Tag Archives: Success

May 24, 2012 · 11:17 pm

Are You a Good Fit For Your Organization?

What is the Culture of Your Organization?

Two key components of managing your career to success are to know yourself well and to understand your organizational environment.  The next step is to evaluate your fit within your organizational culture.  All organizations have cultures–like personalites.  The culture of an organization is like the water that fish swim in. The people who work in the organization are pretty much unaware of the culture on a daily basis.  It surrounds them and drives a lot of the behavior, it includes the unwritten rules and the things that are important, the values, the rituals and the history.   It is very likely that you know a lot about the culture without really realizing that you do.  This exercise will help you see your behavior within the context of the organization.

Evaluate Your Behaviors

One good way to evaluate your fit in the organization is to first assess your behaviors, like decisiveness or leadership, on a continuum and then to do the same assessment looking through the lens of what the organization rewards in that behavior.  Take a list of behaviors like those below and first mark where you believe that you are on the continuum between the two extremes of the behavior.  Go with your gut.  Try not to answer according to where you “should” be, but rather where you believe you are.  Then make a mark on the same continua according to where you believe your organization wants you to be.  Think about what you’ve heard from managers, in 360 assessments, in reviews.  Think about the people in your organization who are obviously successful and highly thought of–where does their behavior fit? Even if you aren’t completely right about what your organization wants, you will be able to identify the biggest discrepancies.

Behavior continuum analysis

Once you have marked where you think you are and where you think the organization wants to you to be, connect each set of marks like in the example below.  This will provide you with a graphic that shows you where the gaps are between where your behavior is and what the organization’s norm is.  For example, if you look at the continuum Optimistic . . . Pessimistic or at the bottom, Change Leader . . . Change Resister, you see that there is a gap.

Example of behavior continuum evaluation

PDF Version of Worksheet

Address The Gaps Between Your Behaviors and the Cultural Norms

Once you are aware of the gaps, then you can decide what you want to do about them.  You have several choices:

  1. You can do nothing.  You can decide this is who you are and you aren’t willing to change to fit better in your organization.
  2. You can decide to change your behaviors (remember, behavior is not WHO you are).  Think about the way you are different at your boss’ staff meeting than at home, or how you are different at church than you are at girls-night-out.  You can change your behavior without changing who you are.  When you learn to change your behavior, you have more control over your career.
  3. You can be selective about which behaviors you want to change.  Which behavior have you heard the most about?  Which one do you think would be the easiest to work on (it is always best to start with baby steps)?

If you decide that you want to change a behavior, here are some steps that will help:

  • Observe others who have the behavior you would like to have.  Imitate them. Try it out.
  • Share with someone that you’re trying to change and ask him to give you feedback on how you’re doing.  Just knowing that someone is watching you will help you be more aware and will push you to try harder.
  • Practice “being” different in your mind.  Imagine what you look like, what you say, how you sound.
  • If the behavior you’re trying to change is something you’ve heard about in your reviews, make sure that you demonstrate the new behavior in front of your boss.

It’s normal to be uncomfortable as you go through this process.  Keep trying.  Don’t expect others to notice at first. It will take a while.  That makes it easier, though, because it gives you some time to practice and get more comfortable.

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May 22, 2012 · 8:00 pm

Dealing with Feedback You Hate

feedbackIt’s pretty easy to deal with being told that you are great, that you’ve nailed the job, that you are the best thing since sliced bread.  Unfortunately, that isn’t the feedback most of us get most of the time.  We get mixed feedback.  We are told the good things that we do and the not so good things that we do.  Since the former is not difficult how to deal with, let’s talk about dealing with feedback that you hate.

Reacting to Feedback

There are common (normal/human) ways that people react to feedback:

  • Rationalize–“well, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” or “they don’t really know how much I care or how hard I work or what a good job I do.”
  • Diminishment–“compared to all the good things I do, this isn’t important.”
  • Disagree–either in your head, or worse, out loud
  • Overreact–hear only the bad feedback, and then not put it in perspective; sometimes, people even leave over negative feedback–a serious overreaction!
  • Accept–agree with the feedback and accept it as valid–this can be good or bad, depending on the feedback
  • Obsessing–not being able to let it go, thinking about it all the time
  • Listen–take it in, hear it objectively.  This is the best reaction, because it gives you the most runway for a reaction.  (Always thank people for feedback.  Despite what you may think, giving tough feedback is hard.  You need to keep that communication open.)

One of the most important things to remember with feedback is that it is correct.  It is an accurate expression of someone’s OPINION of your performance.  You can tell yourself that that person’s opinion isn’t important.  You can tell yourself that that person doesn’t know enough about your performance to be completely correct.  But you can’t say that s/he isn’t right, because s/he has expressed his/her opinion, not a universal truth.  You need to ask yourself, why does the person have that opinion.  Look at the list of normal reactions, above.

When you come up with your response on “why” the person thinks what s/he does, which of the reactions are you having?  Take a “that’s an interesting opinion” approach.  Look at your interactions with the person.  Filter out everything else.  What/when/how does the person see you?  Does the person know you outside of a particular kind of exchange? How did you meet?  Do you listen to the person?  Do you treat the person with respect? Do you make the person’s life easier or harder?

Now, What’cha Gonna Do About It?

The initial reaction is one thing.  Hopefully, you’re able to listen to it and to take it in as an interesting opinion.  Then, you need to figure out what to do about it.

I was once reorganized into a new department.  It was a department completely outside of anything I had ever done.  I also outranked all my peers.  Let me say that again.  My peers were sitting there in that department, doing their job and plotting their career paths and suddenly I was reorganized into the middle of their career paths.  I outranked them (read a step closer to their next step than they were).  From their perspective, I knew NOTHING about the work of their department.  They didn’t ask for me, they didn’t want me, and they didn’t particularly like me.  As a part of my first assignment in that job, I was evaluating executive feedback instruments.  As a part of that assignment, I had them fill out a feedback form on me (within 3 weeks of starting in this job).  I got the WORST feedback that I had ever gotten.  I had had good feedback and not so good feedback in the past, but this time, I was completely blown away by the feedback I received.

I went through all the normal reactions (see list above):

  • I rationalized–they don’t know me.  They don’t like me.  They are jealous.
  • I diminished–their opinion doesn’t count.  My boss’ opinion is the only one that counts. I don’t care what they think.
  • I disagreed–luckily in my head.  Here are the reasons they are wrong: 1), 2), 3), etc.
  • I overreacted–yes, I did.  I could only see the negative in what they said.  If there was any positive, I certainly didn’t see it (and I don’t remember it now).  I thought, “I’ll just leave . . .” I was angry.
  • I obsessed–luckily, I got the feedback on a Friday.  I might have had to call in sick if I hadn’t had a couple of days to cool down.  I thought about it non-stop.

Luckily, I had a lot of knowledge about how you should react to feedback.  Notice that didn’t stop me from the reactions listed above.  It did, however, help me come full circle.  No matter what I thought about their opinion.  No matter how much I understood about why they might have given me the (unfair, I thought) feedback that they did. I understood that their opinion was their opinion and it was right.   After I cooled down, I decided to use the experience to experiment with how to turn the situation around (because I sure had a situation to turn around!).

I put together a response.  I listed all the things that I had heard from the feedback.  I literally put together a presentation that listed the questions and the responses.  I presented it neutrally (as if it was about someone else).  (NOTE:  if it hadn’t been an evaluation of a feedback instrument, I probably would have done this individually, not with all of them together).  I came up with responses to the feedback.  I was rated low in communicating–I came up with a list of the ways I would communicate in the future.  Then I asked them if these would be adequate if I actually did it.  I took the top three most negative (I don’t remember what they were any more), and then I came up with suggested improvements.  It was hard (because I didn’t really agree with the feedback–it didn’t match what I had heard before).  I focused on being objective.  For those things that I really didn’t agree with to the point that I didn’t have any “improvement suggestions,” I just didn’t deal with.

My reaction got their attention.  I think they knew, to a certain extent, that they had vented.  They agreed to my suggested improvements–or backed off some of them.  It defused some of their anger at the situation.  I changed the situation from a them v. me to a “let’s address how to make this situation better.”

Now the Even Harder Part

Once people give you feedback, they expect to see changes.  Small changes, as long as they see them–as long as they perceive that you’re trying–are enough.  That means, somehow or other you need to let them know that you’re trying.  That you want to make the situation better.  That you appreciate, value and respect their feedback.  People give you a lot of benefit of the doubt if they think you are trying, especially in response to something they feel a bit guilty about.  Experiment.  You won’t do it right the first time every time, but once you learn how to do it, you can get good at it.

Managing people’s perceptions, accepting and acting on feedback, are huge tools for a successful career.

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May 20, 2012 · 9:58 pm

Selling Your Brand

Have You Thought About Your Brand?Sell Your Brand

Have you ever thought about how your boss thinks about you?  Not what he thinks, but how he thinks?  What about how the organization thinks about you? How about the top leadership in your organization? What about the folks in your professional organizations? Do you stand out in any way?  Do they think of a certain kind of expertise or talent?  Do they think of a certain kind of results?

When you think of McDonald’s you get a “picture” of what McDonald’s is.  Depending on your age and interests, that image might be different, but it pops into your mind.  The same is true of Coke, or Apple or Sears or Fanta.  You make decisions about those brands based on your values, interests, likes/dislikes, income and other demographics.  You want to be able to control (or at least strongly influence) how people think of you (your brand) when they think of you.  The more you influence your brand and the more aware you are of it, the more likely you are to be able to manage your career successfully.

How I Learned This Lesson–The Hard Way

I worked for many years in a large, rapidly growing organization.  There was a period of time when I was “stuck” in the same position for several years.  The men who had started in the organization with me were moving past me and I was standing still.  I was very confused by this. Rightly or wrongly, I rejected the idea that it was a gender thing.  I thought it was something about me.  I was VERY frustrated.  I was quite angry about it. (Although looking back on it, I’m not sure just how clear I was about what was causing my frustration.)

Our CEO had a leadership meeting and announced the formation of a trilogy of high performance projects.  He announced that the people selected to work on these projects would be those who were identified across the organization as the “best” in each of the areas.  I was thrilled.  I was the “best” at one of them.  (Ok, maybe I wasn’t really, but at the time, I was absolutely, completely, without a doubt sure of it.)  So . . . I waited for the invitation.  It didn’t come.  Someone else in my division got selected.  Someone who not only wasn’t as good at it as me, but who wasn’t even interested.  I went from being angry to being FURIOUS!  How could they announce that the ‘best’ would be selected and then not pick me!?!?!  I couldn’t let it go.  I asked my manager.  I asked the VP of HR.  They didn’t know.  I finally asked my VP.  His reaction was one of the best lessons I ever got–although not at all fun!

He was completely, genuinely surprised that I even thought I should have been selected.  It hadn’t occurred to him.  It was in this very painful way that I realized that he really didn’t know that I was the ‘best.’  The person he had selected was a charming, talented person who regularly delivered results.  He didn’t know anything about the subject matter at hand, but that didn’t really matter that much.  He was easy to get along with.  He was very competent (at other stuff).  He was charming.  He got results.  So he got picked.

I, on the other hand, was pretty much an unknown to the VP who had my career in his control.  He certainly didn’t think of me–at all.  This was completely eye opening.  And when I got over the shock of it, I got over being so mad, too.  I could see how and why he was oblivious to my strengths.  I was pretty much totally responsible for that.  I hadn’t made a point of selling my abilities to the ‘powers-that-be’ in the organization.  I hadn’t made sure that I was thought of as an expert in the organization.  Once I figured this out, I went about building my ‘brand’ in the organization.  And I got ‘unstuck’–promoted within less than a year.  And then I got promoted again.  And then again.

How do you build your brand?

  • Be an expert.  Build your expertise.  Within your organization, become THE expert on something.  Be the ‘go-to’ person for that subject.
  • Help other people.  Create mutually beneficial situations.  Create ‘organizational trade routes.’
  • Act like you’re dating. Remember back to the days when you were dating.  Somehow or other you always managed to be in the right place at the right time to ‘meet’ up with the person of interest.  You managed to ensure that s/he knew how great you were.  You managed to appear to be as smart as possible, as talented, as charming as possible.  Do that again–just in a different context–prove how ‘right’ you are for the organization.
  • Be brave.  Stand out.  Blending in will not do you any good long-term.  What’s different/better/a more perfect fit about you?  How can you get it communicated?
  • Make sure other people are ‘selling’ you.  The theory behind social media marketing is that buzz created among ‘friends’  is more credible than advertising by the company.  I can’t tell you how many times I was in meetings of managers who were deciding who got what job.  The candidates who were known of by more deciders were the ones who got the jobs.  EVEN IF THEY WEREN’T the most qualified on paper.  If you know of someone, you feel more comfortable choosing him than a total unknown.  Imagine how much better someone did who was known of (because they had effectively sold their brand) by all the deciders.
  • Get over any thoughts that ‘selling’ your brand is unseemly. This is your life, your livelihood, your career.  This is the way you do it.

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May 18, 2012 · 8:30 am

Career Check-up

Why a Career Check-up?

Those of us who do what we should have annual physical check-ups.  People who practice preventative health care are much healthier.  We take our cars for their regularly scheduled maintenance milestones.  Our cars last longer, drive better and have higher resale values.  Regular house maintenance (how many of us have given our houses great makeovers when we’re selling them?) leads to fewer crises and higher sales prices.  But how many of us do that with our careers?  Most of us get an annual review for our job, but what about our careers? A job is a role that you play, specific functions you perform.  A career is a professional or work life, a broader view, transportable, beyond your current employer, beyong your current job.  Transportable.  In today’s economy, transportable is priceless.

Career Continuum

Career Path

Where are you on the your career continuum?  Where on you compared to where you want to be?  In terms of time–how long have you worked?  How much longer will  you work?  Are you 1/3 done?  Are you 1/2 done?  Between now and what is left, what do you want to accomplish?   As you look at where you are, what do you need to move your career along as fast as you need to in order to get to where you want?

Career Trajectory

Now look at where you are in terms of what level you want to be?  If you are a Director now, do you want to be C-level?  Do you want to have your own business?  Do you want to move into another field?  Do you want to accelerate how much money you’re making?  Are you moving as fast as you want to? Are you being considered for the types of positions you should be to get to the level you want?

What’s Going On Now?

Look at what’s going on at your current organization WITH CLEAR EYES:

  • Are You Valued?
  • Do You Think Your Company Has the Right  Direction?
  • Do You Trust Your Organization’s Leadership?
  • Are There Growth Opportunities?
  • Is There Enough Challenge?
  • Is This Work What You Thought It Would Be?
  • Do You Fit in the Culture?
  • Is This Meaningful for You?
  • Are You Motivated at Work?
  • Do You Make Enough Money?
  • Is This the Right Work-Life Balance for You?

Depending on the answers, you need to decide whether your current organization is the right place for you to accelerate your trajectory pace.  If not, face it now.  That doesn’t mean you need to move now–it means that you need to get ready to move.  (It took me six years to get ready for my next step beyond an organization I truly loved–but once I saw that I needed to go, my focus changed to the next step rather than continuing to stay in an organization that couldn’t deliver my end-state for me).

Start Working on What it Will Take

Skills Traits Knowledge

The more specific you can be in understanding what you need to know, do and be in order to reach your goal, the better you can prepare to do it.  If, for example, you are a Director and you want to be C-level, you may need to be much more financially literate than you are now.  You may have to be able to see the big picture better and pull yourself out of your detail focus.  If you are a Project Manger and you want to be a Program Manager, you may need to know how to understand enterprise-level governance of projects and programs.

How Do You Figure This Out?

Look at People Who Do What You Want to Do:

  • What Do They KNOW?
  • What Can They Do?
  • What Are They Like?
  • What is Their “Brand?”

I can rarely persuade people to actually do informational interviews until they are looking for jobs, and usually even then, they are out of a job before they’ll do it.  It is an incredibly helpful tool for a career check-up.  It helps you to understand what it takes to get to the level you want when you talk to people who’ve done it.

  • What do they wish they had known when they were at your level?
  • What is the most important skill at their level?
  • What was hardest to learn/do?
  • What would they do differently?
  • What advice do they have for you?

You walk away with a perspective on what you need to know/do/be.  You are also likely to walk away with an advocate who may start looking out for you.

Create a Project Plan

You know how to do this:

  • Set your goals
  • Identify your critical path tasks
  • Identify the resources
  • Set your timeline
  • Do a kick-off
  • Git-ur-done!

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May 15, 2012 · 10:42 pm

Let’s talk about the most marketable skill of all

Which Skill is So Marketable?

What is that, you ask?  What could possibly be the MOST marketable skill?  EXECUTION.  Execution comes in all flavors–marketing, IT, Project Management, Human Resources, strategy, operations, software, finance and on and on.

Organizations spend tons of time in developing a strategy and planning.  This work is usually done by the leaders of organizations.  They then communicate the strategy and the plan to the next several levels of the organization for execution.  The problem is, the strategy and the execution of that strategy are rarely aligned.  According to Professor  Marco Iansit  of Harvard  Business School, “Strategy  becomes the product of the firm’s incentives, structures, and patterns of behavior, not the other way around,” in his book,   One Strategy: Organization, Planning, and Decision Making.  In other words, the clarity that those who develop the strategy and the plan believe that they have gets lost quickly through the lenses of the “way things work” in the organization.

Why Organizations Need Execution Experts So Badly

Research says that more than seventy percent of large projects FAIL!  Depending on who you ask, between 75% and 95% of new product launches fail.   Email marketing campaigns have a four percent success rate.  This makes it sound like we’re all incompetent.  But we aren’t.  We (most of us) work very hard trying to accomplish what the company needs/wants.  We just aren’t working on the right things.

Those people who figure out how to execute–to actually deliver what the company needs–are highly valuable and very marketable, both within the organization and outside.  To actually execute the tasks that need to happen for the organization to thrive takes everyone.  It takes fully engaged, fully empowered employees who understand what needs to happen and are willing to do it–so they have to agree enough, believe in it enough, do enough to make it happen.

What Does It Take To Execute?

So what does this have to do with you?  YOU have to engage.  YOU have to be empowered.  YOU have to do it.  This is not about “them.”  This is about you.  If you want to have the most marketable skill, and the career security that goes with that, YOU have to learn how to execute.  And how to get other people to execute.  And you have to learn how to understand the strategy well enough to execute THE strategy, as opposed to some watered down version of it.

It doesn’t matter if you are at the top of the organization, in the middle, or if you just started yesterday.  You need to learn how to understand clearly what needs to happen and then to do it WITH the other folks who you work with.

I’ve recently gotten to work on a string of successful projects.  The difference between them and the ones that are late/over budget/don’t happen/completely fail is:

  • They have a team of people who are committed to getting it done–no matter what gets in the way
  • They have people who challenge things that are wrong–the way people are acting, the lack of resources, the lack of commitment, the inadequacy of the technology
  • No one is on autopilot
  • They have incredibly difficult deadlines
  • Leaders are deeply involved in what is going on

Remember, when you can execute consistently and persistently, you pretty much don’t have to worry about where your next job is coming from.  Companies will want you.

Good Books on Execution

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May 13, 2012 · 5:06 pm

Moms At Work

Happy Mother’s Day

On this Mother’s Day, I thought would I write about women at work. I grew up not only with a mother who worked outside the home, but with a grandmother who always had as well (starting when she was thirteen).  It never occurred to me not to work.  And while I knew I would work, it didn’t occur to me to take what was considered a “woman’s” job at the time–nurse, teacher, secretary.  My best friend, who wanted to be an art or music historian became a teacher (and a good one) because her parents would only support her going to college if she went into a career that was “suitable for a woman.” When I started working in a corporation, I could look all the way to the top and see women only one level above me.

What’s Holding You Back?

Twenty years after I started (10 years ago–so this is old data), a Harvard Business Review article, What’s Holding Women Back, by Sheila Wellington, Marcia, Brumit Kropf, and Paulette R. Gerkovich published a discussion of a survey citing reasons for women’s slowness to reach top positions:

Female executives believed it was caused by:

  • Lack of line management experience (79%)
  • Exclusion from informal networks (77%)
  • Stereotypes about women (72%)
  • Failure of top leaders to assume responsibility for women’s advancement (68%)
  • Lack of role model (68%)
  • Commitment to personal or family responsibilities (67%)
  • Lack of mentoring (63%)
  • Lack of awareness of organization politics (57%)
  • Different behavior style from organization’s norm (51%)
  • Lack of opportunity for visibility (51%)
  • Inhospitable corporate culture (50%)

CEOs believed it was caused by:

  • Lack of line management experience (90%)
  • Failure of top leaders to assume responsibility for women’s advancement (58%)
  • Stereotypes about women (51%)
  • Lack of role model (49%)
  • Lack of mentoring (49%)

Obviously looking through different lenses!  Before I talk about the relevance/importance of these findings, let me tell you why I think that data this old is still relevant.  Look at the numbers for women in leadership roles in 2002 (when the above survey was done):

Statistics on women in leadership 2002

Similar statistics from 2009-2011:

Statistics for women in leadership 2009-2011

Not quite an apples to apples comparison, but close.  The big news here is that the numbers haven’t moved very much, especially when you factor in that women represent 53% of entry-level workers.  The question is why?  Really, the question is WHY!!!?!!!?!!!?!!!?!!!?

Why?

I don’t believe that it is because women aren’t every bit as capable as running corporations (or governments) as men.  Obviously, though, there are things in the way.  A recent Wall Street Journal article, The XX Factor: What’s Holding Women Back? by Sue Shellenbarger, lists pretty much the same reasons (from the CEOs perspective) that appeared in the 2002 survey (above).  From an organizational perspective it is tremendously wasteful–look at all the talent that is left on the table until they take themselves away!

From my perspective, the ways leaders of organizations and the ways women think about women in the work place, in particular– in other words, the mental mind sets and stereotypes they have about women, are the biggest barriers to women reaching the top positions in organizations.

How much does motherhood have to do with this?  Lots.  Eighty three percent of the successful senior leaders documented in the Wall Street Journal article above are mothers–so it can be done.  On the other hand, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg in a Ted Ideas Worth on Spreading video Why Few Women at Top discusses the phenomenon of women dialing back on their career intensity even when they start thinking about having children.  There are two sides of that:  CEOs say–“see, they aren’t committed.”  Women say–“it isn’t fair to get more involved and then leave the organization high and dry.”  You can see how both mind sets are in the way of women breaking the glass ceiling barriers that are just as real today as when I started.  The reality is that mothers work, whether by choice or not, and are good, talented, capable employees.  That is true whether they are entry-level or CEOs.  Perceptions about the impact of being a mother on a women’s ability to be a successful senior leader have a huge impact on women’s promotability.  Perceptions.  Mental models.  Not reality.  It isn’t reasonable to blame this continuing glass ceiling on that fact that women become mothers.  It is much more complicated than that.  Single, childless mothers aren’t finding it any easier to get to the top, or else all the ones identified as successful would be childless.  That isn’t the case.

There is a new, HUGE difference, though, with the young women entering the workforce now.  These women have very different expectations.  The women joining the workforce today fully expect to be treated as an equal.  Their development experiences include a whole lot more time of being treated as an equal.  They played sports.  They got into grueling college programs.  They don’t see any reason that they shouldn’t be treated equally–as entry-level employees and as directors and as CEOs.  They are waiting to have children until their career is on track.  They have not had any exposure to the “reasons” that women aren’t at the top (listed in the survey above).  They will not sit still for this.  They will leave the organizations and start their own.  There needs to be a wake up call across organizations.  This is HALF of the talent in the workforce.

I have recently dealt with young women who have been exposed not just to subtle discrimination, but to out-and-out double standards.  Women who have been told that their “legs” are a problem.  That is crazy.  What man’s legs have ever been a “problem” in an organization????  Women who have been sidelined for doing EXACTLY what their male peers and superiors have done.  They are being held to different standards than their male counterparts.  This isn’t something new.  The difference is that I expected it.  These young women don’t.  They don’t have any of the baggage that exists in both senior leader’s minds and in the minds of women who’ve risen through the ranks.  They are used to being equal.

It is Time!

And they are right.  It is time.  So . . . look at that list again.  Which of the beliefs that senior women believe in the survey —lack of line management experience, lack of role model,  exclusion from informal networks, lack of awareness of organizational politics–do you believe?  What are you going to do about it.  For yourself?  For young women in your organization?

Male leaders–what are you going to do about it?  What stereotypes do you believe that it is time to rethink?  What are you doing — being a mentor, role model, advocating for talented women in your organization, including women in your informal networks, hiring women into line management–to begin to build the leadership pipeline in your organization to include and support women?    It is time.

Do it in honor of your mother.  Do it for your daughter. Do it for all of us.

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May 8, 2012 · 10:29 pm

What The Heck Are Unwritten Rules?

Four Problems

There are four problems to being able to understand the unwritten rules in your organizations.  The first is that you believe you know the rules (these are your beliefs about how organizations are supposed to work) and that creates a blind spot for the unwritten (unspoken/invisible) rules that you don’t know.  The second problem is that the unwritten rules keep changing.  As new leaders come in, as the organization gets purchased or reorganized, the unwritten rules can change.  The third problem is that the “unwritten rules” aren’t the same from organization to organization.  So, when you change organizations (even subunits within your current organization), you need to reassess what the unwritten rules are.  The fourth is probably the biggest problem.  It is that the unwritten rules are communicated through informal networks, and if you’re not a member, it is hard for you to find out about them.  They aren’t necessarily talked about, but people who are new learn to emulate the rules from the people in their networks.

Unwritten Rules in Organizations

What Are the Unwritten Rules?

The unwritten rules are the “way things work” in the organization.  People who know these rules aren’t necessarily able to articulate them, because it is likely that they “picked” them up without someone clearly telling them.  These are things like how you’re supposed to dress, how you’re supposed to interact with others, how late you’re supposed to work, how and with whom you go to lunch, and a whole host of other things.  You are evaluated by the organization by how well you follow these rules, even though no one has ever told you what they are.

The Research

Catalyst is an organization founded in 1962 to provide research and support for the inclusion of women in business.  They do significant research on many work related topics.  They have researched unwritten rules in organizations and the impact that they have  on career success. In research done in 2008, The Unwritten Rules, What You Don’t Know Can Hurt Your Career, they identified common areas of unwritten rules that exist  in many organizations:

  • Communication and Feedback–speaking up/being assertive/challenging (or in some organizations-not challenging)
  • Performance and Results —exceeding performance agreement is expected
  • Career Planning –you’re expected to have a plan and you’re expected to push for it
  • Seeking Visibility — sometimes this is an expectation, not considered “brown-nosing”
  • Building Relationships –joining and building networks, establishing trade routes of informal relationships
  • Increasing Face Time –just because you do a good job it isn’t enough, you need to build the relationship, and be present
  • Working Long Hours
  • Clearly Communicating a Willingness to Work Many Hours

Unwritten Rules for Promotion

Looking at “unwritten rules” associated with getting promoted, they identified:

  • Network and build relationships within and outside the organization
  • Find ways to become visible
  • Play politics and lobby for yourself and your work
  • Be a team player, work well with others
  • Communicate effectively and ask for lots of feedback
  • “Fit in” with the organizational culture
  • Perform well, produce results
  • Be knowledgeable, competent
  • Find a mentor, coach, sponsor
  • Be energetic, work a lot
  • Work long hours
  • Be strategic, savvy
  • Develop a good career plan
  • Be communal

How Do You Figure Out the Unwritten Rules?

In 2010, Catalyst followed up with a second study, The Unwritten Rules, Why Doing a Good Job Might Not Be Enough, asking how respondents had learned the unwritten rules.  The top responses were:

  • Learned through observation
  • Learned through trial and error
  • Learned through mentoring and feedback
  • Learned through previous work experience

So, What Does This All Mean?

Get a Mentor.

Just because you don’t know them, it doesn’t mean there aren’t unwritten rules.  The research shows that one of the best ways to learn them is to have a mentor who can help you.    How?  Find someone in your organization who you think knows what’s going on and ask him/her if s/he will be willing to be your mentor.  Most people would be flattered by the request.  Don’t get hurt feelings if the answer is no, go find someone else.  Have a couple of conversations–over coffee is good–to see if the chemistry is right.  Ask him/her about his/her career/success/path/learnings.  People are almost always willing to talk about this.  Listen to the stories looking for evidence of the unwritten rules.  It’s ok to ask about the unwritten rules, but I wouldn’t do it in the first conversation.

Observe

Start watching people closely.  Especially the powerful and successful ones.  Pretend you’re in a foreign country trying to figure out what’s going on.  What do they do?  How do they do it?  How do the bosses react?  Do you have the same reactions?  If not, how are yours different?  What are you missing?  What values seem to be at play?  Practice a little with your own behaviors.  Flex your style a little.  What reactions do you get?

Ask for Feedback

Ask people about how they think you fit in.  Ask them about your behaviors against what they perceive as the unwritten rules.  (It is highly likely that a peer would welcome this conversation because he would be interested in the same feedback.)  Take the lists of “unwritten” rules above and ask for feedback.  How did the responses fit with what you think?

Cringing

Did you cringe at anything above?  At the rules as listed?  At the thought of asking someone to be a mentor?  At the thought of asking for feedback?  At the thought that there are mysterious unwritten rules?  If so, then chances are you need to think about it some more.  That’s ok.  Go ask some people you trust.  See what they think.

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May 7, 2012 · 9:12 am

Get Off Your Butt! DIY Executive Development

I’m going to rant a little

l talk to people all the time who are sitting around waiting for their company to “do something” about their development.  They know that they are talented (and for the most part, the company agrees), they know that they are “hi po” (high potential–recognized by the company as having potential to move up), and they know that they do a good job.  So, why doesn’t the company send them to Executive Development programs, or provide them with developmental opportunities, or generally take an interest and develop them?

There are all kinds of reasons

Maybe the company doesn’t have a well-developed Executive Development system.  Maybe the company doesn’t classify these people as “hi po” enough.  (Lots of companies, maybe most companies, take the view that only the most “hi po” gets developed).  When I ran an Executive Development Program for a company, I found that the “hi po”s who were selected by the ‘deciders’ were all over the place.  Potential is in the eye of the beholder.  You may not fit the profile for hi potential for the person in YOUR management chain who makes the decision.  The company may be trying to develop a certain skill (like innovation) at this time and are picking people who they think have the most potential in that area.  Someone up there may not like you.  There are all kinds of reasons why it is not you, not this year, not at this company.

So What?

So why am I going to rant?  Because I think it’s totally nuts for ANYONE to sit around and wait for your company to develop YOU.  Who cares more about your career and your abilities more than you?  Who wants you to succeed  than you?  How long will you stay at THIS company?  They will develop you for their organizational profile and needs.  Will that make you a fully rounded Executive candidate? Maybe, but probably not.  What one organization believes are the key attributes of leadership is another organization’s rejection list.

Get Off Your Butt and Develop You

Most well run organizations have well thought out Executive Development plans and programs (just because it doesn’t focus on you doesn’t mean that there isn’t a plan).  These programs look at what the organization needs, what it has, and puts in place a plan to hire or develop the necessary skills to take the organization to the next level.  You can do the same thing, with you, and only you, as the hi po being developed.  (this applies to you hi pos who are already “being developed” by your organization—make if faster, or develop skills that are outside the organization’s focus that you know you need).  If you do this right, it could have more impact than an MBA (although it is possible that an MBA is a necessary part of your personal development plan).

After years of helping organizations develop Executive Development programs and of coaching all kinds of individuals, I’ve come up with an outline of what needs to be addressed in Do-It-Yourself Executive Development.

DIY Executive Development

Do-It-Yourself Executive Development

I know the print on the diagram is too small to read, but I wanted you to see how it all fit together.  There are four areas of developmental concentration:  1) Know Yourself, 2) Understand Your Environment, 3) Personal Change Tools and 4) Skill Building.   You can start anywhere—they all support each other.

4 Essentials for Do-It-Yourself Executive Development

The Recipe for DIY Executive Development:

Know Yourself–Understand Your:

  • Motivation
  • Habits
  • Personality
  • Beliefs About How Things Work
  • Strengths/Weaknesses
  • Temperament
  • Flaws (aka Derailers)

Understand Your Environment:

  • What is the Culture?
  • What is Your Fit in that Culture?
  • What is the Power Structure?
  • What Gets Rewarded?
  • What is the Organization Life Cycle Stage?

Personal Change Tools–Understand:

  • Reframing
  • Habits
  • Feedback

Skill Building–Develop:

  • Execution Skills
  • Leadership
  • Financial Acumen
  • Organization Assessment
  • Organizational Political Saavy
  • Personal Brand Management
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Organizational Change Management

The well-rounded, and highly successful Executive has all of these.  No one is born with all of them; they need to be developed.  If you want to be a successful Executive, stop waiting for your organization to do it.  Get off your butt and start working on developing yourself.  You’ll do a much better job than any organization if you focus on it.

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May 4, 2012 · 9:52 am

Looking for a job? Look in the HJM!

Looking for a job?

Soooooo many people are looking for jobs these days.  People who have been laid off are looking.  People who are dissatisfied are looking.  People who have been underemployed for a while are finally feeling like things are moving enough that they can look.  Maybe it’s just the people I know, but it seems like everyone is looking in the wrong places.

Seventy five to eighty percent of all jobs are NOT advertised.

And remember, this type of hiring (20-25%) includes  the McDonald’s and other entry-level jobs. This also includes all the internet job postings, newspaper job postings, and LinkedIn job postings.

Seventy five to eighty percent of the jobs are in the HIDDEN JOB MARKET.

 The other 5% of hiring happens when the candidate persuades the decider to create a specific job for him.  (Not common, but it happens).

Don Asher in his book Cracking the Hidden Job Market says that you get a job by talking to people.  He’s not talking about interviewing.  He means talking to pretty much everyone who will listen about your job search.  He recommends using every technique available:  face to face, email, phone, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even snail mail.  People are much more comfortable hiring you–or even considering you–when they know you, or when someone close to them knows you.  It’s a lot like dating.

You also need to know what kind of job you want–what industry, function, role, company type.  Then you need to TARGET those jobs.  It is like deciding you want to marry a millionaire.  That is more focused than if you want to marry someone or if you just want to date.  Where do you find millionaires?  How do you know which ones would fit with you?  How do you have to come across to marry a millionaire.  You get the point–it isn’t just throwing your resume at recruiters who have posted jobs.

There are a few  books that I recommend:

Now the Excuses

  • It’s way more work to do it this way.
  • I don’t want people to know I’m out of a job.
  • No one I know knows of any jobs–they would tell me if they did.
  • And on and on and on

Yeah, it is more work.  You want a job, you do the work.  People who know how to work these systems and find the hidden jobs control their careers.  The rest of us are flotsam floating on the river of chance.  EVERYONE knows about jobs or knows someone who does.  It isn’t top of mind.  By talking to people about your job search, you help them remember you when they hear about jobs.

Oh, and don’t wait till you need a job to do this.  Start building the network and targeting the organizations now so that you are ready.  Get ready to lose your job!

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April 29, 2012 · 8:38 pm

Don’t Take Your Needs to Work

Basics/Needs/Wants

My first exposure to the idea of how my needs impacted my career came from Laura Berman Fortgang’s book, Take Yourself to the Top. Fortgang divides things into basics/needs/wants.  Most of us can tell what the basics are–enough food, housing, warmth, safety.  Most of us also can tell the “wants”–house at the beach, Thunder season tickets, designer wardrobe, fill-in-the-blanks.  It gets tricky when we are dealing with needs.  Needs are sometimes disguised wants, but more often, they are buried in our subconscious–we don’t even recognize them when they are running our lives.

Examples

The kind of needs I’m talking about are those that start in early childhood–usually because of deprivation or mistreatment–and drive our behavior for the rest of our lives.  Someone very close to me grew up incredibly poor and without things that practically everyone has–things like soap, combs, jelly, sufficient clothes, or coats.  Her need was to never feel deprived again.  She accumulated stuff to prevent the feeling of deprivation.  It drove her whole life.

Some have the need to be appreciated.  Some have the need to be respected.  Some have the need to be treated fairly.  Some need to be right.  You get the idea.  These needs are all wrapped up in our self-worth.  If you don’t respect me, then you have shaken the very foundations of my belief in myself.  When this happens at work, then you are behaving like the same five-year-old who initially developed this need.  You probably aren’t aware that you are acting like a five-year-old.  You probably feel completely righteous in your reaction.  You won’t stop talking about it.  You tell your co-workers how wronged you are, and they probably are somewhat intimidated by your level of emotion.  They may or may not agree with you, but they are reluctant to challenge you because of how you are coming across about it.

This happens all the time.  It happens to pretty much everyone.  The way you can recognize it is by how upset you are.  How driven you are to fix it.  How much you talk about it.  How much you think about it. These needs are legitimate.  You came by them legitimately.  My friend who was so deprived in her childhood was trying to protect herself from ever feeling that horrible again.  But you need to get your needs out of your work.  They will do much more damage than it is worth.  People will think you’re completely irrational about weird stuff.  They will not be able to connect the dots between your behavior that they see and your need that you are trying to address and whatever happened to you that created that need.

What Do You Do?

So, what do you do?  Think back.  Think of times when even you could tell you were being irrational.  What was driving it?  Are there patterns?  Same reaction to similar situations?  Same reaction to similar people?  Figure out which needs are driving you (literally) crazy.  Try to reason with yourself (this isn’t usually all that successful).  Point out to yourself that that was then (when you were 5) and this is now (when you are an adult who really shouldn’t care if your GenY employee isn’t respecting you as much as you think she should).  If trying to talk yourself out of it doesn’t work, don’t give up, but there is a Plan B.

irrational at workWhen you feel yourself getting irrational (ok, not irrational–incredibly irritated), try to think of another way that you can get this need met OUTSIDE OF WORK.  Where can you be respected that matters more?  Church?  Home? Professional group?  Who appreciates you who matters more than people at work?  Can’t you go tell someone else you were right without rubbing your peer’s face in it?

Why Should You Go To That Much Trouble?

Because it really does have a negative impact on your career.  When you are being driven by things that are outside your conscious awareness, then you aren’t really in control.  When you aren’t in control, then you will do something that looks stupid to people who can make decisions about your future.  So, get your needs away from your work.

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