December, 2015

I first published this blog four years ago this month. Its message is even more timely today. This is the season for resolutions and generosity. With all that is happening in our neighborhoods and the larger world, let’s revisit what each of us can do to help make things better.

When I think about close community, the above photo comes to mind. It is an African elder (in brown) surrounded by some members of his tribe. This photo was taken by Roberta Taylor six years ago when I joined a dozen Americans and one man from Brunei to study tribal life in Tanzania. While I don’t remember this man’s name, exact age or very much about him, I do know that he was at least 75 years old, and loved by his community.

Over the past nine years I have been one of the December presenters at Leadership Philadelphia. This is a civic engagement/leadership development program led by my sister, Liz Dow. In my session I ask the participants to answer this question: “If today was your 75th birthday, and life had gone really well for you, what would people be thanking you for?” The Leadership Philadelphia program includes one full day’s immersion into a different civic theme each month over a ten month period. I tell each participant that one of the most important outcomes of these deep dives is to ultimately discover and pursue their next community calling.

Each year I have these 120 for-profit and non-profit leaders do this exercise because their 75th birthday vision can help shape more immediate priorities and actions. Let me walk you through the process. Round 1 involves asking your three imagined 75th birthday guests what they would like to thank you for. These guests include one each from your personal, professional and community life. If you were in this class, what would each person be thanking you for?

Round 2 asks these same three people about today. What would each representative suggest you continue to do, and what would each suggest you change in order to achieve your 75th birthday vision? Please note when you do this exercise that each representative could be alive or not. Go ahead, try it. After you are done, ask yourself, “Is it time for a change … a new year’s resolution?”

Let’s make sure we are on the same page on the definition of terms. I am speaking of both community calling and ultimately our community legacy here, so let me stop and define each. Aristotle is credited with these words: “Our calling is the intersection of our talents and the needs of the world.” In other words, what we are really good at, care about and enjoy doing (our preferred talents) need to find their way into our primary work, and hopefully also into our service to the community. And our legacy? Here are my own words: “Our legacy is our personal, professional and community contributions that live on in the hearts, minds, words and deeds of others.” Another way of saying this comes from psychologist Erik Erikson: “We are what survives of us.”

You now have some new tools and strategies for discovering and pursuing your next community calling and building your community legacy. Try the exercises I have suggested. Picture yourself in the center of your tribe as a wise, generous and beloved elder. Have a happy new year, and an especially happy 75th birthday!

October, 2015

Where do you turn when you need just the right words to guide you? I belong to a True North Group, and would like to offer three inspirational writings that were shared at this month’s meeting. If you need help finding strength, perspective or shelter from the storm, you’ll appreciate what you’re about to read and hear.

Perseverance

The Winds of Fate
American Author Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life.
Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Perspective

What I’ve Learned
Maya Angelou on her 74th birthday

I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life.’

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.

I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Peace of Mind

Beannacht (Blessing)
John O’Donohue

The best way to experience the comfort that comes from these words is to hear them from the author. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from this Irish poet in his one minute blessing.

August, 2015

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
African Proverb

Could going solo professionally be your future career direction? I began to think seriously about this option in 2001. That is the same year author Daniel Pink published Free Agent Nation, The Future of Working for Yourself. This book has been an inspiration and a compass ever since.

In 2004, long before my 2010 shift to solo entrepreneurship, I took the advice from Daniel Pink’s book and formed my first F.A.N. (Free Agent Nation) club with four former clients. We still meet twice yearly. I created my second group, composed of eight solo career and executive coaches, in 2006. We still meet monthly. These groups have been instrumental to my success and well being as a free agent. In this blog I’ll describe F.A.N. Clubs for anyone wishing to go solo and go farther by going together.

F.A.N. Clubs

In 2002, I heard Daniel Pink give the keynote presentation at a career consultants’ conference. He had recently published the first edition of his Free Agent Nation book. Pink made a strong case for the inevitable growth and benefits of free agency. He also paid special attention to the needs of his audience, and discussed how solo entrepreneurship could offer great opportunities for both career coaches and their clients.

Before this conference ended, several of us met to discuss both the up and down sides of free agency. There were an abundance of positives already described by Pink in his lecture and book, but we felt we also needed to discuss approaches to the biggest land mines of free agency. We decided that the areas of greatest concern were social isolation, intellectual isolation, inability to leverage resources, and obsessive/workaholic tendencies.

As it turns out, Pink had already anticipated each of our concerns. In the second edition of his book, published later that same year, he added a resource guide that offered many helpful remedies for the problems we had noted.

I listed Daniel Pink’s 101 free agent survival strategies in my January, 2012 blog. Click this link to see this list. In another section of his resource collection, Pink offered 10 suggestions for starting and maintaining a F.A.N. Club.

Think about what you want to accomplish.

Recruit one pal.

Balance similarity with diversity.

Choose the right meeting locale.

Meet at a regular time.

Stick to an agenda.

Eat.

Consider meeting by telephone.

Remember that groups evolve (and sometimes devolve).

Invite me.

My first group successfully incorporated Pink’s suggestions for starting and managing our F.A.N. club. This included inviting him to one of our meetings! At the time, he was working on his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. During our one hour phone session we discussed his and our ongoing and anticipated challenges and opportunities in free agency. Topics that day included writing, living a free agent life, growing a client base, and dealing with risk and uncertainty.

In our discussion that day, and over the next several years of regular meetings, these two F.A.N. Clubs have helped us understand free agency from both a wide angle and a finely tuned lens. With mutual support, regular meetings, wide ranging discussions and strategic exchanges, both of these F.A.N. clubs have helped us evolve as successful solo entrepreneurs.

My second group, formed in 2006, has met every month for nine years. We have maintained the same eight person membership over these years, and have helped one another with the countless ups and downs of independent entrepreneurship. We have gone far together. We anticipate continuing this group indefinitely as we navigate free agency, as a supportive team of equals.

Conclusion

If you choose to leave a corporate working identity and go solo, be sure to get help and advice from both peers and seasoned veterans like Daniel Pink along the way. Don’t let yourself become isolated socially, intellectually or professionally.

Find a way to share the journey with others who can help guide and support your future success, and do the same for them. Create or join a group like the F.A.N. Clubs I have described in this blog. Chances are very good that you will go much farther than you could on your own, and you’ll be happier and more productive along the way. Happy trails to you!

June, 2015

In his book, Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance, Bob Buford describes the first half of life as favoring the pursuit of success. In the second half, Buford suggests that the balance shifts towards significance. In discussions with my career transition clients, our focus is typically on how to achieve both success and significance in life and work. Why not both, regardless of our life stage?

In the first half of this blog I’ll be sharing some insights on success from Wharton Professor, Adam Grant. His book, Give and Take, reveals some intriguing findings about how the most successful people behave. In the second half of this blog I’ll explain how “remembering the ride home” can help us stay true to living a life of significance.

Success

For a useful summary of Give and Take, click here. In this book, Adam Grant described three types of people: givers, takers and matchers. For the givers, it’s mostly about generosity. If you are a taker, it’s about you. If you are a matcher, whenever you give away something, you expect something of equal value in return. Who would you guess are the most successful people?

According to Grant’s research, the givers are actually both the most and the least successful. They are least successful when they give too much at the expense of their own work, don’t set boundaries well, or burn out after consistently overextending their generosity. The givers who exercise a “healthy selfishness”, while still being primarily focused on the needs of others, turn out to be the most successful. Grant describes these people as “otherish” givers. I often discuss Grant’s model in my coaching sessions, and recommend his book. How would you describe yourself? Would being an “otherish” giver be an aspirational description you would choose for yourself?

Significance

Charlie Maxwell is the CEO of Meristem, a Twin Cities based financial services firm. Charlie’s job is extremely demanding, and he is also the parent of triplets. His children all received early childhood development services from an organization named Fraser. When Charlie was asked to join the Fraser board, he quickly and whole heartedly agreed to do so.

Over time, Charlie became aware of an increasing level of frustration caused by the demands of his work and family, combined with the time and energy required by the Fraser board and also serving as a Trustee of the Foundation at the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute. He was most in touch with these frustrations on his trips in to his board and foundation meetings. On most rides home, however, Charlie would find himself feeling grateful for the choice he had made to serve in this way.

Charlie found a simple attitude adjustment as a method for alleviating these frustrations. He decided to remember the ride home on the ride to those meetings. From that point on, a broad smile appeared both to and from the meetings. Charlie has told me that he regularly shares this story with his staff, encouraging generosity as an ongoing expectation for everyone within his firm.

Shortly after hearing his story, I decided to try Charlie’s advice myself, on my drive in to a volunteer church meeting. At the stoplight on the corner of 36th street and Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, I took a moment to recall Charlie’s story, and began to smile myself. I pictured the faces of each of the committee members, imagined our meeting ending and then walking out of my church into the night air. I felt the warmth that was sure to come at the end of that meeting, and a pride in the contributions we had just made. I felt my emotions shift as I began to anticipate my ride home on that warm summer evening.

Before the stop light changed to green, I noticed to my immediate right the Lakewood Cemetery. I realized that one day my last ride would be to that cemetery, and just before that ride there would be a ceremony at my church, three blocks away. At that ceremony the significance of my life would be reviewed. My mind started to race ahead. What would be in my eulogy, and what should I be doing today to make that eulogy a good one?

It has become clear to me that our life’s significance is revealed both during each day’s ride home, and during those final events immediately preceding the “ultimate” ride home.

Summary

Success and significance….what can we do to achieve both? I have suggested an approach to each with the help of professor Adam Grant and his “otherish” giver strategy, and Charlie Maxwell with his advice to remember the ride home on your ride in. I hope this, and each of my blogs, has been helpful to you in your career and life. This month marks the completion of my 50th entry, and my fourth year of blogging. I sincerely hope these blogs continue to be helpful to you in your search for success and significance.

April 2015

Imagine you are standing on the edge of an elevated platform, just like the man above. Below you is a landing too far down for you to jump safely. Twenty feet in front of you there is a landing spot you hope to arrive at sometime soon. You look ahead and see on that landing either a clear or a partial image of your next job and next organization. You are pulled towards that new opportunity, even if it is not clear what it might be. At the same time, you are being pushed forward by your dissatisfaction. You are excited about moving toward future possibilities, but frightened by the risks immediately in front of you.

You don’t want to make a false move and end up like the free falling Don Draper in the opening credits of Mad Men. Perhaps you are feeling frozen and you are stuck. You could stay where you are, but you know you need to take that next step. The fear of making a bad decision, possibly falling into a financial, career or emotional hole, weighs heavily on you. Does this scenario sound familiar? If so, it’s time to start laying the foundation for moving on.

To get to that preferred destination, over the chasm of fear and risk, you need to lay down a collection of platforms to get you there safely and successfully. You will need to build your transition base from above with whatever time and energy you can spare for this task.

To get started, I suggest you employ the Ronnie Brooks method. Brooks is one of the founders of the Wilder Foundation’s Shannon Institute, and has taught this method for many years. Here is my interpretation of her model. You’ll need to build a platform leading to your preferred future by laying down the same elements as those prescribed for individuals already in transition, but you will need to build your foundation differently. Brooks suggests that you imagine a steadily growing platform of mattresses you toss down from above.

Step by step you will be building a foundation that leads to your exit and a new start as you create this transition bridge. While this process might seem laborious and time consuming, it will make your career transition more methodical and less risky. Even with just the first three mattresses tossed down, a softer, safer landing becomes much more likely.

I have numbered the eight career transition platforms in the order they typically need to be completed, starting with self assessment. You might be tempted to take an early leap, but be careful not to just take a job if it might lead you to a quick, but not a good, fix. Lay down at least your first three platforms before seriously considering taking that leap. Rediscover your talents and preferences. Identify and research your preferred job, industry and company options. Ideally, you should be able to clearly articulate your talents, focus and filters before taking the leap.

If you need help with the self assessment process, you can start with my June, 2012 blog: “Living life forward, understanding it backwards.” For help creating your job, organizational and personal focus and filters, take a look at my October, 2013 blog: “Evaluating an opportunity.”

The blog you are reading now marks my forty-eighth monthly entry about career transition and transformation. To learn strategies for building the eight platforms listed above, go to my monthly blog posting site and select the entries that will be most helpful to you now.

Remember that this is not just about getting another job in a new company. It’s about getting the right job within the right organization. Commitment, courage, executing a logical developmental and strategic approach, and perhaps enlisting a coach and/or group to support you will help make this a more successful and satisfying transition. Lay down a strong foundation, and you’ll have solid ground beneath your feet, reduced risk, and a cushion if you decide (or need) to jump earlier than you had planned. Is it time to start tossing down those mattresses?

February, 2015

After completing a career assessment, discussions with my career transition clients quickly shift to the question, “What’s next?” To help show them their likely range of options, I always share the graphic above. Together we retrace their career history and discuss where most of their successes, challenges, satisfactions and frustrations have taken place. With the aid of this graphic, it becomes clear where on the organizational life cycle their career highs and lows have occurred.

In this blog, I’ll begin by walking you through this organizational life cycle model and the most common characteristics of each stage. You will then be able to track where you have found the best fit historically. You will also be better prepared to decide where you would like to make your next career move.

Formative (stage 1)

Organizations begin as formative entities. In their earliest stages, they tend to be led by individuals who have a burning passion and a powerful vision. The leadership scale is usually weighted heavily towards creativity over control. Note the dividing line at the center of the graphic above, suggesting that creativity dominates stages one and three (below the line), and control dominates stage two (above the line). As their business grows, formative organizations typically rely on limited resources and clever ways to keep the wheels on the bus as they continue to evolve. They are similar to the low flying small airplane with a bush pilot at the controls. They operate with much greater immediate risk than their larger (metaphorical) counterpart, the commercial airliner.

For the small business, false moves or unexpected threats can have dire consequences. Risk usually levels off with higher altitude and positive momentum over time. As the formative organization approaches higher economic milestones, it will likely be an acquisition target. Investors or larger entities will hope to benefit from its success, and transform it to an even higher flying entity.

Normative (stage 2)

Think large airplane with many passengers and a large crew, flying high with more routine and predictable routes, and less vulnerability to short term threats than its “formative” counterpart. Control is typically valued more than creativity, but in healthy large organizations there is the expectation that both elements remain strong. The best normative businesses are excellent teaching organizations with sophisticated people, resources and systems. Along with this complexity and large number of employees, however, comes the expectation for increased political savvy, more consensus building and the narrowing of role scope. Compare this to the formative organization’s more hands on, rapid decision cycles and overlapping of role boundaries.

Reformative (stage 3)

When you see the organizational growth curve transitioning from growth to flattening to decline, denial or basic adjustments might delay aggressive action for a while, but at some point there will be a mandate to turn the business around. This is where the organization typically needs the creative, disruptive force delivered by individuals within or outside the organization who can bring back the growth curve.

This life cycle discussion brings to mind some insights from a book I read several years ago, Barbarians To Bureaucrats, Corporate Life Cycle Strategies, by Laurence Miller. Miller’s main point is that businesses are started by barbarians and prophets, and are too often taken over, and eventually taken down, by administrators, bureaucrats and aristocrats. In order to rescue the organization from the decline brought on by these three players, the barbarians and prophets must reenter the picture to do what is needed to right the ship and grow the business again. Steve Jobs’ return to Apple Computer is a great example of this. See my November, 2011 blog for that story.

To short-circuit this decline scenario, Miller advocates a healthy balance of creativity and control during both the formative and normative phases of an organization’s life. With balanced leadership in place, the reformative stage can hopefully be avoided altogether.

Conclusion

I have just taken you on an organizational life cycle journey to help you see possible future destinations, and remember where you have fit best in the past. Reference this model as you leverage your self-assessments, market research and networking to build a bridge to your next career opportunity. Do you prefer the more formative organization where you wear many hats, create solutions with limited resources, operate with more creative freedom, and share space with leaders who at times resemble barbarians and prophets? Do you prefer instead a more mature organization that offers more resources, sophistication and career options, but perhaps less creative freedom, more office politics and a more narrow role? Are you a transformational leader who is excited by the creative challenges of organizational reform, even with the heavy lifting that comes with it?

How will you discover what’s next for you? First, learn the lessons from your career history. After that, consider the pros and cons of the formative, normative and reformative options I have described in this blog, and pursue whatever fits you best. Good luck finding your fit!