Aug. 31, 2018 "Seven career moves to make you successful": Today I found this article by Roy Osing in the Globe and Mail:
Roy Osing is the former executive vice-president of Telus, educator, adviser and author of Be Different or Be Dead.
Many people want to provide advice on how to have a successful career. There are teaching professionals, mentor consultants and professional coaches who offer their services to help guide you on how to maximize your potential.
Many of these individuals have limited experience in terms of living in a real organizational environment where politics, personal bias and subliminal discrimination are alive and well. To advance in such conditions requires much more than an academic perspective.
I was never educated on what textbooks said were the right things to do. I had a basic university education with mathematics as my major and computer science as a minor – if you consider batch processing of Fortran IV, COBAL and ALGOL programs a meaningful foray into the digital world.
The point is, my academic background didn’t help me prepare to take on corporate life and to figure out how to more than satisfy my career ambitions. However, it did teach me how to solve problems – which I quickly learned was an extremely valuable asset that not everyone possessed.
I began my career journey at age 23 working for a telecom company and achieved a VP marketing position by 39 in an engineering-dominated culture. From there, I was fortunate to earn several executive positions, culminating in the president’s role for our data and internet company and CMO.
I left the company when I was 54 years old after an interesting ride through changing markets, regulatory upheaval and a corporate merger.
My journey taught me a lot about how to achieve what you want to in your career.
Here are some of the things I learned:
Say ‘yes’
Show an open willingness to take on whatever you are asked to do – even if you’re concerned about not being able to do the task. That demonstrates you want to experience – and learn from – new things, which broadens your value to the organization.
From “yes,” a component of my brand evolved to being a fixer, someone who could be called upon to go into an organization in distress and fix it. At first, I found it terrifying, but once I had my rhythm, it was exciting and an amazing source of learning.
Learn offline
Determine what expertise is needed for your organization’s success and acquire it on your own time. Show that you understand what competencies are needed and that you have the commitment to learn them.
Early on in my career, I figured out that the telecom business was going to move rapidly from a monopoly to an intensely competitive market and that marketing was going to play a critical role in the organization’s success.
I decided to become an “expert” in the discipline, which was a challenge because my formal education was in mathematics. But I learned and practised all I could on the subject from a variety of sources. I believe this was a tipping point in my career that led to my appointment as VP marketing.
Find one mentor who believes in you
There are many individuals who will be willing to serve as your mentor. You should do everything you can to assemble a diverse team and use their counsel and advice to help you navigate through your career journey.
But try to discover that gem of a mentor who is all in with you. Someone who believes in you so strongly that they stop at nothing to see you succeed and in fact will put himself/herself at risk to back you in situations he/she perhaps shouldn’t.
I had such a person look out for me. He was a VP who came to our organization from the retail sector. For some reason, he adopted me. He supported me inside and outside the organization. He praised me. He took chances for me. He was my loyalist, without whom I would never had succeeded.
Find a believer and watch the magic.
Take a punch and keep the long term in perspective
Bad stuff happens to everyone in their career, but the deciding factor is what you do afterwards. Once the dust settles and you have finished licking your wounds, what action do you take?
It’s easy to have a knee-jerk reaction when you are in pain, but the right thing to do is to take a deep breath, step back and consider your options. Make your decision based on long-term possibilities, not on a short-term emotional responses.
When we merged with another telecom company, I found myself outside the new leadership team looking in. My previous direct report was given the role that I believed should have been offered to me. I was demoted.
Amidst the clatter of advice telling me I should quit, I decided to stay and see how the new guy played out. Good call. Within a year, he performed below expectations – as I suspected he would – and I was asked to take the job.
Be thoughtful when things don’t go your way. Think beyond the next hill.
Never lose sight of your goal
Keep your eye on the prize. Regardless of the chaos around you, always keep your personal end game in front of you. You will find that this focus will subliminally guide you to make the right career decisions. You may not be aware of it until you reflect on your journey and be struck by the fact that things just seemed to work out. Your plan was somehow successfully implemented.
I had an audacious objective to become a VP by the time I was 40 in an engineering-dominated organization that was slow to promote younger people. I looked at every opportunity that came my way through my “VP by 40” lens and made my decisions consistent with that target. It led me to leadership positions in operations, startup divisions and eventually the CMO.
Learn how to be an inspirational communicator
Public speaking doesn’t some easy to anyone. It is an acquired skill, honed by constant practice. But incredible careers are made by being brilliant communicators – layered on top of competence in a relevant field, of course.
Being the person who can talk about a subject and get others excited over the prospects it has for them is an amazing gift that gets you noticed.
My career path was studded with communication moments. Although at first I stumbled through presentations, I found that through relentless practice and listening to feedback from my audience, I increased my competence in getting my message across and triggering an emotional response from my listeners.
Be informal, really know your topic and be passionate about it, talk in simple language, lose the podium and inject some humour along the way.
Be different
Successful careers are built by people who stand apart from the crowd, who make the conscious decision to display a needed skill or competency in a way that is different. It’s difficult to notice an individual in a herd. Everyone looks the same and acts the same. And if a person isn’t noticed, he/she will miss opportunities.
You need to find a way to be different and it doesn’t require a silver bullet. Look for little things you can use to differentiate yourself from your colleagues who are all vying for a limited number of jobs.
If you’re not different, you’re dead – or soon will be.
If you are to have a successful career, it will not be based on your schooling. Not every MBA makes it. Not every PhD can reflect on an illustrious past.
The tipping point for success is what you learn “out there” in the real world with dynamics that can’t be formulized. Find people who have made it by navigating messiness, not preaching from a pulpit. Add their experiences to your dossier, practise them and let them be your guide to a successful career.
Sept. 1, 2018 "Your best performer just gave notice- now what?": Today I found this article by Janet Candido in the Globe and Mail:
Principal, Candido Consulting Group, Toronto
According to research from the Harvard Business Review, managers can identify 13 signs of when an employee is about to quit. The reality is that in some cases, the signs aren’t always read – or only read in retrospect – and an employee’s reasons for leaving aren’t always due to discontent.
Especially in today’s labour market, where the decrease of full-time jobs and a host of other factors have helped make impermanence the new rule, employers and employees are no longer as loyalty-bound as they once were. But what happens when a manager is blindsided by the exit of one of their star players?
Resignations can be frustrating for companies, especially when they’re unexpected. Depending on the size of a business, losing a high performer can have a devastating impact on the bottom line, and handling a resignation is an area where many business owners struggle.
An owner or manager may feel the practical and psychological void left by the departure of someone whom they relied on – and even thought of as an ally or friend. But while losing a great employee is hard, acting irrationally could hurt future relationships and make the transition more difficult.
Here are five tips for when a business’s best person gives their notice:
Stay calm
Especially in smaller business environments, it’s not uncommon to develop familial-style relationships, and a business leader or manager may feel personally slighted or resentful when a trusted employee resigns. Avoid the urge to get emotional or unleash a barrage of questions.
It’s okay to talk about the person’s future plans, but keep the tone warm and friendly. While the adage “don’t burn your bridges” is most often applied to departing employees, the same holds true for the employers seeing them go. You never know where that person will end up or, for that matter, where you’ll end up, so it’s advisable to maintain good relationships whenever possible.
Never counter-offer
Although often considered as a knee-jerk reaction, a counter-offer is not recommended. It’s not easy to see someone walk away, but offering more money is usually not the answer, even if that is what the employee was angling for.
By the time they’ve made the decision to go, psychologically they already have one foot out the door. And even if more money works temporarily, it’s only a short-term fix. If the issue wasn’t monetary but, say, growth potential or workload, it will continue to pose a problem regardless of salary. Plus, they were ready to walk, and they know that the company didn’t value them until they had another offer on the table.
Do an exit interview
Understanding why someone is leaving might help a company keep the next person. But make sure the process is useful and doesn’t turn into a venting exercise for the employee.
Ask questions like, what did you like most and least about working here? What would you change? If you could offer advice to the executives, what would it be?
Know your obligation
Now is not the time to try to shortchange an employee. Pay them for the entire notice period. If you feel that having the person work during that period might have a negative effect on staff or clients, opt to send them home instead.
Even if the parting is amicable, a company has to protect its data, so remove security access appropriately and remind the employee that their obligations regarding confidentiality are still in effect. Unless the employee is antagonistic, handle this process as cordially as possible. Regardless of whether they initiated it, remember that this is a separation for them as well.
Be proactive the next time
Identify top performers and value creators and make sure they are adequately compensated, challenged and experiencing high job satisfaction. Check in with them on a regular basis. A manager or executive should use this situation to take an honest look at their own leadership styles and performance management systems. Do you coach for the future, getting employees excited? Do you allow for open and honest dialogue and feedback?
Keep in mind that even in the best situations, resignations happen. When they do, having a proactive plan in place can help minimize the impact on your business. Remember, some turnover can be positive. While it might hurt at first, the upside is that it also allows for growth, new ideas and new ways of thinking.
The Author is living in the confines of HR …in the real world non of this stuff happens . Top performers leave and things NEVER change for the next one !
Worked for the Ont govt and watched many very good and some exceptional people leave our office. The managers showed none of the skills espoused here nor did they appear to care about the losses. What started out as a trickle slowly became an exodus due to poor managers.
My opinion: It's good to have an exit interview. When I worked at Telemarketer #3 job, there was this form that I had to fill out. They asked what was good or bad about the job, what would you change about it?
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