawyers, auditors, HR, finance, regulators…everywhere. 

For years I worked with creative people who tried to resist the corporate hairball. They’d show me old files on terrific improvement ideas they’d proposed and had rejected. 

“Why do you keep all this stuff?” I asked. 

“Because,” they answered, “one day the same need will come around again and maybe this time I’ll get the okay.” 

By then, I suspect there’ll be way too many hairs in the hairball for that to happen. 

I’m always reading about the frustrations of employees who can’t seem to get corporate leadership to try something new. There’s always a reason why “we’re not ready for that” or “we’ll need to get approval from legal or financial or the VP or Mother Goose” before we can move ahead. 

I talk to small business people who don’t/won’t give social media marketing a chance because they don’t have policies or protections or processes for integrating it into their operations. Those hairballs stand in the way of business of growth.

The way out 

We get up every morning realizing that we have to make our careers work, at least for one more day. We can choose to believe we’re hairball captives or that there is a way to make our creative mark outside the constraints.

Mackenzie gives us an answer: 

“Orbiting is responsible creativity: vigorously exploring and operating beyond the Hairball of the corporate mindset…all the while remaining connected to the spirit of the corporate mission. 

To find Orbit…is to find a place of balance where you benefit from the physical, intellectual, and philosophical resources of the organization without becoming entombed in the bureaucracy….” 

Can you do it? Do you have it in you to figure out how to work within the system without abandoning your desire to introduce new ideas? 

It takes courage and political smarts to forge ahead successfully. Part of orbiting the giant hairball is to understand your ability to counteract the forces of corporate gravitational pull. 

A trial orbit 

Let’s say you have a great new process improvement  idea, but every time you bring it up you’re told that the company isn’t ready. What to do? 

1. Study all the “rules” that are in your way, learning their origin and who’s invested in them.
2. Think like a lawyer and uncover where the rule’s soft spots are.
3. Quietly find people who think your idea would work “if it weren’t for those darn rules.” Educate them about what you’ve uncovered.
4. Develop a compelling business case that will get management’s attention.
5. Volunteer to lead an ad hoc, exploratory effort to develop the idea further without exposure to the company.
6. Engage others in voicing their excitement about the possibilities until the “buzz” makes a “yes” irresistible. 

Stay your course! 

A great career is about balancing what you need for fulfillment at work with what’s expected. Our job is to invest “enough individuality to counteract the pull of Corporate Gravity….Just enough to stay out of the Hairball,” says MacKenzie. 

It’s easy to let our creative selves get caught up in the hairball when we don’t pay attention to conditions around us or fail to ask the right questions. Our careers are one way we leave our mark on the world. I’d rather leave mine orbiting! 

Orbiting the Giant Hairball is available on line as a PDF on some sites when you Google the title. It’s a cool book with amazing illustrations and anecdotes, a wild ride demonstrating the joys of the orbit.

Have you every felt trapped by the corporate hairball? What did you do? I’d love to hear your story!

 

Did You Know? Career Skill-Building Begins at Home.

Got a life? Then you’ve got a gold mine. Why? Because your life is crammed with opportunities to build the skills you need for a successful career. 

Don’t believe me? 

Think of a “crazy time” in your life when you had to contend with challenging situations like starting college, moving into a house or apartment, getting a divorce or out of debt. 

Those situations require real management skills although that may not be what you’re thinking in the heat of the moment. 

Every life challenge teaches us something important about ourselves, other people, and the way the world works. When we don’t learn from our experiences, we squander an opportunity to expand the arsenal of skills and insights our career growth depends on. 

Life lessons build skills. 

In my late 20’s, I, a country-loving girl, convinced my then husband, a Brooklyn, New York native, to rent an old farmhouse which had been the family home of an elderly, reclusive woman, recently deceased.  Prior to being rented, this remote homestead on 15 acres had been cleaned and painted from top to bottom. 

We fell in love with the place immediately, committed to a one-year lease, and moved in with our two show dogs and a cat. 

Let the adventure and skill-building lessons begin: 

Learned Lesson #1: Due diligence minimizes surprises. 

On moving day, I went into the basement and noticed that the concrete walls were almost completely black. So I looked closer and to my horror discovered that they were covered with tens of thousands of millipedes, little wormy creatures with lots of legs. Dial, Terminix, asap! So much for a pre-rental inspection. 

Next, during the early onset of winter, I noticed that there was scrap-able frost on the inside of the bathroom windows. Awaken one brutal awareness: There was no insulation anywhere in this house and no storm windows. Bad news! 

It’s important to check things out before sealing any deal! 

Learned Lesson #2: Risk management reduces calamity.

At one point, the realtor/superintendent sent his freelance, furnace serviceman to maintain the oil burner. This guy spent about a half-hour noodling around in the basement, pushing the reset button back and forth, and still the furnace wouldn’t start. So he touched a match to it and started an oil fire. 

He calmly asked, “Do you know the number of your fire company?” Answer, “No.” “Well, you should call them,” he replied. 

It took the fire company three hours to find the place. By then the house was filled with black smoke, but nothing worse. After several hours of huge fans sucking the smoke out, the calamity was over. 

Having people in the ready, who can bail you out of trouble, is smart business. 

Learned Lesson #3: Problem-solving requires initiative. 

As the winter wore on, so did the miseries of being cold while not wanting to go broke heating an un-insulated house. Something had to be done. 

We made a deal with the realtor/superintendent to share the cost of making operational a fireplace in the dining room where we would live for four months, sleeping in a trundle bed with our pets. Lovely, eh? 

It became my job to start the early morning fires in that freezing cold room. The fire wood, stored in the adjacent summer kitchen, was damp and hard to light. 

I was teaching high school at the time and a kid in my class worked at a bowling alley. When I explained my plight, he asked if I’d like him to bring me discarded bowling pins to use as kindling. You betcha! Compressed sawdust covered with lacquer starts in a flash. 

Engagement of resources and timely decision-making create good results.  

And so it goes…. 

Our lives provide endless experiences that let us develop management skills away from the office’s watchful eyes. Through those life experiences, we build our skills, insights, resilience, tolerance for stress, and courage. Experiential learning bolsters our confidence and enhances our credibility. The skills you develop at home and bring to the job will enrich your career. Seize the day! 

Do you have a story to tell about skills you learned from your life experiences? Thanks.