It’s Been A While
February 3, 2012
It’s been a while since my last post.
I’ve been inundated with non-mail, and since no-one asked I’ll just let you that while the blogosphere apparently hasn’t missed me, I’ll offer an excuse anyway.
Newton I. Riess, August 15, 1920 - October 30, 2011
My Dad passed away at the end of October. I was 6,000 miles away from him at the time and quite frankly, I just haven’t felt like writing anything for a while.
I’ve mentioned my Dad several times in postings, both for his use iPads and iPhones at 91 and just because, he was my dad and influenced everything I wrote in some way.
He led a remarkable life as part of ‘The Greatest Generation,’ and in future posts I’ll tell you more, but for now I just wanted to let any faithful readers know where I’ve been and at least start down the road to more regular contributions again.
Thanks for your understanding and since I try to focus on management tips I will offer one bit of advice. If you are a manager and an employee loses someone close to them, keep in mind that the impact can last much longer than just the immediate aftermath of the funeral.
In some cases it can take years before productivity returns to normal.
What Color IS your Parachute? – A Review
October 24, 2011
Dick Bolles, or Richard Nelson Bolles- as many folks know him, has been writing his ‘Parachute’ books on career development for 40 years. The latest edition of his signature series continues to be a must-read for anyone looking for a new career or the thousands of career specialists who have followed in Bolles’ footsteps.
You might think that, at 84, the internet or current events might have passed Bolles by, but his 2012 “What Color is My Parachute,’ is up-to date and filled with the same kind of useful information contained in the other 39 versions. In addition to the links I was particularly impressed with his comments about the Microsoft purchase of Skype and what it might mean for distance coaching.
You may not agree with everything he says or suggests, but he lays out sound guidance on everything from finding your mission to negotiating pay.
What you won’t find is any reference to parachutes or colors- a burden that Bolles has been saddled with, since the title of his book was first suggested. When I met Bolles recently he was careful to explain where the phrase came from – an offhand remark he once made about some Episcopal ministers who were going to be out of jobs soon – and that it really has no relationship to his lifelong work.
Bolles uses the tried and true techniques he discovered by accident 40 years ago and combines them now with web resources to create a modern tool for job hunting. His links and references, which are also available on his website, are well worth the price of the book.
They key component of his work is the self-inventory ‘Flower Exercise’ that he suggests everyone use to both define their job search and their skill set. The reality is that you don’t have to wait until you need to look for a job to use the exercise since everyone should probably do this kind of self assessment on a regular basis.
Starting the search for a new job does not just occur when you are out of work but can happen any time.
Bolles writes in a simple, folksy style that is easy to understand and very clear. There is no professional gibberish or double-speak that many professionals like to use. It’s just information, suggestions, strategies and real world common sense.
You may not use everything, but it can be a helpful foundation for self exploration as well as practical tips for interviewing and research. I have some issues with his suggestions for trying to research jobs by setting up informational interviews. I don’t think it’s as easy to do as he suggests but I would never suggest that you shouldn’t try.
Bolles, a former Episcopal minister, makes no secret of his faith and its role in his life and career. He makes no apologies, but tries to limit his faith-based approach to the ‘Pink Pages’ in the appendix but it doesn’t detract from his advice and the usefulness of the book.
Bolles also offers advice for career coaches. In fact it seems at times that his book is directed at coaches and not just the average job hunter. But in my mind that just makes it more useful. His suggestions for finding a coach are important no matter what side of the equation you are on.
One note: I bought the e-book version of the book and while it makes it much easier to get directly to the many links listed, it has made a mess of the charts and graphics. Having read other e-books I know this does not have to be the case, but it’s unfortunate. I hope it will corrected, but I plan to purchase a printed edition anyway.
In short, not matter what version you buy, read the book and you’ll be much closer to a successful career.
Steve Jobs
October 5, 2011
I had just left the Apple store in Berkeley when I got the news bulletin that Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, had died.
I hurried back to the store figuring that as a journalist, that would be ground zero for reaction. I’m not sure what I expected: some sort of dirge, employees in tears, I really didn’t know. I figured a business that was selling 24/7 connectivity would be abuzz.
But, what I found was a store exactly the same as I had left, 10 minutes earlier. The Geniuses were helping people with computer problems, a corporate photographer was still shooting promotional stills, and the sales people were still cheerfully helping people buy iPhones and iPads.
I stood silently for a minute until a blue-shirted sales rep came over and asked if I needed help. I told him I couldn’t believe how normal things were given that Steve Jobs had just died. He stared at me in disbelief and I realized why normalcy reigned.
No-one in the store had an active cellphone or was even casually browsing the internet. Their electronic eyes and ears were focused on the customers, not information.
“Really,” said the sales rep looking at me in disbelief. “Sorry to be the one to tell you but I thought everyone here would know,” I offered apologetically.
We walked over to an Macbook Air and he typed ‘Steve Jobs’ into Google. In seconds his worst fears were realized. He took out his iPhone and called up the headline and began silently moving from employee to employee, just holding up the phone. Their shock was evident.
One, trying to help a customer just a few feet away, started to talk to the bearer of bad news and then realized she she was supposed to be working. “Excuse me,” she told the customer, “I’m sorry.” Then she mumbled and as the customer began to ask a question. Then she just blurted out, “Steve jobs just died,’ which ended her training session. Luckily, the customer understood the significance.
The sales rep playing Paul Revere finally returned to where I was standing. Still in shock I asked if he ever met Mr. Jobs. “I was in his house, several times.” he said, “Before I worked here I was an art conservator and I helped him choose art work -Ansel Adams prints of the Sierra’s.” His voiced trailed off.
Another staffer stopped by and I asked the same question, “No I didn’t know him, but I used to live in Palo Alto and I would see him downtown, from time to time, buying a drink – at Starbucks.”
Suddenly, an alarm went off, piercing the air to alert everyone – incorrectly – that someone was trying to steal something. By the time they could get the key and find the switch to turn off the noise, Steve Jobs seemed to become yesterday’s news.
Forty Years of Parachutes
September 20, 2011
At 84, you might think that Richard Bolles was ready to slow down. But the author of the seminal career coaching guide, “What Color is Your Parachute,” says that after 40 years of updating his work he has no intention of stopping.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the East Bay Coaches Chapter, Bolles left no doubt he has plenty of new ideas and that his books are still relevant as United States suffers through the worst recession in 60 years.
In an hour-long presentation that ranged from the humble beginnings of his book and career, to comments on modern politics he offered lessons on attitude, re-framing and relevance. Proving that he deserves the honor of the nation’s career coach.
He urged members to understand their own needs and experiences as a way to empathize with their clients. “What else do we live for? he asked, “than to use our experiences to help others?”
He suggested that coaches need to point out to their clients, depressed about lengthening unemployment, that despite the monthly numbers, there are still 6 million people who change jobs every month. “It’s all about attitude,” he told the group. Pointing out that if you think you won’t get the job you probably won’t. “Your job is to help your client be one of those 6 million.”
“Looking for a new job is now a survival skill, and we have to look at it that way,” he says. “just like food, clothing, or shelter.”
He says that while times have changed the basic dichotomy of how people look for jobs and how employers look for employees has stayed the same. “Employers just want to avoid mistakes, but potential employees still think that sending out millions of resumes will get them noticed. It won’t.”
Bolles has updated his “Parachute” books every year, except 1975, since it was first published in 1970. He includes a coaches appendix in the back but insists that, “people need to keep up. they have to have read my current edition, if they want to be included.”
Bolles, who lives in Danville, California, also had some pointed words for politicians, who he sees as short sighted as they cut back on the support system that US job seekers need, but more importantly he bemoans the lack of empathy he sees in Washington.
“I can’t believe that politicians and their supporters are cheering at the thought of people without health care, or the number of executions in a state.” he notes. Bolles says he has voted for both democrats and republicans, but adds, “this GOP is not mine, their only goal is to make sure Obama is a one-term President, so they can get his job.”
Bolles has been proclaimed “America’s Top Career Expert” and his books have been called among the most important of the last 80 years. But he says he plans to continue writing, holding workshops, and lecturing. “I’ll be updating my books,” he says “until I’m forced to say goodbye to my lovely wife.”
Finding a New Job-the Easy Way
September 19, 2011
I met a woman over the weekend who is starting a new job. In today’s economy that’s probably enough news for a feature story.
Since I’ve done my share of career counseling, I thought I would just chat with her for a few minutes and get some hard evidence that the suggestions I give people, really work.
I asked what skills she had that were transferable. Both of the jobs involve working with the public, but in much different ways. In her old job she was the office manager in a cemetery. In the new job she would be a public safety dispatcher. Other than dealing with people under stress I couldn’t find much in common.
Well, I suggested, maybe your networking paid off and you knew someone at the new company. “No,” she said, “I just saw the job advertised and applied. It was much closer to my home.”
Well, you must have certainly analyzed the job market and picked a field with opportunity. “No,” she reported, “I just wanted to do something different.” The fact that her new job is in the public sector, and was actually hiring, was a shock to both of us.
I continued to pepper her with questions about interview techniques, networking and the color of her parachute – all the sorts of questions I was sure would lead to some insight on how she used some valuable tidbit that would prove my techniques work.
Nice try Mr. Professional – this woman did it her way and it worked. She saw the job in the help wanted section, thought it would be interesting, applied, interviewed and was hired. Call the President, his new jobs bill is working!!
She was as amazed as me. She was just the right person, at the right time and she got the job. I guess that’s all you really need. Congratulations.
Can This be Right?
August 31, 2011
During a recent coaching session, my client, gave me a copy of her most recent performance review saying, “I need help fixing this.”
While she was rated exceptional in several areas, her supervisor said that her employees found her “curt, and abrasive” and they felt unappreciated. She runs a group of about 20 in a facility with about 100 employees. They have a matrix organizational chart so each person may have responsibilities to several managers.
She said that she had asked her supervisor for specific examples he could not provide any.
To say she was perplexed was an understatement, especially since this was the first time in 4 years, she had gotten this kind of feedback.
At first, we discussed how managers are often not the best judges of their own performance, and then I asked if she could think of any instances that might have led to the criticism. She could only cite one fellow manager who she admitted she had “issues” with, but said she had never heard any of her group even mumble anything about her management style. (NB: She holds weekly status meetings with the whole group and meets regularly with direct reports.)
She admitted she was very confident and could be blunt but she didn’t sense any problems.
We went through her daily and weekly routines. I tried to help her analyze her interpersonal contacts, and offered some suggestions about how she might make some changes, but I had to admit, I was a bit perplexed.
After spending a number of hours with her, and reviewing how her department worked and her interactions, I couldn’t figure out what her boss was getting at either. She is direct, but after 4 years, with minimal turnover, employees usually come to understand a manager’s communication style and adapt to it.
We even spent some time exploring whether she was miscast as a mid-level manager and was more suited for another role outside the company.
As we talked, over several sessions, I could not find any patterns in her presentation that was anything but professional, knowledgeable, confident and caring. She didn’t strike me as the kind of pathological, egotistical boss that fills the pages of most management textbooks.
She wasn’t familiar with many of the terms of Emotional Intelligence, but she seemed to have a good sense of the tools and was already using some.
In the end, I tried to assure her that she was on the right track and while she could make some changes in listening and trying to be attuned to the needs of her staff, maybe the best option was to just assume her boss was basing his critique on bad information, or on a single example. Possibly, he was just wrong or more euphemistically, ‘ill-informed.’
Three weeks later, she learned he was being eased out of his position, so maybe, there was something else going on.
The lesson: I would never ignore what’s on your performance review, but if it doesn’t ring true, you may need to question some of the underlying assumptions and decide for yourself if changes are warranted.
Outsourcing Realities
August 19, 2011
I’ve decided to keep an ‘outsourcing scorecard’ just to keep track of what direction the jobs are moving in the new world economy. I started about three weeks ago and so far the tally is 2-1 in favor of ‘offshore.’
The real surprise, I guess, is that there is any movement at all back to the United States.
I have several different jobs so I come in contact with outsourcing in several areas. I am a coach who does a fair amount of job counseling, plus I do business consulting for small firms, and I also work in health care dealing with insurers and doctors in the California Workers Compensation system.
The first score on my outsourcing scorecard, came two weeks ago when I got a call from a nurse case manager who was overseeing the care of a patient in the Bay Area. (Overseeing is the insurance company translation for making sure they are not spending too much of the insurer’s money)
That aside, she asked about the patient’s status but when the phone line kept breaking up, I finally asked where she was calling from. She said, rather matter-of-factly, The Philippines. I have no problem with the Philippines, or their residents, but the thought of a nurse checking on a patient’s condition and trying to assess care from 7,764 miles away, bothered me, so I told her to have someone in the United States call, I would be happy to discuss the case.
Last week, I called United Airlines at about 11:00 p.m. to check on a reservation I had made for my 91-year-old dad. I went through the normal phone tree and finally reached an operator and got the answer to my question. I was about to hang up when I realized that for the first time in over 25 years of dealing with United, I was not talking to someone in India.
I asked the agent and I could almost hear the smile in her voice as she pointed out, “Well, United and Continental are now merged and the new CEO is from Continental, and he does not believe in outsourcing.”
I have been complaining about the call center in India for, well, forever, and I told her I was delighted to be speaking to someone in Chicago. Go Cubbies.
Score one for U.S.A.
Finally, this week, I was called from a local doctor’s office in the Bay Area about a patient they were referring to my wife, who is a psychologist specializing in pain management. They wanted to know if we had all the pages they faxed. I had to check so I got her call-back number which ended in a 5-digit extension, which I thought was a bit odd for a relatively small practice.
You guessed it, when I called back I was talking some an ‘employee’ in the Phillipines working for a company that provides back-office services to doctors.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone is trying to cut expenses in the medical field, but I can’t help but wonder, how long it will be until a medical office is just one doctor and one receptionist and everone else is thousands of miles away.
Of course, the next step is that everyone is thousands of miles away and the doctor is an avatar in front of a computer.
BFF
August 4, 2011
An Era Ends Here
August 2, 2011
After 62 years, a daily newspaper will no longer be delivered to my house. This is a big deal for me and for the newspaper industry.
As someone who grew up with the Haverhill Gazette and The Boston Globe and then spent 30 years in the business, giving in to digital dominance was like saying good-bye to an old friend.
My dad, who will be 91 in a few weeks, beat me to the punch. When his poor eyesight forced him to give up reading a few years ago the newspaper was a casualty as well. For him the iPad was a savior and he now reads four papers a day because he can make the print as large as he wants.
For the newspaper industry, losing a reader like me is a sure sign that they have lost a major battle. If someone from a generation like mine gives up, I guess it’s a foregone conclusion that the newspaper printing business is pretty much over.
I guess I’m the last to admit it.
My wife asked what it will mean. I’m hopeful that reporting and publishing news online will remain strong. In an age of Twitter, Facebook and Google+, legitimate news sites where editors actually make judgements about what is news, are needed. These sites will, hopefully, continue to set the agenda that reasoned consumers need.
Our political climate, including the soon-to-be concluded debt ceiling debate, is largely a product of the unedited, extremist debate that takes over when no-one is in charge.
I could go on about the reason this has happened. The newspaper publishers have no-one to blame but themselves. Their unwillingness to change on a wide range of issues has led to their own demise.
Thankfully, news is still alive. Weekly and small daily publications seem to be thriving. The kind of information that has always been important – the stuff that makes the front of the refrigerator – is still in demand.
I will continue to consume news online, so I guess the final chapter is a long way off, but my small step is still painful.
What’s Important in Business
June 13, 2011
Recently I helped to host a career networking night for my Alma mater, Bucknell University. We do an event twice a year at interesting locations around the Bay Area and focus on career advice for alums.
Amy Klement, Vice President Omidyar Network
Last week’s gathering was at The Bechtel Corporation, where Peter Dawson, (CFO) and his wife, – parents of a current student – sponsored the evening, featuring the Dean of the College of Engineering, Keith Buffinton as well as 1996 alum, Amy Klement.
Amy focused on her career path, at Paypal, EBay and now as Vice President, of Omidyar Network. To say her career has been on the fast track is an understatement. But after listening to her talk, it’s easy to see why she has been so successful.
She is human, genuine, honest and real – all qualities that are is short supply at most businesses today. She understands that her Emotional Intelligence has been the key. It’s also a point that most most people simply don’t get.
Every six months another book comes out about emotional intelligence, and, as Amy points out, executives claim that it is more important than traditional I.Q., but most businesses are still filled with executive who have very little of it.
I’ll leave a more complete explanation for later posts, but I think Amy’s 20 minute talk is worth listening to.