Our main family activity is watching movies, and this holiday weekend was no exception. Joel and I took our son Noah to see Kung Fu Panda 2 over the holiday weekend, ignoring / not reading the negative reviews. As we predicted, we all enjoyed the movie. Joel and I have observed over the years that if a movie has anything that smacks of a message that's remotely spiritual, the average (pun intended here) movie reviewer curls up into a ball like a pillbug and spits venom of varying strengths. Per Joel's sage advice: mild spoiler alert before you proceed.
While not as kick-butt inspiring as the first Kung Fu Panda, there were two great messages.
The first, voiced by the Kung Fu Panda, Po: "You gotta let go of that stuff from the past, because it just doesn't matter," Po tries telling the villain, Shen.
The second, and equally-if-not-more-powerful message: once you let go of the past, you can choose who you will be, and do. To be the Dragon Warrior, even if you're an overweight, joyous clown of a panda who still eats too much.
Once you release the past, center and achieve inner peace, what is your true vocation? What speaks to you? What gives you joy? What will provide enough to pay for the wants and needs of you and yours? (E.g., as many dumplings and as much noodle soup as you can eat to your heart's content?) And what will continue to give you inner peace?
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Come In From The Margins
I'm challenging our property tax assessment again this year. I just finished our complaint, due on Tuesday, chock full of new data and pictures. I'm looking forward to talking to the Board of Assessors again later this week.
Joel and I watched in awe as the value of the house we bought nearly 18 years ago essentially doubled by 2008. Yep, the same year our town decided to reassess all of our houses at full market value. The housing market crashed just a few months after the new tax rolls were published.
No one taught me how to put together a property tax complaint. But thanks to the experience of researching and writing discrimination complaint position statement responses and appearing at discovery hearings, that honed skill set, with a bit of help from my girlfriend Google, served us well last year, as I expect it will this year. Rather than just complain (no pun intended!) about how outdated our 2008 property tax assessment was, I took the risk and completed work in an area I never imagined experiencing. And saved us, at minimum, the cost of using someone else to represent us in an area we know so well: our own house.
When Joel was laid off in 1994 because his boss decided not to renew the 10-year the Deck the Walls franchise (and we declined the offer to take on a new 10-year, $350,000 franchise agreement ourselves on a note that Joel's boss also offered to hold, a new level of their working relationship Joel and I simply did not want to explore), he spent 4 months on unemployment while I researched and wrote the business plan to get us a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to start our own picture-framing store, The Best Framing Company. No one taught me to put together a business plan. However, I knew how to research (using AOL in its infancy); use MS Excel; and write a great story, factual or fictional. Working at GE during that time was also a boon to this process, to this day a key and foundational career experience. I doubted myself every day during the process, but Joel's faith in me and my abilities never wavered. Long story short: we got the loan. Unsecured, based on our collective talent and experience. It was a bit like a pregnancy and birth process: our first joint creation, before our son Noah. With some of the same pain, complaining and self-doubt: but in the end, a great product. And we created it ourselves, from scratch. No stinkin' franchise for us.
What will you do this week to create something that you've never done before: to create from scratch, your skills and experiences manifested in a new area; your own vision, realized? With the sure knowledge that you can come in from the margins: layoff; career and business set-backs; personal pain and crisis: and start once again, with courage, creativity, renewed faith and irrepressible energy that comes from the best source: you.
Joel and I watched in awe as the value of the house we bought nearly 18 years ago essentially doubled by 2008. Yep, the same year our town decided to reassess all of our houses at full market value. The housing market crashed just a few months after the new tax rolls were published.
No one taught me how to put together a property tax complaint. But thanks to the experience of researching and writing discrimination complaint position statement responses and appearing at discovery hearings, that honed skill set, with a bit of help from my girlfriend Google, served us well last year, as I expect it will this year. Rather than just complain (no pun intended!) about how outdated our 2008 property tax assessment was, I took the risk and completed work in an area I never imagined experiencing. And saved us, at minimum, the cost of using someone else to represent us in an area we know so well: our own house.
When Joel was laid off in 1994 because his boss decided not to renew the 10-year the Deck the Walls franchise (and we declined the offer to take on a new 10-year, $350,000 franchise agreement ourselves on a note that Joel's boss also offered to hold, a new level of their working relationship Joel and I simply did not want to explore), he spent 4 months on unemployment while I researched and wrote the business plan to get us a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to start our own picture-framing store, The Best Framing Company. No one taught me to put together a business plan. However, I knew how to research (using AOL in its infancy); use MS Excel; and write a great story, factual or fictional. Working at GE during that time was also a boon to this process, to this day a key and foundational career experience. I doubted myself every day during the process, but Joel's faith in me and my abilities never wavered. Long story short: we got the loan. Unsecured, based on our collective talent and experience. It was a bit like a pregnancy and birth process: our first joint creation, before our son Noah. With some of the same pain, complaining and self-doubt: but in the end, a great product. And we created it ourselves, from scratch. No stinkin' franchise for us.
What will you do this week to create something that you've never done before: to create from scratch, your skills and experiences manifested in a new area; your own vision, realized? With the sure knowledge that you can come in from the margins: layoff; career and business set-backs; personal pain and crisis: and start once again, with courage, creativity, renewed faith and irrepressible energy that comes from the best source: you.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Show Up and Be Successful
Wonderful stories this week from my talented network of how showing up at in-person events and meetings produced successful results:
- Recently Laid-Off Colleague #1 swallowed their discomfort in networking / prospecting and showed up at a professional breakfast meeting. They consequently connected on two job leads and one consulting gig lead. One of their leads was an email referral I had made for Laid-Off Colleague #1 the evening before to another network contact, who thanked me for the referral and reported a positive connection with Laid-Off Colleague #1 in a return email after the breakfast meeting.
- Dear Colleague from last week's post had a second meeting with their new customer; and Dear Colleague is looking at the prospect of an even larger project engagement.
- Recently Laid-Off Colleague #2 picked up not one but two job leads sitting at a dinner meeting, as we all playfully bantered at considering an impromptu auction comparing the compensation / benefits packages of the two hiring authorities at the table.
- CEO Colleague spoke at a lunch meeting recruiting talent for her firm; Dear Colleague and Coaching Colleague, in attendance, responded to her offer. This one is more fun than usual: I treasure all 3, and they connected on their own because they all showed up. I forwarded Dear Colleague and Coaching Colleague's LinkedIn profiles to CEO Colleague, completing the networking circle.
- The Rensselaer County Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner at Franklin Plaza was an ingenuous myriad of activities designed to maximize the business interactions of the attendees with each other. It was like Networking in Wonderland, with great food and great company.
- And last but not least: the intimate cocktail hour networking event Connector Colleague holds every quarter. Connector Colleague brokered several introductions for mutual business benefit, and I was honored to be included.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
A Job Interview Transformed Into a Sale
A Dear Colleague of mine went on an employment interview last week, in response to a job posting for which they were imminently, if not a bit, over-qualified.
They are clearly the lead candidate for the advertised job. While the salary rate is below what they made in their last position, it would be a logical career move, given the economy, to take the position and gain the resume' experience.
And then something magical happened. During the interview, the Decision-Maker identified three projects for which Dear Colleague was also imminently qualified, which were also a bit out of the scope of the advertised job but clearly a priority for the Decision-Maker.
Dear Colleague, as a result of their recent experience in building a consulting / contract client base, was able to on the spot hear the needs of a potential Customer through the artifice of an employment interview. Dear Colleague nimbly then asked some key intake questions to confirm the needs of the Employer-Turned-Potential-Customer. Then, Dear Colleague proposed potential and viable solutions to the Decision-Maker in a consulting role.
Long story short: Dear Colleague is putting together a project proposal for the Decision-Maker. And Dear Colleague is still in the running for the advertised job, which for bureaucratic reasons, will take longer for Decision-Maker's organization to process than Dear Colleague's consulting project proposal.
The supplicant candidate transformed the discussion - and themselves - into a Vendor (read: Entrepreneur) meeting the needs of the Customer; building the product (read: Dear Colleague's skills and abilities to meet / exceed the Decision-Maker's needs) just-in-time, on the spot; asking for the order; and closing the sale.
Supplicant transformed into Entrepreneur: now that's an economic turnaround I can get behind.
How - and in what direction - will you transform your Decision-Maker meetings this week?
They are clearly the lead candidate for the advertised job. While the salary rate is below what they made in their last position, it would be a logical career move, given the economy, to take the position and gain the resume' experience.
And then something magical happened. During the interview, the Decision-Maker identified three projects for which Dear Colleague was also imminently qualified, which were also a bit out of the scope of the advertised job but clearly a priority for the Decision-Maker.
Dear Colleague, as a result of their recent experience in building a consulting / contract client base, was able to on the spot hear the needs of a potential Customer through the artifice of an employment interview. Dear Colleague nimbly then asked some key intake questions to confirm the needs of the Employer-Turned-Potential-Customer. Then, Dear Colleague proposed potential and viable solutions to the Decision-Maker in a consulting role.
Long story short: Dear Colleague is putting together a project proposal for the Decision-Maker. And Dear Colleague is still in the running for the advertised job, which for bureaucratic reasons, will take longer for Decision-Maker's organization to process than Dear Colleague's consulting project proposal.
The supplicant candidate transformed the discussion - and themselves - into a Vendor (read: Entrepreneur) meeting the needs of the Customer; building the product (read: Dear Colleague's skills and abilities to meet / exceed the Decision-Maker's needs) just-in-time, on the spot; asking for the order; and closing the sale.
Supplicant transformed into Entrepreneur: now that's an economic turnaround I can get behind.
How - and in what direction - will you transform your Decision-Maker meetings this week?
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Love in the Time of Layoff
The Cold War had ended during the previous decade, sealing the downward spiral of the aerospace business where I started my HR career. I had spent more than 3 years as part of an HR team charged with laying off nearly 5,000 people in a small and isolated city. The repetitive finality of our work was wearing us down, and we were all tired.
So when Tom, the site HR Manager, took me out to the nicest restaurant in town to lay me off over lunch, it was at first viscerally a relief. It was not my first visit to the Recession Rodeo. I had been laid off by a non-profit a few years earlier after a major stock market flop eradicated their endowment: the non-profit went out of business and I was unemployed for 8 months. I networked with over 150 decision-makers during that time period, which resulted in one immediate job, and one eventual job: the eventual job was working for Tom.
While it would be flip of me to recommend the layoff experience as an opportunity to cleanse the vocational palate and gain clarity regarding life / career goals and priorities, that experience without exception has consistently delivered gifts that I never expected in the form of career, mentoring, self-development and entrepreneurial opportunities. I always gain skills and strengthen my ability to earn money for myself and my employers / customers.
Over a luscious and extravagant lunch, Tom, my site HR Manager, was far more upset than I was during the layoff discussion: uncharacteristically so, as his usual demeanor was laid-back and affable in a typically reserved HR manner. He then gave me an unexpected gift: the gift of transparent authenticity. "Headquarters unexpectedly told me that I had to cut another HR headcount," Tom related, his eyes suspiciously moist. "While you're one of my strongest performers and promotable, you have the shortest service in the group. I had no choice but to lay you off, Deb."
Tom was always a wonderful mentor and coach. His first coaching to me was my nickname. "You're definitely a Deb and not a Debbie," he advised me. "Deb is more serious and commanding: Deb you are."
I was a mix of emotions: genuinely grateful for Tom's support and positive feedback in the moment of laying me off; and a bit anxious, given that Joel and I were planning to be married in 4 months. "Tom, I'd like to thank you for your kindness, and your mentoring, it has really meant a great deal to me. I'd like to be able to use you as a reference, How can I help with transitioning my work in return?" I replied. Tom smiled for the first time during lunch. "I'll do better than that," he said. Let me work my internal company network and see what I can do."
I continued to work during my 60-day WARN notice period, while Tom reached out to his network in other divisions of our company. A week before I was due to hit the street, Tom recommended me for another job locally in a different division, at a 14% pay increase.
And it happened because Tom and I stood up for each other, authentically. Even at the time of layoff.
Recently, I have borne witness to another example of love in the time of layoff manifested in Peter, the Executive Director at Mediation Matters, in the form of authentic and transparent communication to the organization's volunteer community, paraphrased here:
Dear Volunteers:
By now, you all know that we absorbed a significant cut in our state allocation, virtually cutting our budget in half.
As a result, we have had no choice but to make some wrenching staffing decisions.
I have laid off both Heidi and Quent, effective Friday, April 28, 2011. Both Heidi and Quent are amazing employees and exceptional human beings, and they will be sorely missed.
This decision was almost certainly the most difficult of my life.
Peter.
This decision was almost certainly the most difficult of my life.
Peter.
Here is Heidi's good-bye email to us, paraphrased:
Dear Volunteers,
My last day is Friday and I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you for an amazing nine years.
I worked for Peter for a month before going out on maternity leave. Peter took a chance on me in 2006 and hired me back on with Mediation Matters and for this I will be forever grateful.
You all will always be very near and dear to my heart.
Thank you and I wish you all the very best!
Heidi.
As an HR practitioner, I strive to walk the talk authentically and with love, even in the time of layoff. Peter, however, has taken that love to a new and even more authentic level.
More importantly, however: for those hiring authorities who without exception screen out laid-off candidates: how can you resist hiring authentic and passionate talent such as Heidi and Quent, who have been lucky enough to be mentored by managers like Peter, who will unconditionally and publicly stand up for them in the time of layoff?
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