WorkPuzzle

Coaching for Possibilities

“A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.”    -William Arthur Ward

Over the past 25 years of providing Psychotherapy, my chief mission has been to free people from unconscious ruts that control their lives.  This isn't easy.  People rarely see how they have boxed themselves into a view of themselves and the world that limits their perspective, beliefs and actions.

When a person is in a rut, they limit their own movement, growth, vision and freedom to act.  They see the world in a fixed way, and try to convince everyone around them of their "rut trapped" perspective.  Their perspective on life unveils consistent themes, describing their own personal rut repeatedly acted out.

A person who is not stuck in a rut flows like a river, emanating wisdom, humor, and humility.  They may have a long list of things that haven't worked out, but have no regrets for their efforts.  

When things are going well, economically, emotionally etc., it is easier to ignore the ruts that would otherwise bind us.  However, in these difficult times, ruts are bound to surface.  Even the most fluid people can be temporarily thrown into a rut in these extreme circumstances, simply because life isn't familiar or secure.

Losing a job, a home, and plans for the future can certainly appear as an insurmountable rut.  "River people" however, don't allow themselves to get stuck there.  They manage to continually pull themselves up and out of the rut, dust themselves off, and move on with life.  I feel fortunate to know many river people.

As leaders, you owe it to yourself and those you coach to help free them from their ruts...even those who your letting go.  Help them find hope and envision the opportunities that can unfold as a result of this economic period.  Help them realize their freedom and potential to pursue a new river in the form of new ideas, new innovations, new training, new commitments, new values, and perhaps even an entirely new direction. 

You will find that everyone within an organization benefits once the individual tributaries find their "flow", and can contribute their full potential once again.

---

Posting Comments:  Have you ever posted a comment on a blog?  If not, you should try it.  It’s a fun way to get involved in the discussion and find out what others are thinking.  If you’re a shy person or want to maintain a higher level of privacy, just use your first name or a screen name.  Your email address will not be visible under any circumstances.  We’ll all benefit from hearing your thoughts.  To post a comment, click the comments tab below this posting.  

eHarmony for Jobs

Earlier this week, I received an email from a job board announcing they had found a “job match” for me.  The email profoundly announced that I would be a great fit for a Pharmacy Technician position that recently opened in my local area.

That’s odd.  I have no background in pharmacy, I’ve never had an interest in pharmacy, and I really don’t like drug companies.  On the spectrum of medical healing options, I lean much more toward natural healing options than supporting traditional drug therapies.

If this were an isolated case, I would brush it off as some kind of anomaly.  But, unfortunately, this is becoming quite common.  I’ve never received a job match from any service that comes anywhere close to my interests and talents.  These companies regularly send me job-match emails that miss the mark completely. 

I’ve often wondered why no one has been able to come up with a viable “eHarmony for jobs”.  There has to be some folksy shrink like Dr. Neil Clark Warren out there who could make a go of this business model.  Right?

An article I ran across by John Sumser this week makes me think this may never (successfully) happen on a large scale basis.  Mr. Sumser wrote the following critique about the marketing propaganda of a new job-matching start-up called eHire that claims to be the “eHarmony for Jobs”:

“Thank goodness, what we’ve been missing is one more eHarmony for Jobs.  Here’s the list so far (If you have any additions, I’d love to see them.)  Climber, Google, Itzbig, Jiibe, JobFox, Jobster, JobStick, MBAInteract, Optimatch, RealMatch, Trovix, Zumeo..

What’s surprising is that someone would launch a service [eHire] with this sort of branding this late in the game.  Although Harry Joiner said it best, there has been an endless supply of articles detailing the problems with matching.  To summarize Joiner, there are five reasons that eHarmony won’t work for jobs:

1. Companies often don’t know what they want the new employee to do
2. Many jobs have no defined skill set
3. All candidates are liars
4. People are terrified to specialize
5. Resumes and online 'profiles' aren’t people"

What can we learn from this?  If you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager, there is no substitute for getting to know your candidates as human beings.  While an assessment or a skills-match can give you some hints as to how a person may fit in a particular role on your team, it cannot replace the need for personal involvement.  After all, even eHarmony is designed to get you a first date with someone who is in the ballpark of being compatible with you - The rest is up to you!

If you’re looking for a job or if you are coaching someone who is looking for a job, don’t put too much faith in the role of technology for your job search.  Personal connections produce results.  Work hard at making personal connections and becoming relevant, helpful, and engaged with the network of people you already know.

---

Posting Comments:  Have you ever posted a comment on a blog?  If not, you should try it.  It’s a fun way to get involved in the discussion and find out what others are thinking.  If you’re a shy person or want to maintain a higher level of privacy, just use your first name or a screen name.  Your email address will not be visible under any circumstances.  We’ll all benefit from hearing your thoughts.  To post a comment, click the comments tab below this posting.

The Flip Side of Panic

Do you feel somewhat paralyzed as a result of the current economic downturn?  If you’re an avid reader of this blog, you’re aware that this reaction is normal.  In previous discussions, we’ve addressed how to cope with the intense anxiety and despair that many are feeling due to the current state of affairs, lay-offs, etc.

Panic is designed to help us survive.  Unfortunately, our nervous systems weren’t designed to manage 24/7 media reminders of doom and gloom.  They were designed to help us run from Tigers!  As a result, panic can induce an “out-of-control” feeling in many of us.

What if I told you that you could learn to control panic?  An overwhelming feeling of panic/anxiety can actually be the beginning of a healthy coping process, rather than result in mounting feelings of helplessness.

How do you tame continuous feelings of panic/despair?  The answer comes in understanding that Panic and Reason are on opposite sides of the same continuum.  If you can get your mind to organize, reason, plan, and take action, you can control panic.

Take for instance the recent events on the Hudson River. Under extremely stressful conditions, Captain Sully Sullenberger managed to guide his plane to a safe water landing.

Is he really that different than the rest of us?  Lets take a look:

“It was the worst sickening pit of your stomach, falling through the floor feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.  I knew immediately it was very bad....My initial reaction was one of disbelief.  ‘I can’t believe this is happening. This doesn’t happen to me!' ". (Interview w/ Katie Couric on 60 Minutes)

Asked what he meant by that, Sullenberger said:

"I meant that I had this expectation that my career would be one in which I didn’t crash an airplane.”

So far he is exactly like you and me.  He first felt tremendous panic and disbelief.  If you’ve read my blogs on the Science of Survival, you know that everyone caught in stressful circumstances goes through the grief process.  The difference between those who survive and those who don’t, is how quickly they proceed through the stages.

Sullenberger went through them quickly.  He panicked, was then in Denial (“This isn’t happening to me!”), then Acceptance and finally Action.  He explains:

"The physiological reaction to this was very strong.  I had to force myself to use my training.  It took some concentration, but I forced calm.”

Sullenberger followed this up by telling Katie that he organized his thoughts and carried out action steps.

This is a good example of how the Panic/Reason Response works.  If you can get your mind to organize, plan, and execute, you’ll tip the seesaw toward the healthy side, feel a lot better as a result, and actually do something productive.  Helping your employees and clients learn to siphon through their panic will do you both wonders!  Take some action today rather than staring blindly at the Hudson.

The Psychology of Being Laid-Off

It’s been tough to watch the news in the last few weeks.  In fact, it’s downright depressing.  Company after company, many of them brands that we all know and trust, continue to announce layoffs.   

If you really want a dose of despair, you can track the nation’s lay-offs as they happen by checking Layoff Daily.  The owners of this site now have to provide updates four to eight times a day to keep up with the news! 

If you’re a recruiter or you’re coaching someone, in the near future you’ll probably come in contact with candidates, clients, and potential clients who have been laid-off.  Have you ever wondered what goes through the mind of someone in this situation?  It might be worth some additional thought.

Over the next few days we’ll be discussing this topic.  I’ll start by sharing some recent insight I gained from Malcolm Gladwell’s newest book called Outliers.  In this book, Mr. Gladwell tells the story of how Jewish immigrants to New York City in the late 1800s had a profound effect on how a small group of people were able to become wildly successful attorneys in the 1970s.  If you’ve read any of Gladwell’s previous books, you know he’s a master at making these odd connections.

During the development of this story, he makes an interesting observation.  Jewish immigrants who came to New York City were extremely hard workers.  They commonly worked in the garment industry and would put in 100 hour work weeks. 

“When [the main character in the story] came home at night to his children, he may have been tired and poor and overwhelmed, but he was alive.  He was his own boss.  He was responsible for his own decisions and direction.  His work was complex: it engaged his mind and imagination.  And in his work, there was a relationship between effort and reward…  Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have to be satisfying.  Work that fulfills these three criteria is meaningful. ”

With these criteria in mind, what happens to a person who has recently been laid-off?  Many perceive that two of the three legs to their “stool of meaning at work” have been knocked out from under them. 

With a good job, a person has the perception of autonomy.  But when a lay-off occurs, that perception is shattered.  Self-sufficiency was really “company-sufficiency”, and is no longer available to that person.

In addition, many lay-offs are not performed along the lines of performance alone.  A person may be a very high performer and still get laid-off.  In the short term, this disrupts the desired connection between effort and reward.  To a person going though this experience, it doesn’t seem fair.

If you’re coaching someone, it is important to address these two issues.  Helping a person conceptualize how his previous job eventually lost its meaning is an important first step in establishing a new direction.

If you’re a hiring manager interviewing a person who has recently been laid-off, it might be worth probing on these two issues:  (1) Can the candidate find autonomy in your organization? and (2) Is there a connection between effort and reward in the position you need filled?  While these may not be pertinent issues during the interview (there are a lot of people who are desperate for jobs), they’ll become retention issues at a later time when conditions improve.

Finding the Pearls in a Crisis as an Organization

As an organization, it is easy to become inwardly focused during a time of difficulty or crisis.  While some of this cannot be avoided, it is important not to lose sight of the horizon.  There is a future out there, and that future will one day become your organization’s reality.

If 30% of us get stronger and better during difficult circumstances, doesn’t it make sense to conceptualize ways of indentifying who those people are in your organization and support their efforts?  I’m not talking about pre-selecting those who you think are going to survive.  That doesn’t work. 

Instead, I’m suggesting you notice which of the people on your team are selecting themselves by displaying the transformational coping skills of commitment, control, and challenge.  These are the people in which you should invest resources.  Your investment will pay a big dividend in future performance and increased commitment to your organization.
 
Is your organization the only one suffering challenges?  Of course not.  Some of the 30% mentioned above are being arbitrarily jettisoned from their organizations.  There are others who are not getting adequate support and opportunity from their organizations (ex. some employees are getting hours cut).

These are talented survivors who have been dealt a difficult hand.  Like me, many will need to go through a process of grief and self-discovery.  But at some point, their batteries will be re-charged and they’ll come out with guns-a-blazing.  Will you be there to find them?  

If you’re too inwardly focused, you won’t be able to engage these individuals.  Besides, they won’t be attracted to organizations that have their “heads in the sand” anyway.   Progressive companies are always recruiting.  Survivors know where the escape hatches are.

 

Finding the Pearls in a Crisis

The current economic funk doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.  But it feels this way for the millions affected personally.  I know it’s really hard to see, but many of you will thrive more as a result of it. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out whistling a happy tune every day.  However, research has found that in stressful business environments, 30% of us will become stronger and better at what we do.  With this experience, we will be able to achieve more and perform better in the future.  I want to be part of that group.

Stress is an interesting thing.  It can devastate some, but invigorate others.  Those who approach stress with a sense of curiosity, hard work, fortitude and the characteristics of resilience (remember: the 3 c's), can unveil aspects of themselves that they didn’t know previously existed.  If we are able to fend off despair, we can enter a period of self-renewal.  This process plants the seeds of new growth and new opportunity.

Let me give you an example from my own life.  I lost a great deal of money in the Tech crash of 2000-2001.  My hope of someday having the freedom to figure out “what I really wanted to do” was quickly dismantled.  From this disappointment I had to make my way through the stages of grief (Shock and Denial, Pain and Guilt, Anger and Bargaining, Depression, Reflection, Reconstruction, Acceptance).

As a result of this experience, I realized I was putting off developing what I really wanted until some future arbitrary date.  This deferred hope was not a reliable platform on which to build my future.  I realized that I needed to start doing “what I really wanted to do” in the here and now.  Where I once was feeling loss and despair, I was now feeling a new found self-renewal… an opportunity.  I became excited about learning, growing, and ultimately carving a new path with renewed vigor.

While I learned a lot from this crisis, I constantly have to re-learn this lesson based on the new circumstances that come my way in life.  This same principle applies to organizations.  Tomorrow I’ll share how current economic difficulties can be a catalyst for making your organization stronger.
 

Vision and Becoming a Student of the Human Condition

We interface with clients every day who are trying to make sense of the recession, the job market, and all the other negatives in our world today.  As leaders, they are regarded by those in their organizations as visionaries who are supposed to help them make sense of the future.  The perception is that employees want their leaders to be the “emissaries of the future delivering the news of how their markets and organizations will be transformed.”    

That’s difficult work in today’s climate.  But, it also may also be the wrong work to be doing if we want to be effective.  In research conducted by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, there was a slightly different, but important focus that was uncovered:

“Constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations.  They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled.  The data tells us what leaders struggle with most is communicating an image of the future that draws others in—that speaks to what others see and feel.”

It isn’t that people don’t have a desire to know what’s going to happen.  It just gets a lot more interesting when a leader can describe what is going to happen and then make the connection to how it personally affects each member of the team.

If you’re coaching someone, this has an important implication.  Those who you are coaching need to understand how to be visionaries.  But, they also need to understand how to communicate the vision so that they engage those they manage, work with, and even sell to.

If you’re in a recruiting role, it’s your job to outline the vision of your organization and paint a picture of the possibilities that exist if the candidate leaves their existing organization.  Wouldn’t it be more attractive to the candidate if you could weave those possibilities into the things that he or she is trying to accomplish in their own life?

There becomes two important parts to the equation:  (1) The development of a vision that appropriately addresses the future of the organization, and (2) An understanding of how that vision can personally engage each member (or potential member) of the team.  

 “As counterintuitive as it might seem, then, the best way to lead people into the future is to connect with them deeply in the present.  The only visions that take hold are shared visions-and you will create them only when you listen very, very, closely to others, appreciate their hopes, and attend to their needs.  The best leaders are able to bring their people into the future because they engage in the oldest form of research:  They observe the human condition.”

We think observing the human condition is worth the time and effort.  I hope you do too.  

---

The information and the direct quotes in this discussion were adapted from a Harvard Business Review article (January, 2009) called To Lead, Create a Shared Vision.  The article was written by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.  These authors recently wrote a book called The Leadership Challenge.

Resilience Revisited: Avoiding Anxiety Paralysis

Before the holidays, we wrote a couple of articles on resilience.   The articles highlighted the research of Dr. Salvatore Maddi and summarized the principles that he discovered.

Last week, Business Week did an article on resilience as well.  In today’s economic climate, it’s a topic that interests a lot of us.   Like the bathroom plunger under the sink, I don’t care for the circumstances that require me put the tool into use, but I am glad I have it.

Dr. Kerry Sulkowicz makes it clear you’re going to need resilience if you’re going to maintain a clear head during  tough times:

“Many psychologists consider [resilience] a key component of emotional health. Resilient people, they have observed, are naturally better at containing their anxiety. And that enables them to see in hardship the seeds of opportunity. What would emotional resilience entail in the face of the current crisis? The ability to resist being swept up in the global state of panic and to adapt as creatively as possible to one's setbacks and losses.”

We see this principle played out with our clients every day.  Some people are not very good at containing their anxiety and they become paralyzed as a result.  But, others are busy working to find new opportunities.  We all feel the strain, but some people have figured out how to use that strain as a catalyst for action.

If you find yourself in the second group, Dr. Sulkowicz has some advice for you:

“But just as there is no shortcut to emotional health, you can't become resilient overnight, or by sheer will, or by reading the latest book on the subject. Instead, resilience is acquired through increasing self-awareness. You must connect with trusted and candid intimates who help you build confidence. You need to repeatedly expose yourself to a range of difficult circumstances and then overcome them.”

If you’re responsible for coaching those around you, this is a great opportunity.  You’re the “trusted and candid intimate” your protégés need to overcome their anxiety.  Can you help them identify the things they are already overcoming?  This is the foundation to build upon and can give them courage to take on the next challenge.

If you’re struggling yourself, then you need to connect with others who can provide you support.  The first tendency will be to just talk with those who will compassionately identify with our circumstances.  While this may help, we also need those “tough love” friends who can give us the push to take on the next challenge.

Editor’s Note:  Did you miss the previous articles on resilience?  Click on the following links to catch up:  

Resilience: Are You Able to Thrive Under Stressful Conditions?

Resilience: Are You Able to Thrive Under Stressful Conditions? Part 2

The Stars Might Lie, but the Numbers Never Do

Yesterday, I told you I would follow-up with an example of how using metrics has equipped us to save our clients a significant amount of money on candidate advertising.

A few months back, we were interested in buying advertising in a metro area where we had a major client.   The client needed to source more than 500 candidates per month to meet its hiring goals.  In  this metro area, there is a regional job board that is very prominent—you see its ads on the sides of buses, at bus stops, on trains, and you hear its ads on the radio.  It constantly refers to itself as the #1 job board in this metro area.

We inquired about advertising on this company’s job board.  The prices were high, but its claims of traffic to the site were high as well.   Since we had been advertising in this city for more than a year, we had reliable metrics on this vendor’s competitors “advertising cost per applicant.”

With these competitive metrics in hand, we were able to negotiate a one-month trial at a fairly low price.   The trial pricing was based on a one-year commitment assuming the job board was able to hit a cost per applicant benchmark that its competitors were meeting.  

As you probably guessed, the trial did not meet the expectations of either party.  To this day, we’re able to source candidates in this marketplace through a group of competitive job boards and search strategies at an advertising cost of $3/candidate.  The trial with the prospective vendor produced a cost of $15/candidate.   Working this backwards, a job posting on this company’s job board priced at $300/month was really only worth $60/month for our application.  

With this information (a metric that can be used across vendors, reliable data from a vendor’s competitors, and low-cost trial data from the new vendor), we were in a much better position to understand the true reality of the situation.   In the subsequent negotiation, we were able to get this vendor to quickly reduce its prices by more than 50%.   It still ended in an impasse because the vendor was not willing to lower its price enough to displace its competitors, but you do have to feel sorry for all the companies paying $300 per posting!  With just a little more information and the confidence to ask, they could be paying $150 for the same advertisement.

If you apply this principle across the thousands of candidate advertising impressions we provide our clients on a daily basis, it adds up to some significant savings.  Granted, it cost us money to define, develop systems, and track this data, but the numbers do pay off.

I hope you’ll find an application in your business where you can use metrics to save you money or find opportunities that you’re missing.  It reminds me of the theme of one of my favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter songs, “The stars might lie, but the numbers never do.”

5 Things We Can Learn From Great Managers in Peru

Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of becoming friends with a group of people who have developed a large real estate construction and management company in Lima, Peru.   What brought this to mind today was that they happen to be in-country this week.

I recently traveled to Peru myself as part of this project.   On this trip, I was able to witness firsthand the spirit of work among the people there.  More specifically, I was able to gain exposure to a group of companies that seemed to possess an unlimited sense of hope and rejuvenation.

The country of Peru has an interesting economic history.  Like many Latin America countries in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was plagued with numerous economic problems such as high inflation, narcotics trading, corruption, failed government initiatives, etc. 

In the mid-‘90s, Peru underwent considerable free-market economic reforms that produced significant economic growth, spurred foreign investment, and brought inflation under control.   For an economy that was once primarily based on agriculture and the mining of natural resources, a transition has occurred to where more than 70% of their GDP is now derived from the services.

For those people who grew up in Peru during very difficult and near hopeless economic conditions, the new economy is perceived as their best chance to accomplish something significant.  During my time as a business professional, I have rarely witnessed as much talent voluntarily working long hours towards a mutual goal.

But, it went a little deeper.  Many of these people saw their work as a way to tap the very best of who they are.  Their management teams recognized this energy and made it part of their organizations. 
Here are some specific things I noticed about their managers: 

1. They expect their organizations to hire the best talent. They settle for nothing but the best.
2. They expect these talented people to set the bar high and be fully engaged in their work.
3. They measure everything and everyone.   The managers made it clear that without reliable data you can’t set meaningful goals and assess daily progress.
4. They are constantly trying to discover what their clients want.
5. Most importantly, they have the courage to be constantly active. They don’t get stuck in inactivity, which many organizations and people tend to do.

I was inspired, and I wish that more organizations in our country could tap into these principles.  While the financial results were impressive among these companies, the positive energy and passion is what caught my attention the most.