Leadership

Take a Break – You Earned It!!

December 23, 2016 By Marta Goertzen

Are you ready for a break more than you thought?

Year-end fill in the blank:

This year has been _________________________________

For me it has been: AWESOME | WONDERFUL | CRAZY | EXHILERATING | REALLY HARD

I am feeling_______________________________________

As I write this I am feeling: EXHAUSTED | FRAZZLED | CURIOUS ABOUT NEXT YEAR

It’s been a whirlwind. I accomplished some of my goals, faced new challenges, met some of them, fell flat on my face a few times. How about you?

It is time for a rest. I need it! So do you.

In a fascinating article, The Lost Practice of Resting One Day Each Week, Joshua Becker points out that rest is important. He shares that philosophers tell us rest is essential for the mind. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to work your judgment will be surer.” Your mind needs a rest.

Most religious traditions advise rest for your soul. Physicians leaders and athletes know that rest improves performance.

Becker shares some benefits of concentrated rest for your body, mind and soul:

A healthier body when we eat healthy, exercise and minimize bad habits
Less stress
Deeper relationships
An opportunity for reflection
Greater opportunity for reflection which might yield better ideas
Balance to have an identity outside of your work

Regular rest can lead to increased production and reserves to take on the next crisis. Who doesn’t need that!?

Why am I so frazzled at the end of this year? I haven’t properly rested. Have you?

Would your performance improve if you set aside some time to rest? Would your health improve if you set aside some time to rest? How about your personal relationships?

Yes, yes and yes for me!

I am taking Joshua Becker’s advice and taking some time off to rest. The coming year holds much promise. I want to enter the new year with the energy that this challenge requires. So I am taking a rest. I am forcing myself to take off the week between Christmas and New Years to rest and recharge, reacquaint myself with my family, maybe even see a movie or read a book or two.

Enjoy your families and relax this holiday season!

If you would like to be even more prepared at a Job Interview, download our ebook, “The Top 30 Most Frequently Asked Questions at a Job Interview“. It’s Free!

Turn the Tables – Message to Employers

January 26, 2016 By Marta Goertzen

Message to Employers: Last week, a recruiter I know found the perfect candidate for a client with a mid-level professional vacancy.

Being a recruiter is like being a matchmaker. Recruiters seek a magic combo of skills and experience required to insert the right person into a hole in an organization. This is hard work.

The position had been open for three months.That means the manager and co-workers have been filling the responsibilities for the vacant position in addition to their regular duties. This is a crazy amount of extra work. You would think they would be motivated to fill the position with the right candidate.

The candidate was perfect. He had ten years of experience. He could come in and immediately contribute. This is magic, right?

Wrong. Tripped up at the final moment by a tiny detail. Vacation.

The perfect candidate had ten years of experience and needed vacation in the first year. He had been getting three weeks of vacation in his last company. His small children expected something, even a week. As a millennial, the candidate expected a little work/life balance. But no. The company had a rule. Rules must be kept.

You might expect me to admonish the job seeker to be more flexible and accept the perfect job without vacation, but I am not going to do that. I want to have a word with the company.

Why in the world would a job seeker at any but the most entry level want to join your firm if they give up three weeks of vacation?

How can you expect to attract qualified, experienced candidates?

Older baby boomers might be willing to sacrifice vacation but younger workers are not. They want something in exchange for hard work. This is not an unreasonable expectation.

This company lost a good candidate, perhaps the perfect candidate, because they have a rule. If they showed even a little flexibility on their rule, they could have filled the vacancy with a qualified, experienced candidate but instead the company preserved the sanctity of their rule but must still scramble to cover the vacancy until they find someone desperate enough to fit their life into the company rules. Co-workers will continue to pick up the slack. Work will continue to go unfinished while the company searches.

What a foolish short sighted choice. Is the Hiring and Recruiting process costing your company Time and Money? The Interview Doctor can help!

Step by Step We Reach Our Goals

January 19, 2016 By Marta Goertzen

At our business, The Interview Doctor, Dan Toussant and I planned in the fourth quarter for the next calendar year. Then we work like crazy to achieve all the big hairy goals we set for the year.

We can look at our results in two ways. On one hand, we missed the big hairy goal of doubling our revenue. On the other hand, we grew our business by more than 40%. Not bad. We will take that!

In my private life, we moved out of our big house and into the boat. It was a huge challenge. Our goal was to accomplish all that by July 1. We actually achieved the goal by September 1, 25% behind our original goal. But we achieved the goal. Not bad. We will take that!

Goals are just wishes without plans. Tactics. Action.

There is a direct analogy to boating. Of course there is, right? Let me illustrate.

Imagine you are sitting behind the helm. The sun is peeping over the horizon. You just pulled up the anchor. You are ready to leave. Water in front of you as far as you can see. Your goal is to get from your anchorage to another point 50 miles away. You can see no signs. How do you achieve your goal?

You must have a plan.

You assess your resources. You have a compass and a GPS, global positioning system sort of like the kind in your car, and a map, called a chart in boating. These are the tools you can use to find your next spot 50 miles away.

Use your chart to find your target spot for the evening. Put a point on the GPS. Now you start the engines and head out.

You have more guidelines to follow than you think. The waterway has signs. They don’t look like road signs on a street but they are very useful. On the right side periodically spaced along the water are red triangles. On the left side are green squares. You keep the boat between the green and red signs.

You do not drive in a straight line. The water twists and turns as it follows the bank. You watch the signs. Here is a red. Pass it on your right side. Where is the green? I see it! Aim for the green and pass it on your left side.

Keep one eye on the reds and greens and the other eye on the depth gauge to make sure the water is deep enough for your boat, periodically looking at the chart to be sure everything is coordinated.

It is very similar to watching your gas gauge, speed limit and road signs. You just have to know where to look.

As you tick off red and green signs in the water, the distance passes bringing you closer to your goal. You can’t always see the ultimate goal in the distance. You must trust your tools and take each milestone one at a time while making progress a little at a time.

As we tick off tasks on our TO DO lists we come closer to our goals. Not action for the sake of action. But action that is designed using all available resources to move us forward in a purposeful fashion towards our goals.

You will meet twists and turns as unexpected changes interrupt your best intentions. But a purposeful attention to goals works better to turn hopes and dreams into results.

How close did you come to your personal and business goals? Did you take a purposeful approach or are you hoping that somehow you will stumble across the finish line? Which approach has a greater chance of bringing the results you want?

As we start moving through a New Year use this time for introspection to create more specific plans using all your available resources so you can get closer to your goals.

There is No Crying in Business

January 15, 2016 By Marta Goertzen

John called the other day to share a story about a young woman who burst into tears in his office while being confronted after making a mistake. He couldn’t believe it! He didn’t know what to do or say. There is no crying in business!

Where does the crying come from? It comes from fear, embarrassment, frustration, anger and the inability to fully express the extent of these feelings.

I can distinctly recall a few times I cried or wanted to cry at work. The first few times I was laid off hit me pretty hard. The combination of surprise, disappointment and embarrassment caught me first followed closely with fear as I wondered how I would make ends meet and how I would tell my family.

One time when my brother-in-law was on the verge of death I admit I closed the office door and lost it. Privately, hiding until the redness went away. I didn’t want to share my sadness with the team.

I remember that scene from A League of Their Own” when Tom Hanks runs out of the dugout to shout at the crying player, “There’s no crying in baseball”. What are we supposed to do, ignore those feelings?

After John’s call, I found some interesting articles about crying at work. Although most people have cried at work at one time or another, crying at work is generally discouraged.

In a great Huffington Post article, What 15 Female Leaders Really Think About Crying at Work, Mika Brzezinski, co-host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, said, “Being in control of your emotions gives you much more power at work… much more control over any situation… and much more dignity.” Sylvia Ann Hewlett, found and CEO, Center for Talent Innovation and author of “Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success” said, “Crying, I found in my research, is just one of a menu of communication blunders that, in a mere instant, can suck the executive presence right out of you.”

So being in control of your emotions gives you power and crying undermines the strong impression you are trying to build among superiors and colleagues. Strong incentive to control those emotions.

But if we have all cried at one time or another and crying at work undermines us, then how can we control our emotions in tense situations?

I pinch the skin between my thumb and pointer finger hard, really hard. I did this when negotiating a separation agreement some years ago. It distracted me from crying and helped me remember to shut up because crying undermines the negotiation and the first person to talk loses.

Here are some tips from Essilor, a leading provider of eyeglass lenses, folks who know a little bit about eyes:

Look up. This lets the tears pool at the bottom of your eyelid so they don’t run down your face. This gives you time to gather yourself.
Control your breathing. Count to ten, take slow deep breathes and focus on relaxing.
Pinch your nose. This controls the tear ducts that run from the corner of your eye down the side of your nose.
Blink rapidly to clear about any initial tears before they run down your face.
Change your thought patterns. Stop focusing on the thing that made you cry in the first place. Think of something funny.

Don’t give up your power or the executive presence you worked hard to get by letting your emotions get the better of you. Cry when you get to the car or when you get home. Don’t let the other guy win!

Find the Pizzazz in your Career

November 13, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

This week I have been stressing and fretting over all the items on my TO DO list. It is driving me crazy. Every felt that way?

On the flight to conduct a workshop at HRSouthwest Conference in Fort Worth TX this week I read a timely book, Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress and Lead by Example by Steve McClatchy. Every day we make choices that either move us towards gain or away from pain. All the tasks on our To Do lists fit into one of these two categories. Interesting.

I wonder how my overwhelming TO DO list breaks down. Am I taking adequate steps to move towards gain or am I focused too much on preventing pain? Let’s take a look at how McClatchy defines his terms.

GAIN tasks are not urgent. They don’t have deadline dates usually. You can’t delegate these tasks. Gain tasks produce significant results that move your business or life forward into a direction you intend.

PREVENT PAIN tasks are urgent, everyday tasks that can really burn up time. Bad things happen when you neglect these tasks but these tasks don’t move your cause (professional or personal) forward toward any big hairy goal.

Honestly, most of the items on my TO DO list prevent pain and don’t move me forward.

Accounting and bookkeeping, LinkedIn follow-up, setting appointments and writing blogs are the work that happens behind the scenes to help me connect with my audience and measure my progress towards my goals. If I miss the deadlines sometimes bad things happen. I feel burned out and burdened by these tasks.

Behind the scenes are some really important projects that I am not getting done. For months I have been almost done with a new online training program that will move our business forward. The key here is “for months”. The training program is a game changer. Nothing bad happens if I don’t work on it but if I don’t work on it, nothing happens.

I am letting myself get distracted from the GAIN tasks by the day to day things that PREVENT PAIN. That is just not smart.

McClatchy suggests that if you want to GAIN then figure out how to clear your plate of those PREVENT PAIN tasks so you can give more time and attention to tasks that move you closer to your goal.

Wow, this new perspective can be a game changer!

We can take this analogy in another direction. Look at the way you describe your career in LinkedIn. Do you describe yourself in terms of the “expected” descriptions? We call them the “duh” tasks. Or do you focus on the times in your life when you stepped beyond to achieve significant positive results?

Take a red pencil and go into your LinkedIn profile or resume and strip out all the expected “duh” items.

Leave only the results, the evidence that you were there, the GAIN you achieved by doing the unexpected or more than the expected. This makes you unique, gives you something to talk about.

I had the chance to try this with Bruce’s resume. He included every ranking of sales results in the last 20 years, even the times his results brought his team in last. As a sales manager sales results are expected, the “duh”.

When I stripped out all those extraneous sales results we were left with the most interesting parts, the unexpected achievements that are the pizzazz in any career.