Making Sense of the Information
One of the hard things about discovery mode is that you can easily get lost in it. You have conversations that give you new ideas, you gather a lot of opinions and conflicting information, and sometimes you completely forget what you were trying to get out of it in the first place. The purpose of information interviewing is to find out how other people have successfully done the things you think you want to do. This is part of “external discovery”, and your goal is to find out:
1. Do I really want to do this? Does it sound like as good of a fit as I imagined it might be, and if not, are their similar options that could be a better fit?
2. If it is, in fact, something I’d like to do, how have other people done this, and from all their paths, can I see a path that I could take to achieve this goal?
You continue to information interview until you’ve found a good fit and a good path.
What I learned from my information interviews (yes, I finally did them), was that there are some ways that people do corporate coaching that don’t feel like a good fit for me, but each person I talked to had some new insight to share that helped me see how easy it would be to do coaching in the corporate arena the way I like to coach.
One of the most important things you can learn from information interviewing is the many different paths to success. This keeps you out of the trap of following the “standard road” to success, which may not fit you. The secret is to ask people to tell their story, especially if it seems to be an exception, or otherwise different from the standard approach. What I learned was:
1. Almost every coach in corporate leadership roles built their business by referral only – not by marketing to Human Resources departments. However, one business coach filled his practice with an 18 month direct mail program. He was moving across the country and didn’t have the luxury of an established network, so he tried something different, and it worked.
2. Standard thinking is that most executive / corporate coaches work on site, but one person I talked to built a corporate practice exclusively on the telephone, and had also been the happy recipient of this type of coaching when she was an executive. She was confident and comfortable with this model, and rarely got push back. Clients expect that you, as a professional, know best how to approach your work. They are looking for results.
3. I was worried about writing up a complicated corporate contract, but two successful coaches I talked with preferred to use simple 1-2 page agreements, which gave me the confidence to use my current agreement and only make a few minor adjustments.
Usually I recommend that you hear at least five different stories, and each of those five perspectives becomes a “data point”. The more data points, the more perspective, and the better feel you have for the environment that you want to enter.
The most important things I got from my conversations were: (1) a clearer picture of myself in the role I want, and (2) some good ideas about the approach I could use to successfully move into this role. Since, I have answered both questions, it’s time to move OUT of the external discovery phase onto the next step.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Transition with Me, Step by Step – Day 03
Transition with Me, Step by Step – Day 03
Procrastinating on Information Interviews
First of all, just for clarities sake – this is not the literal third day of the transition process, but I thought I’d keep things labeled in order. It seemed easier than jumping from day 2 to day 21 and having everyone wonder what they missed in between. :)
I promised to do my information interviews in two weeks. Three weeks have now passed and I have only talked to people I happened to be having lunch with anyway. I’m procrastinating on my information interviews, but this is a great thing to write about, because many of my clients also procrastinate on information interviews, and sometimes we even lose each other in this part of the process. It’s funny, because I have a list of people to call and a list of questions, but it doesn’t feel urgent, and I keep wanting to jump to the next step, or spend my time on “more important” things.
Information interviews, when done well, provide you with information that you can then use to better position yourself into your target job or your target client base. The problem with information interviewing is you don’t really know what juicy stuff you’ll find out before the conversations, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking they are not important. The other trap people fall into is trying to over-use the information interview, by turning it into a “secret roundabout way” to get a job. Unfortunately, if you take that approach, it usually comes across just as manipulative as it is.
Information interviews are powerful when they are done right. The purpose is to hear the story of several people who have already done something you are planning to do. As you hear their stories you will get the inside scoop on what they learned, and you can make much better decisions about your direction and your strategy.
Since these people know nothing about you, it’s important to keep the conversation focused on them and their story – NOT on what they think you should do. If you go down the “asking them for advice” path, the whole conversation moves up to a surface level, because they stop thinking about their real experiences and they start feeling pressured to give you good answers. However, if you take the pressure off and approach them more like a journalist – really interested in hearing their story, then you get more of the interesting experiences that they believe are unique to them. After hearing five different unique perspectives, you will be able to extrapolate for yourself what applies to you.
To drive home this point, I’ll share a great example:
When I was a product manager in the high tech world, if you asked me for advice on what you needed to do to become a product manager, I would have told you to get a technical or business degree and about five years of experience in marketing and technology. This would be an honest answer, because it was to my knowledge the typical path one would take to achieve this career goal.
On the other hand, if you had asked me to share my story on how I became a product manager, I would have told you how I started in an engineering support role because I had some solid database background, but that I spent most of my time interacting with the sales department and helping them understand the nuances of the products we sold. Eventually I was recruited by the VP of Marketing for a market research job which I was not interested in, but I decided to ask if he’d be up for trying me out as a product manager and he was willing to.
Very different stories, right? Both completely true. The only reason they are different is because of the slight difference in the way you question me. Make it about you and I give you the standard industry line because I think that’s the safest and most practical advice I can give you. Make it about me, and I get to talk about me, which is fun, no pressure, and it’s a huge added bonus that my story helps you as well.
Which story is more useful?
Here is something to keep in mind when you are avoiding information interviewing:
You don’t know what you don’t know, AND you only have one mind, one set of life experiences, and perhaps two or three additional perspectives from conversations you’ve had. So it’s very likely that what you DON’T know is quite a lot more than what you DO know. And, you have a choice to make: you can move forward with what you do know and learn from your mistakes, OR you can talk to five people who have done this before you and learn from their mistakes.
I choose to learn from their mistakes, so I am now recommitting to at least having contacted the rest of the people I’d like to interview by the end of this week.
How are you doing?
Procrastinating on Information Interviews
First of all, just for clarities sake – this is not the literal third day of the transition process, but I thought I’d keep things labeled in order. It seemed easier than jumping from day 2 to day 21 and having everyone wonder what they missed in between. :)
I promised to do my information interviews in two weeks. Three weeks have now passed and I have only talked to people I happened to be having lunch with anyway. I’m procrastinating on my information interviews, but this is a great thing to write about, because many of my clients also procrastinate on information interviews, and sometimes we even lose each other in this part of the process. It’s funny, because I have a list of people to call and a list of questions, but it doesn’t feel urgent, and I keep wanting to jump to the next step, or spend my time on “more important” things.
Information interviews, when done well, provide you with information that you can then use to better position yourself into your target job or your target client base. The problem with information interviewing is you don’t really know what juicy stuff you’ll find out before the conversations, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking they are not important. The other trap people fall into is trying to over-use the information interview, by turning it into a “secret roundabout way” to get a job. Unfortunately, if you take that approach, it usually comes across just as manipulative as it is.
Information interviews are powerful when they are done right. The purpose is to hear the story of several people who have already done something you are planning to do. As you hear their stories you will get the inside scoop on what they learned, and you can make much better decisions about your direction and your strategy.
Since these people know nothing about you, it’s important to keep the conversation focused on them and their story – NOT on what they think you should do. If you go down the “asking them for advice” path, the whole conversation moves up to a surface level, because they stop thinking about their real experiences and they start feeling pressured to give you good answers. However, if you take the pressure off and approach them more like a journalist – really interested in hearing their story, then you get more of the interesting experiences that they believe are unique to them. After hearing five different unique perspectives, you will be able to extrapolate for yourself what applies to you.
To drive home this point, I’ll share a great example:
When I was a product manager in the high tech world, if you asked me for advice on what you needed to do to become a product manager, I would have told you to get a technical or business degree and about five years of experience in marketing and technology. This would be an honest answer, because it was to my knowledge the typical path one would take to achieve this career goal.
On the other hand, if you had asked me to share my story on how I became a product manager, I would have told you how I started in an engineering support role because I had some solid database background, but that I spent most of my time interacting with the sales department and helping them understand the nuances of the products we sold. Eventually I was recruited by the VP of Marketing for a market research job which I was not interested in, but I decided to ask if he’d be up for trying me out as a product manager and he was willing to.
Very different stories, right? Both completely true. The only reason they are different is because of the slight difference in the way you question me. Make it about you and I give you the standard industry line because I think that’s the safest and most practical advice I can give you. Make it about me, and I get to talk about me, which is fun, no pressure, and it’s a huge added bonus that my story helps you as well.
Which story is more useful?
Here is something to keep in mind when you are avoiding information interviewing:
You don’t know what you don’t know, AND you only have one mind, one set of life experiences, and perhaps two or three additional perspectives from conversations you’ve had. So it’s very likely that what you DON’T know is quite a lot more than what you DO know. And, you have a choice to make: you can move forward with what you do know and learn from your mistakes, OR you can talk to five people who have done this before you and learn from their mistakes.
I choose to learn from their mistakes, so I am now recommitting to at least having contacted the rest of the people I’d like to interview by the end of this week.
How are you doing?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Transtion with Me, Step by Step - Day 02
Transition with Me, Step by Step
By Nahid Casazza – Day Two
So, I completed my brainstormed list of 20 proudest moments. I did this quickly – and although I’m not going to share all of them, I’ll share a few – so you can get a feel for how quickly this can be done:
1. VRAM project at KTC
2. YOSS project at Yoh, including the presentation in front of the owner and the award for personnel development
3. The presentation at KTC where I spontaneously came up with the Tosh issue to explain to a client why we had to keep our part numbers separate
4. Managing to take an entire month off and then come back and bring the business back last year
5. The ICF presidency – coach week plus leadership
6. The models I created (the game, the stages of change, the hierarchy of obstacles, VOPA, etc.)
7. The articles I write in short time periods – some of them pretty good
Notice that some of the proudest moments are tangible projects, others are things I am able to do well, consistently. Notice that I didn’t get into a lot of detail – it’s important that I know what it was about each of these things that made me feel especially good about it, but in my initial list – I’m writing as little as possible – just enough to jog my memory. Although you can’t see it here, I also included compliments/acknowledgments people gave me that meant a lot to me, because they were reflections of what I did well that I believed and felt good about.
Now – when I’m done with the list – what do I do? Remember that there are several stages in this transition process, and the results of this exercise can be used in many of the stages. But in stage one we are using it to identify our strengths. So what I did is look for the themes that came up over and over again in my list of 20 accomplishments. I came up with seven themes, and every single one of my accomplishments touched on at least one of the seven; usually they touched on several:
1. Pulling something together in an extremely short period of time (2-3 weeks for projects that are often in the planning stages for several months to a year, a couple of hours for writing projects that would normally take days or weeks)
2. Remembering / Depth of Knowledge – patterns and how things fit together, so that I can easily bring up pertinent knowledge and examples when an issue comes up during a presentation or conversations. This also applies to coaching.
3. Presenting / Facilitation – not showy at all, but the ability to bring clarity to a concept, and to generate open discussion about it.
4. Coming up with Models that make complicated concepts easy to get
5. Writing summaries, notes, programs, presentations, and articles
6. Ongoing personal development (my own – which has then increased my knowledge in this field)
7. Leading groups / group projects
How do you come up with your themes? I came up with mine by asking myself – “what got this item on the proudest moments list?” The items on the proudest moments list are really just examples of different ways your strengths show up – so my goal is to find the strength underneath, and the way to get there is to ask – what made me proud of this moment? For example, in number one, (the VRAM project) I am proud that I took something that would normally require several months and did it in three weeks – and it was done in a way that made it sustainable. This was also reflected in about five other of my examples, and also came up in some of my writing and content related accomplishments. So, the theme showed up over and over again.
Once I’ve identified a short list of themes – I take a closer look at my themes to see what my strengths are. In my case the themes all talk about something specific that I can do well, so I just say those are my seven strengths. In your case, it might be more complicated, and sometimes you need to get someone to go through your list and analyze it with you.
Once you have identified your strengths – your next step is to map it to your overall goal. So, remember I said I wanted to work in leadership? If I look at my strengths (leading groups, presenting, creating models, writing), what makes most sense for me is to create a hybrid program for small groups that includes models that I have developed, and incorporates some teaching into the coaching.
Although there are still many “leadership” companies that have their own models and I still have the competitive issue to deal with, it’s always best to play to your own strengths. The other thing that works here is that I can be quick when it comes to building programs – so I wont get so lost in spending a year to come up with the perfect model. So maybe there will be a way for me to differentiate myself based on that.
However, now it’s time to STOP strategizing, and review. The five phases are:
1. Internal Discovery
2. External Discovery
3. Target Needs Identification
4. Strategy
5. Execution
I, like many people, could get lost in internal discovery for a very long time, and you’ll notice that my mind jumped to problem solving and wanting to create the ideal program. But now it’s time to set what I’ve learned on the table and move to phase two – external discovery. This means talking to people.
In external discovery, my job is to talk to others who have done what I am planning to do and hear their stories. I’m NOT going to ask them to help me get into what they do, I’m NOT going to ask them what they think I should do. This is not about me – it’s about learning from people who are several steps ahead of me on their journey. And, by hearing their stories, getting some feel for what I might be getting myself into.
Usually, I recommend talking to five people and having no more than five questions. The way to go about this is to start with the things I worry the most about, and come up with questions for them related to this. So, here goes (raw fear) – this is what I worry about:
1. Nobody is going to hire me
2. I have no idea how to start the conversation
3. I don’t know how to get into a corporation
4. I don’t know how to make myself different than others / don’t know what the competition is doing/ not sure how people are pricing themselves
5. Don’t know what pitfalls I might not know about
Those are my biggest fears (at this point – more may come up later). Now, I simply translate these fears into questions I can ask people about THEIR journeys. Here is my list of questions:
1. How did you get hired into your first leadership coaching assignment? After that how did you build your client base?
2. How do you start your conversation with prospective customers?
3. How have you managed to get into corporations?
4. How have you differentiated yourself from other leadership coaches? Have you run into competition and how have you handled it / how does it impact you?
5. Where do you generally price yourself and / or where do you notice most companies pricing themselves?
6. As you built your leadership coaching practice, what surprised you and tripped you up?
In the Aspyrre step by step program, you find at least five people, ask no more than five questions, and ask to talk to each of them on the telephone for 20 minutes. We even have a step by step process to go through if you can’t find people to talk to. Luckily, I am a member of the coach federation, so I know some coaches who are in leadership. Also, I will ask everyone I talk to if they know of other leadership coaches who might be willing to talk to me. If I’m respectful of their time, it usually isn’t a problem to find and talk to enough people.
So this is my commitment. I will not do this in just one day, but I will commit to having it done in two weeks. Five “informational conversations” with five established leadership coaches, to hear their stories, and document what I’ve learned.
You can do this too – let’s get started!
By Nahid Casazza – Day Two
So, I completed my brainstormed list of 20 proudest moments. I did this quickly – and although I’m not going to share all of them, I’ll share a few – so you can get a feel for how quickly this can be done:
1. VRAM project at KTC
2. YOSS project at Yoh, including the presentation in front of the owner and the award for personnel development
3. The presentation at KTC where I spontaneously came up with the Tosh issue to explain to a client why we had to keep our part numbers separate
4. Managing to take an entire month off and then come back and bring the business back last year
5. The ICF presidency – coach week plus leadership
6. The models I created (the game, the stages of change, the hierarchy of obstacles, VOPA, etc.)
7. The articles I write in short time periods – some of them pretty good
Notice that some of the proudest moments are tangible projects, others are things I am able to do well, consistently. Notice that I didn’t get into a lot of detail – it’s important that I know what it was about each of these things that made me feel especially good about it, but in my initial list – I’m writing as little as possible – just enough to jog my memory. Although you can’t see it here, I also included compliments/acknowledgments people gave me that meant a lot to me, because they were reflections of what I did well that I believed and felt good about.
Now – when I’m done with the list – what do I do? Remember that there are several stages in this transition process, and the results of this exercise can be used in many of the stages. But in stage one we are using it to identify our strengths. So what I did is look for the themes that came up over and over again in my list of 20 accomplishments. I came up with seven themes, and every single one of my accomplishments touched on at least one of the seven; usually they touched on several:
1. Pulling something together in an extremely short period of time (2-3 weeks for projects that are often in the planning stages for several months to a year, a couple of hours for writing projects that would normally take days or weeks)
2. Remembering / Depth of Knowledge – patterns and how things fit together, so that I can easily bring up pertinent knowledge and examples when an issue comes up during a presentation or conversations. This also applies to coaching.
3. Presenting / Facilitation – not showy at all, but the ability to bring clarity to a concept, and to generate open discussion about it.
4. Coming up with Models that make complicated concepts easy to get
5. Writing summaries, notes, programs, presentations, and articles
6. Ongoing personal development (my own – which has then increased my knowledge in this field)
7. Leading groups / group projects
How do you come up with your themes? I came up with mine by asking myself – “what got this item on the proudest moments list?” The items on the proudest moments list are really just examples of different ways your strengths show up – so my goal is to find the strength underneath, and the way to get there is to ask – what made me proud of this moment? For example, in number one, (the VRAM project) I am proud that I took something that would normally require several months and did it in three weeks – and it was done in a way that made it sustainable. This was also reflected in about five other of my examples, and also came up in some of my writing and content related accomplishments. So, the theme showed up over and over again.
Once I’ve identified a short list of themes – I take a closer look at my themes to see what my strengths are. In my case the themes all talk about something specific that I can do well, so I just say those are my seven strengths. In your case, it might be more complicated, and sometimes you need to get someone to go through your list and analyze it with you.
Once you have identified your strengths – your next step is to map it to your overall goal. So, remember I said I wanted to work in leadership? If I look at my strengths (leading groups, presenting, creating models, writing), what makes most sense for me is to create a hybrid program for small groups that includes models that I have developed, and incorporates some teaching into the coaching.
Although there are still many “leadership” companies that have their own models and I still have the competitive issue to deal with, it’s always best to play to your own strengths. The other thing that works here is that I can be quick when it comes to building programs – so I wont get so lost in spending a year to come up with the perfect model. So maybe there will be a way for me to differentiate myself based on that.
However, now it’s time to STOP strategizing, and review. The five phases are:
1. Internal Discovery
2. External Discovery
3. Target Needs Identification
4. Strategy
5. Execution
I, like many people, could get lost in internal discovery for a very long time, and you’ll notice that my mind jumped to problem solving and wanting to create the ideal program. But now it’s time to set what I’ve learned on the table and move to phase two – external discovery. This means talking to people.
In external discovery, my job is to talk to others who have done what I am planning to do and hear their stories. I’m NOT going to ask them to help me get into what they do, I’m NOT going to ask them what they think I should do. This is not about me – it’s about learning from people who are several steps ahead of me on their journey. And, by hearing their stories, getting some feel for what I might be getting myself into.
Usually, I recommend talking to five people and having no more than five questions. The way to go about this is to start with the things I worry the most about, and come up with questions for them related to this. So, here goes (raw fear) – this is what I worry about:
1. Nobody is going to hire me
2. I have no idea how to start the conversation
3. I don’t know how to get into a corporation
4. I don’t know how to make myself different than others / don’t know what the competition is doing/ not sure how people are pricing themselves
5. Don’t know what pitfalls I might not know about
Those are my biggest fears (at this point – more may come up later). Now, I simply translate these fears into questions I can ask people about THEIR journeys. Here is my list of questions:
1. How did you get hired into your first leadership coaching assignment? After that how did you build your client base?
2. How do you start your conversation with prospective customers?
3. How have you managed to get into corporations?
4. How have you differentiated yourself from other leadership coaches? Have you run into competition and how have you handled it / how does it impact you?
5. Where do you generally price yourself and / or where do you notice most companies pricing themselves?
6. As you built your leadership coaching practice, what surprised you and tripped you up?
In the Aspyrre step by step program, you find at least five people, ask no more than five questions, and ask to talk to each of them on the telephone for 20 minutes. We even have a step by step process to go through if you can’t find people to talk to. Luckily, I am a member of the coach federation, so I know some coaches who are in leadership. Also, I will ask everyone I talk to if they know of other leadership coaches who might be willing to talk to me. If I’m respectful of their time, it usually isn’t a problem to find and talk to enough people.
So this is my commitment. I will not do this in just one day, but I will commit to having it done in two weeks. Five “informational conversations” with five established leadership coaches, to hear their stories, and document what I’ve learned.
You can do this too – let’s get started!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Transition with Me, Step by Step - Day 01
Transition with Me, Step by Step
by Nahid Casazza – Day One
Putting yourself through a big professional change is pretty scary, and it’s always easier to come up with “great ideas”, “great leads”, and “great advice” for someone else, than to actually translate those ideas into productive results for yourself. That’s why, in the name of practicing what I preach as a transition coach, I’ve decided to put myself through one of the most difficult, yet effective, processes that can help someone in job transition get the ideal job, and someone in business get exactly the clients they want. It’s not an easy process, and I might fail at it myself, but I believe if I’m willing to take the same steps I challenge you to take, if we are in this together, then through the power of synergy, it will increase all of our chances of success.
One commitment I am making is to be as raw as possible about the emotions, insecurities, and inner turmoil that happen during transition. They happen to the best of us, they have happened every time I’ve transitioned, and at least some of it will probably happen to you. Most people try to keep their best face forward and hide all this from the public, as they must when showing their professional face. But here it’s not going to do us any good to “show a good face”. You need to know that someone “gets” what happens behind the scenes.
So let’s start with my goal. I’ve been a coach, working mainly with people in career transition and small business owners for about eight years now. Every once in awhile I get a chance to work with executives on leadership, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Ideally, I would like to add this work more firmly to my portfolio and have it compliment the rest of my work. However, because it seems to me that “everybody” in the coaching world calls themselves a leadership coach, I haven’t been able to see a unique opening where I can distinguish myself and reach potential clients in that space. My situation is very similar to that of someone in career transition who wants to get a job that is different from the last job, and wonders how in the world to compete with everyone else wanting that same job with the “right” experience or contacts.
My goal is to get five “leadership” clients within the next three months. They can be five individuals who hire me as a leadership coach, or it can be a group of five or more within one company.
So when I have a client in transition, I walk them through a five step process that goes something like this:
1. Internal-discovery – find your unique talents and strengths
2. External discovery - Identify potential jobs and choose a target
3. Needs Identification - Learn a lot about your target job so you know the two or three things that are most important to the people who have the power to hire you
4. Strategize – Come up with a communication plan that “bridges” you to your target and make sure your message is consistent over a long enough period of time to be heard by enough people to give you a chance.
5. Execute – Action, action, action, learn from your results, adapt or change the action, and action, action, action some more. Continue this cycle until you get what you want or you’re satisfied that you have turned over every single pebble and it’s time to come up with a different target.
Most people who have a vague idea of what they want, feel compelled to jump to steps 4 and 5 right away. And there are others who like hanging out in steps 1 through 3 forever; every time they get to step 4, some compelling reason comes up that convinces them they need to start over at step 1.
I admit I’m feeling BOTH of these pulls right now. A part of me is saying, “OK – you already know what you want, and if you start at step one you are going to be wasting time. Plus, knowing you, you’ll never get to step five.” Then another part of me is saying, “You know, there are valuable exercises you haven’t done in phases one through three, and if you do them, you may end up with a much more effective execution strategy”
When my clients struggle with this inner conflict, (and most of them do) we usually follow a “short term opportunity / long term opportunity” time-management strategy. What that means is to spend the first part of every day addressing short term opportunities – sending resumes out to current openings, following up with people who may have leads now – that sort of thing. Then, once you’ve spent at least two hours working on short term stuff, then you work on longer term stuff like doing research and self-discovery exercises.
So I have a short term opportunity – and that is an accelerated transition program I recently started. It’s a great program for people who want a strong support system to keep them focused and productive while they are in transition. I have already made a commitment to consistently tell people about it until we have a nice group of six to eight. (By the way, if you are interested in learning more about this program you can go to my website, http://www.aspyrre.com/ATProgram.htm and I would LOVE it if you would tell everyone YOU know about it as well)
So every work day, priority one is “executing” by telling people about my accelerated transition program, and priority two is working through this new transition, step by step.
Step One
The first exercise in the Aspyrre transition process is called “My Twenty Proudest Moments”. It is simply a brainstormed list of times you were really proud of yourself in a work setting. The moment you are proud of can be truly just a “moment” – perhaps a two minute interaction where you were able to influence people you didn’t think you could influence. Or it could be a longer term project, like getting an MBA or working on a team completing a complicated project at work. The “Twenty Proudest Moments” exercise is extremely useful. First you’ll use it to identify your strengths, which are the skills you see come up over and over again in your moments. But these moments can also be a basis for accomplishment statements on your resume and examples you can provide for behavioral interviewing questions.
My first commitment is to complete the 20 proudest moments exercise, and in my next entry, show you how to translate this into key strengths and also more clarity about your target client or employer.
by Nahid Casazza – Day One
Putting yourself through a big professional change is pretty scary, and it’s always easier to come up with “great ideas”, “great leads”, and “great advice” for someone else, than to actually translate those ideas into productive results for yourself. That’s why, in the name of practicing what I preach as a transition coach, I’ve decided to put myself through one of the most difficult, yet effective, processes that can help someone in job transition get the ideal job, and someone in business get exactly the clients they want. It’s not an easy process, and I might fail at it myself, but I believe if I’m willing to take the same steps I challenge you to take, if we are in this together, then through the power of synergy, it will increase all of our chances of success.
One commitment I am making is to be as raw as possible about the emotions, insecurities, and inner turmoil that happen during transition. They happen to the best of us, they have happened every time I’ve transitioned, and at least some of it will probably happen to you. Most people try to keep their best face forward and hide all this from the public, as they must when showing their professional face. But here it’s not going to do us any good to “show a good face”. You need to know that someone “gets” what happens behind the scenes.
So let’s start with my goal. I’ve been a coach, working mainly with people in career transition and small business owners for about eight years now. Every once in awhile I get a chance to work with executives on leadership, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Ideally, I would like to add this work more firmly to my portfolio and have it compliment the rest of my work. However, because it seems to me that “everybody” in the coaching world calls themselves a leadership coach, I haven’t been able to see a unique opening where I can distinguish myself and reach potential clients in that space. My situation is very similar to that of someone in career transition who wants to get a job that is different from the last job, and wonders how in the world to compete with everyone else wanting that same job with the “right” experience or contacts.
My goal is to get five “leadership” clients within the next three months. They can be five individuals who hire me as a leadership coach, or it can be a group of five or more within one company.
So when I have a client in transition, I walk them through a five step process that goes something like this:
1. Internal-discovery – find your unique talents and strengths
2. External discovery - Identify potential jobs and choose a target
3. Needs Identification - Learn a lot about your target job so you know the two or three things that are most important to the people who have the power to hire you
4. Strategize – Come up with a communication plan that “bridges” you to your target and make sure your message is consistent over a long enough period of time to be heard by enough people to give you a chance.
5. Execute – Action, action, action, learn from your results, adapt or change the action, and action, action, action some more. Continue this cycle until you get what you want or you’re satisfied that you have turned over every single pebble and it’s time to come up with a different target.
Most people who have a vague idea of what they want, feel compelled to jump to steps 4 and 5 right away. And there are others who like hanging out in steps 1 through 3 forever; every time they get to step 4, some compelling reason comes up that convinces them they need to start over at step 1.
I admit I’m feeling BOTH of these pulls right now. A part of me is saying, “OK – you already know what you want, and if you start at step one you are going to be wasting time. Plus, knowing you, you’ll never get to step five.” Then another part of me is saying, “You know, there are valuable exercises you haven’t done in phases one through three, and if you do them, you may end up with a much more effective execution strategy”
When my clients struggle with this inner conflict, (and most of them do) we usually follow a “short term opportunity / long term opportunity” time-management strategy. What that means is to spend the first part of every day addressing short term opportunities – sending resumes out to current openings, following up with people who may have leads now – that sort of thing. Then, once you’ve spent at least two hours working on short term stuff, then you work on longer term stuff like doing research and self-discovery exercises.
So I have a short term opportunity – and that is an accelerated transition program I recently started. It’s a great program for people who want a strong support system to keep them focused and productive while they are in transition. I have already made a commitment to consistently tell people about it until we have a nice group of six to eight. (By the way, if you are interested in learning more about this program you can go to my website, http://www.aspyrre.com/ATProgram.htm and I would LOVE it if you would tell everyone YOU know about it as well)
So every work day, priority one is “executing” by telling people about my accelerated transition program, and priority two is working through this new transition, step by step.
Step One
The first exercise in the Aspyrre transition process is called “My Twenty Proudest Moments”. It is simply a brainstormed list of times you were really proud of yourself in a work setting. The moment you are proud of can be truly just a “moment” – perhaps a two minute interaction where you were able to influence people you didn’t think you could influence. Or it could be a longer term project, like getting an MBA or working on a team completing a complicated project at work. The “Twenty Proudest Moments” exercise is extremely useful. First you’ll use it to identify your strengths, which are the skills you see come up over and over again in your moments. But these moments can also be a basis for accomplishment statements on your resume and examples you can provide for behavioral interviewing questions.
My first commitment is to complete the 20 proudest moments exercise, and in my next entry, show you how to translate this into key strengths and also more clarity about your target client or employer.
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