Driving the Career Highway: 20 Road Signs You Can't Afford to Miss
288
Driving the Career Highway: 20 Road Signs You Can't Afford to Miss
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781595552785 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Leadership |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2009 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
DRIVING THE CAREER HIGHWAY
20 ROAD SIGNS YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISSBy JANICE REALS ELLIG WILLIAM J. MORIN
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2007 Janice Reals Ellig and William J. MorinAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7852-2014-5
Chapter One
ROAD SIGN 1STOP
Who Are You? Where Have You Been? Where Do You Really Want to Go?
Bill: In recruiting candidates for searches, do you find people in corporate America generally happy or unhappy in their careers?
Janice: For too many, it's a matter of habit, not happiness.
Bill: And too many have accepted that happiness in a career is simply not possible.
Janice: Yes. That's why I advise just about every candidate who comes through my office to stop and evaluate who they are, to take a look in the rearview mirror to see where they've been, and only then to figure out where they want to go. The job I am interviewing them for may fit their experiences, but may not be right for what they really want to do next. For the most part, they have not stopped to evaluate other possibilities; they just continue driving on a career highway-it becomes what they know best, not what is best!
Bill: There are times when you just need to take a break, turn on the lights, and look objectively at every aspect of your life. We just need to stop and reassess.
Janice:Otherwise, you run the risk of crashing and burning. But people are simply afraid that if they stop, they won't be able to start again.
Bill: Actually, they'll get off the mark faster, smoother, and better if they take that all-important pause.
FAILURE TO STOP CAN BE DANGEROUS
Remember the rules about what to do at a Stop sign? You're required to bring your vehicle to a complete stop, check your rearview mirror, look carefully to the right and left, and, of course, scan the road ahead. Only when you are completely satisfied that the conditions are right and that your way is clear can you take your foot off the brake and put it back on the accelerator.
Chances are that you're reading this book because you feel you're driving toward some sort of intersection in your career. Maybe you see a Stop sign ahead. Maybe you're there, with your foot on the brake and the engine idling, waiting for the other cars to get out of the way. And maybe you're not quite sure what that sign up there is saying, and you figure you don't need to slow up; you'll just ram through.
Don't.
Failure to stop at a Stop sign is as dangerous in a career as it is on the road. The message it's giving you is all-important: if you don't stop, look, listen, and assess right now, your career may not make it out of the intersection at all.
So hit the brakes.
Not tomorrow. Today. Now. This minute.
Put down the BlackBerry. Close the cell phone. Clear your mind. It's time for a pause. 2 DRIVING THE CAREER HIGHWAY
STOP-BUT DON'T NECESSARILY STOP WORKING: THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES
High school kids sometimes take a "gap year" before they start classes at their prospective colleges. Partly it's because they are utterly exhausted-burned-out-from all the pressure to get into college. And partly it's a way of promoting "discovery of one's own passions," as an admissions officer at Harvard put it-Harvard being just one of many fine institutions of higher learning that actually advises students to experience the gap year before college.
Professors often take sabbaticals after seven years of steady teaching and scholarship. The mind begins to tire if it concentrates too consistently on any one thing. A change of both pace and scenery refreshes the brain's capabilities and restores its capacity for thinking.
Even television sitcoms and dramas go on hiatus so the writers, directors, actors, designers, etc., can rest and reinvigorate their creativity. After all, how many plots are there in the world-and how many jokes can you make about dysfunctional families?
In all of these cases, the value of the pause that refreshes has been recognized. Now it's time to recognize its value in a career.
Think about it. On any long road trip, you must put on the brakes now and again. You need to take the time to reassess, now that you've been on the road for a while, whether you want the fastest route, the scenic highway, or the route that meanders through all those towns and cities. You need time to take the car in for some maintenance-to make sure that the engine is sound, that the air bags will still work if needed, that your tire treads are good enough to take you through bad weather and over rough roads. You need time to adjust the rearview mirror, to make sure you can see with absolute clarity where you've been and what's coming up behind you. And you need time to rethink your destination, to make absolutely sure you know where it is you want to go.
To do all that, you simply have to stop.
But let's be clear: we are not advising that you necessarily stop working. We're in no way hinting that you should quit your job, although a vacation or leave isn't a bad idea, as we'll suggest a bit later. Nor are we talking about blank downtime-an empty stretch of doing and thinking nothing. After all, high school kids spend their gap year doing something "else"-maybe traveling to exotic places or signing on to some form of community service-something that enriches their education. Professors on sabbatical take the opportunity to work on a subject important to them. And TV actors make a movie or do dinner theater or head for Broadway. Stopping, therefore, isn't for vegetating; it's for stretching. It isn't doing nothing that refreshes you; it's doing something different, something for you.
What we have in mind is doing something for you by stretching your mind, your life, yourself-taking time for assessment and evaluation of you, your goals, where you're coming from, where you want to get to, and whether you can and should go there. And for that, you'll have to stop your forward motion for a bit.
Why is this so important? Because we've seen too many bright, talented, ambitious individuals crash and burn-only to discover, as they picked themselves up out of the wreckage, that they crashed and burned for something they didn't really care about. Had they seen the Stop sign staring them in the face and come to the required complete halt, they might have heard that all-important inner voice telling them what it is they really love, what it is that holds meaning for them, what would give their lives purpose so that they wouldn't crash and burn at all.
But to hear that inner voice, you have to listen. And for that, you must stop your headlong rush. You must pause. And you must establish the conditions for hearing what the inner voice is telling you.
That's what the first road sign on the career highway is all about. In a very real sense, if you don't get this one right, the others won't matter very much. Let's face it: without the passion for a purpose, no career is really worth it.
So follow this road sign's instruction: bring yourself to a complete stop, and get ready to look back, gaze forward, and do some important maintenance. In doing so, you'll take your thinking beyond what you are doing to find not just what you know, but what you know is right for you.
OUR STOP SIGNS
Some personal history first.
The truth is that both of us have met Stop signs in our careers, and we both agree that the pauses that followed were invaluable. The irony in our cases-and it will doubtless turn out the same for you-is that the stops were the reason that our careers really got moving in the right direction and on faster, smoother tracks.
Bill hit his first Stop sign early in his chosen career as a schoolteacher. He has always loved teaching. To this day, he can't think of a higher honor in life than being asked a question. So as a young man, he went out and got two MS degrees to prepare himself for this noble profession. But in time, the rising financial pressures of a growing family proved too burdensome. Bill drove right up to the Stop sign and came to a complete halt so he could rethink, determine how he could better accomplish his goals, find a balance between personal needs and his family's economic needs, and see where he could fit. The Stop taught him two things. One, he decided to change direction and head toward corporate America in order to do better economically. Two, he listened to that inner voice telling him that he had to in some way keep the essence of teaching in his life.
Bill hit his second Stop sign in quite a different way, and the pause this time was of a different nature: it helped him draw a line he would not cross. As a product manager in a major food company, he was assigned to carry out an exhaustive study of a proposed new product, still in development. He did so, then reported-accurately-that the product was subpar and not likely to succeed. For reasons that can only be guessed at, Bill's supervisor didn't want to hear that. He called Bill a "dope" for knocking the product, and he ordered him to water down the report.
Of course, Bill refused. But the incident forced him to halt, look around, and reevaluate whether he fit in this organization. He decided he did not, that his style conflicted too much with the company's political emphasis. His inner voice told him that both the industry he was in and the style of the organization went against his grain, so Bill changed both.
The result of these stops for Bill? He found a home in business, but in situations where he could create a one-on-one classroom. Over time, he kept "refining" the situation. Today, he manages his own executive coaching firm. He is still a scholar who consistently studies and observes. He constantly keeps abreast of the latest research. And he is able to bring all that to bear in a setting in which people still ask him questions.
For Janice, the first Stop sign came in the form of a corporate reorganization that changed some of what she wanted to do and challenged most of the career assumptions on which she had been operating. After twenty years in corporate America, she realized for the first time that she did not feel in control of her own professional destiny. At about the same time, she got together with a guy she had known professionally for fifteen years-the head of Drake, Beam Morin, Inc., international consultants-namely, Bill Morin. She and Bill decided they had a book to write, and they began work on their jointly authored What Every Successful Woman Knows: 12 Breakthrough Strategies to Get the Power & Ignite Your Career. The two incidents-the unanticipated reorganization that stymied her career progression, and embarking on a journey toward a whole new kind of work-forced her to rethink where she had been and where she was going. She realized that the direction she'd been following was not taking her where she wanted to be down the road. Rather, this new direction-interviewing and speaking directly to other women in corporate America through writing and lecturing-was much more in tune with the leanings of her inner voice.
While writing the book over a two-year period, and while still fully engaged in her corporate role, she reassessed her options and thought hard about what her next career step might be: she talked to people, read books, and evaluated her passion for a change. Several career options presented themselves, but they seemed neither here nor there, until she came upon the one that seemed to fit her personality and skill set: executive search.
Janice's second Stop sign came as a real shock to her. Enticed into the executive search industry by a large and prestigious firm, she soon realized that the firm's size and prestige, while certainly real, obscured the way things actually worked at the firm. A mere three weeks into the role, Janice's inner voice told her clearly that this particular company was not for her. She was truly surprised by this experience, but she was also quick to act and move on.
Brief as the experience had been-and as mismatched with the place as she had felt-even this abbreviated encounter was enough to convince Janice that executive search was the career she wanted to pursue; it clearly resonated powerfully with the direction she was charting. She immediately moved to a highly respected boutique search firm as a full partner in charge of originating and executing her searches-in a way that was more in line with her values and her ideas about how to conduct searches. There she was, fully in control of her business and able to use her twenty years of human resources experience in corporate America to be a true search consultant-one who knew the environment and understood corporate dynamics. Today, she is co-owner and Co-CEO of that company. She is also well positioned to speak with authority to and about women in corporate America, and she continues to write books.
Obviously, these narratives are totally individual. Your Stop sign might look entirely different; your inner voice is unique. But we tell you about these personal experiences because we both believe that had we not paid attention to the Stop signs on our career highways, our careers and our lives would not have been as fulfilling, as purposeful, as happy as they have been. Before you crash, before you get to a certain point in your life only to realize you've missed the boat, take the pause that refreshes: reassess and reevaluate your career and what you want from it. Do it and, like both of us, you'll resume normal speed for your next career move. In fact, you'll go faster.
DAY BY DAY
Such a reassessment/reevaluation takes time, and it should not be rushed. Look at Janice's case: it was a two-year process to consider a career change. Her life didn't stop. Neither did her work. She still had a significant role in corporate America at the time; she was busy writing a book with Bill; she was serving on the boards of directors of a number of not-for-profit organizations. She was as busy and energetic as ever. But she stopped to evaluate her life, her goals, and the direction in which she was going, and she took the time to investigate other directions and explore other options.
Janice used the time to speak to a great many people in the search business-people she herself had hired when she was a human resources director in charge of selecting search firms. She attended search association conferences. She talked to trusted friends and advisors-the most important and valuable being her husband, an accomplished HR professional. All this and a lot of self-evaluation through reading and self-testing occupied her during those twenty-four months-one day at a time.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from DRIVING THE CAREER HIGHWAY by JANICE REALS ELLIG WILLIAM J. MORIN Copyright © 2007 by Janice Reals Ellig and William J. Morin. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Anne Fisher, Senior Writer, Fortune, and Columnist for CNN....................viiIntroduction: Your Career Highway: Where Is It Going? What Are the Road Conditions? How's Your Driving? Enjoy the Ride-It's Your Life!....................ix
Road Sign 1-STOP Who Are You? Where Have You Been? Where Do You Really Want to Go?....................1
Road Sign 2-EXIT Live Your Dream: Make a Career Change....................23
Road Sign 3-DEAD END Don't Be Burned Out, Bummed Out, Unfulfilled: Strategize a Way Out of the Dead-End Career....................43
Road Sign 4-DEER CROSSING Avoid Being a Victim: Mobilize the Power Within You....................65
Road Sign 5-SHARP CURVES AHEAD Reinvent Yourself: Be Prepared for Stuff to Happen!....................77
Road Sign 6-YIELD Adapt: Fit in or Find a New Road....................91
Road Sign 7-SLIPPERY WHEN WET Drive Carefully: Don't Skid on Corporate Politics....................107
Road Sign 8-TUNNEL Bosses Matter: Learn How to Manage Your Boss....................119
Road Sign 9-FALLING ROCKS Avoid Being Crushed: Learn to Manage the People Around You....................131
Road Sign 10-ROAD NARROWS Get in the Fast Lane: Learn How to Compete So You Win....................143
Road Sign 11-DANGER ZONE Control Your Speed: Romantic Involvement in the Office....................155
Road Sign 12-WATCH CHILDREN Caution: Family Matters....................165
Road Sign 13-EMERGENCY STOPPING ONLY Integrate Life and Work: Resume Speed....................179
Road Sign 14-ADOPT A HIGHWAY Give Back to the Community: Expand Yourself as a Person....................193
Road Sign15-SORTIE/EINTRITT Cracking the Corporate Code: Learn the Language of Success....................203
Road Sign 16-DO NOT ENTER Don't Be Held Back by Gender, Race, Pedigree: Learn How to Get Invited to the Party....................213
Road Sign 17-SOFT SHOULDER Ethics and You: How Not to Compromise Your Values or Tarnish Your Reputation....................221
Road Sign 18-TRAFFIC FINES DOUBLED IN WORK ZONES The Business of Etiquette: A Tool for Competitive Advantage....................237
Road Sign 19-PASSING LANE Choose Your Car: Learn How to Market Yourself....................251
Road Sign 20-END ROAD WORK Your Career Highway....................263
About the Authors....................267
Acknowledgments....................269
Notes....................271