Dan Rust joins hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty for a fun and fast discussion of career advancement tips and strategies. They talk about the frustrations of younger workers who focus on just doing a good job, ignore office politics, and then get frustrated when some who are less talented or don’t work as hard seem to have greater career acceleration.
Click on the link below it listen.
Dan Rust talks with Mike Pintek on KDKA 1020 News Radio (Pittsburgh) and they discuss many aspect of human dynamics in the workplace. From positive self-promotion techniques to dealing with abrasive bosses and backstabbing colleagues, Dan shares practical ideas and interesting stories.
Key points include:
─ You cannot “opt out” of workplace politics.
─ In every work environment, there is a “game under the game.”
─ You can be an effective self-promoter without being a bombastic blowhard.
─ Talent and hard work are important, but not enough.
─ There are always both cooperative and competitive dynamics at play.
Part 1:
Part 2:
You know, I literally thought I was untouchable. I had been with Intel for 28 years. I’m not worried about losing my job, maybe a redeployment, and a new job is like a vacation right?
I got to work early Tuesday morning. I had some notes and items to get cleaned up prior to an important meeting. I noticed a 10:00am meeting on my calendar with my manager. Didn’t think much about it. I was happy and smiling, when I approached the conference room door I noticed the HR representative sitting with my manager. Now it doesn’t take a lot of sense to know that this probably isn’t about that big raise they are going to give me for being such a great employee.
Note from Dan Rust: This is a guest post from Kim Williams originally posted to his LinkedIn profile and shared with his permission.
The HR person got right to business and told me as of this moment I have been terminated. I said this must be some kind of a mistake or a bad joke. As the HR representative stared at me with cold dead shark eyes I realized she was not joking. My actual response was ” I have things to do cant we talk about this later” she said No, I want your badge (ID) immediately. You must turn in your Laptop and any Intel property you have. It was a surreal out of body experience. I was literally on the ceiling looking down at this entire situation and I didn’t like it. Now this is the pleasant most humiliating part. After helping actually build this site, I was escorted back to my office and handed a shopping bag. I dumped the contents of my backpack on the desk, picked up the pictures of my kids and grandkids and left everything else ( why would I want anything from a company that betrayed me after 28 years). I was marched down to a conference room and handed a thumb drive and told to take all the personal items off my laptop and to wipe my phone. But just prior to doing that, the technician assisting grabs the laptop out of my hand and states he has to disable the wireless so I don’t send off some information or a an email warning others (Ha Ha) I have been with the company 28 years, I didn’t become a criminal (like I was being treated) within the last 15 minutes. I was walked to the door and I never looked back. I kept hearing I’m sorry behind me, trust me it didn’t help.
As I walked to my car my head was swimming with emotions. I was mad, I was enraged, I was literally shaking and when I got in my car I realized like I looked like I had been punched in the face. I was not in a good place and I really shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel in that condition. So I sat for a moment, but the longer I stared at the building the more upset I had become. Losing your job after 28 years is like losing your family. No I cant call them up, no I cant go to lunch and just chat, I am alone now.
This first thing I did when I got home was pick up the laptop and start looking for jobs. I whipped up a 20 minute resume thinking that I am so talented that I will have a job by tomorrow. My head was spinning. I was applying for every job I thought I would have a chance at. McDonalds, Dog walker, bus boy, landscaping (mowing lans), you get the picture. Keys pounding, resume’s flying out of my mail.
Then my daughter called me. She is a very level headed woman that has held some pretty lofty positions in the entertainment industry in Hollywood. She was right on the money when she said ” How many resumes did you send out today” I responded gee, I don’t know 10 or 12 I can even remember the names of the companies. She said I want you to put down the laptop and listen to me.
Here is what she said. A tragic thing happened to you today. Your mind is reeling and you probably have a big case of anxiety and frustration. You picture yourself living n a box under the overpass. Your family thinks you are worthless, you think you are worthless, everyone in the world is against you. Just drive off into the desert and die somewhere, the world will be better off. All I could do was listen in amazement as she perfectly explained my state of mind. She said I know because I have been then 3 times now. Then came the words of wisdom.
She said: you are a talented individual. It is unfortunate what happened but it did and anything you say or do isn’t going to change it. You cant cry over spilled milk, its gone! You need to take a couple of days or even a couple of weeks and decompress. You are not an Intel employee anymore. You do not have deadlines and commitments to meet. you don’t have to sweat over all the work that was hanging over you head like an ax on a thread waiting to lop your head off. STOP, STOP and STOP. Take a breath. She asked ” What do you want to do” Do you want to go back to work so bad that you are willing to accept another job that you would be miserable in or do you want to take your time, think about your skills and how they could apply to the job that you really want. This is your chance to reinvent yourself. Everyone that loses their job goes through this exact feeling of “disconnected”. Take this time to reflect, don’t think so hard about getting a job. Think hard about what I want to do. I don’t want some job at McDonalds or Walmart. I want to work for the Forest service, or I want to have a job that allows me to be outside, I love highly technical things, I love golf, I love outdoor sports, I love target shooting, I love building motorcycles, I love wiring homes, I love technical problems that I can dig into and fix. The point is I have many skills. Those skills did not go away when I left my job of 28 years, but it sure felt that way.
No, No, No, You are what you have always been. A very talented person with skills that can be used in several areas that would accommodate exactly the job you want. Don’t settle for a job that will just be a job. Go for a job that will bring you some happiness. I love sports, outdoors, meeting new people, fixing things, helping people, above all I love life regardless of what curve balls it throws at you.
Big Corporations don’t care that you have a mortgage 3 kids and a car payment. Stop being a victim and start being aggressive in getting what you want for a change. Like a job you love.
Take a deep breath, relax, you are important, you are needed, you do have a place on earth and people rely on you to be strong. Above all your family and friends Love you and honestly, any job or money cant buy that.
-Kim
Chapter 4 of Workplace Poker is titled “Fuel Your Fire” and focuses on the personal energy required to drive a high trajectory career. Four types of energy are discussed, physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy and aspirational energy.
Physical Energy is easy to describe: the degree to which one’s eating, exercise, sleeping and other lifestyle habits contribute to (or detract from) an energized, productive work life.
And the vast majority of people who know they have room for improvement in this area can tell you exactly which things they should be doing more of, which they should be doing less of, and which they should cut out altogether.
Everyone (including you) knows what they SHOULD do.
Although this LifeHack.com article does provide some interesting non-obvious suggestions.
And you can also complete a free Personal Energy Assessment to determine the degree to which you have opportunity for development in any of these four areas.
But many people struggle with the doing – not the knowing. So my advice to you, if this is true for you, is to think deeply about why you are not doing what you KNOW you should be doing. Something about your current behavior pattern is WORKING for you. It could be that:
These are just a few of the common things I’ve heard and I don’t intend to provide an exhaustive list because your reasons are YOUR reasons and it is important that you think deeply about YOUR reasons.
Think deeply about how this might be holding back your career progress. There are plenty of stories in “Workplace Poker” detailing individuals who were “tapping the brakes” for their careers because of habits that resulted in low physical energy. Reading some of these stories might help you clarify your own issues.
One paradox that might hold you back is that many of the lifestyle changes which will eventually give you more energy may initially cause an energy drain – reducing or eliminating sugars from your diet for example, may initially leave you feeling exhausted. And it may take several weeks (or longer) before you feel the ultimate energy boost. Many people give up because of the initial energy drainage, or fall back into old habits, which of course makes any change even harder the next time they try (if they do).
So think carefully about your reasons for NOT making the types of changes you know are best for your career, then start with small steps. Make one additive change (START doing something) and one subtractive change (STOP doing something) and give these two changes ate least several weeks to take hold and become firmly ingrained habits. Then try another additive change and another subtractive change, repeat the process, etc. This seems to be the most successful path to long term physical energy enhancement.
Fair warning: The hard truths below may not be politically correct, and may even offend a few “mature” workers. But I am well into the final decade of my own career and count myself among the legions of old geezers who are fighting an uphill battle for continued career acceleration and relevance on the job. Like medicine and therapy, what’s best for us isn’t always pleasant.
* * * * * * * * * *
“I don’t want to spend my last ten years working as hard as I have for the previous thirty,” a friend recently admitted to me. “But I also don’t want my career to flat-line.”
And with those comments he neatly captured the dilemma facing many people in the final chapter of their careers. They are still ambitious in terms of wanting promotions, new opportunities to contribute, more status, more money, etc. And at the same time many of them don’t have the same internal “fire” for work they used to have. They have other priorities including time with family and friends, a personal “bucket list,” or other things that have become important to them. Plus there is the reality of aging. Our 50ish bodies and minds don’t have the same capacity as they did in our 20’s and 30’s.
Older workers also have to deal with the perceptions of others in the workplace, and the reality that they are competing with younger, often more aggressively ambitious colleagues, for every significant promotion and career opportunity.
Companies are much more willing to invest in a younger person who has perhaps a 30-year trajectory ahead of them. They are more willing to assign them to growth projects and “stretch” assignments. And the unspoken truth is that often people are simply waiting/hoping for the older worker to pack it in and retire.
So if you, like me, are an “old geezer” with a little kick left, what can you do to maximize the final years of your career? I can assure you that the tips below will help, and I can also assure you that your initial reaction may be resistance because these may not be easy or natural for you. Like I said before, the best medicine sometimes tastes the worst. So here we go…
1. Master the technology your younger colleagues are using. Do whatever it takes to get up to speed with the workplace technologies that others around you are using to boost productivity. Especially the basic everyday apps that your younger colleagues are using to boost productivity. In the minds of others at work, almost nothing more powerfully tags you as a “dinosaur” as being the one person who has to have help converting a Word document to .pdf format or editing your PowerPoint slide master. For internal systems and applications, you may need to find someone at work who can help you. But for all external/public applications I would go outside for tutoring. Take a class, live or online. Or buy a book. Get a smartphone. Buy a tablet. And use them.
2. Reject the idea that you are owed something for your years of service. This isn’t about what is right or moral or legal. It is about helping you adopt a mindset to accelerate your career path. If you hold on to even the slightest sense of entitlement, a feeling that something is owed to you, in subtle ways you give yourself permission to coast a bit. In business today, your contributions over the past decades aren’t relevant – it is the value you are creating for the business TODAY that matters.
3. Show your vitality. There is an element of theater in business, and you want to make sure you are putting on a daily show of vitality and energy. You are pushing against the perception that your age means less energy and less mental acuity. In reality of course, as we age there is a decline. We can minimize it with healthy habits, but we can’t avoid it completely. But to prevent this from impacting your career progress you’ve got to project the energy and vitality of someone at least a decade younger.
So stop talking to work colleagues about your age or health issues. Yeah, I have the aches and pains and twinges and spasms. And when you get together with your geezer friends it is natural to fall into a conversational comparison of hip replacement techniques. But at work, NO ONE should hear any of this. It just reminds people of your age and reinforces perceptions of decreased vitality.
4. Stop pointing out problems. Use your experience to create innovative solutions. Because you have so much experience, and because you have seen so many things tried in so many ways, you will OFTEN know that certain ideas or approaches are unlikely to work. And it is OK to OCCASIONALLY share the wisdom of your experience. But many of us fall into a pattern of ALWAYS being the one to point out why something won’t work. Even if you are right, eventually people start dismissing your comments because they don’t want someone who is always pointing out problems. Instead try using all of your experience to come up with unique and innovative solutions. And if those solutions can leverage technology (see first item above) that’s even better.
5. Be younger. Thinner. More energetic. I almost didn’t include this last point because it is so sensitive. Focusing on the cosmetic aspects of aging seems shallow, but this is a big part of the way others view us. If you’ve gained a few pounds each year and are now on the “heavy” side, if your hair has gone gray, if you walk more slowly, all of these things definitely impact the way others perceive you.
So don’t be shy about coloring your hair – yes, a little gray can look nice, but generally this is only true if you have a physically fit, trim physique. Pudgy men and women with gray hair just look…old. And seriously, it isn’t too late to get back in shape. Losing even twenty pounds tends to make you look at least five years younger. And the added energy you gain from being more physically fit will help as well.
I’ve had enough conversations with older workers to know that many of you are already thinking through why these suggestions won’t work for you. God bless you and your bad knees. For those of you who are willing to step up and push for a few more years of energetic relevance at work, I would be thrilled to hear about your experiences with these ideas.
Few things are more frustrating for a talented, highly motivated employee than watching as others get promoted, are given “high potential” assignments, or in other ways achieve greater career success – especially when those others are not noticeably more talented or hard working.
“Why not me?” the ambitious employee wonders. And it is easy to go down the dark path of assuming the game is rigged. That corporate politics and “who you know” is more important than actually doing good work. While this is sometimes true, the tougher lesson is that if you are intending to achieve a high trajectory career path, having ambition and talent, and working hard will probably not be enough. For anyone. Read more →
(Contributed by reader, Emma Dutton)
Email is a hugely convenient way of staying in touch with personal and professional contact but while it can be a huge boost to productivity, it can also be a huge detriment, too. Like most things, it all comes down to how you use it. Does email rule your life, or do you have control over your email habits?
Studies show that up to a third of the average employee’s time is spent—or wasted—on tasks that relate to email, at a global cost of $650 billion a year, mostly because they’re sending and actioning email inefficiently or unnecessarily To effectively solve this problem, it’s first important to have a productive email management system, one that allows you to take total control of how your inbox is set up, and how it processes and files new messages. If you’re able to set up your inbox in a way that facilitates an organized approach to checking and actioning email, the problem is already halfway to being solved. The second key, of course, is in practicing effective and efficient emailing habits, and this is where the difficulty lies for most people. So what are the most efficient ways to handle the daily deluge of email messages that so many of us face?
Doug Wilson: Average Leadership Is Ruining Business – http://pulse.me/s/1MbJa2
Many company’s pay lip service only, to the fact they train their employees in customer service. They tout their customer service as being excellent, but in reality fail miserably in the real world execution of it.
The question I ask is, if their claims are true then why for the most part is customer service so poor in the majority of company’s, large and small, I deal with, at least?
I can list on one hand the major organizations I have personally done business with that I would rank as having “World Class Customer Service.”
Read more by Brad Hodges: http://pulse.me/s/1MpmKq
Customers want solutions to their problems, right? Well, yes, but that’s what they want from what you’re selling. What do they want from you, personally?
According to Bob Burg, author of Adversaries into Allies: Win People Over Without Manipulation or Coercion, your customers want the following five gifts:
The 5 Gifts Every Customer Wants (click here)