Don't Expect a Gold Watch

Some of us remember a time (before the 1980’s) when landing a corporate job provided a long-term sense of security. Seniority sometimes even trumped performance when promotions were handed out. Employees who had “paid their dues” worked 9 to 5, perhaps enjoying a 2-martini lunch mid-day. Many people aspired to stay with a company from college graduation to retirement, and looked forward to being presented with gold watch from a company grateful for their loyalty and 30-40 years of service.

No more. In the modern world of employment, it’s “every man for himself”. Corporations put the bottom line before any sincere sense of obligation for the livelihood of their employees. Workers are always looking for a better opportunity, and have made job-hopping de rigueur. Right or wrong – the norms have changed. Corporations respond to pressure from investors and financial analysts, squeezing operations for profit, and outsourcing jobs. Workers have experienced the extremes of booms like the explosive growth of dot.com enterprises in the 90’s – and the bust of economic disaster, followed by corporate transformations and layoffs that started in 2008.

How can you navigate the new norm successfully and ethically?

KEEP GROWING: A good education and continued learning and growth are paramount to your survival in the corporate world. If you stand still, misfortune may be gaining on you.

BE PREPARED: Keep your resume current, and pay attention to opportunities in your area of expertise and interest. Don’t be hesitant to occasionally test the waters by going on a job interview and/or talking to a recruiter.

NETWORK RELENTLESSLY: When you are looking for a new job, it will most likely be found through your personal or professional network. Meet people. Develop relationships. GIVE before you find yourself in a situation where you may need to TAKE help.

EMBRACE CHANGE: Change is inevitable and ever-present. Be flexible and open to opportunity. Jump at chances to show what you can contribute. If it’s time to move on, take comfort in the very real possibility that the grass might actually be greener on the other side.

The era of feeling entitled to spend decades with the same company is gone forever. There is no reward of a gold watch for our loyalty. That’s really not a bad thing, but it sure does keep us all on our toes!

Economic Uncertainty, Corporate America, and You

I’m studiously trying not to watch CNBC this morning and the continuing tumultuous negative slide of the financial markets. Markets are reacting badly to the unsatisfying political “resolution” to the U.S. bumping up against the debt ceiling. Although Congress acted in time to avoid a default, neither their constituency nor economists were impressed with how that unfolded and what it bodes for the future. That was reflected in S & P’s downgrade of the U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, and is part of what sent the markets back into a downward spiral this morning.

As a corporate employee, here’s why you should care, even if you aren’t an “investor”:

• You ARE an investor if you have a 401K. You may have lost a chunk of your value in the last several weeks. Reviewing your next statement will be unpleasant.

• Many corporations currently have strong balance sheets. Business has been fairly good over the last two years, and they have been stockpiling capital. That looks good on paper, but is a sign that they don’t trust the financial climate. Capital is a hedge against economic uncertainty. In better times, profits would be invested into growth – including the creation of new jobs. No new jobs – no new opportunities for you.

• A lack of job growth results in limited turnover. Workers are averse to making risky changes while the economy is weak. Corporations know this and some take advantage of the situation by asking people to work more and harder in order to retain their positions. Hard to complain when you know that there are eager job candidates waiting in the wings.

• As a corporate employee, you will experience continued budget constraints. Management wants to keep their financials safe. Expect mid-term budget cuts, especially in regard to salary/bonus increases, travel, training, and consulting. Expect a hiring freeze.

• While companies are still looking for places to cut expenses, your job may still not be safe. Hold off on making any major investments and any risky financial moves. Hold on to your savings; you may need them.

We’ll get through this economic uncertainty, but it’s pretty clear that global financial markets (not just the U.S.) are in a readjustment period where some of the norms have changed. Be aware and take precautionary steps to protect yourself and your livelihood.

The Creative Collective

Managers tend to favor employees for whom they have a natural affinity. In other words, we often have a positive bias toward people that we perceive to be “like us”. When we can overcome that bias, we build stronger teams by incorporating diversity into their makeup. Your strengths may make up for my weaknesses. Sharing my experience with you will make you a more complete professional. When I am out of ideas, I will be grateful for your burst of creativity. We should all strive for the push and pull, the give and take of a diverse team.

Diversity comes in many forms. It may be as a result of education – for example, a degree in Engineering versus Music. Each generation has a markedly different perspective. Where people were raised – North, South, East, West, or outside the U.S. - introduces a broad range of cultural customs, which can be made more complex by ethnicity. Every personality is different. Diversity is the spice of life, and necessary to move our endeavors forward.

If we all thought and behaved the same way…well, it’s hard to even imagine. We might continue on with the status quo in ad finitum. Blah.

Embrace the differences inherent in your team. Make sure that you are capitalizing on them. Understand where everyone is coming from.  Listen to “crazy” ideas. Try something new. Color outside the lines. Surprise and challenge each other, and do the kinds of things that can only be accomplished via a creative collective. Not only will you be more successful; you will have more fun.

Deadlines: Paralyzing or Energizing?

The U.S. Congress is facing a looming deadline that has serious economic consequences. We are up against the debt ceiling, and if they can’t agree on and ratify a viable plan by August 2nd, we will default on our debt. It remains to be seen how this challenge will be addressed, and whether the political issues can be put aside for the good of our country and its people.

We all face deadlines in our lives. They may be as simple as paying our utility bills or filing our taxes by April 15th. Many are more complex, such as finishing a big project at work that has hundreds of moving parts. Some people react to deadlines in a positive way, and others fight against them all the way.

You may be motivated by deadlines, finding energy and focus in the challenge. This is a healthy reaction to the stress imposed by a due date. Good for you!

But for some, facing a deadline can have an unfortunate paralyzing effect that is counterproductive. That reaction comes from being in a state of panic. Symptoms are avoidance of the work, a tendency to toil aimlessly on manageable tasks that don’t really contribute to the main goal, wasting time trying to move the deadline, or some form of howling at the moon, “Why me? What am I going to do?!” In this case, it’s critical to stop wasting time and energy.

• First, validate your deadline. Is it self-imposed and somewhat arbitrary? If imposed by someone else, find out whether it’s absolute, or can be changed without meaningful consequences.
• If you are in a serious time crunch, boil down your goal to a realistic absolute minimum. What can you do that meets the specific requirements without adding a bunch of bells and whistles?
• Ask for help, if without assistance you will miss the deadline. Be sure you can articulate exactly what type of help you need.
• Work with people, not against them. You can’t afford to allow office politics to get in your way.
• Keep your boss apprised of your progress, so they know if they need to step in.

Meeting a hard deadline may require the investment of extra hours or days of work. You can push through the challenge if you believe it’s important and the finish line is in sight. (Sure hope our politicians can do the same.)

Email Crimes

Email is dying a slow death in the private world; a fatality of texting, Facebook messaging, Twitter and such. However, it is still very alive in the corporate environment. As written interaction becomes increasingly casual and fragmented, the skills associated with more complex communication are breaking down. Are you a perpetrator or a victim of email crime?

COMPOSITION: Some subjects are complicated, and require careful documentation. Start with an outline of important points to be made, and make them clearly and succinctly. Your audience should not have to sift through paragraphs of circuitous text to figure out what you are trying to say/ask/tell. Neither should they have to backtrack through shotgunned individual messages to piece together the whole story.

SPELLING & GRAMMAR: You may LOL and WTF your way through your text messages, but email communication should be more formal and professional. Use full words and sentences, and double-check your writing with spelling and grammar checks. How you communicate in writing will influence your reputation. Make a positive impact.

PRIVACY: There are some subjects that should not be transmitted over a network via email. Anything you want to ensure is kept private should be handled in a secure manner. Some email files should be password protected. Face-to-face or telephone conversations are still very valuable – especially when subjects are sensitive, or when relationship-building is one of your goals.

RESPECT: Your co-workers and clients deserve respect, which can best be exhibited through personal communication. The very act of sending an email instead of visiting someone’s cubical for a few minutes is not only inefficient, but offensive. If you work in the same office, get off your butt and walk down the hall to talk with them.

Lazy electronic communication can easily become an email crime.  Stay away from the slippery slope.

Where is Smart Personalized Marketing?

When I lived in Las Vegas, I received an invitation in the mail for a day trip to San Diego to shop at Nordstrom. The very reasonably-priced package included round trip air fare on Southwest, ground transportation to/from Nordstrom, time to shop, lunch, and shipping of any purchases to my home. I presume that this was generated via some sort of partnership between Southwest, Nordstrom, and (possibly) American Express. They knew that I frequently flew Southwest, shopped at Nordstrom when in a Nordstrom city (which Las Vegas was not at that time), and liberally used my American Express card. I was delighted by this personalized offer – the smartest one-on-one marketing for which I have ever been a target.

Fast forward more than ten years – the era when we worry about how much Google and Facebook know about us and what they might do with that information. Where are my delightful personalized incentives to spend my dollars? I submit that one-on-one marketing is practically non-existent, in spite of the fact that we (willingly or unwittingly) share so darn much information about what we like, where we go, things we eat, who our friends are, and how we spend our time. Why is it that no one seems to know what to do with that information to really gain my loyalty and grab their share of my wallet?

A few choice words to marketers:

Don’t waste your money parroting back advertising for things for which I just shopped on the internet. Yes, I purchased a light fixture from Lamps Plus; but that doesn’t mean that you should then show me a banner for Lamps Plus. Honestly, that just feels a little creepy. What about a banner for Home Depot, Sherwin Williams, or Kohler to help me complete my bathroom remodel? Maybe I need a local electrician to help me install the light fixture. Think like me.

I’m pretty savvy about internet shopping and finding what I need on my own. You, however, can forge partnerships and offer me experiences I wouldn’t think of creating for myself (like the Southwest/Nordstrom package). Not only would I find that incredibly appealing, but I would tell all my friends about it for years and years.

Do a better job of recognizing and reaching out to your good customers. I know you know who we are! Now show us that you appreciate our business. It’s not enough to passively wait for me to Like your Facebook page and then post clever but unmemorable status updates. Be there for us, and really manage the interaction with your self-proclaimed fans.

An Honorable Mention:

Amazon.com’s recommendations and notifications about new books from my favorite authors. Keep enhancing your personalization, and I’ll keep shopping with you!

Our Sacred Honor

This morning I re-read the Declaration of Independence for the first time in many years.  It's available here: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html 

Within this historic document is a grim reminder of how the people of the thirteen colonies were failed by Great Britain's monarchy, and the courage our forefathers had to take the steps required to establish our independent, united states.  It is a brave indictment against King George III.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

It's difficult for Americans today to even imagine the conditions described within the Declaration of Independence, since there has been peace on our soil since the Civil War.  Today is a good day to remind ourselves that our safety and happiness was hard won.

Two hundred and thirty-five years ago our independence was sealed with a promise to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor".  We should do no less today.  Happy Independence Day!