Solutions: Come to the table with solutions. When you dump a problem in the boss’ lap, or when you make excuses about why you can’t give them what they are asking for without providing another option, they wonder why you are there! Or worse, you feed their fear that they have to do it all!

Communication: Get to the bottom line. Give them the executive summary. If they have to spend their time condensing the information you are providing to them or sorting through the details to get to the meat of your message or idea, it is likely that your communication will go no further than their ears or their desk. They need your help in distilling the message to something that communicates clearly and concisely.

Organization Perspective: Take the perspective of what is best for the organization. Your focus on your personal agenda alone if the organization is faltering or instead of what will builds and strengthen the organization does not make you a valuable member of the team. If you can’t support the goals of the organization, you lose your credibility and the confidence of your boss!

Responsibility: See the solution through to the end even if the end is outside of your immediate domain. You are responsible not only for dong the right things but also for getting the right results. Your boss is responsible for all of it and is counting on you to understand the effectiveness of what you are doing as part of the ears on the ground.

Even Keel: The ability to be clear and calm no matter what the circumstances or to keep up the spirit of those around you is critical to maintaining a healthy environment in the group. If your boss has to come in to do damage control, your value slides downhill quickly.

Your boss relies on the support of others to be successful – they are counting on you to stand shoulder to shoulder with them to share the load because they cannot do it alone. When they fear that you need to be carried, you add to the problem and not to the solution. Scoring with your boss has a lot to do with instilling in them the confidence that they can consistently count on you to SCORE for the association!

For more good insights about how to manage up to manage your career, click on the link under the calendar on the right side of this blog and make a 30 minute appointment for a Career Strategy Review with Pegotty Cooper.

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• Creative Ways to Energize Your Network!
• Don’t stop yourself, create an experiment!
• Adding Meaning to the Season of Giving!

If you see everything you do as having a huge meaning for you, if you focus on the horrible consequences if you don’t do it perfectly, or when something doesn’t go the way you expect it to you assume you have done something wrong. You may well be stopped from taking any risks in the future. Or you will put up a lot of resistance to taking the actions you know are important to take but lie outside of your comfort zone.

Maybe you recognize this resistance – it seems to show up a lot for people engaged in “networking” or in asking others for help in their job search, project, marketing, sales or business development – you name it!

Don’t stop yourself, create an experiment; and design the experiment on a specific challenge, say calling people to connect with them in your job search. Try out a specific approach, like asking them for 15 minutes to pick their brain about the industry. Try the experiment by calling 25 people you know in the industry, recording the number of yeses, and the number of nos. Try the experiment again using LinkedIn to connect with people and ask them for 15 minutes. Record the yeses and nos. Now you can compare which approach is more effective. Now create an experiment talking to the first 10 yeses and asking them for a referral to simply another person. Write down the number of yeses and nos. For the next 10 yeses ask them for a referral to a good resource. Write down the yeses and nos. Which approach garners the better information? You see how easy it is to conduct these experiments?

Here are some more benefits from doing these experiments – You can celebrate showing up and giving the experiment your best; getting the practice in asking people for something; having the experience and building the confidence; and learning from the experiment! Now, what’s the next experiment?

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• Adding Meaning to the Season of Giving!
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• Become a Believer in Asking Questions!

You are there to find out what they need. And when you find out what they need you can share with them what you have that will help them address that need and get the results they are looking for.

The key to finding out what they need is to ask questions.

In order to ask good questions you need to get a little insight into the context of the job, get a general understanding of some of the needs they may have and results they want to get – the homework you have probably already done to customize the resume you used to get the interview!

If you do days and days of preparation, and learn all about the company and about the industry and all about the issues they are facing – when you are in the interview you may be compelled to tell them how much you have learned, what you think they could be doing, and generally set yourself up for being judged and assessed for everything you say. Your time will be better spent on reviewing their materials and jotting down a few questions to ask them if you were talking to them as a consultant.

Keep the focus on the employer, listen to what their concerns are, ask questions from the perspective of the experience you have had in similar situations, and keep your consultant hat on asking “how can we work together to achieve the results you want?”

If you are stuck in your job process and not getting the interviews you want, or getting the results from the interviews, join my Career Strategy Group which meets every Tuesday morning at 9 am. Click here for more details.

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• Become a Believer in Asking Questions!
• Exploring “Fit” in the Interview!
• Creating Star Quality in your Interview

Going for an interview or exploring some potential employers?

Ask open ended questions of people you meet who work there –What do you like best about working there? What is the prevailing management style? What is the average age (or most prevalent) age of employees? How long have people on staff been on the job?

How often does the leadership meet face to face with the employees? What is important to the organization? What kinds of goals do people have? Are there incentives offered for performance? Is information shared in all directions? Is there a focus on the mission of the organization? What would you change if you could?

Do more asking than telling in the interview.

Organizations will also put as much weight on the questions you ask in the interview as the answers you give. You want to know that the job and the organization is as good a fit for you as you are for them!

Asking questions gives you an opportunity to show the depth of your listening skills and the ability you have to synthesize the responses you get in the content of the homework you have done about the organization.

And more importantly, asking questions also builds trust because you present yourself as someone who doesn’t have all the answers, who is willing to explore someone else’s ideas and it allows you to step into the other’s world and to get a sense of what they are about.

Share Your Best Questions!

What questions have you asked that have opened up conversations or revealed some very interesting information? Share those here in the comments section below!

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Just the way it is supposed to work! Here are a couple of factors which can make that happen:

1. Repeated communication with your network about who you are and what you are looking for.

Sometimes the people you are talking to don’t get it right the first time. Have you noticed that you get inappropriate job listings from people you have talked to about your job search? “What were they thinking?” you might ask yourself! They heard what they heard and put it into a framework that is familiar to them. Now it is your job to retrain them and get them thinking about it from a different point of view – yours! “Thanks for the job listing. I appreciated your thinking about me. It wasn’t exactly a fit. Do you have a couple of minutes for me to clarify what I am looking for so you can be listening for the right match for me?” 

2. Volunteerism gives you access to great new network nodes!

Many high-level executives with great circles of influence participate in charitable organizations. There is no better place to connect with the people who are normally well-guarded than at the functions sponsored by organizations they hold near and dear to their hearts! When you support something important to them, you have the opportunity to connect with this person in a very profound way. This opens the door to conversations about what is important to you and soon they may offer to do what they can to connect you to someone important in your job search. The person whose network in lighting up met the CEO of a major media organization through her volunteerism which incidentally also turned into a part-time consulting  job! 

3. Online and print publications offer opportunities to connect with people representing an initiative or a project to which you could add value!

Scour the newspaper or trade publication for new legislation or new initiatives on the drawing board where you can see that stepping up with something to contribute could pave the way for a job or consulting contract. When I moved to a new city, an announcement about the creation of a management assistance program for non-profits caught my attention. I contacted the person mentioned in the article and a few weeks later, I was the consultant working with a foundation group to make it a reality. What a way to meet the movers and shakers in the community and rapidly expand my network from 0 to 100! 

4. Online publications, blogs and social networks give you the opportunity to connect with the authors and to make yourself more visible in the process. 

Connect with someone who posted an idea online by commenting on what they said and adding something of additional value. Your interest draws attention to what you could offer and increases your overall visibility in the search engines as well! 

What creative ways have you discovered to light up your network?

Share your comments at Creative Ways to Energize Your Network! on Career Strategy Roadmap

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• Don’t stop yourself, create an experiment!
• Become a Believer in Asking Questions!
• Can You Over Prepare for the Interview?

“But is doesn’t work”, many people will say!  “I’ve tried and I don’t meet the right people!”

Is it possible that you are looking for networking is all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons!

Can you answer these questions about the person with whom you want to network?

What title does the person have who is most likely to make the decision about the job or opportunity you want?  Where do they work?  If you say I don’t know to either of these questions, it is time to do some exploring and research to answer those questions.

When you can answer these questions, the next question is:

How many of these managers do you know?  If you answer one or two, that is a place to start.  And what naturally follows is “How do I meet more “XYZ Managers (substitute here the title of the person you want to connect with)”?

Here are 8 places to look:

1. Ask the people you already know to give you referrals to the XYZ Managers they know

2. Find people who do business with XYZ Managers and ask them for referrals.

3. Build relationships through XYZ Manager workshops and professional events.

4. Offer to do an internship in XYZ Manager’s offices.

5. Attend networking events that involve XYZ Managers

6. Frequent coffee shops or lunch places where XYZ Managers hang out.

7. Go to after –hours places where XYZ Managers go after work.

8. Join philanthropic organizations that XYZ Managers are a part of.

Finding out when and where these events happen may be questions to pose to members of your network or with people that know something about the people you are trying to reach.  Taking time to call your existing network may be a better use of your time than going off to free networking events where you don’t know who you will find! Invest your time in targeting your efforts to meet the people that are the decision makers!  You will get a much better return on your efforts.

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At risk of sounding critical or like a luddite, “interneting” is not networking. 

Before the internet, in order to hear of an opportunity to pursue or a contact to connect with, you had to be looking, and listening and being in conversation with people.  So you call someone you know and the conversation goes around in circles.  And then you call the next person and that conversation revolves around the kids.  OK, that didn’t work. So you think this networking stuff is a waste of time and it isn’t going anywhere!

Maybe you need a plan!

STEP ONE: Every journey begins with a first step. And the first step is to write down the names of anyone you know, have ever met, who was a neighbor, a colleague, a schoolmate, anyone that would recognize your name.  Keep writing down names and then set it aside.  Go back to it and add more when you think of someone else.

STEP TWO:  If you aren’t clear about what you want for a job or position then this is the time to get clear about what you want to explore.  What industry, what career, what type of job where you could build a bridge from where you are now using your talents, skills, or experience as some of the building materials.  

STEP THREE: Commit to call 1 or 2 or 3 people per day.  Let’s acknowledge up front that the people on your list probably don’t know anything about what you want to explore.  BUT, you don’t know who knows whom.  If you eliminate someone, you eliminate possibilities. You cannot predetermine who is the right person to network with and who is not the right person!  When you start deciding for other people, you probably won’t make good decisions.  Have you ever decided NO for someone and then found out that they had decided YES?  And you never asked them. So don’t bother to decide things for other people!

ASK the Question: Do they know of anyone you might be able to spend 30 minutes talking to you about this specific topic? 

They may know someone. They may know someone who may know someone.  They may be that someone.  That question will lead somewhere.  Listen for opportunities.  And listen for opportunities to provide something for them as well. 

This is a process.  Being in the process creates it own results.  The process is not guessing which person is going to have the answer for you and then calling them. The process is about connecting with people, and getting reconnected with people around the central theme of your creating a new future for yourself.  People love to connect with others and make a contribution.  And they also want to hear about your successes so stay connected and keep them informed!  

Who are you going to call today?  Be unreasonable and call 3 people you haven’t spoken with in a long time.  Ask then “the question” and share you results here!

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