Career Plan Resuscitation
Breathe Some Life Back Into Your Work

By Bev Kaye and Sharon Jordan Evans

To resuscitate your career, own it! This attitude is key. Take steps now to plan it, build it, and strengthen it. Here’s how:
-Look at yourself—Examine your interests, values, and work skills. Find out, too, if others see you the way you see yourself. (read more...)

Low Cost Rewards Get High Marks

By Bob Nelson

If you think that rewarding and recognizing your employees has to be costly, think again. Some of the most effective forms of recognition cost little or nothing at all. (read more...)

Coaching Change
Executive coaching is one tool in performance appraisal, compensation, and promotion that reinforces positive behavioral change.

By Marshall Goldsmith

Most leaders preach teamwork, but often excuse themselves from its practice—and fail to hold people accountable for living this value. This invites cynicism, undermines credibility, and saps vitality. Employees rate their manager’s ability to "effectively deal with people who undermine teamwork" dead last among 92 elements of effective leadership. (read more...)

Career Plan Resuscitation (^ top)
Breathe Some Life Back Into Your Work

By Bev Kaye and Sharon Jordan Evans

Look at Yourself
What do you love to do? To create a meaningful career plan, you need to be clear about your interests (the things you like doing—ideas and activities that give fulfillment and pleasure) and your values (ideals you cherish that guide your life at work). To determine those critical variables, ask yourself:
-What accomplishments at work have made me feel particularly proud?
-What makes me feel unique in this organization?
-What kinds of things would I do if I could create my ideal workday?
-What types of work do I avoid?

The things you do well, value highly, and like doing give you a basic map for planning your career. Look for opportunities to do that inside your organization. Also, gather information from several willing feedback providers. Ask them:
-What are my overdone strengths? (Too much of a good thing.)
-What are two skills I should strengthen? How would it help me, given what I want to do?

Seek out your critics. Listen to them. Try to see yourself through their eyes. Get clear about your missing skills, or those skills you overdo.

Look Around
Once you’ve assessed what you need to learn, you can begin to look around your organization for trends, learning opportunities, and career options. You may be surprised to find projects, task forces, and jobs that will support your goals.

How much do you know about your organization, your industry, and your profession? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, ask others:
-What are the major industry, economic, political, and social changes taking place that will affect this organization?
-What are the opportunities and problems ahead?
-How will my profession be different in two years? In five years?
-What counts for success here? How will that change in the future?

Not every step in a career has to be a step up. There are other options (inside the organization) to consider, too. Talk to your boss or other valued advisors to learn about these possibilities:
-Moving laterally—a change in job, but not necessarily a change in level of responsibility
-Exploring—testing and researching changes without permanent commitment
-Enriching—seeding the current job with more chances to learn and grow
-Realigning—adjusting duties to reconcile them with other priorities and future possibilities

Try to imagine at least one move you could make in each of the above directions. What would it look like? How might it match your skills, interests, and values?

Look Ahead
Use the information you now have about yourself, your company, and multiple options to develop your plan. Be ready to answer these questions:
-What new skills, knowledge, or abilities do I need to achieve my goals?
-What are some short-term goals (3 to 6 months) that I could start on right now?
-How can I gain the new skills that will help me with my goals while in my current job?
-What relevant experiences can I have through serving on committees and task forces?
-Who in my network can help? A clear plan of action turns goals into realities if you:
-Write down your goals, exact steps and deadlines. Revise along the way.
-Forge alliances with people who can help you reach your goals: managers, mentors, peers, supporters.
-Seek learning. Get training and experience to help you reach your goals.
Career Plan Resuscitation (CPR) is doable if you look at yourself, look around, and look ahead. You’re in charge of your career. You manage it within your company, within this economy, and with the capabilities and resources that you have.

Low Cost Rewards Get High Marks (^ top)

By Bob Nelson

If you think that rewarding and recognizing your employees has to be costly, think again. Some of the most effective forms of recognition cost little or nothing at all.

Want some ideas? Consider how these companies implement low-cost recognition activities:

Real Meal Deal: Once a month, Integrated Marketing Services in Princeton, NJ, invites employees to a “Bagels and B.S.” meeting, at which management discusses year-to-date performance and plans for the future, then fields questions from the group. Says manager, Jim Mullins, “Employees are also invited to complain to management about whatever might be on their minds. The meetings have opened up the lines of communication and are very popular.”

Disco Madness: As an incentive to staff at the Newark, California branch of Pro Staff Personnel Services, Josh Parker, northern California regional manager, promised to disco dance on his desktop if they met specific quarterly goals. Polyester pants, gold chain, and all, Parker hustled his way into Pro Staff’s manager hall of fame. Since Parker’s disco debut, the employees at the Newark office anxiously await his next challenge.

Employees Get the Savings: In an effort to reduce both turnover and expenses, the Daniels Company, a trucking firm in Springfield, Missouri, challenged its drivers to cut their fuel costs by improving mileage --- then let them keep their difference. Since then, turnover has been cut by 25 percents and trucks are logging fewer miles, this cutting overall costs.

Surprise Shifts: Crate and Barrel store managers in Houston, Texas, started a program for their associates involving a “surprise hour off.” Once a week, each store manager would pick a sales associate and take his or her shift on the floor for an hour saying, “You’ve been working hard, and I appreciate it --- take an hour off and come back refreshed and ready to sell more.”

Get out of Your Office: When employees of AAA of southern California were asked what the company could do better to support them, the overwhelming response was, “Have managers get out of their offices more often.”

As these examples illustrate, there are many low or even no-cost ways to recognize and reward your employees. With a little creativity, the ideas are endless.

Coaching Change(^ top)
Executive coaching is one tool in performance appraisal, compensation, and promotion that reinforces positive behavioral change.


By Marshall Goldsmith

Most leaders preach teamwork, but often excuse themselves from its practice—and fail to hold people accountable for living this value. This invites cynicism, undermines credibility, and saps vitality. Employees rate their manager’s ability to "effectively deal with people who undermine teamwork" dead last among 92 elements of effective leadership.

Leaders often fear confronting people about poor teamwork, but people highly value honest feedback.

Use 360-degree feedback to align corporate values and individual behavior. Such feedback allows you to practice consultative coaching.

If certain conditions prevail, behavioral coaching may be a waste of time:
• The person you’re coaching is not making a sincere effort to change.
• The person has been written off by the company.
• The person lacks intelligence or skills to do the job.
• The organization has the wrong mission. Coaching is a "how to get there" process, not a "where to go" process.

Getting Started

I recommend eight steps:

1.Identify desired attributes for the manager you are coaching. Once you determine the behavioral characteristics of a successful manager in a given position, ask that manager if he or she agrees that these are the right behaviors. Securing agreement will boost commitment.

2.Determine who can provide meaningful feedback. Key stakeholders may include direct reports, peers, customers, suppliers, or members of the management team. Strive for a mix that does not stack the deck for or against the manager.

3.Collect feedback. Assessment is often best handled in an anonymous survey, compiled into a summary report and given directly to the manager.

4.Analyze results. Talk with managers about the results of the feedback—discuss key strengths and areas of improvement.

5.Develop an action plan. The most helpful—and appreciated—outcome of any assessment is specific advice. Develop "alternatives to consider" rather than mandates. Focus on key behaviors and develop action steps to improve each.

6.Have the manager respond to stakeholders. The manager should talk with the review team and collect suggestions on how to improve in key areas.

7.Develop an on-going follow-up process. Within months, survey the original review team, asking whether the manager has become more or less effective.

8.Review results and start again. If the manager takes the process seriously, stakeholders invariably report improvement. Build on that success by repeating the process quarterly for one year.

Moving Beyond the Basics

Managers who want to improve, talk to people about ways to improve, solicit feedback, and develop a rigorous follow-up plan, will almost always improve.

By becoming an effective coach, you become a more credible leader and an active agent of change. By measuring others on the behaviors and attributes you say you value, you cement the bonds of leadership. And by having others follow through on their progress toward goals, you help create a more responsive, positive, and cohesive organization. LE

Marshall Goldsmith is the founding director of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership, and authority on helping leaders achieve positive change. marshall@gc

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