Category connecting the dots

Bracketology for the job search procrastinator

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

It’s that time of year, ‘March Madness’, when everyone, including the President is selecting who they believe will advance to the final four in the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championships. With a little imagination and humor, you can apply the bracket concept as a way to narrow down your career interests and begin to identify potential employers.

Let’s say you are totally confused and quickly losing your confidence in the process. Everyone you know seems to have this ‘career thing’ mastered while you’re still floundering.  Where do you begin? Try categorizing your interests using the bracket system. Instead of four regions, fill in four career fields that might interest you. Identify sixteen possible employers in each field. Go to each organization’s website and get a sense of how they describe what they do and the culture that enables their employees to succeed. Utilize social networking sites to identify folks you may know who are employees in your selected organizations or have contacts that could be of help.

Your goal in this first phase is to access a basic level of information for comparison.

As you progress with your research, you will begin to eliminate some organizations in favor of others. Once you get to your ‘elite eight’, schedule your information interviews. As you talk to people you will begin to establish a realistic assessment of your chances for success in an organization.

This ‘elite eight’ forms your target list. By the time you have narrowed your selection to eight, you should feel comfortable that each employer presents a realistic next step in your career.

As with any selection process, you don’t have complete control of the outcome. The employer extends the offer and you have the choice to accept or continue to explore other options.

The NCAA tournament lasts three weeks. If you start filling in your career fields now, you will advance the exploration process at a pace to be ready for interviews by ‘tip-off’ in the championship game.

 

 

It’s about the relationship – a visit to the dentist

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

It’s Monday and the first appointment on my agenda was a visit to the dentist. Not my favorite day. Not my favorite place to go.

In finding a dentist I went through all the steps I would take to research a potential employer. In my world view, when a degree of competence is required and my smile is at risk. It’s about the relationship and trust.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at my dentist’s office this morning and the dental assistant kept referring to the dentist as ‘he’ when my dentist was a ‘she’. Apparently my dentist had left the practice after giving two weeks notice and the administrative staff failed to communicate. So I left. And I think they were surprised.

I explained the reason I chose their practice was initially the credentials of my dentist, and over time, the trust I experienced in the relationship kept me connected.

Often businesses view their product as a commodity; easily exchanged for an alternate when the original is not available. This approach probably results in the view that clients are interchangeable as well. And in the case of this dental practice, they may be right. But I don’t think that’s a sustainable view.

We’re all managing relationships in our workplace; with colleagues, leadership and customers.

Today, on the last page of The New York Times sports section there is a photo essay: ‘Standing Till The End’ about the employees who have worked at the Nassau Coliseum as ushers for the NY Islanders Hockey Team. This is the last season the team will be playing on Long Island. They move to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center next season. Reporter Allan Kreda described the scene at a recent game: “Standing at ice level and facing the Islander’s runway, Mike Artusa smiled broadly and had a handshake for all the familiar faces. And there was a seemingly endless supply of those…Like so much at the arena, which dates to 1972, Artusa and his fellow ushers, ticket takers and security guards are fixtures. And they revel in their roles, treating the jobs more like a family reunion that work.”

These are people who will be out of work in a few weeks. But they understand and continue to demonstrate the fundamental values of their workplace and manage the relationships with their customers ‘as family’.

Is there a connection between the expectations we have visiting a dentist office vs. how we are treated at a sporting event? Going to the dentist, my expectation is not to have a good time, as I would at a hockey game. I don’t expect the staff to be ‘fixtures’, lacking career mobility. But I do expect professionals who value their patients.

When it comes to customer service, we can all improve with experience and observation. Maybe the dental office staff should go to a hockey game.

 

 

The Power of Taking a Break & the Unexpected Inspiration of Reading

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

On Sunday tickets will go on sale for the musical ‘Hamilton’ as it moves from the Public Theater in New York to begin it’s Broadway run at the Richard Rodgers in mid July. It’s off Broadway performances which began last month, have received positive reviews from theater critics for its’ unique staging and musical interpretation of the life of Alexander Hamilton.

So why the theater update on a blog about work?  The New Yorker staff writer, Rebecca Mead answers in her profile of writer, composer and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was on vacation in Mexico 2009 “…and while bobbing in the pool on an inflatable lounger he started to read a book that he bought on impulse: Ron Chernow’s eight-hundred-page biography of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda was seized by the story of Hamilton’s early life. Born out of wedlock, raised in poverty in St. Croix, abandoned by his father, and orphaned by his mother as a child, Hamilton transplanted himself as an adolescent to a New York City filled with revolutionary fervor…”

If Mr. Miranda had not been on vacation, taking time away from work, we may have been deprived of his creativity and ability to connect the dots as he developed his perspective for the play: “Miranda saw Hamilton’s relentlessness, brilliance, linguistic dexterity, and self-destructive stubbornness through his own idiosyncratic lens. It was, he thought, a hip-hop story, and immigrant’s story.”

Ms. Mead’s article tells the story of the evolution of Mr. Miranda’s career, the development of ‘Hamilton’, and the connections he has made along the way with mentors and creative partnerships.

Sometimes we think creativity belongs to the artist and we struggle to find opportunities to relate to our own workplace. But creativity is about imagination and storytelling our way to solving a problem.  Taking time away allows for a different view. If we are open to the unexpected we can connect the dots and reframe the narrative. And, maybe be online Sunday to buy tickets and see how it’s done.

 

 

Best Work Day Ever

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

Is there one question we can ask that will help us figure out what we want to do with our lives at work?

It may not be the only question, but asking ‘What was your best day ever?’ serves a variety of situations:

You have an interview tomorrow and you need a question to ask the interviewer to get a deeper sense of their work.

You are an employer and you have a slate of candidates to interview and you need to find someone who will commit to your organization’s goals.

You are meeting with a networking contact and only have a few minutes to gain some understanding of what it takes be successful in their chosen profession.

You are just trying to figure out what you want to do with your life.

In an interview, asking a potential employer about their best work day will tell you quickly whether they enjoy their work and give an indication on how they fit into their organization’s culture.  You can then compare the answer to your own priorities. Is this a place where you could be successful?

Lew Cirne, the chief executive of New Relic, a software analytics company based in San Francisco described his process for interviewing candidates in an interview with Adam Bryant for the Corner Office column in The New York Times. “One question I ask more often than others is, “Describe a day where you’ve just had the greatest working day of your life. You’re driving home and you’re on cloud nine. What was it about that working day that made you so happy?” If you’re doing what you love to do and it gives you that tingle down your spine, you’re going to execute at a high level.”

If you are considering a new career or a new organization, talking to people engaged in those careers and organizations is an important source of information in your research. Asking each person about their best work day ever will give you a sense of what they love about their work and the tradeoffs they have made to achieve success. It provides a hint of who they really are and why they do what they do.

Ask yourself the question. Better yet, ask a friend to ask you the question. And after you have answered, ask them to tell you what you said. Where were the smiles in your narrative? What were you describing when the energy changed? What did they hear that told them about your values and priorities?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work is not a spectator sport

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

There are conversations, articles and books that resonate with us over time because they serve as recurring reminders of the essential elements we need to incorporate into our daily work lives.

One article I recommend is a 2011 OpEd piece written by David Brooks in The New York Times. Titled ‘The Question-Driven Life’ it begins with the statement: “We are born with what some psychologists call an “explanatory drive.” You give a baby a strange object or something that doesn’t make sense and she will become instantly absorbed; using all her abilities — taste, smell, force — to figure out how it fits in with the world.”

I believe that curiosity is a key element to success in a career. But how many of us approach our work with the intense desire to learn of the average two year old?

How do we learn if we don’t ask questions? How do we make connections to solve problems if we don’t ask questions? Observation plays a key role in our success, but sitting back as a spectator does not give us the information we need to actively engage with our colleagues, clients and investors.

The concept of the question driven life fits nicely into the world where investigative skills define the work of the profession; research, science, medicine. However, today, in our information driven world, we are all researchers and problem-solvers.  In a world of Wikipedia, it’s best to get first hand information, asking questions of actual humans, face to face. And in finding answers we further develop our expertise and begin to identify connections beyond the scope of our initial task.

And we become more valuable to others, for the knowledge we possess and share.

Mr. Brooks concludes his article with one of my favorite quotes, encouraging engagement in work and life quoting the late Richard Holbrook‘s essential piece of advice for a question-driven life: “Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it.”

What’s your story?

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

We connect with others through our personal stories; where we came from, where we went to school and what we do for a living. We find commonality with others in our shared interests and values. Most of us have the social networking thing mastered, but many of us, when faced with a career change forget everything we know about basic storytelling.

A recent article in The New York Times, “Storytelling Your Way to a Better Job or a Stronger Start-Up” highlighted the importance of crafting a narrative to fund a start-up or find a new job. In a January, 2005 Harvard Business Review article, ‘What’s Your Story?’ authors Herminia Ibarra and Kent Lineback concluded “Getting the story right is critical, as much for motivating ourselves as for enlisting the help of others. Anyone trying to make a change has to work out a story that connects the old and new selves. For it is in a period of change that we often fail, yet most need, to link our past, present, and future into a compelling whole.”

While using this technique is not new, it’s becoming more necessary in a workplace of increased competition and change. This is not a narration of your resume and accomplishments. Your story has to fire the imagination of a prospective employer, client or investor. Do your research and find story elements you have in common. Then tell your story, in your voice, expressing how you have arrived at this point, what is important to you and how you can make a contribution.