Tag: Training

Help I need a new career but I don’t know what I want to do?

bstuetze

career change2I’m sure that during the course of your career, day, week, month, fiscal year…you have had one coworker make this comment. They don’t feel fulfilled in their current role, for many different kinds of reasons. They want to make a change but don’t know where to start. I have a colleague in this dilemma currently. She is a very energetic, talented, educated and highly skilled young woman with great work experience. But like many of us her career has taken some turns and her work history is more like the Great Wall of China than the I10 from AZ to CA. It took some turns and at times seemed to have little direction. However she is where she is and would like to have some direction before she sets off on her next road trip.

In one of our many conversations I began to ask her some very basic questions. And after she answered I had to respond, “No even more basic than that”.

1. What do you like to do?
2. What makes you really happy?
3. What are your strengths?
4. What do you feel are your greatest opportunities for development (fancy way of asking what are your weaknesses)?
5. Where do you want to live?
6. Is there a particular field or industry that inspires or intrigues you?
7. Do you have friends, family that you really look up to and what do they do?
8. When you think of people that really inspire you, what about them do you admire?
9. When you chose your major in college, why did you chose it and how do you feel about it now?
10.(Here’s the kicker) When you think of your life 5-10 years down the road…how do you see yourself?

Yes these questions are basic inventory questions. Some of which you may get asked in an interview, there is a reason for that! Many of us aren’t born with the innate desire to do just one thing in life. Some are, some aren’t…for those of us who are in the latter category, we have a tendency to follow our career path like The Great Wall with all its twists and turns. We make decisions as they come along, not giving a whole lot of thought to the Plan.

Working with college students, especially those who are just getting started, I have a very standard speech. I ask lots of questions, many I’ve listed above. Mostly I tell them that choosing a major is not dissimilar to purchasing a home. A house is not a piece of disposable property. It’s something you are going to spend a lot of time in, money on and energy with. If it isn’t going to last you through your 5-year plan (unless you’re a house flipper) you may want to keep looking. We need to think of our educational/career choices the same way. We need to look down the road to where we want to be. Why do we admire the people we do, what they have we don’t, how we get there, what really makes us happy and drives us to perform. If you can’t really answer these questions honestly, well honestly it’s not the best time for you to be looking for a new opportunity.

There are literally hundreds of articles being written and published on the risks involved with making a career change; especially in the face of high unemployment and a recent recession. There are some very common threads with the advice given; and believe it or not they are pretty much in line with the questions I asked my coworker. In addition to your employment inventory; make an assessment of the possible risks that may be involved with making a career change.

I think what my coworker discovered through this exercise is that it isn’t a new career she needs; it’s direction. Her job isn’t the challenge; her lack of a real plan for her future, where she wants to be not only professionally but personally is the issue. Now, that may mean a change for her in the future, but it will be one born of a plan and for a purpose.

Yes there are times when a career change is what’s needed to achieve that plan. I have made a couple myself; one born of frustration without real purpose and one made with intent, thought and commitment to my future. I am where I am today because of the latter, despite the first.

So the next time someone you know asks you the “I need to do something but I’m not sure what to do” question…remember, location, location, location. Don’t make the investment without the inventory, without real thought of the effect on the future. My mom once told me, “when you don’t know what to do…don’t do anything”. Made no sense at the time but now I live by it. How often do we have the desire to do something, when the best course of action is to sit tight, evaluate, plan and when appropriate, execute.

“When you don’t know what to do…don’t do anything.” Thanks Mom!

Culture fit? What is that and how do I measure up?

bstuetze

Culture fit? What is that and how do I measure up?.

Scare Floor or Laugh Floor?

bstuetze

I recently read an article online published by FastCompany titled “Why Humor Makes You More Creative” by Drake Baer. Great article! Here I am arming my entire campus with Nerf guns and water balloons because it’s fun and a great tension breaker. Now come to find out my instinct for making my work environment fun makes me an innovative manager who fosters free and creative thinking. Who knew?

Well actually I kind of did, but not in the formal sense. Many years ago when I was tapped on the shoulder to take over a large sales and customer service department I made an analogy to my then Vice President. I told him I would take on the project, however it wasn’t going to look like the department we had prior. I didn’t want an ocean of cubicles full of downtrodden folks who didn’t feel their value, engage our customers and enjoy their work.

I asked if he’d seen the movie Monsters Inc.? He smiled and laughed, “No I haven’t, but I’ve heard of it”. I told him the short history of a large company, one that had been keeping society functioning and moving in a ‘forward’ direction, only to find out that this direction was no longer sustaining them…their society, very way of life was in jeopardy (did I mention I was working for a newspaper at the time). The crux of the movie was to find new ways of achieving the same ends with different means. However the means weren’t really different, they were just more extreme measures of what they were currently doing. Yes they were beating a dead horse, squeezing blood from a stone, etc. It wasn’t working.

Through a long, and in my opinion very funny progression of events, the discovery was made that laughter is more beneficial to all then fear. Go figure! Now I can take this analogy in all kinds of directions but I want to keep it in the context of the Drake Baer article, “Why Humor Makes You More Creative”. Baer states “while self-monitoring is often useful–you don’t want to say everything that passes through your mind–it can get in the way of new ideas.” Laughter enables you to turn off that internal filter that can keep you from letting the ideas flow. I noticed that in my customer service department, those folks who were more concerned with following a script were less able to genuinely listen, empathize and assist the customer. They couldn’t solve customer challenged unless the answer was written in front of them. Conversely, those who laughed more, enjoyed their job and engaged with the customer were able to think creatively to solve customer issues. They thought out of the proverbial box and did what was right…all on their own.

Now I admit Nerf guns and water balloons may not work in all work environments; however humor, laughter and light hearted communication can be just the drug your team needs to find an otherwise incomprehensible answer. Sometimes the best ideas are those that seem outrageous, silly or just plain ridiculous.