Mentor Every Moment

Last week, the Hudson-Mohawk Chapter of the American Society of Training & Development (http://hudsonmohawkastd.org/) kindly invited me to participate on a panel discussion: Not Just Orientation: Onboarding is New Employee Development.

Philosophically speaking, I'm a firm believer that successful onboarding engages the employee at the beginning of the recruitment process (e.g., placing the job posting), much in the same process and manner that a company engages, obtains and retains their customers.

As we shared best practices, the discussion turned to formal mentoring programs as an extension of onboarding / retention. Always the HR heretic, I laid the mentoring gauntlet down. "With all due respect to formal mentoring programs," I commented. "One of the gems that GE gave me is that every manager is at least a mentor, and at best a mentor and a sponsor. The best HR boss of my career to date, Bill, walked the talk of his belief that you mentor and sponsor the folks you work with to promote them to at least your level or above. Bill literally pushed me out of his organizational nest to take a promotional move at the corporate level -- even though I didn't want to leave Bill! He made such an impression on me, that 20 years later, I'm still talking and writing about Bill and the positive impact he made on me and my career path."

The magic of being mentored is when your mentor recognizes your gift and lifts it and you up, encouraging you to run with your gift(s) and build your career and/or life's vocation. Bill's wish was for me to run the Corporate Employee Communications function. However, Bill's real gift to me was not just recognizing my talents, but standing up for me and my talents. He not only pointed out the ruby slippers of my talents, he also stood up for my right to express my talents to support my success, and put his reputation on the line to recommend and push my promotion. The seeds Bill planted 20 years ago live and thrive with me today.

As an expression of my gratitude to Bill and other mentors like him who have graced my path, I mentor every moment. When I meet a talented professional, I acknowledge their talent and lift it up, planting those seeds of possibility that Bill planted so generously in my own career path. The continuity of planting those seeds - growing professionals, businesses, seasoned practitioners rather than apple trees - benefits us all.

And sometimes, the seeds that grow come back and let you know how they're doing. Stacey, a talented writer I met 20 years ago, sent me the sweet gift of this note today:

Hi Deb - 

You and I met through Loretta G. eons ago. You were very kind and mentored me back in the early 90's. I was a lost sheep, in a toxic job..... My life has transformed since then - in more ways than I thought possible. 

I live in Albany and think of you sometimes whenever I pass your husband's plaza - he had a framing store, right? Looks like you are doing fantastically. Just wanted to say Thank You for taking the time all those years ago and doing a wonderful Mitzvah - you planted a seed and look how it boomed! 

Best Wishes,

Stacey.

Happy sowing, my good and fellow mentors.    

Change and Persevere in Business and in Work

My friend Lisa recently told me the story of how her husband, Brian, became a Mechanical Engineer. Right around the time they got married 15 years ago, Brian got tired of working at his low-paying, swing-shift factory job, an irrelevant path resulting from earlier youthful struggles. He wanted to go to college, but he was concerned that he wouldn't succeed. He was 28 years old.

Lisa, who at the time was a college admissions counselor, gave him some practical advice. "I advised him to take an English course at the local community college," she recalled. "And depending on what grade he received, that would give him a sense of his chances of getting a college degree." Brian got an A in that English course. Still in need of proof, Brian then took a math course at the community college. He got another A. Which led to his Associate's in Science degree in Engineering Science. Which then led to his admission to Syracuse University, where he received his Bachelor's of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He was almost 33 years old, a quintessential late-bloomer.

When Brian died almost 12 years later this past August suddenly and unexpectedly from cardiac arrhythmia, he was the lead Mechanical Design Engineer at his company. In the online memorial guest book, one of his managers wrote: Engineer: Extremely smart, analytical mind with common sense.

At Brian's memorial service yesterday, his best friend Wally, an Engineering professor himself and Brian's biofuel co-producer / co-conspirator, summed it up neatly. "Brian changed, and persevered. He was an example to us all." Indeed.

Do You Have a $5.3 Million Budget for Sexual Harassment Claims?

Thanks to our state's Freedom of Information Law (also known as FOIL), lately the local press has been peeling back the layers of the cost to settle sexual harassment claims made against state workers over a four-year period to the tune of $5.3 million. In no particular order, these settled claims totaling $5.3 million include allegations of:

• Inappropriate touching / groping
• Inappropriate comments and actions
• Requests for dates
• Repeated retaliation against those who filed sexual harassment complaints.

The state worker targets of these settled claims come from all organizational levels and backgrounds, including but not limited to elected officials, legislature staffers, managers and prison guards. No matter how large the organization is, $5.3 million is a hefty chunk of change in unplanned expenditures to pay out. And the salt in the financial wound is not only that the $5.3 million is funded by taxpayers, but is also FOILable, e.g. discoverable to the general public. Not the reputational / financial data that any organization wants blasted in the news.

If you don't have $5.3 million budgeted for sexual harassment claims (as well as the additional funds that would be needed to manage the negative publicity should the claims become public and featured in the press), do you follow the advice of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to employers to best prevent sexual harassment? "Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring.

• They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.
• They can do so by providing sexual harassment training to their employees; and
• By establishing an effective complaint or grievance process, and;
• Taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains."

The cost (payroll, subject-matter expertise, etc.) to train your employees, managers and executives as well as to set up the proper expectations, policies, due-process complaint and investigative infrastructure in your organization to prevent sexual harassment can be as little as .0005% of a potential $5.3 million budget for sexual harassment settlement claims. Sounds like a cost-savings home-run to the bottom line to me.

Liar, Liar, Job on Fire

When an employee falsifies any records for any reason, whether it's time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc.: in my experience as a Human Resources practitioner, it's pretty black and white: it's theft of company resources, grounds for immediate termination. Moreover, in my HR travels: if an employee is stealing company time by falsifying a time sheet indicating time worked when in fact they were, say, sleeping in a warehouse rack location on a pallet 30 feet above the cement floor (a double-play of theft of company time and violating safety rules, both gross / willful conduct violations each worthy of immediate termination), that lack of integrity is usually just the tip of the internal-loss iceberg, an indicator of other internal theft / loss prevention issues, e.g. the theft of company money and/or property.

Now, we may debate that I lean towards the hard-ass side, reminiscent of my Marine-Corps-trained dad. Before we debate too deeply, the following true story of employee falsification and theft of time is submitted for your consideration, straight from the New York State Inspector General's press release last week and quoted by The Times Union:

"Acting State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott today announced the arrest of a New York State Department of Health employee on felony charges, accusing him of submitting an application for handicapped parking supported by a forged doctor’s note. He also was charged with filing paperwork certifying he was working when he was not.

[The employee was arrested] by investigators from the New York State Inspector General’s Office and charged with four felony counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree and one misdemeanor count of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Third Degree. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted. The Inspector General’s investigation determined that in May of 2011, [the employee] obtained special parking privileges at his work location at Empire State Plaza based on a forged doctor’s note.

In addition, Defendant admitted that on three separate occasions in January and February of 2012, he submitted certified time records indicating that he had worked full days when he had not reported to work at all. (Emphasis mine.)

“New Yorkers have every right to expect that state employees will comport themselves with the highest degree of honesty and integrity,” said Acting Inspector General Scott. “Fraudulently obtaining handicapped parking not only is unlawful, but potentially inhibits the rights of New Yorkers with disabilities in need of accessible parking. Further, any fraudulent abuse of time and attendance records undermines public trust. Such conduct is not tolerable.”

[The employee] was arraigned today before Town of New Scotland Judge David Wukitsch and held in County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash or bond. [The employee] has worked for the Department of Health as an Information Technology Specialist II since 2007. His current salary is $58,311.00. Acting Inspector General Scott thanked the New York State Police for their assistance in the case and the Albany County District Attorney’s Office for the prosecution of this matter. The defendant is innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law."

The debate on whether falsifying time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc. is theft takes a bit of interesting turn when it's money from the pockets of New York State taxpayers that's being filched. That outrage that you may feel at having your hard-earned tax dollars unlawfully stolen is underscored by the felony charges of forgery filed by the NYS Inspector General's office. Not to mention the reputational damage to the accused employee, his managers and the NYS Department of Health.

Upholding and enforcing true / accurate records protects the reputations and assets of everyone in your organization, including but not limited to promoting to industry those employees who will not / cannot follow those standards of integrity. You can handle the truth, and so can your colleagues, executives, managers and employees.

Let Go of Resentment to Move Forward Successfully in Business and at Work

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

- Nelson Mandela

As these days of awe draw to a close this Wednesday, I'm reminded of a transformational termination of an employee. How can a termination be transformational? Because the employee took responsibility for terminating himself.

In the vast majority of terminations I have adjudicated as a Human Resources practitioner, the employees have terminated themselves: they exhausted the progressive discipline process (usually, the issue was a fundamental inability to get their butts to the building and work their prescribed schedules). Many organizations require employees to work prescribed schedules to meet / exceed customer needs. For example: like getting your paycheck on payday? It helps when the folks in Payroll are reliable so you in turn can rely on receiving your paycheck.

After many years of conducting termination conversations, I don't expect the terminated employee to be happy about losing their job. Of course, they're almost always upset. On the surface, they're upset with me and their manager, but really, they're upset with themselves and don't have the emotional intelligence to take responsibility for their own actions. If they had that level of emotional intelligence, they in all likelihood wouldn't have terminated themselves in the first place. At the beginning of my career, I alternated between incredulity and indignation at the lack of responsibility for terminating themselves. As time went on and my experience grew, I considered myself a termination doula, with the goal of making the experience of transitioning from their job as dignified and professional as the terminated employee will allow.

Attendance was this particular employee's problem as well. He clearly did not care about getting to work on time, and his manager had given him more than enough chances to work his scheduled hours. I was waiting in the conference room for the employee and his manager. They entered the room and sat down. "You know why we're here?" I asked the employee. His manager, inexperienced with terminations, took a deep breath. Employee looked at Manager, and then looked at me. "I did it to myself," Employee stated calmly. I could feel my eyebrow rise in surprise. Manager finally exhaled. Employee turned to him. "Manager, don't feel bad. You gave me more than enough leeway to clean up my act, and I didn't take you up on it. This is my fault." Manager was touched by Employee's candor. "Employee, you're a smart guy and I really enjoyed working with you. But-" Employee finished Manager's sentence. "But I just couldn't get my ass to work. I know." Manager nodded, and looked at me. I nodded too. "Okay, sounds like we're all set. Manager, please get Employee's coat from his desk so we can finish this up." Manager, relieved, left the room.

I opened up the folder with the two copies of the termination paperwork, and passed them across the table to Employee with a pen. "Please sign both copies and keep one," I requested. "Sure, no problem," Employee replied, and scribbled his signature on both documents. He slid one of the documents back to me, and folded his hands as if he had just bought a house. I was intrigued. "I want to commend you for how professionally you've handled this conversation," I began. "Not the way this conversation usually goes." Employee shrugged. "Why burn a bridge?" he replied. "You've all treated me well, it's the least I can do given the situation." Employee's authenticity invited me to transform my role in the conversation. "Manager tells me that while you're smart, you hated the clerical work you were doing. What is it that you'd really like to do?" It was Employee's turn to be surprised. "No one's ever asked me that before," he replied. "I have 15 credits left to finish my Associate's degree in Graphic Arts - I want to be a Graphic Artist." There was the answer. Bad job fit. I leaned across the table, finding myself, surprisingly, in mentoring mode. "Do yourself a favor," I replied. "Finish your degree, and get a job doing what you love to do. Clearly, you've learned what happens when you take a job hating what you do." He laughed. "Clearly!" The door opened, and Manager entered the conference room with Employee's coat. I stood up, and extended my hand. Employee shook my hand. "Thank you," he said. "No, thank you," I replied. "Best of luck to you." Manager shook his hand too. "Take care," Manager said. "You too," Employee replied. "Thank you." Employee left the conference room. Manager looked at me. "Well, that was different," he said. "Yes," I replied. "He was a good guy in the wrong job. Hopefully, he'll go for the right job the next time."

How will you let go of resentment, take responsibility and move forward to succeed in business and at work this week, and in the new year?

Customer Service is the Key to Success in Business and at Work

I am a firm believer that Customer Service is the key to success in business, and especially at work. When I'm centered / in the zone that everyone receives the benefit of my Customer Service, whether they're internal team-mates or supervisors or actual external paying customers, I stack the deck in favor of my success. While it's not an iron-clad guarantee, it is exceedingly helpful in preventing distracting and energy-sucking resentment build-up for my internal / external customers, and especially (and selfishly), for me. I'm a firm believer in Nelson Mandela's statement that "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

Case in point: Supervisor Customer Service. When I have serviced / over-serviced my supervisors throughout my career, I know I'm on the side of the angels, and I consequently stay centered and therefore focused on achieving my goals. For one particularly anxious and difficult supervisor earlier in my career, I actually loved the challenge of keeping him proactively briefed before he could check on my work.

This philosophy works particularly well for those of us blessed with sales, marketing and customer service DNA. Or, as my Lower-East-Side-born-and-bred salesman father would say: "Over-service the assholes."

Dad's advice has almost always been helpful (albeit Marine-salty), particularly with the supervisor who wanted the work performed exactly as they would do it, pre-approved; no autonomy at all, and my mastery and purpose were not even considered. Not the ideal situation. "I don't know what to do," I said to my dad, extremely distressed at the time. "I've never been treated this way before as a professional." Dad tapped into my sales DNA. "In order to help you best detach emotionally from the situation," he coached, "I'd like you to look at them as your biggest, most important customer. And your job is to meet / exceed their needs." I wasn't so sure. "Even if my supervisor is being disrespectful?" I queried. He reinforced the coaching. "They're the big hairy customer," Dad replied. "Listen to their needs, meet their needs, make them happy. It will make what sounds and feels like an abnormal situation feel more normal, because you're great at customer service - like me." I finally exhaled. "Okay, my supervisor is my customer. I've handled difficult customers my entire career; I can handle this." Dad agreed. "Yes, you can." And I did. My customer service belief system outweighed my emotional reaction to the unfairness: all that mattered was servicing the customer by listening to their needs and then subsequently meeting their needs. (My fellow mediator friends and colleagues: sound familiar, e.g. the source of all human conflict is needs met and unmet?)

In taking the concept of Holistic Customer Service one step further, I'm also reminded of Bob Sutton's recent blog posts on the poor customer service his friend's 10 year-old daughter received from United Airlines, where Chapman and Thomas's book, The Five Languages of Apology, is mentioned as a path United Airlines should have taken in this situation. In my Customer Service experience, the power of an authentic apology when a customer is distressed is worth its weight in gold for all involved, including me as the Customer Service person initiating the apology:

• Expressing regret - "I'm sorry."
• Accepting responsibility - "I was wrong."
• Making restitution - "What can I do to make it right?"
• Genuinely repenting - "I will try not to do that again."
• Requesting forgiveness - "Will you please forgive me?"

And in their workbook, The Five Languages of Apology in the Workplace, Chapman and Nelson lift up both Mandela's and their philosophy even further, with the LEARN model:

• L = Listen. Hear the customer’s complaint.

• E = Empathize. Let the customer know that you understand why they would be upset.

• A = Apologize.

• R = Respond and react. Try to make things right.

• N = Notify. Get back in touch with the customer and let them know what action has been taken.

Ironically and wonderfully, when we stand up for our customers (team-mates, supervisors, etc.) in their times of distress and in this manner, it is then that we build the strongest business relationship bonds, supporting retention.

 How will you use your Holistic Customer Service skills to best support your distressed customers in business and at work this week?

Planning Breeds Creativity in Business and at Work

In the course of my client work this week, I've had the opportunity to talk to business owners and professionals whose comfort zone is the creative / R&D. Strategic or business planning for them, at first blush, seems to be the anti-creative. One colleague actually cringed when I suggested that they pull together a one-page business plan. In the spirit of doing what I say, I then showed them the one-page business plan that lives in my planner:

               
I feel your pain. Putting together a business, strategic or career plan used to evoke the same reaction for me as getting ready to do our personal and business income taxes. Remember the days before doing your taxes via computer? I'd do all of the work in pencil first. For weeks. Ugh, now that gives me the willies.

Business, strategic or career planning, however, is the marvelous act of creativity. The act of writing your business plan down is absolutely the act of creation. Financial forecasting, break-even and all.

It was that work of business / strategic plan development that created my husband Joel's business, The Best Framing Company, and my business, Deb Best Practices. Revenue-producing businesses that did not exist until we conceived the idea for each business (focusing on our respective strengths and marketability), and created the respective business plan first before proceeding with implementation.

We update each plan at least annually as our businesses grow and our markets and clients change. Everything we do in our businesses flows from those plans.

As a highly creative professional artist, writer and picture-framer, Joel's advice is always to measure twice and cut once. Pretty planful for a creative guy.

What's your plan to measure twice, which will in turn shore up your successful business and/or career implementation?

Embrace the Fear and Take The Risk Anyway in Business and at Work

For a salesman who worked on 100% commission most of his career, my dad injected more of his own fear rather than encouragement of taking risk in the face of my own budding vocational interests. Given generational and gender factors (I was a girl, wife and mother-material, not career-material in his assessment), years later, I understand the limits of my father's assessment context. On top of those factors, Dad had always been an employee, albeit one paid on 100% commission. And the icing on the fear was that fact that his own dad had died when he was only 17 years old.

When I was twelve years old, I signed up with my mother's permission to sell household products from some long-forgotten mail-order company, while Dad was away on a business trip. I showed early indications of Dad's sales DNA and actually made 4 sales on our block in my first few days. When Dad came home from the business trip later that week, I proudly showed him my sales slips. He reviewed them like an IRS auditor, frowning. "You calculated the sales tax wrong," he said, pointing to the columns on one sales slip. "You're too young to do this. You need to return this money and send the sales kit back." I was surprised. "Why?" I replied. "I can just go back to each customer and fix the sales slip." Dad went into his Marine-sergeant mode. "No! This is not a discussion. I will not have you embarrassing me with your mistakes." I went back to my new customers, apologized for bothering them, and sent the kit back as I was told.

When I was 15 years old, I took a job for the summer as a counselor at a reputable sleep-away camp 15 miles from our house. In order to get the campers to bed at a reasonable hour, the camp did not observe daylight-savings time. I made the mistake of calling home at 10 PM one night from the camp director's office, as for us at camp it was only 9 PM. Dad was upset and concerned. "Why are you still up, working so late?" He demanded. I explained the artifice of not observing daylight-savings time. Dad did not buy it. "I'm coming to pick you up and take you home now," Dad decreed over the phone. I did not take his supervision this time. "No Dad, I'm staying here. I like it and they're not over-working me. Please don't embarrass me." My father paused, and I looked over at the camp director. "Could you please explain to my dad how we handle daylight-savings time?" The camp director smiled. "Of course," he said. He took the phone and spoke to my father for a few minutes (they had met when my parents dropped me off at camp earlier in the week), repeating the daylight-savings time explanation. The camp director handed the phone back to me. "You can stay," my father decreed, grudgingly.

When I graduated from the University at Albany, I did not return to the New York City / metropolitan area to look for a job. Instead, I took a part-time job with my senior-semester internship boss Bob, my home Assemblyman, and a part-time job at Macy's. "I don't understand why you just don't come home and get a real job in the city," my father groused on the phone. "Because I want a job as a writer, and it's cheaper to live in Albany than it is to live in New York City," I replied. "Don't worry Dad, I'll be fine." And I was. It took about 10 years, but Dad finally realized that we have real jobs up here in Albany, too.

In both my career and in my business, the risks I continue to take while embracing (and sometimes wrestling with) the natural / nurtured fear is the lotus I harvest from the mud of fear time after time -- it is a drive that I cannot deny. It continues to get better as time goes on and the more I practice and see the undeniable proof of the great results I produce. As my good friend and colleague Lisa Jordan maintains, when we come from a place of fear, the expression of our gifts and talents are limited, and no one benefits. But when we come from a place where fear takes a back seat to the wonderful creative potential of risk, even in the face of potential failure or embarrassment: that's where the potential of success is limitless.

This week, and going forward: I celebrate our collective courage (e.g.: taking action in the face of fear) and joy in the risks we take in both business and at work, in support of our mutual success.

Declare Your Independence in Business and at Work

I must admit, I'm a bit sentimental about the Fourth of July holiday, e.g. patriotic. It annoys my husband Joel ever so slightly, sometimes reminding him of more rigid, intolerant and oppressive flag-waver types, and for that reason questions the authenticity of wearing red, white and blue as an expression of freedom given the occasional abuse of power.

However, I'm not that type of flag-waver. My patriotism - and pursuit of happiness and autonomy, in my career and in my business - is grounded more in gratitude. Gratitude for those generations who came before me, making my life so much better today than it clearly was for them. Grateful for my great-great-grandmother Katie Markowitz of blessed memory, married at 15 years old and a mother at 16 years old. Who, according to the 1900 census, emigrated to Manhattan from Moscow, Russia with her two oldest children in steerage for what was definitely not a luxury cruise for nearly 3 weeks in 1896, following her husband Davis of blessed memory who had emigrated before her almost 2 years earlier, arriving with little more than a few clothes and no job or business. My own private refuse of foreign shores. Who proceeded to have four more children, including my grandfather Joseph of blessed memory, also known as Markie, who died years before I was born at the age of 51. When Katie died, and of what, we don't know; however, I suspect she died young from a hard life of poverty and childbirth / child-rearing thereof.

Gratitude for my great-grandmother Rose of blessed memory, who's husband Abe, my great-grandfather of blessed memory, died in the 1918 influenza epidemic just a little less than 15 years after they both emigrated here from Austria as young teenagers, also with very little in the way of personal belongings and no jobs: but in search of a better quality of life and more personal freedom.

I found out only eight years ago that Rose, a master needle-worker, subsequently opened her own notions store on the Lower East Side after Abe's death, to support her two sons, Nat and Eddie. My granddaddy Nat of blessed memory was my son Noah's age, 11 years old, at the time of his father's death, and he quit school to get a job to help support the family. In the tradition of my tribe, Noah is named for Nat.

My ancestors of blessed memory came to the United States to find a better life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren, leaving everything and everyone they knew, taking the risk and arriving with nothing but their smarts and their stamina. In the process, they learned and worked hard at their trades; to build careers; to run their businesses; with the hope that their children and their grandchildren would find even more blessings. We did. Thank you for bringing our families here to live and thrive.

As one of their children, I have been blessed with great opportunities and a wonderful career that has forged the strengths of the person I am today. In honor of the 2012 Fourth of July holiday, I am proud to follow the path of my ancestors with the blessing of enough client work to step full-time into my consulting business, Deb Best Practices - in the arch of my combined family history, one of the mildest of risks to date, indeed.

For my colleagues, friends and family: I wish for you the authentic prosperity of your own independence and autonomy, born of those who came before us to bring us to this moment: to express the vocational music within you, whether you are in a career job or your own business, or both. As my friend Barry would say: "Nike! Just do it!"

 Happy Independence Day!

Innovation and Growth in Work and Business Love a Vacuum (Breakdown)

My husband Joel's business, The Best Framing Company, celebrates its 18-year anniversary this month.

The Best Framing Company was conceived early in 1994 when the owner (Joel's boss at the time) of the local Deck-the-Walls franchise decided not to renew his 10-year franchise. Before he closed the store down, the franchise owner offered Joel and me the opportunity to renew the franchise for $350,000, at a 6% interest rate. The franchise owner offered to hold the 10-year note, and we would make the astronomical and discouraging monthly payments to him, with little hope of making any profit. No, thank you. Joel had had enough of mall working life. And we had just purchased our first home, so our savings account was a bit thin and our bills were much more substantial. Joel and his boss proceeded to make arrangements to close the store by April 1994, and Joel commenced his job search, a bit discouraged at the thought of working for one of the competitors.  

That offer from Joel's boss sparked an idea. Why not open our own store, in a small strip mall, and Joel could make his own hours? As a skilled custom picture-framer, Joel had a healthy client list of happy customers. Armed with that unique selling proposition and our respective skill sets and smarts, Joel and I proceeded to complete the four months of research and legwork to build a business plan to obtain a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to open The Best Framing Company's bricks-and-mortar storefront.

By the time Joel was laid off, we completed the business plan. Joel continued his job search and fixed up our new 1944 house while I shopped our 40-plus-page business plan around to SBA loan providers.

One of the local nonprofits at the time ran an SBA loan program: I sent the business plan to the nonprofit, and the 21 year-old pisher loan coordinator said that 1) our business plan was great; and 2) we were a shoe-in to get our loan. The Pisher assured us we would be on the May 1994 loan review committee agenda. Armed with that information, I made arrangements to lease a store space effective June 1, 1994 and order the materials Joel would need to open the store, using a $6,000 credit union line-of-credit.

The day before the loan review meeting, I called the Pisher to ask when we would appear. "Oh," he said, rightfully embarrassed. "I forgot to put your loan review on the agenda. He heard me choke. "But don't worry," he hurriedly said, hoping to avoid my expected outburst. "We can get you on the July agenda. I was deadly and sadly, calm. "You've just put my husband and me into financial jeopardy," I carefully said. "What are you going to do to fix this?" The Pisher did not man up. "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do," he said. "But let me give you the phone number of Manny Choi at Fleet Bank, who is on our loan committee. He may be able to help you." I hung up the phone and cursed loudly, dropping F-bombs for 15 minutes straight. When I was done, and calm again, I called Manny Choi.

 He agreed to meet me the next morning. I did not sleep at all that night. And while I'm not normally a crier, I cried bitter tears all night long. Joel tried to console me, but I was inconsolable. "Who the hell do I think I am," I wailed to Joel. "What business do I have thinking that I can put together a business plan?" Now I've pushed us deeper into debt. $6,000 will not cover all of the initial carrying costs. I'm so sorry I've gotten us into this!"

Joel knew better. "It's a great plan, and we'll get a loan somewhere else, I know we will," he said, 110% solid in his belief in my abilities, and his own. "We can definitely do this." I took a much-need break from the tears, sniffling. "You're just saying that because you love me," I said, whimpering a bit around the edges - also unlike me. Joel hugged me. "No, I'm not," he said, firmly. "I would tell you if I thought we should quit. We haven't explored all of our options yet."

The next morning, calm from lack of sleep and all cried out, I donned my best blue navy suit and met with Manny Choi. I watched him for nearly 45 minutes as he read all 40 pages of our business plan, occasionally nodding. He closed the plan, and looked up at me. "What do you think?" I asked him. He smiled. "I think we can get you a loan. I'll just need current résumés for you and Joel. You have a good plan here." I exhaled. Joel was right. We got the loan.

As I learn and grow incrementally wiser from these wonderful adventures, I'm quicker to remember my Daddy's advice: if you make 30 calls and you get one sale, you're doing well. In order to start The Best Framing Company, we only needed to make two calls before we got the sale. Or as my friend Barb Wisnom would say: just try and collect 20 "no's." We were only able to collect one "no" before we got the "yes!"

Good hunting for your "yes's" this week, and every week. And savor the creativity and growth that you will produce when faced with the vacuum of a breakdown. For that - and you - are the gift and the breakthrough in the face of every breakdown.

 Happy Anniversary, hon!  

How Email Address Typos Cost You Jobs and Business

At the beginning of my HR career back in the early '90s (which seems much more recent than 20 years ago), I had just received my WARN layoff notice from GE Aerospace (which no longer exists, sold off in pieces to its rivals General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin), giving me 60 days before my last day at GE Aerospace to find another job, inside or outside of GE.

There were two GE jobs available locally at my level and function, both at GE Plastics (which no longer exists either; sold off in pieces to SABIC and Momentive, respectively); one at the Selkirk location; and the other at the Waterford location. My site HR Manager and mentor, Tom, ensured that I was a candidate for both jobs.

I interviewed at Selkirk first. I liked the team and the work they were doing. When I returned to my office at GE Aerospace from the interview that day, I wanted to send each of them a thank-you note. Since I had introduced using PROFS email to distribute a now-crude electronic version of the weekly employee newsletter at my site (a precursor to Microsoft Outlook, which my dying business could not afford to purchase), I wanted to walk the talk of my innovation. So I sent each member of the interview team a thank-you note via PROFS, which was unheard of back then. Interview etiquette firmly dictated hand-written snail-mail thank-you notes.

The site Recruiter responded within the hour, informing me that they had hired an internal candidate and thanked me for interviewing for the position. I was annoyed. Clearly, they had already made their hiring decision before my interview, and I was interviewed to merely fulfill their EEO requirements. I shared my frustration with my immediate supervisor, Chuck. "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword," he grinned. "That's the risk you take with email communication." While I was eventually hired by the Waterford site - less then one week before the end of my WARN period - Chuck's observation always stuck with me, even to present day.

Now, I have performed my English-major rant in prior posts about typos in emails, which invariably cost job candidates and vendors both potential jobs and new customers. Recently, however, the typos have achieved a new level of failure through imprecision.

In the last month, I have received 3 emails with typos in the email address itself. So when I referred back to an email and clicked on the email signature to send a fresh email in response, the recipient never received my return email due to the typos in their email address and I received a mail delivery failure message from their email system. I helped the first one out because the guy fired great on all of the rest of his cylinders; he had transposed letters in his own name in his email address. I gave up on the other two email address typos: basically, it was too much work and too annoying to compensate for someone else's lack of attention to detail. If their prospecting emails caused this much work and aggravation: how would it be to work with them every day?

Wondering why you may not have heard back from that job application or that new customer prospect? Proof your email address, please. And everything else you send out in the email, while you're at it. It can only help support your success.

  

 

Focus the Strengths of Your Own Team of Avengers at Work

Warning Before Reading: Spoiler Alert for the movie The Avengers.

Joel, Noah and I saw The Avengers this weekend. It was a great movie on a number of levels, the best movie we've seen as a family in a long time. Of course, what delighted me personally were the plot elements that addressed The Avengers often-exciting and frankly chaotic team-building process - it was more of a series of brawls than a process. Their storming phase included but was not limited to the triggering of weapons of mass destruction and destroying large swaths of New York City. No time or patience for an HR geek to facilitate the Avengers through the universal development phases that all teams experience. Movie or reality: chaos is definitely the more common state.  

When I attended and subsequently taught facilitation training at GE, one of the optional overnight homework assignments was to ask the class to watch 12 Angry Men: not only a great flick with a wonderful ensemble cast, but also a great "show me, don't tell me" way of absorbing the challenges and rewards of developing and working with high-performing teams.  

The Avengers is more complex and nuanced than 12 Angry Men, however. The plot thread of the marginalization and eventual integration of Dr. Bruce Banner / The Hulk as one of the Avengers is a team effectiveness nugget to note.

As we're re-introduced to Bruce Banner, he's banished himself from his life's work and from any stress triggers to keep The Hulk from making an appearance. He can't even off himself to escape his volatile burden: he and his alter-ego the Hulk are both indestructible. Bruce is self-deprecating and at times ashamed: the last time he was in New York City, he sheepishly admits that he "broke Harlem" and was not quite welcome back there.

Some of the Avengers keep their distance: Nastasha Romanov (The Black Widow) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) however immediately engage him as a respected colleague who they admire and want to get to know better.

Of course, The Hulk subsequently returns and wreaks havoc and destruction in his usual psychopathic way. The rest of The Avengers are similarly challenged, by both external and internal demons, not unlike what the Hulk experiences.

However, when the going got tough, the Avengers regrouped as a tough team and got going. Captain America marshaled The Avengers, doling out assignments; for example, Tony Stark was charged with repair and engineering work while fighting off alien enemies swarming like killer bees. When he got to Hulk's assignment, Cap directed him to "Hulk: Smash!" Hulk grinned and there was a sea change: Cap not only acknowledged Hulk as a team member and "saw him;" Cap also asked Hulk to take his strength and use it for the good mission of the team.

Hulk subsequently teamed with Thor and saved Tony Stark, and got his confidence back in the process: while the punch he gave Thor after they defeated their group of bad guys was not appropriate behavior for the workplace, for The Avengers' comic-book work environment and norms, it signaled that Bruce / Hulk had come in from the margins and regained his confidence in his abilities and his contribution. The team saw it and he saw it. When there work was done and one team member asked him how he kept his anger (and the Hulk) at bay, Bruce grinned confidently and declared that "he was always angry;" e.g., that the Hulk was always there, a part of him, and clearly he embraced that as a strength and a contribution.

Which made the last scene after the credits all the more delightful: The Avengers, sitting together in a destroyed NYC deli, have a quiet sandwich together.

You know you've made it as a team when you can share a quiet meal together without the need to chat.

How will you marshal the strengths of your own team of Avengers - inviting them in from the margins, self-imposed or otherwise - to support your mutual success at work and in your business?

Your Leadership Presentation for Every Audience at Work

Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman.
 

-Coco Chanel

First, a disclaimer: I'm not a professional stylist, or, by a long shot, the best-dressed professional I know. Nor would I compare myself to Coco Chanel. I learned the quote from one of my all-time favorite movies, Working Girl. I'm just another blue-collar girl from Queens who acts on her dreams using her smarts. Like most of us, I learned from experience to dress professionally enough for each situation to the extent where the focus was on my smarts and not on what I was wearing.

Which is why I loved working at the GE plant where the main manufacturing ingredient was a diluted acid running in pipes overhead. In that environment, the only practical uniform for men and women alike was safety glasses, metal-toed safety shoes, dirt-streaked jeans, polo shirts and hard hats with our last names on the front. I felt right at home; and my Granddaddy Nat, a skilled electrician who passed away before I graduated from college, would have been proud of me.

The Vice President of Human Resources for my GE business, not so much. I had been invited to attend a meeting for promotable women managers at Headquarters facilitated by the VP of HR. I did have enough sense at that point in my career to wear clean clothes (dress pants, no jeans), regular shoes and glasses sans my beloved hardhat. We were told that the dress code for the meeting was business casual. However, the Headquarters version of business casual was clearly a step up from our plant-level definition of business casual. They all wore blazers. I wore a sweater.

My beloved boss and mentor Bill coached me the very next day, displaying minimally the discomfort of a male-to-female dress-code coaching discussion. "The VP of HR liked you," Bill began. "Great!" I said, starting to leave. Bill waved me back into the chair. "However, he didn't know how smart you were until you opened your mouth." I was puzzled. "What do you mean?" I asked. Bill paused. "He liked you a lot, which is why he asked me to speak to you about your executive presentation, in the spirit of supporting your career path and ongoing success." I was still confused. "So he liked the way I talked but he has an issue with my executive presentation? I don't understand." Bill got to the point. "He had an issue with the way you looked." Great, here I am back in high school. I started to pick up my planner to leave. "Bill, if this is going to be a discussion about my weight or the fact that I'm no great beauty, let's please not go there." Bill was a bit taken aback. He down-shifted into Queens, my native vernacular. "Stop being a pain in the ass and sit down," he directed. I sat, subdued. He leaned over the desk. "When is the last time you wore a blazer to work?" he queried. Oh, I wasn't wearing the right uniform for that group - that was the issue. "When I interviewed for my job here," I replied sheepishly. Bill smiled. "Point taken," I continued. "I will take care of it immediately." Bill leaned back in his chair, relieved and proud. "Thank you, I knew you would." I hightailed it to the store right after work that day and bought four new suits. A bit much, but I needed to make up for lost leadership presentation / credibility.

How you dress at work demonstrates your vocational choice as well as your situational leadership: whether you dress so you'll be noticed for your talents or skills; or whether you dress like the executives because you aspire to be an executive; or whether you proudly wear your hardhat so the guys in the plant won't think you're a stuck-up elitist. Or Madonna.

Good Boundaries Make Good Hires

And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

                                                 -An excerpt from Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall


Nothing is more frustrating when you need to hire 100 seasonal warehouse employees in 3 weeks than to have the post-offer, pre-employment drug test come back positive. Cost-per-hire time and money down the toilet (no pun intended), including but not limited to the wasted cost of the drug test, which could run about $35 - $50 a pop.

Now, you may not agree with the concept of drug-testing in the workplace at all: let's agree to disagree. In my experience in manufacturing and warehouse environments rife with automated conveyors, heavy forklift and cherry-picker lift-truck traffic, you want everyone to be clean, sober and constantly on the alert. A 5-story fall from a cherry-picker at the top of your typical warehouse to its cement floor is certain death. A human / forklift collision is at minimum a loss of physical capability and at maximum, life-changing paralysis or even death as well. You get what side of the fence I'm on.

Early in my warehouse hiring career, we had about 10 drug-test failures in one week. A $500 bite in one week out of my already thin Recruiting budget. The Operations, Loss Prevention (LP) and Human Resources teams got together and brainstormed. Here are some of the solutions we developed and implemented:

• We inserted messages into our employment application and ads that we were a Drug-Free employer;
• We posted signs with the same messaging in our interview areas;
• We developed a fact sheet for applicants to read during the offer process that not only spelled out we were a Drug-Free Employer, but also that we also required a post-offer, pre-employment drug test.

These hiring boundaries had an immediate impact, and we saw a drop in our pre-employment drug test failures. But we still had one or two each week, which continued to be a frustrating waste of time and money. I reached out to our testing vendor and asked what drug was the most common reason for failing our pre-employment drug test. It was marijuana, hands-down. We gathered the teams together again. "It's easy to grow and readily available, that's why it's an issue," one LP team member observed. "True," I responded. "It's not considered a 'hard' drug," a member of the HR team added. "So maybe applicants don't think we're testing for it." Great point. "Okay," I summarized. "Let's add that we test for marijuana to the fact sheet and see what happens."

I hit the jackpot later that week. Two well-dressed and professional young women attending college locally came in during the 2nd shift open-interviews; they were friends and I interviewed them together. As I prepared their offer letters and pre-employment drug testing paperwork, I gave them the revised fact sheet to read that spelled out marijuana as an illegal drug included in the drug test. "Ma'am?" one of them queried politely. I looked up. Disappointed, they handed back all of the new hire paperwork to me. "We can't work here," the young woman continued. Her friend nodded. "We smoke weed every day," she added. "We don't want to waste your time. Thank you for the opportunity." I nodded my understanding. "Thank you for letting me know," I said, genuinely grateful. "I wish you both the best of luck." I appreciated their candor, but wondered how many opportunities they had to pass up because of that personal choice.

Are you clearly and constructively communicating your workplace cultural and compliance boundaries as part of the hiring process? If not, consider the opportunity to lower your overhead costs -- your cost-per-hire / cost-of-turnover -- by proactively and positively sharing your workplace running rules with your lead candidates.

Good boundaries make good hires.   

Who’s Watching Your Cash Register at Work?

I love cash registers. I remember like it was yesterday when my dad worked at a stationery store in Queens; I was 3 years old. Mom and I stopped by for a visit, and the store owner let me push the buttons on the mechanical cash register at the front counter. I was hooked. At the age of 4, I subsequently destroyed an electronic adding machine in Dad's office during a Saturday morning visit by pressing all the keys I could reach simultaneously. It whined, smoked and shorted out as part of its death throes. Today, I treat my electronics with a great deal more respect and thankfully, they last longer. Just to be safe, Joel asked me to not interact with our cash register when The Best Framing Company had a physical storefront.

Cash registers are on my mind tonight because I've read too many stories in the last year, in all sectors, of employees who have been caught with their hands in the till, so to speak. In other words, abusing their positions of trust as bookkeepers, office managers, accountants, controllers and CFOs by stealing money from their employers.

A common thread in all of these stories is that each organization did not have in place a system of financial / accounting controls to minimize the chances of one person using their organization's funds as illegal incremental income.

Another thread is the reliance on relationships alone to ensure financial controls. These stories always start out with the heartbreaking "I trusted him / her for years." Trust is critical in the workplace; however, it cannot be the only source of financial controls. It's a setup for failure for the entire organization.

So who's watching your cash register at work? And what's your system to keep the wrong hands out of the till?

Love is the Answer at Work

"Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you've got to let it grow."

- John Lennon

I was trained as a Diversity Facilitator at General Electric.  Back then, the focus was just on gender and race diversity and inclusion, which continue to be large opportunity areas at work and in the larger society to this day.

One of the most important concepts I learned during that training was the concept of transforming the reaction as marginalized individuals to ignorance, bigotry and discrimination from anger and retribution to compassion and education.  "When you come from a place of compassion,  instead of anger," our instructor Carol Brantley taught us.  "Then you can create an opening, a conversation:  where you can potentially engage the less-informed as students, teaching compassion because you're modeling it.  And in it that opening, you have the opportunity to teach inclusion, too."

After church today, I observed and participated in a panel discussion supporting The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.  Today's discussion focused on preventing and intervening on bullying in our schools:  the leading driver of crisis and suicide for our youth today. The wonderful panel members - advocates, students, teachers and members of my own FUSS congregation (FYI, we are a Welcoming Congregation, proud supporters of the recently enacted Marriage Equality Act in New York state), also echoed that earlier training of approaching the issue of bullying through compassion, education, and in the case at Mohanasen High School, Peer Mediation.  What a wonderful new tool:  healing bullying through peace:  the source of all human conflict are needs met and unmet.  As a mediator myself, I was heartened.

I was further encouraged by the impending July 1, 2012 enactment of the NYS Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) which states:

...that NO student shall be subjected to harassment or discrimination by employees or students on school property or at a school function based on their actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or sex.

Frankly, for as I have explained to my son Noah:  if students don't learn how to treat each other respectfully at home and at school during their childhood and teenage years (and in their adult relationships with friends, relatives and spouses):  they will be much less successful as adults at work.  I've witnessed it my entire career:  disrespectful, bullying, demeaning and/or dominating / controlling behavior does not win friends or influence people in the long term.  No matter how talented or smart you are:  if you cannot consistently and authentically demonstrate mutual respect and inclusion at work (to peers, subordinates, and even more puzzling, managers and customers), it will eventually bite you and your career squarely on the ass. Your timing and mileage may vary, but what comes around does indeed go around.  Your attempts to marginalize others, intended or unconscious, to give yourself status, attention and power will in fact and eventually marginalize you.

And if you must suffer those losses in order to learn this lesson:  be the student and embrace this lesson of failure as the gift it truly is. Ask for feedback and coaching.  Take a searching and fearless inventory of yourself.  Take responsibility. Forgive yourself and the adults who misinformed and neglected you, placing you on this erroneous path. Learn, especially compassion for yourself and those around you. Grow. Transform. Model and teach what you've learned:  encouraging the growth and standing on the side of:  love at work.

Diamonds or Toads: How Your Hiring Authorities Help (or Hurt) Your Company's Reputation

My brother teases me for retaining my 20 year-old AOL email address.  Call me sentimental:  it's the account Joel and I created the year we were married.  It doesn't have any numbers in it.  My AOL account is a repository for merchant emails, so I basically skim it once a day.

When I opened up AOL this morning, I saw the story on the news feed about the store manager who allegedly told the applicant with 1.5 arms that he would not be able to work in her store because of products placed on a high shelf. (Apparently, the store manager experienced interview amnesia and forgot the store had both a step-stool and a ladder, standard gear for a retail store).  The applicant appears to be a nice, stand-up guy with 11 years of uninterrupted service and retail work experience and a sterling reference from his last manager.  The same applicant who the store manager during a 15-minute interview also allegedly ridiculed for working at Victoria's Secret while allegedly simultaneously sexually harassing her co-interviewer about her bra size.

What immediately popped in my mind was not my 20+ years of hiring and HR legal experience:  it was the Toads and Diamonds fable.  You know:  the fable about the two sisters who are tested by a fairy at the well disguised as a thirsty old woman.

The kind sister, who immediately gives the old woman a drink of water, is blessed with the gift of diamonds, pearls and flowers spilling from her mouth every time she speaks.

The nasty sister, who shooed the old woman away instead of giving her a drink of water, is given the curse of toads and vipers falling from her mouth every time she speaks; and is consequently shunned and shortly thereafter dies in a corner of the forest.

The kind sister wins marriage with a prince she meets in the forest with her new gift.   The Middle Ages' version of career success for women.  But I digress.

Hiring authorities at every level, from CEO to store manager, assume great power and equally great responsibility.

Most hiring authorities understand this role, and represent their companies adequately:  that is, they don't violate the law during the interview or engage in insulting behavior, leaving their job applicants with a neutral experience. No diamonds or toads.  The prediction would be that their customers have a neutral, shredded wheat-type experience, too.  Not the best stance against their competitors, but not the worst.

Some hiring authorities are on a power-trip doomed for personal and reputational failure, acting like the capos at the gates of Auschwitz treating job applicants like prisoners of war.  "Go to the right, and I'll grant you the privilege of working for me," the little power-mad voice in their heads sings.  "Go to the left and be condemned to continued unemployment."  Certainly not freedom through work.  And certainly not companies you would want support with your patronage or your employment.  A nest of vipers and toads to make Indiana Jones sweat, indeed.

And then there are the bleeding-edge hiring authorities and companies who get it. Who have clear values, visions and missions, and know how to walk the talk accordingly and consistently. Who recruit for the diversity in their candidates that equals or exceeds the diversity of their customers.  Who hire managers and hiring authorities who also walk the talk accordingly and consistently, and make available those who don't to industry.  Who understand all too well that their reputations pivot equally on how they recruit their employees and how they recruit their customers. And that the strategies for both employee and customer recruitment / retention are inextricably linked for long-term success.  These are the diamonds and pearls of the leading companies that we want to patronize as customers and where we want to work as employees, leaders and vendors.

Personally, I find diamonds and pearls most becoming.

You Can Handle the Truth About Your Job Search

I received an email today from a reader in a related industry who has been looking for full-time work since 2010:

Hello Debra-

I read your recent blog with great interest.  I've been "selling" myself for the past 2 years with no full-time takers.  Please see my attached resume. Comments?  Opportunities?

Thanks so much.

Gentle readers:  I was born in New York City, and my daddy is a Marine.  If you ask my opinion, I will serve it up directly and in the spirit of supporting our mutual success.  In that context, below please find my direct and heartfelt response:  

Thank you for your kind feedback on my blog posts.

I've been to the Recession Rodeo a few times myself as well as in the hiring authority seat, so my response to you is grounded in both of those experiences:
 

• If you hadn't mentioned that you have worked, albeit part-time, since 2010 in your email below, I would assume from your paperwork that you have not worked at all since 2010.  Please consider including your contract / project work since 2010 as your most recent / current work experience on your résumé since 2010.   Work, part-time or full-time, still counts as your most recent résumé item, perhaps as a Consultant performing contract work.  One significant reason you may not be getting many bites from hiring authorities.  Also, from your email, I don't know the depth and breadth of these part-time / contract projects.  Summarizing recent projects since 2010 in both your résumé and cover letter / email telegraphs that you're already working and therefore employable to a potential hiring authority.
  

• Good, bad or indifferent, your lack of social media presence does not do your background justice.  Please do some LinkedIn searches to see how peers / colleagues in your industry have punched up their LinkedIn profiles, including a headshot that communicates trust.  The more you use / explore LinkedIn, the more you learn its capabilities to promote you as a professional / practitioner.  Also:  once you're 5 years or more past graduation, no need to keep graduation dates on your résumé.  Also:  lots of great books in the local library system on this subject.  A lot of what I've learned about social media has come from reading and online / in-person seminars, almost all free.  And once I learn it, I implement it.
  

• Hiring authorities and your network will do a quick Google search to see what you've been up to / what you've accomplished.  My quick search on you turned up an article implying different employment dates / employers.  When dates / employers don't sync up on a résumé, hiring authorities will also take a pass.  Please ensure that your résumé matches these searches, and/or outline why.

• Stating reasons for leaving jobs / companies on your résumé and LinkedIn profile not only demonstrates that you're proactive, but may also help a hiring authority take a second look at you as a candidate.

• Most importantly:  have you asked for this same feedback / advice from trusted colleagues / friends in your local network that you have asked from me (someone who has never met you)?  From former clients?  If so, what are they telling you?  When I hear the same piece of feedback twice, I have learned over time that I need to listen, incorporate it and change course. Also, for those folks in your network and clients that you've listed on your résumé:  have you networked face-to-face with all of them, asking for their advice and asking how you can be of service in return?  Selling is an in-person exercise; with your background and accomplishments, you know this even better than I do.

Hopefully my comments were what you were looking for: I suspect that you will make better progress with in-person contacts within your own network.  I wish you the best in those explorations.

Have a great week and thanks again for your feedback,

Deb.

Be the Vendor (Not the Applicant) in the Job Interview (Sale!)

It's a point-of-view game-changer:  are you an applicant in a job interview, or a vendor?  I've witnessed the paradigm-shift as I've coached two talented professionals over the last month.  It's like watching the switch flip back to the authentic human capital offering.

Approaching a job interview as an applicant forces you into the frame of supplicant. Beggar. When you approach the interview in the sad context that the hiring authority is doing you a favor by talking to you, you're just another dancer in the Chorus Line, murmuring the meaningless mantra of "God, I hope I get it."  Oh, you'll get it all right.  Rejected, with that attitude.  You're starting out one-down from the hiring authority, in the supplicant's unmistakable veil of fear.  Fear of rejection; fear of not being able paying your bills, fear of (insert your worst fear).  In this fearful stance of the supplicant, the hiring authority has you at hello.  You're trapped, you're at their mercy and you did to yourself.  Don't get me wrong;  the "What Does He Want from Me, What Should I Try to Be" mantra is not necessarily the recipe for disaster:  supplicants are hired every day.  The hiring authorities who need that kind of control need that kind of applicant who surrenders their personal power for a paycheck.

It doesn't have to be that way.  You control this interview conversation more than you know.

This interesting switch dwells in all of us:  it's just a matter of being open to its possibility and creativity.   In coaching the First Professional, who had not been on an interview in several years and who with real anxiety asked me to put together a top-10 list of the toughest interview questions and answers to expect, I did something unexpected.  "Don't approach this as an applicant," I coached.  "If instead in this meeting you were the vendor providing these services on an outsourced basis for this customer, tell me why you're the vendor they should choose."  The Professional's fear evaporated, and the sparkle returned to their eyes:  the switch was turned on and they instantly empowered themselves.  They proceeded to knock my socks off with their proposal and their energetic self-possession.  They did the same with their new employer the next day.  They were head-and-shoulders above the other candidates in their expertise and self-confidence, who I'm sure were merely supplicants.

It's not just a matter of the supplicant answering the employer's questions correctly:  the real conversation is the subject-matter expert (SME) vendor meeting / exceeding the potential customer's needs.  And as my daddy taught me:  when the customer is doing most of the talking, and is selling you on them and their organization, the signs are positive that you can ask for the order (job), and close the sale.

I saw the switch turned on again today with the second Professional.  While their current employment situation is a bit sketchy due to economic forces, they have several potential "customers" interested in their services next.  The pressure is off, there's no veil of fear, they don't have just one potential customer.  As they engage in their initial customer conversation this week, they can be completely present, authentic and centered as the talented SME Vendor they are, exploring the potential possibilities together with the customer of working together, rather than stoop to some bizarre and hellish personal version of Quiz Show.

May the week ahead present innovative proposals and produce fruitful new partnerships for us all.

The Spinach in the Teeth of Your LinkedIn Profile

A true friend will tell you expediently and directly when you have spinach in your teeth.  These valuable human mirrors are here to preserve your credibility, for the simple reason that in most social and business settings, spinach, lipstick or other foreign objects in your teeth send a negative message, which may or may not be true:  that you have poor grooming habits, that you don't pay attention, etc.  Perception is indeed reality if the spinach in your teeth remains unchecked.  For that reason, I very much appreciate when friends perform this service for me. 

Dear colleagues, I've written a few posts on proofing and pumping up your LinkedIn profiles.  Although LinkedIn emulates some of the more informal social media channels like Facebook, it continues to be the social media channel for professionals and for businesses.  Our LinkedIn profiles are essentially our eCommerce websites.  Our customers -- potential clients and employers alike -- source and preview our services and our reputations on LinkedIn.  Yet, there's still spinach in the teeth of some of your LinkedIn profiles:

• One recent profile update included a wonderful new head shot photo; yet, the headline on their profile has been misspelled for over 2 years.  And attention to detail, like in most professions, is a critical trait that their internal and external clients require;

• While we're on the subject of pictures:  I am no great beauty, and I hate getting my picture taken.  Yes, I confess:  I used a badge photo (e.g., the photo from my work badge) on LinkedIn for a while, because it was one of the few head shots taken of me where I don't look like Frodo's little sister.  My dear friend Anne pointed out the spinach in the teeth of my LinkedIn badge photo and referred me to a nice photographer for my current head shot;

• Still on the subject of photos:  please don't use head shots of you wearing sunglasses.  Banking institutions ask you not to wear sunglasses into their establishments:  potential customers on LinkedIn would like to make eye contact with you in the same way, lest they suspect you of felonious intentions;

• One more photo comment: those of us who have met you in person can tell that you're using your decades-old Bar / Bat Mitzvah / Confirmation / Coming-of-Age head shot.  Either embrace your vintage or invest in a talented colorist, please; 

• I just did a search for "manger" (the common misspelling of "manager" on most LinkedIn profiles and sadly a lot of job applications) on LinkedIn:  the search produced 205,274 results (By the way, my first-level LinkedIn contacts come up first in this search:  dear colleagues, please review your profiles!!).

Pump up your LinkedIn power:  ask a friend to review your page to ensure that you have no spinach in the teeth of your LinkedIn profile.  It can only help your reputation, and your earning potential.