I hear this… a lot.
And when I respond
with “Get a new job”,
I get a lot of weak-assed excuses.

Steve Tobak has a better response.
(this post on workplace myths
is AWESOME)

“For one thing it’s work,
not happy hour.

Also it’s a free country.
You get to decide
what you want to do for a living
and where you work.

Isn’t that enough?

Sure, the economy sucks.
So if you’ve got a crappy job or
a boss who’s a jerk,
you’re sort of stuck for a while.
Sometimes it’s worse than others,
but the economy is cyclical and
it’s been that way forever.

Besides, if you think your company is hell,
your boss is the devil, and
your coworkers are political, backstabbing creeps,
there’s a fair chance that it’s you.
Nobody wants to believe
they’re the problem.”

If your job sucks,
either change your job
or change YOU.

One of my buddies
was complaining that
while she respected and learned
from her boss,
she couldn’t ever see
her becoming friends with her boss.

WTH would she want that?

It is challenging,
almost impossible, to mentor your friend.
You often have to tell your protege
the nasty truth.
You look at this person
and her actions critically,
NOT what you want in a friend.

And expecting one person
to fill every role for you
is unrealistic
and unfair to that person.

It is okay
or even preferable
to have different people
serve different purposes for you.

Great bosses and effective mentors
don’t have to be friends.

Recently, I told a loved one
he was being too negative.

This wasn’t a spur of the moment sharing.
I knew he wouldn’t be happy hearing this truth
but it was hurting his relationship with others
and his career.
I loved him enough to point out
that his first response on everything
was negative.

His response?
A vehement no, of course.
He listed all of the reasons
why I was wrong.
(which confirmed my statement)

Hearing feedback like that
is always difficult
but hearing it, embracing it,
and changing
is part of everyone’s road to success.

If someone cares enough
to give you negative feedback,
think about it,
truly THINK about it.

One of my buddies
is organizing an event.
Some lucky person is
to drive the guest speaker
to and from the airport.
This person will have
precious one-on-one time with the VIP.

My buddy has worked her ass off
organizing the event.
She’s given the event time
she could be spending with family
or… gasp… sleeping.

Someone told her
she should hold a drawing
and give everyone in the organization
the opportunity of driving the VIP.

No f**kin’ way.

Leadership HAS to have perks.

Leaders spend their time and resources.
They make sacrifices to get the job done.
They make the difficult decisions
no one else wants to make.

There HAS to be rewards.
There HAS to be perks.
Treating everyone equally
is only appropriate if everyone does equal work.

If you want great leaders,
reward them for leading.

We’ve all worked with or for one…
the critic.
This is the person
looking for
and finding
fault in everything and everyone.

You work all night on a proposal.
You show it to her
and she finds the typo on page 20.
That is what she comments on.
Or she’ll tell you it won’t work
and not give you ways to make it work.

Art Petty has a wonderful list
of tactics to use
while working for the critic boss
(I wish I had this years ago).

My favorite is…
“Give the Critic credit for the idea.
“Your comments the other day
made me realize that
what you really want is… .”
Heck yes, it’s manipulative.
I don’t care if you don’t!”

Yes, critic bosses are challenging to work for
but you CAN work for them
and achieve your goals.

A buddy sent me an article
because he,
a recruiter,
couldn’t believe someone wrote it
(period)
recently
and posted it on a job search site.

There’s a lot of bone-headed advice
floating around
but this article takes the cake

Human Resources expert Sarah Paul
says
“The fact that she is in a suit
(hopefully a stylish one at that)
speaks to her professionalism, ambition, power.
But taking it one step further
by wearing a skirt and
dressing in an overtly feminine way
elicits personality characteristics
more often demonstrated by women…
support, empathy, sensitivity…
which are all desirable traits of a leader
in today’s workplace.”

Lets take the skirt wearing
out of the equation.
Clientk readers know
how I feel about that.

Have you EVER seen
support, empathy, and sensitivity
(i.e. crying at the drop of a hat)
listed as traits desired
for ANY management position?

I didn’t think so.

It isn’t a big secret
what employers are looking for
in potential employees.
They write out their wants
(in code usually
for example:
flexible schedule = working 24/7)
in their job postings.

Sensitivity is NOT
one of those traits.

One of my buddies is
the sole non-white person
in his current company.
With every issue/project,
he has to fight prejudice.
The constant fighting is tiring
and it is hindering his goal
of becoming a senior executive.

He asked me
if he should stay and
‘right this wrong’,
blazing the trail for diversity,
or if he should
look for a new job,
to easier achieve what he truly wants.

My response?
Which do you value more –
the cause
(equality)
or
your personal goal
(becoming a senior executive)?

Because if he stays in his current company,
it will take decades
if EVER
to become a senior executive.
In a more diversity-friendly environment,
a senior executive position
is easier to reach.

When a cause is a goal,
it is a wonderful thing.

But when causes and goals conflict,
you have to be ’selfish’
and make the decision
that is right for you.

Make the change YOU want to make,
not the change
others think you should make.

A loved one sent out 5 resumes.
He didn’t get any interviews
and he was convinced his resume was the issue
so he spent a week reworking it.

Another loved one has sent out
100’s of resumes.
She hasn’t landed any interviews
but she tells me
her resume doesn’t need tweaking
because “it is perfect.”

Job hunting is like any marketing program.
If the program is working,
we should expect reasonable results.

But what are reasonable results?

According to Priscilla Claman
of Career Strategies, Inc,
we should be getting 5 or 6 interviews
for every 100 reasonably-targeted resumes
we send out.
(I personally have a 10% hit rate
but that is because
I’m in a professionally designated field).

Other Job Hunting Ratios?

We should snag one second interview
for about every 8 first interviews
and
received a job offer
for every 8 or 9 positions we’ve been a finalist in.

Any less than that
and it indicates some part of
our job hunting strategy
is not working.

Everyone thinks they follow the rules.
Really they don’t,
and this can be damaging
when you’re trying to enforce
these rules.

People believe what they see,
not what they hear.

Leading Blog explains
how sometimes leaders THINK
they follow the rules they give others
when really they don’t
and…

“Sometimes this is difficult
to see in yourself,
so asking a trusted friend
if there is a disconnect
between your words
and your behavior is helpful.

As a leader,
it is too easy to think of yourself
as the exception.
“I’m busy.”
“They don’t have to deal with
what I am dealing with.”
“This is for them, I don’t need it.”

When a leader’s behavior
conforms to their talk,
there is a connective quality formed
that is worthy of trust and attention.
If we live our values
we can create radical change.”

Find a trusted friend or mentor
and assign them the task
of keeping you honest.

Blake Landau has a great post
on 14 myths about Gen Y’s.

Gen Y’s were born between 1980 and 1995.

One myth is
they won’t be long-term employees.

“You can turn us into long-term employees.
You’ll just have to do it one day at a time.
Remember we don’t trust anyone,
considering what we’ve seen unfold
in corporate America in the last ten years.
The last two years
–Wall St., Madoff, and the decline of Main Street
–make the Enron scandal look like small potatoes.
We will be loyal,
but you have to earn our trust
through consistent “trustworthy” behavior.
We crave this feeling of “safety”
so to those organizations who can create
this atmosphere based on trust,
you will find the most loyal, committed
and hard-working millennial employees.”

This is now true for ALL employees.

As a Gen X’er,
I gave day-to-day loyalty.
I worked for a large quick service restaurant chain.
I had a great job,
and an admiration for the brand.

Then they did something
I couldn’t ethically stomach,
and within days,
I put in my 2 weeks notice.

You earn your employees’ loyalty
one day at a time.
Don’t take it for granted.