A New Direction

For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been writing about work and transitions.  I’ve written about how work is changing – especially for those “of a certain age” – primarily those of us of the Boomer generation.  I’ve written about the ability to articulate one’s value to prospective employers, the importance of using social media to market one’s skills, and the power of story to give our lives meaning.  One thing I haven’t written about is my own story.  Blogger Francisco Rosales writes Why It’s Important to Humanize Your Blog Content.  So, taking his cue, future blog posts here will concentrate on my – that is mine and Camille’s – story.  Our hope is our story, what we’re experiencing in our midlife, will be of benefit – or at least of interest – to others experiencing similar transitions.

The title of this blog is Second Acts: Musings on Careers & Transitions – Advancements and the Occasional Retreat.  It’s a fair description of what Camille and I have been experiencing since we met.  We’re both of the Boomer generation; not in our first marriage; on the cusp of our early 60s; looking forward to a new – and improved – stage of life, which is not retirement.   Our story unfolds below…

"I was on my way to Hawaii before I met you," she said; "I need an ocean; I hate Denver."

"Well I'm not moving to Hawaii, I won't do well in the tropics," I countered.

So began the dance between Camille and me as we tried to figure out the rest of our life together.

We had met and married a year or so before this conversation began.  Suffice it to say, this was not the first marriage for either of us.  In our mid-50s we were exploring new paths in a new life together.

The compromise was relatively quickly reached: Portland, Maine.  We both knew and loved Maine, and it had the requisite ocean.

But there were things in life that had to settle first: I had a son still in high school; then Camille's daughter had a daughter.  Camille needed to make sure her granddaughter was on her way to growing up safe.

Another couple of years passed, we were now in our late fifties.  Neither of us was satisfied in our job; kids were on their own; grandkids were thriving.  One evening, Camille was complaining about work: about how much longer she could continue to function in a dysfunctional system.  She led the mental health team at a correctional facility.  I noted we had been talking about Maine for a few years, but had never put a date on the move.

She replied, "how about a year from now?"

"Done!  September 2011."

OMG! Now we had committed.  We moved in with her son to save money.  Over the next few months we downsized – getting rid of extraneous items we decided we could live without: furniture, clothing, books.

We adjusted to a different living experience: being part of a larger household; living in a house that wasn't ours; working around the routines of others.

And we worked on what we would do – what work we could do – when we moved to Maine.  Neither of us could afford to retire at 60, but we weren't sure what, exactly, we would do to bring in revenue.

We knew we wouldn't be employees.  I had the vague idea that I would continue some sort of the career coaching that I was doing in Denver.  But I didn't just want to write resumes for people looking for their next job. I wanted to work with people looking to make a real change in their lives and I wanted to write about their efforts.  Beyond that, I had no real idea of how that would manifest.

Next: Camille’s response.

Work Sucks!

I’ve been reading Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution by Cali Ressler & Jody Thompson. You can see it on Amazon.com here.

Ressler and Thompson’s book is "based on a simple idea: Our beliefs about work – forty hours, Monday through Friday, eight to five – are outdated, outmoded, out to lunch. Every day people go to work and waste their time, their company's time, and their lives in a system based on assumptions...that don't apply in today's global, 24/7 economy."

Your company provides a paycheck and other benefits. They provide a job, and in some cases, a career. For that you absolutely owe them hard work, focus and dedication. You owe them real, measurable results. But if you're delivering those results and the company is benefiting, then there is no reason why they have the right to make you sit in a cubicle from eight to five. You owe them your work, not your time. You do not owe them your life.

Ressler and Thompson’s book is about bringing a commonsense, effective, and mutually beneficial approach to living and working. Their solution is the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), a movement to reshape the way things get done. ROWE is not a new way of working, but a new way of living, based on the radical idea that while you owe the company your best work, you do not owe them your time or your life. While it's a sweeping change, it requires only a basic adjustment in thinking: work is not a place you go – it's something you do.

In a ROWE, each person does whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.

In a ROWE, people get paid for a chunk of work, not a chunk of time. ROWE is not about having more time off; fewer hours may be worked, or even longer hours, but they're done on the worker's terms. ROWE is an intense focus on business results.

Ressler and Thompson point out that we labor under the myth that Time + Physical Presence = Results.

This myth applies only to work. Every other life activity – errands, chores (laundry, housekeeping, cooking, mowing the lawn) – is measured in results, not in time expended.

In an information & service economy it doesn't make sense to use time as a measurement for a job well done. Knowledge work requires fluidity, concentration and creativity.

Living our lives under a new set of demands in the knowledge economy, but under the old set of assumptions of the industrial economy, results in frustrated, burned out employees where few people are giving their best. "The fact that we get time wrong in corporate America may seem small, but [it] adds up to big problems both for employee and business.

Flextime isn't the answer either. It's limited (only certain days for certain people), conditional (we'll see how it goes and evaluate) and it's not based on trust (you're not working if you're working from home). Moreover, it's still attached to the traditional and obsolete notion of time as a variable of results.

Giving people complete control over accomplishing their work means completely giving up the old model of work. It means coming up with new methods of measuring performance and judging work. In a ROWE people are paid for outcomes, rather than time; they are paid for "a chunk of work" not a "chunk of time." As long as the work gets done is an absolute. The employer's job is to create “crystal clear” goals and expectations for what needs to get done on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. It's up to the employee to meet those goals, with the coaching and guidance of management. If problems or challenges arise along the way, it's the work – not the hours worked – that comes under scrutiny.

ROWE requires adaptive change of people's underlying attitudes and beliefs change along with their behaviors. Adaptive change is defining the future state in real time. People have a hard time with this. Real change involves loss: the loss of habits, attitudes and beliefs. But if adaptive change is to occur, they must endure the examination of their beliefs and be open to reforming them.

ROWE is TiVo for work. TiVo gives TV viewers control. They watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. They're not held to schedules or to extraneous content. They have the freedom to watch TV on their own terms. There is no right way or wrong way to watch TV. They learn how to optimize their TV viewing experience. Similarly, ROWE optimizes work.

The right question to ask in a ROWE is "Am I dong what I need to do to meet my goals?"

What do you think? Does work suck? Can a ROWE work with your work? Are you in a ROWE? Does it work for you?

Let me know what you think. Post your thoughts in the comments section.

Random Factoids

Presented below, for your edification and enjoyment (maybe), are factoids collected from recent readings. In no particular order…

From usa.com, “More Americans leaving the workforce” (04-13-2011):

• In 2010, only 45.4% of Americans had jobs; the lowest since 1983, down from a peak of 49.3 % in 2000.

• In 2010, only 66.8 % of men had jobs, lowest on record. Until 1960s, more than 80% of men worked.

From wsj.com “Out of Work, Out of Options and Over the Hill” (10-24-2010)

• Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older, according to the U.S. Labor Department. And almost half of those have been unemployed six months or longer. The unemployment rate in that age group is a record high 7.3%.

From cbsnews.com, Sunday Morning, “Baby Boomers: America’s New Unemployables” (04-03-2011):

• While people over 50 are less likely to be laid off, those that are have only a 24% chance of finding a new job within a year. For those past 62 years, the chance drops even more.

• “…employers are cautious about taking on not only the salaries [of Boomers] but the benefits they expect…Experience is less valuable to employers these days than being cheap.”

From The Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, (03-25-2011)

• Employees approaching-retirement (55-65 years) and retirement-eligible (66 +years) are more engaged than are younger workers. There are no significant differences between older or younger workers regarding the job conditions that predict employee engagement.

• The current trend of older workers continuing to work past the traditional age of retirement is creating new challenges as well as opportunities. While some employers may see the advantage of retaining older workers to avoid losing critical knowledge, other employers may still be hindered by the misperception that it may be necessary to make extensive (and costly) adjustments for older workers.

• There is this idea among employers that older workers require a lot of accommodations…Older workers want the same things other workers want: opportunities for learning, job clarity, workplace flexibility, and supervisors who show concern for their well-being and recognition for a job well done. When these job conditions are met, workers of all ages are more engaged.

• The ideas that older workers are inflexible, unable to adapt, and costly to employers, is outdated in the current context of longevity and health. People in their 50s and 60s may well be at their peak—on average they are energized, reliable, and engaged. The real cost that employers should weigh is the cost of losing experience. Older workers have typically accumulated valuable knowledge and resilience and can be vital contributors in the work place.

To me, these factoids, culled from different sources, re-enforces The Great Disconnect in the last post. If companies are serious about achieving innovation to re-gain competitiveness, they need to rethink their approach to acquiring talent; especially talent over the age of 50.

The flip side is that workers over the age of 50 need to be able to rethink their value to potential employers and be able to fit their value to employers’ needs.

Your take?

The Great Disconnect

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post about competing in the coming war on talent. The post cited a Forbes.com article that noted the critical nature of talent retention and recruitment as the economy improves: “Companies will need to keep their best employees and recruit talented people in order to be competitive.” Unfortunately, it seems that in the past 18 months, companies still haven’t learned the lesson.

A recent USA Today article notes that “employee loyalty is at a three-year low, but many employers are precariously unaware of the morale meltdown.” While frustrated workers seek new opportunities (often secretly), employers naively think their employee loyalty is the same as it was three years ago.

Employers have taken their “eye off the ball” with regard to what drives employee satisfaction and loyalty. In cutting wages and demanding that their workers do more with less – to pick up the slack of their laid off colleagues – they have increased their employees’ stress levels. Forty percent of workers note that heavier workloads, unrealistic expectations and longer hours have created tremendous stress levels in their lives. A third are confident that they can find new jobs that match their experience and salary within the next 12 months.

The Forbes article 18 months ago, noted the disconnect between employers’ and employees’ perceptions with current job satisfaction. It cited surveys that indicated up to 65 percent of employees were looking for new jobs. Employers – once again ‘grossly out of touch’ – thought that only 37 percent of their workforce were seeking new work.

As the economy continues to improve, as employers look to enhance their competitive edge, one thing we keep hearing is that innovation will be key to sustained growth. Yet employers lament that they’ve had difficulty in attracting employees with critical skills. It’s ironic that these employers’ talent recruitment policies often screen out talented people. Company websites’ career sections that proclaim that unsolicited resumes will not be considered ignore possible candidates that can add tremendous value. HR screening policies that focus on specific keywords in resumes as evidence of qualifications, risk those candidates who don’t “game” the system. Recruiters and HR managers that don’t consider functional resumes, but only chronological resumes, do their clients and employers an incredible disservice in an effort to make their jobs easier.

I am amazed, these days, at the vitriol of the comments posted on recruiting and HR blogs by job seekers. They are fed up with the seemingly irrational process of recruitment and selection, which changes, not only from company to company, but also among different recruiters and HR managers.

As companies look to enhance their workforces; as they seek to improve competitiveness and reach new levels of innovation, they need to be clear with their recruitment staffs that they want the best employees they can obtain. They need to take a hard look at their current employees and ensure they retain the best of the lot. And recruiting and HR professionals need to advise their clients and employers on why it’s in their best interest to identify, recruit and retain high performers. As the subject matter experts in this field it’s their responsibility to ensure that their companies have the workforce to be competitive in today’s economy.

So, what are your thoughts?

Do you agree there’s a disconnect between employers perception of their workers’ loyalty and reality? Does your company get it?

Do you know of companies that do get it? Do their talent recruitment and retention policies reflect their understanding of what truly motivates their employees?

The Power of Story

I’m reading Jim Loehr’s book, The Power of Story: Change Your Story, Change Your Destiny in Business and in Life (Amazon link). Loehr is a psychologist who runs the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, FL, and works with world class athletes, business executives and other high achievers to hone their stories so that they perform at optimal levels. His premise is that we tell ourselves stories that help us navigate through life because they provide structure and direction. The stories we tell ourselves give our lives meaning.

Because the stories we create and tell about ourselves form the “only reality we will ever know in this life…and since it’s our destiny to follow our stories, it’s imperative that we do everything in our power to get our stories right” (Loehr’s emphasis). Most of us, he asserts, get our stories wrong; or more accurately, tell a story that’s really someone else’s – our parents, our bosses, our spiritual advisors and others who have influenced us throughout our lives.

Loehr argues that the most important story we tell is the one we tell ourselves: “if you aren’t the author of your own story, you’re the victim of it” and at the heart of our story is purpose, one of the fundamentals of good storytelling. Purpose gives our life story meaning, it is never small, but grand, heroic and epic; it’s our ultimate mission in life, the thing that continually renews our spirit. Our ultimate mission spells out our most overarching goals that we want to achieve and how we must do it – our values and beliefs. Thus, our ultimate mission/purpose must be clearly defined; and until we can define it, we can’t come up with our own story, and remain trapped by our old story.

Loehr offers step by step exercises to determine our old story; discovering where it is out of alignment with our values and beliefs and then developing a new story based on our ultimate mission.

So the story we tell about ourselves is what gives our life meaning – in our relationships, our spirituality and our work. If we’re not telling the right story we’re not living the right life, but someone else’s sense of our life.

Have you examined your story? Does it align with your purpose, your ultimate mission? If not, can you determine the voice in your story (your parents, your boss, etc.)? Can you find and retain your voice?

Is the story you’re telling yourself precluding you from really doing what you want to do? Can you articulate what you really want to do?

Can you write a new story?

What Do You Do?

What do you do?

How do you answer this question? Do you give your job title: Car salesman, plumber, housewife, career coach? Or do you respond with WHAT YOU DO? Do you give what you do meaning?

I can’t recall where I read this, but it had an impact on me. In essence, the idea was to give meaning to our work rather than respond with a job title.

Instead of responding with a title: Car salesman, plumber, housewife or career coach; respond with meaning.

“I facilitate the process, from selection to acquisition, of customers choosing which automobile they wish to buy. I help them in this process, making sure they get exactly what want they want, within their price range” … or …

“I keep people above water” … or …

“I make sure that the most important people in my life get out the door every morning with what they need to be successful in that day” … or …

“I help clients figure out what they want to do next in their life and how they can achieve their goals.”

Can you give what you do meaning? Can you see by making what you do meaningful that you provide value?

What do YOU do?

Asset or Commodity?

Most all of us start out our careers as commodities for our employers. Regardless of our profession, we’re pretty raw talent needing refinement. Early on we are given discrete assignments, with specific deadlines, defined by someone else. We’re rarely provided with a sense of how our tasks fit into the bigger picture of the overall project.

We’re assigned to write code for a particular piece of software without any sense of the final product; or research a particular issue and draft a memo, which will be part of a larger report to a client; or design a particular part that will fit into the larger product or system; or frame a house that has been designed by someone else.

In each of these tasks, we are given parameters that are decided by someone else: the boss –team lead, foreman, architect, division director, partner – to whom we’re assigned. They decide who does what, how much time should be allotted to the task, and they determine the quality of the finished product. However, the boss may also be a commodity.

In his book, A Whole New Mind (Amazon.com link), Daniel Pink notes the “three As” of Abundance, Automation and Asia that are influencing the shift from the information age to the conceptual age. In the information age, work was organized around knowledge workers – accountants, attorneys, doctors, engineers and executives – who acquire, organize and interpret data; and provide functional, logical and rational products and services. These workers, as educated and highly trained as they are, are commodities. Their skills are in abundance; their work can be easily automated and outsourced for cheaper, faster products. (A recent New York Times article reported on how new “e-discovery” software can analyze legal documents in a fraction of the time and costs that an army of lawyers used to.)

Commodities are easily replaced. Younger, cheaper, more nimble employees are always coming up through the ranks and ready to take their turn. If you have spent your career assembling a body of knowledge, an expertise, that is in overabundance or just no longer in demand, that computers can do faster and overseas labor can do cheaper, then you’re a commodity and in danger of being replaced.

Assets on the other hand, continually add value to an organization. Assets are creative, designing new products and services that improve the bottom line. Assets interact and empathize with clients to help define their needs and design solutions that fit.

So, what do you think? Can you distinguish yourself as either an asset or a commodity in your career? Are you comfortable with this distinction?

If you’re a commodity, are you comfortable with project-based tasks defined and assigned by others? Can you shift to more of an asset-based career path?

If you’re an asset, do you design products and service that continue to have meaning to customers and for clients?