I have a friend who often talks to me about my "mean boss." She's appalled at how my boss is so demanding, pushing me to perfection, nitpicking and second-guessing me all the time. I make a decision, begin to implement, and my boss is ON me, reminding me constantly of all the little ways that I've screwed up in the past and will most likely fail in the future. As my friend points out, my boss never shuts up and, is frankly, a little maniacal and sadistic.  But here's the thing. I work for myself. My terrible boss is my own ego.  What's amazing is that behavior I would never accept from a real boss seems perfectly acceptable to me when it comes from inside my own head. Frankly, much of the time I take my inner boss's monologue for granted, accepting her unending stream of criticism as some sort of gospel.  I've talked with a lot of people whose inner boss wields way too much power in their lives. What's interesting is that many times when people are complaining about their real bosses, it turns out that it's their inner boss whose really controlling what they do.  It's their inner boss whose constantly criticizing and second-guessing. It's their inner boss who tells them that they must be perfect or else. Their inner boss doesn't want them to take a day off or to unplug from their computers and cell phones. It's their inner boss who is driving them into the ground.  Lately my inner boss has been getting a lot of pushback from me.  She's looking out for me, I know--her heart is in the right place--but she's killing me with her perfectionism and constant barrage of criticism.   What I've realized is that my innner boss is acting out of fear. And like most fearful people, she's focusing on the negative and what can go wrong. She's particularly good at making her fears seem real. She is also excellent at distracting me from questioning her by keeping up the non-stop barrage of worry and criticism.  But I've noticed her now. I see what she's doing and I'm asking a lot more questions. It also helps to picture her sitting in a chair in my office, nattering away. I know that I would never listen to a real person who kept up such a stream of negativity, so why should I listen to her all the time? Telling her to shut up has been tremendously satisfying.  Part of the professional development process to me is paying attention to our inner boss and separating out what our inner boss is pushing us to do from what we're getting from our external environment. Many times I think we believe that it's our work that's driving us into the ground. But on closer examination, we discover that it's our own expectations and our inner tyrant who are really the culprits.  So. . . are you your own worst boss? And what are you going to do about it? ________________________________________________________________________________________ Want priority registration for events, special discounts and other goodies? Then sign up for The Bamboo Project newsletter! If you sign up before January, 2012, you'll get my free "Looking Back/Looking Ahead" activities. Each day for 15 days, you'll receive an email with a specific question that can help you reflect on what you've learned in 2011 and get you started planning for 2012. It's a great way to jumpstart your career for the New Year!  

  One of the best ways to explore your career vision is by using visual tools. Many of us have tried writing or thinking our way to something new, with limited results. That's because our "verbal" brain is our "logical" brain--the side of us that is both visioning and criticizing that vision at the same time.  I wrote last week about compromising your vision. Your left brain excels at compromise. It is the "get real" part of your brain that is saying that you shouldn't expect to really get what you're visioning.  Your right brain--your more visual, intuitive brain--isn't limited by these notions. It just knows what it wants. It can go beyond words, which is what you need at the visioning stage.  Free Exploring Your Vision for Your Work Webinars For those of you who may be interested in trying out a visual tool for exploring your work vision, I'm going to be running two free online sessions on November 15 and November 29 from 8-9 p.m. (EST). Through the webinar, you'll have an opportunity to debrief on your career vision and talk about next steps. You'll also be eligible to receive a special discount on my upcoming events.   Here's how it will work.  1. Go to the VisualsSpeak Image Center and sign up to do the free "Exploring Your Vision for Work" Image session. You can do this anytime before the call-in session.  Note--you must be using the Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers. You can download Firefox here and Chrome here--both for free. You can download a handout on using the Image Center here (PDF). Let me know if you run into problems.  2. Do the Image session, per the instructions you will receive once you sign up.   3. Print out your Image.  4. Register for one the webinar sessions:     November 15, 2011 November 29, 2011 5. Join us for the webinar on the appropriate date/time. Be sure to have your printed image, paper and pen and any questions you may want to ask!   ____________________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff. 

I was talking with someone the other night who is considering a career change. It's a job she knows well, has done for awhile and is very talented at doing. This is part of what is making her itch for change--she's ready for new challenges, to take some risks.  As we talked, it became clear that she was feeling the weight of her work. It has become something she needs to escape, the sooner the better.  This sense that work is an anchor or a prison is common when we start thinking about new ventures. It's part of what drives us to begin our journey to something else. At the same time, this thinking can become a trap in itself.  When we want to escape something, we will do anything to get away. We aren't focusing on what we're running TOWARDS. Instead, we are just focused on getting the hell out of there. Anywhere seems better than where we're at right now.  When our job is a prison, all of our thinking is geared toward escaping that prison. Other options look better to us than they might otherwise simply because they are not the prison we are currently in. We find ourselves in fear and anxiety mode, acting from desperation, not inspiration.  To reach our real career goals, though, we need to shift our viewpoint. Rather than seeing our current job as a prison, we need to regard it as a home base. It is something we can do for now that can give us space to explore other possibilities. The fear and anxiety we feel when work is a prison dissipates, freeing us to form a vision of what we want to run TOWARDS, rather than what we are fleeing.  Often when we've been in a job for awhile, we have more flexibility. We are able to plan our time better and can give ourselves the opportunities to explore. We may have to get over our mean boss syndrome, but when we do, we find that our current jobs can be the constant we need.  If you find yourself thinking of a career transition because you want to escape the prison of your job, see what happens if you shift your thinking to viewing your current work as home base. Look at it as a circumstance that helps you develop and test your career vision, rather than as something you need to escape. You'll be amazed at what happens then. 

I am writing this on a MacBook Pro, listening to music on my iPod, which seems fitting, given that I am posting about Mona Simpson's eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs.  Certainly in the days following his death, there was much attention paid to Jobs' business acumen and success. But I'm far more moved and inspired by what Mona had to say about who he was as a man, as a person, trying to live his life as we all do. One aspect, in particular, stands out:  Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him. . .  His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still. . . .  He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man. What strikes me about Steve Jobs is that he achieved success not in spite of this intensely emotional core, but because of it.  Passion seems to have fueled him in all aspects of his life, both at home and in his work.  For many of us, "success" seems to come at a very high cost. We are asked to give up this intensely emotional and passionate side of ourselves in service to "corporate culture." Passion is sucked from us, I know. But if we are honest, we also know that we surrender our passion at the door. To be emotional at work is to be "unprofessional" in most workplaces. We give it up willingly in order to have what we believe is the safety and security of employment.  Yet it is this very emotional core that feeds our creativity and our ability to do great things. Without it, we are dried, dessicated husks, going through the motions of working and living. And, ironically, it is this lack of emotion that can make us less effective at what we do, bringing down upon us the very thing we fear.  There are many ways we could emulate Steve Jobs at work. The most valuable, it seems to me, is to cultivate our passion and emotional core. With it, we can achieve greatness. Without it, we go nowhere. _______________________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff.  And if you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012. 

An interesting article  in last week's Wall Street Journal by Peter Cappelli from the Wharton School on why companies can't find the employees they need:  With an abundance of workers to choose from, employers are demanding more of job candidates than ever before. They want prospective workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up time. In other words, to get a job, you have to have that job already.  As Cappelli reports (and I've been saying for awhile now), companies aren't developing their employees anymore: Unfortunately, American companies don't seem to do training anymore. Data are hard to come by, but we know that apprenticeship programs have largely disappeared, along with management-training programs. And the amount of training that the average new hire gets in the first year or so could be measured in hours and counted on the fingers of one hand. Much of that includes what vendors do when they bring in new equipment: "Here's how to work this copier." The shortage of opportunities to learn on the job helps explain the phenomenon of people queueing up for unpaid internships, in some cases even paying to get access to a situation where they can work free to get access to valuable on-the-job experience. The Employment Contract Has Changed This is one of the fundamental ways in which the employment contract has changed that I'm not sure we've truly absorbed. Many of us are still living with the illusion that our companies will provide us with the development we need to maintain employment. But this is an illusion, a denial of reality.  Increasingly we see that the responsibility for development is falling to workers, who must monitor their industry and occupation to see what skills are in demand and then seek out the training and work opportunities that will help them develop those skills. Doing this is a skill in itself, requiring us to be much more aware of larger market forces beyond our own company and how these impact our own professional development.  We can't just pay attention to what is needed for us to be marketable within our own organizations. We must also pay attention to what the larger market is looking for. And we need to look at how our strengths intersect with that market.  I do a lot of work with people who have been laid off and one of the things that we consistently discover is that those who are out of work the longest also seem to be the people who paid the least amount of attention to their own ongoing development. Often this is because they were so focused on the work they were doing for their company, they had little time to think about themselves. Sadly, they were rewarded with a lay-off.  Other workers find that while they may have had access to training in their companies, this training was very company-specific, preparing them to be good employees of XYZ Company, but not for much of anything else.  I know that it's easy to trust in our organizations to provide us with the development opportunities we need, but for most of us, this is a dangerous and misplaced faith. It's also easy to get so caught up in the present work that we forget to pay attention to the future. This, too, is risky.  For us to be truly empowered and in control of our careers, we must first and foremost be actively managing our own professional development. We must be aware of what is going on around us and be preparing for new opportunities. There's a new reality we need to accept so we can plan accordingly.  

Yesterday I posted on a new reality  we need to accept--that we can't leave professional development up to our employers because they aren't providing it. This isn't true for everyone, of course. You need to evaluate your personal situation. So I thought it would be helpful to come up with some key questions to ask.  One word of caution--don't assume that because your organization talks about professional development and the importance of learning that this is actually happening. We can easily get caught up in thinking that we work for a company that values learning because we keep hearing about how much they value it. But then we look at the reality of the organization's actions, we realize that they aren't walking the talk. That's why you need a reality check.  Another thing to pay attention to is the type of training and development taking place. If the only learning you are able to get access to is very company-specific, this should be a red flag. This means that if you only take advantage of organizational learning you will not be preparing yourself for other opportunities outside of your organization. Look for learning that is transferable, that provides you with skills that can be used in other jobs and companies. Also look for learning that is "in demand" in your occupation or industry. What are the particular skills that will make you most marketable?  So here are some professional development reality check questions for you: 1.  What training and development opportunities are available through your company? Let's start with the basics. What formal learning and training is available through your company?  Does your organization provide development in transferable skills--skills you could use in other places? Is there a tuition remission/reimbursement program available? If so, what are the requirements? What training can you receive?  If your organization provides a way for you to develop skills that make you more marketable in the larger job market, then take advantage of those opportunities. If they don't, then you need to make those opportunities for yourself.  2.  What training or professional development has your company sent you to in the past 12 months? If the answer is "none," then you need to pay attention. If the training you've received is very company-specific--how to implement company policies and procedures, for example--you also need to pay attention. Neither one of these is going to keep you marketable.  3. What informal learning are you able to access through your organization? Much of organizational learning is on-the-job training. How does your company support these opportunities? Are you able to access social media at work so that you are able to tap into knowledge networks and skills training from outside of your organization? Can you easily connect with colleagues and other departments to share knowledge and information and develop new skills? If the focus is on "keep your head down and just do your job," then this is a problem.  4. What reflective practices does your company have in place? Reflective practice is about weaving opportunities into the organizational culture to learn from work experiences and projects. Does your company conduct After Action Reviews to learn from its experiences? Are there structures in place that allow you to ask questions like "Why is this happening?" and "What can we learn from this?" Are you encouraged to surface and learn from mistakes? If not, then these are practices you will have to incorporate for yourself.  5. What mentoring is available to you through your organization?  Some companies do have formal mentoring programs, but these are few and far between. If you work in an organization that provides mentoring, then see what you need to do to take advantage of it. If it doesn't, you may need to find a way to create an informal mentoring arrangement for yourself.  It's worth it to ask yourself these questions and to examine the reality of your particular situation. Don't fudge it and try to make it better (or worse) than it is. When you have a clear picture of how your organization supports your professional development, this gives you valuable information for your own planning. Use it to decide how you can develop yourself if your receiving little internal support for what you need.  ________________________________________________________________________ Want priority registration for events, special discounts and other goodies? Then sign up for The Bamboo Project newsletter! If you sign up before January, 2012, you'll get my free "Looking Back/Looking Ahead" activities. Each day for 15 days, you'll receive an email with a specific question that can help you reflect on what you've learned in 2011 and get you started planning for 2012. It's a great way to jumpstart your career for the New Year!  

One of the most powerful ways to bypass our thinking brains is to use visuals. Images have a way of opening us up to different stories and information in ourselves that our verbal, logical brains tend to block. I've also found that images can get us talking about the issues that may be more difficult for us to discuss and they provide us with great metaphors for developing deeper insights.  One of the tools I've enjoyed using the most is the VisualsSpeak Image set. It's been an invaluable asset to me in face-to-face workshops I've done on careers, leadership, learning and teambuilding. It helps us have interesting conversations and gain greater clarity about the situations we are discussing.  VisualsSpeak has now added an online version of the tool that allows people to select and arrange images into collages through their web browser. I use itwith  clients who want to explore issues around careers and leadership and in my online workshops. Amazingly, they're offering free access to people who want to to explore their vision for their career, so you get a chance to try it out! How it Works 1. To use the tool yourself, go to the VisualsSpeak Image Center and sign up to do the free "Exploring Your Vision for Work" Image session. Note--you must be using the Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers. You can download Firefox here and Chrome here--both for free. (You should be using these anyway--much better browsers than Internet Explorer!) There's also a beta version for the iPad.  2. You will then receive instructions via email on how to log-in to the Image Center and create your collage.  3. Once you've complete the collage, you will receive an email on how to work with your image. My favorite strategy is to print it out, glue it into my career journal and then write down keywords, thoughts, etc. that occur to me related to the image.  It's also been helpful for me to discuss the image with someone I trust. I get into a sort of stream of consciousness story about what I'm seeing and the person I'm talking to is able to identify key themes and patterns they may hear in what I'm saying. They may also be able to ask my questions or make their own observations.  My Vision for My Career To give you an idea of what you're collage might look like, I went in and did a career visioning session for myself, which I annotated and uploaded below. Note that I added the notes using Jing, just to give an idea of some of the ideas that came to mind after I'd completed the exercise. I have much more complete notes in my career journal.  Working with the Image For me what's helpful about using the visual process is that I am able to get a richer vision than when I just write. Images are about metaphor, so they help me hit on some key insights that I would have missed otherwise.  For example, in my collage there are a lot of nature images--more organic, holistic pictures. It wouldn't have occurred to me that this was important, until I noticed it in the collage. Once I did, I became aware of how that's a feeling or experience I want to incorporate into my career.  Also notice that I have several circle/spiral/rounded images. Symbolically, circles can indicate many things, including unity, wholeness, cycles and focus. When I saw the circles, I realized that these were additional insights that wouldn't have occurred to me in just writing about my vision, but that are important to me nonetheless. Seeing them in my collage, I'm able to explore and incorporate them into my overall vision.  Want to Try It For Yourself?  If you want to try the Image Center for yourself and then do some more exploration and discussion with a group, I'm running two free webinars in November you may want to join. The sessions are on November 15 and 29 from 8-9 p.m. EST and you can get more information and sign up  for the webinars here.  I've found that working together with a group to debrief on your image can be a really powerful way to gain greater insight than just working alone. In the webinar I'll walk you through some key debriefing questions, show you examples, and give you some ideas on how you can keep working with your image to shape and refine your vision. You'll also get a free workbook you can use to record your insights., as well as some additional links.  Even if you don't want to join us, I strongly encourage you to try out the tool. It really can give you some amazing insights into what you want to do with your career.  ______________________________________________________________________________ Want priority registration for events, special discounts and other goodies? Then sign up for The Bamboo Project newsletter! If you sign up before January, 2012, you'll get my free "Looking Back/Looking Ahead" activities. Each day for 15 days, you'll receive an email with a specific question that can help you reflect on what you've learned in 2011 and get you started planning for 2012. It's a great way to jumpstart your career for the New Year!  

For those of you who may be thinking about going out on your own, I highly recommend Rosetta Thurman's upcoming Side Hustle Boot Camp. It's a day-long, live online event scheduled for November 11.  All who attend the Side Hustle Boot Camp will experience and receive the following: A powerful message from keynote speaker A’Lelia Bundles, the great-great granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, the first black female millionaire Practical business and marketing tools, tips and information from successful women entrepreneurs as well as expert speakers who understand you and your journey A One-Page Business Plan that will help you clearly define the next steps for moving forward in your business The Side Hustle Workbook, a copy of all training materials put together in a downloadable workbook format with worksheets and resources for you to take action on both during and after the live event Recordings of all sessions for you to continue to learn from after the live event (these recordings are downloadable to your computer for you to listen to whenever and wherever you want!) A supportive online community to nurture your entrepreneurial spirit and foster valuable connections with other like-minded business women . . . all from the comfort of your own home or office! (all sessions will be held live via webinar from your computer) I've known Rosetta for several years now and she provides nothing but high quality, inspiring stuff. It could be just the jumpstart you need to get moving in a new career direction.  You can see the agenda here and register here. Don't think about it--just do it!

Fifteen years ago, after a weekend career retreat I ran for myself, I walked into my full-time job and quit. I realized that for a variety of reasons, the position was no longer working for me and I wanted to move into something else. With two kids heading into summer daycare that would eat up a good portion of my check, it seemed like quitting to work full-time on new opportunities for myself was the best option. I would actually save money at that point by not working.  I spent the next several months reading books across a variety of fields, engaging in deep conversations with some incredibly smart people who challenged my thinking and gestating some ideas for how I wanted to shape my business. It was my own intense professional development course and it allowed me to build and sustain my self-employment for the next several years.  One thing I've learned from my own experience is that sometimes taking a step back is the best way to move forward. I was reminded of this when I saw an article in CNN Money on turning underemployment into a new career opportunity. I was particularly struck by one story in the post: Some readers report they've deliberately taken a step down in status and pay in order to move their careers in a different direction. "I've done it more than once over the past 30 years," writes Mike Frederick. Most recently, in 2007, when his department was eliminated, he turned down a couple of promotions to take a lower-paying staff job in his employer's corporate university. "No one could promise me I'd ever get back to my previous level of management in that department," he recalls. Not only that, but the job called for tech skills that Frederick lacked. "I had a lot to learn and the odds against my success seemed daunting," he recalls. Even so, his employer funded a series of courses he needed to take: "What clinched it was the chance to learn a new career at no expense to me." Fast-forward three years and, "after many long nights of studying on my own and hard work during the day applying what I learned", Frederick is "at the point where I wanted to be," he writes: In a management position in an IT training department. What the experience taught him, he says, is that "taking a step down may be your best bet for ultimate success." Frederick's advice: "Find out if your company is willing to provide the training you need or will pay for college courses. Don't be afraid to ask and, after you make the move, don't look back. Focus on the possibilities ahead of you." It's very easy for us to get caught up in feeling that the only way to move forward is by . . . moving forward--or up. But when it comes to our careers, it's often the steps backwards or sideways that can generate the most momentum and satisfaction.  In my case I left full-time employment to build a business. I've known other people who had side gigs that helped them explore new opportunities and identities that eventually turned into full-time work. And there are plenty of people who have been laid off and then use that time to re-think their careers, re-tool and move off in a different direction, happier than they'd been before.  Don't always assume that the best career moves for you are going to be through advancement or "moving up the ladder." Often we do this without thinking and find out it isn't what we wanted at all. Instead, be open to the lateral moves and the moves backwards. Like me, you may find these give you a chance to re-tool and refresh your career, moving you in a direction you hadn't even considered before.  __________________________________________________________________________________ Trying to figure out your next career move? Check out my upcoming 4-week Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9, 2012. You'll get 4 weeks of activities, 5 live events and lots of support as you figure out where you want to go next. It also makes a great holiday gift for someone in your life who could use some clarity!

A tweet from Stephen Downes that's been hanging in my head for a few weeks: This may be the biggest challenge to ongoing innovation. Most humans are not good at feeling perpetually incompetent. It is frighening and a blow to our egos to think that we may not have a firm grip on our work.  We tend to fight situations that make us feel like we don't know what we're doing. If we feel like we're floating on a sea of uncertainty and confusion, we do everything we can to return to the dry land of our familiar skill sets.  But if we are to be innovative, we must learn to embrace those feelings of incompetence. We have to learn to reframe them as opportunities for  learning and growth.  We also have to change what we regard as "competencies." The skills we need to fully engage in continuous innovation are meta-skills, not necesarily grounded in the kind of narrow technical skills we've come to see as expressing our competence at work.  Our competencies have to be larger than our current job or industry.  Innovation comes from having a larger vision for what we do, from heterogeneity and cross pollination.  To thrive in a world of uncertainty and continuous innovation, we need to: Embrace learning in all its forms, including learning from mistakes. Becoming a better learner should be our major focus. It is the one competency we can count on in a constantly changing world.  Cultivate beginner's mind.  Operate from a growth mindset. Fight homophily and expose ourselves to a broad array of ideas, people and strategies.  I'm still learning to be comfortable with incompetence. It's an ongoing challenge to put myself out there and to say "I'm not sure" or "I don't know." The perfectionist in me can really put up a fight. But I've come to believe that when it comes to learning, growth and career development, those may be very important words for me to say. Each time I utter them, I'm forced to embrace yet again that I'm in uncharted territory. And that's where all the discoveries are made.  _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff.  And if you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

"The succesful careerist may find that the darkness embroiled at his center is the part that wishes to fail in order to open other neglected parts of his life; when he becomes his failure he no longer has to carry that career success as a burden. He can explore avenues that he previously might have labeled under that dreaded American swamp-dwelling monster failure.  --David Whyte, The Heart Aroused.  I work with a lot of successful people, people who are accomplished and competent and generally doing well in their careers. While I have tremendous admiration for these folks and what they've done, increasingly I find myself feeling sorry for them, too.  What I see is how their success holds them back from going after the things they really want. The more successful they are, the more their ego holds on to the identity they've constructed to create that success. It becomes more difficult to take risks when you're successful. What's the impetus for it, first of all? What you've been doing is obviously working. But risks also present the possibility of failure and of incompetence, things that the ego, wedded to its success, fights valiantly to avoid.  I've also noticed that succesful people, considering the possibility of a career change or new adventure, think that maybe they're "crazy." They actually use that word--"crazy." Because in our society it's insanity to want something other than success and the stability that it brings. You get a lot of pushback from people in your life when you start thinking that maybe success isn't all it's cracked up to be.  You get a lot of pushback from your own ego, too. That's who's telling you that you're crazy.  So I see successful people who know in their hearts that they are ready for a change. But their success conspires against them. It whispers to them that they should stay where they are and they have a hard time shutting that down.  For some of the successful people that I know, the next stage is that they begin to secretly hope for a lay-off or some other professional "catastrophe" outside their control that will allow them to put down that burden of success.  In this way they can then be allowed to explore that new territory they're longing for without having to actively give up the success they built for themselves.   They also will not have to deal with other people in their lives who don't understand how success has been holding them back. Now they can point to the external events and say "See-this happened, so now it's time to explore another path." Success can be a wonderful thing. But it can also bring its own pitfalls and challenges. It can be our biggest barrier to change and to pursuing new adventures and identities.  We can hope for some external event that forces us to change or we can deal with our success head-on. When we feel the need for change, we may first have to see how success is holding us back from embracing it.  _______________________________________________________________ Want some help in re-defining what success means to you? Join me for my January 10, 2012 Career Questions session when we'll use the VisualsSpeak Image Center to help you come up with a vision for success that works for you. 

I have been captured by two stories this week. The first is the moral debacle unraveling at Penn State University where a work culture that focused on hierarchy and protecting profits and reputation at all costs led apparently normal human beings to protect a child rapist for 10 years. The second is this article in The Guardian, which points out that our current economic woes are in large part due to the rewarding and celebration of psychopathic behaviors in the workplace.  What these two stories have in common is a focus on a morally bankrupt definition of "success" that, in turn, values and rewards character traits that would normally be considered pathological. Consider this from the Guardian article: In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses's scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders. The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations (my emphasis). It would be easy for us to dismiss stories like what happened at Penn State as the moral failings of particular individuals. In fact, many of us will do so. It allows us to say "well I would never do something like that."  In doing this, however, we miss the larger lesson we need to consider--how our organizational systems and notions of success create an environment that actually breeds this type of behavior.  Put a good person in a bad system and I guarantee you that eventually the person will crack. The forces are too large to resist for most people. And our normally unconscious way of moving through the world often means we aren't even aware of how the system is influencing us. We begin to behave in ways we don't even recognize.  We need to take a careful look at what REALLY goes on in our workplaces. Not the platitudes we spout about "teams" and "caring for our workers," but what our actions and rewards tell us about who we are at work. A searching moral inventory (as they say in AA) must be conducted for us to be clear about what actually happens vs. what we tell ourselves is happening.  When money and profits are our Gods, we will inevitably develop a culture that rewards those who "do what it takes" to keep the profits going. The problem is, at work we often pretend that it isn't about profits so we can ignore the ways in which the profit motive is shaping our behavior.  Don't get me wrong--I think we need to pay attention to money. But when we create a cult of success that is defined by money and profits, it inevitably creates a culture that leads us down the wrong path.  I also am concerned about the culture of fear that permeates many of our workplaces, particularly since the recession began. When people are worried about losing their jobs and their livelihoods, how does this shape the decisions they make at work. How often do they look the other way?  We can take the easy way out here--reading these stories and judging the people involved as being different from ourselves. But I would challenge us to go deeper than that. To ask ourselves how the systems we create and live in cause us to make decisions and engage in behavior that goes against what we think we believe.  Some questions to consider along these lines. . .  How often do you cringe when you see or hear of a decision or action at work that feels morally wrong to you?  How often do you talk yourself out of your interpretation, arguing to yourself that there must be reasons you aren't aware of for the decision? How many conversations do you participate in where you later ask yourself, "why did I say that?" because you recognize that words came out of your mouth that don't sound like who you really want to be?  How often do you see managers and higher-ups saying one thing and doing another? Or saying that the company values certain behaviors and then someone is rewarded for doing the opposite?  It is critical that we ask  these questions about ourselves and the organizations in which we work. It is critical that we engage in conversations about the cultures we are creating, the behaviors we are rewarding and the reality of who we become in our environments. Are we creating cultures that support and reward the best in people--or are we creating monsters?  __________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff.  And if you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

I'm doing some work in some very broken systems lately. The problem is, the people involved don't want to see it. They trot out the one shining example of how things ARE working and try to pretend that this one example is the rule, rather than the exception.  This is a problem I think we all fall prey to. It's what keeps us in bad situations, whether they are at work or in our personal lives. We use that one example of the good to convince ourselves that all the rest of the things we see are fine--or at least not as bad as we may suspect.  Several weeks ago I wrote a post on how we can stay stuck by denying reality. One of the ways we do this is by trotting out the big examples that negate all the smaller ones that add up to tell us the situation is not what we pretend it is. We focus on that one GREAT thing and ignore everything else.  While I aspire to and believe that we should focus on what is working, what is right and good in our lives, I also think that we can't do this to the point where we deny reality. When we do this, it keeps us stuck. It keeps us from creating something new and better in our work and in our personal sphere.  So my question for today is: What exception are you pretending is the rule in your life?  __________________________________________________________________________________ Trying to figure out your next career move? Check out my upcoming 4-week Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9, 2012. You'll get 4 weeks of activities, 5 live events and lots of support as you figure out where you want to go next. It also makes a great holiday gift for someone in your life who could use some clarity!  

When I first started planning several months ago for more seriously offering career clarity and professional development workshops, one of the things I was considering was pricing. What do I offer and how do I price it?  At one point a thought popped into my head. I could offer everything I do for free, asking people to only pay after they received the service according to how much value they felt they'd received. Basically, set your own price based on the worth of the service.  This felt right to me on some deep level. It tied in with my reading of Lewis Hyde's book, The Gift, which talks about how certain kinds of transformation shouldn't be commoditized by turning them into transactions. It also was related to my sense that when you are trying to offer something to the world that's based on your own sense of gift and purpose, this should be done freely, without turning it into a transactional process.  But then, I began to question my inutition. I started going into scarcity mode, thinking to myself "Well how can I support myself this way? What happens if I offer everything for free and no one finds value in it and I don't get paid? I still have a mortgage and bills. I must be CRAZY for considering this idea." The more I thought about the notion, the further away from my initial inspiration I got and the more I got into the negative, scarcity mindset. My ego, which loves to remind me of all the ways a situation can turn bad, went into full-on damage control, trying to get me to understand that this is just NOT the way to do business.  Still, the thought persisted.  Last week I stumbled across a post from Nancy White on the concept of social artistry. What I discovered is the topic of another post--very meaty, important ideas there--but two things about social artistry took me back to my original pricing thoughts. The first is the idea that social artistry is about "using who you are to open space for learning." This idea of using who you are reminded me of my earlier Lewis Hyde reading and that gift of transformation.  The second concept was "radical imagination." Social artistry is about using radical imagination to create social change and transformation. What could be more radical than trying to make a living from "free"? What is more radical (for me, anyway) than trying to live from an abundance mindset, rather than from scarcity?  So what does all this have to do with careers? First, it reminds me that sometimes we receive inspiration about our next move from our intuition. It can be a whisper or a shout, but at some point, some voice inside us will say "you should try this!" But then, what do we do with that? If you're like me, sometimes you let the "voice of reason," (who is really the voice of scarcity and fear) talk you out of that inspiration. You will then head down a path that seems "reasonable," but on some level, really wrong for you and where you want to go. Realizing that you're on a path that feels wrong and unsustainable is part of the journy back to your inspiration.  Another way to handle that initial flicker of an idea is to experiment with what your intution told you. Experiments aren't permanent. They are a way to test out your intution, to try out that idea that seems "crazy," but just might actually work.  In my case, it's experimenting with how I run my business. In your case, it could be experimenting with a new identity or activity that takes you a little closer to where you want to be. The point is that we don't want to let our scarcity and fear thoughts talk us out of experimenting with what our intuition suggests. As Jonas Salk said, "intution can tell our thinking mind where to look next." Our gut instinct can be our BEST source of knowledge, but only if we choose to at least try it out.  So in the next few days, I'll be announcing my new pricing structure as an experiment in what happens if I trust my gut, rather than going with what seems "reasonable."  What intutition will you experiment with today? 

A disturbing article in Forbes this week on why Millennial women are burning out by 30: Today, 53% of corporate entry-level jobs are held by women, a percentage that drops to 37% for mid-management roles and 26% for vice presidents and senior managers, according to McKinsey research. Men are twice as likely as women to advance at each career transition stage. One rationale is that men are more likely than women to do things that help their personal wellbeing at work, thus negating burnout, according to the Captivate Network. Men are 25% more likely to take breaks throughout the day for personal activities, 7% more likely to take a walk, 5% more likely to go out to lunch, and 35% more likely to take breaks "just to relax." But it's not just Millenials who find themselves here. I've had plenty of conversations in the past several months with mid-career women who feel equally burnt out and are longing for quiet time to reflect and think through their next moves. This is one of the reasons I'm going away for a weekend retreat with 12 other women in December. We NEED time away.  Creating Your Own Sabbatical Academics have long had the sabbatical to refresh and re-charge, although many times they also use that time away to write books or do research. Unfortunately, space and time to just "be" and to reflect on things that are important to you is one of our most precious commodities in our time-crunched age.   I've discovered that no one is going to hand me quiet time. The only way I'm going to get it is if I take it for myself. I have to see it as a priority in my life, as important (if not more so) as the actions I take and I need to make space for it to happen.  Here are some ways that you can try to find some space for yourself, even on a "time budget": Use the first hour of your day for rejuvenation, reflection and relaxation. I wrote a post earlier this year on how the first hour of your day sets the tone for the rest of the day. In that post, there are several ideas on how you can use that first hour as a sort of mini-sabbatical.  Make Time for What Matters--Britt Bravo has an excellent series of guest posts in which various professionals share how they make space. Some good ideas here that might help you in creating your own sabbatical or retreat.  Take a One-Day Sabbatical--I've done this several times myself and have begun pushing it harder with some of my career clients. It's best if you can schedule a few of these out over the course of several months, so you can get a sort of cumulative effect from the process.  You might also find some ideas in this article on micro-sabbaticals.  Plan a Weekend Retreat--A few months ago I emailed some friends I knew might be interested in going away for a retreat. Within a few days, I'd rounded up 12 other women who agreed to go with me to the Pendle Hill Retreat Center in Wallingford, PA. We're renting a house and will have access to beautiful grounds, an art studio, library and great locally-sourced meals. Here's our draft agenda if you want to try this idea with people you know. You can also do a solo retreat--this guide might be helpful to plan with.  Regardless of how you do it, it's critical that you find time in your busy schedule for reflection and renewal, especially if you are in a creative or helping career. That "down time" is essential to rebuilding our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.  ____________________________________________________________________ I have a new pricing policy! I'm experimenting with offering all of my online workshops and retreats on a "pay what it's worth" basis. (Here's why.)  You take the course and then at the end, you'll pay me according to the value you received. It might be crazy, but I'm giving it a shot! Check out what's coming up here. 

We have to face the fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they know, more bored than they would care to admit. Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day "How can I be so bored when I'm so busy?" And I said "Let me count the ways." Logan Pearsall Smith said that boredom can rise to the level of a mystical experience, and if that's true I know some very busy middle level executives who are among the great mystics of all time.                              --John Gardner, from Personal Renewal As I work with people at mid-career, many of them quite successful by any conventional terms, part of what I realize is that they are gripped by a profound sense of boredom. No longer pushed forward by the sheer momentum of establishing themselves  and "moving up the ladder," they begin to look around and ask, "Why am I doing this anyway?"  Or maybe they don't. Maybe they just keep doing what they've been doing, but they are dogged by a sense that something isn't right anymore. They can't quite put their finger on it, but if they could, they would recognize that it's a deep, soul-sucking malaise. Boredom can be good, if it ultimately drives individuals to seek something new, to ask new questions and explore new territory.  As a child, boredom for me was often the fuel I needed to invent new games or engage in other creative projects.  And some research suggests that bored people seek new meaning in helping others.  But boredom can also be a problem. It can fuel hostility to "outsiders," making us more insular and less open to new ideas and approaches.  Boredom is stressful, too, in an insidious way that is de-moralizing and ennervating. It drains us of energy and enthusiasm, keeping us in a zombie-like state that is good for no one. The antidote to boredom is self-renewal.  Back to John Gardner: If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns. I said in my book, "Self-Renewal," that we build our own prisons and serve as our own jail-keepers. I no longer completely agree with that. I still think we're our own jailkeepers, but I've concluded that our parents and the society at large have a hand in building our prisons. They create roles for us -- and self images -- that hold us captive for a long time. The individual intent on self-renewal will have to deal with ghosts of the past -- the memory of earlier failures, the remnants of childhood dramas and rebellions, accumulated grievances and resentments that have long outlived their cause. Sometimes people cling to the ghosts with something almost approaching pleasure -- but the hampering effect on growth is inescapable. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said "You never conquer the mountain, You only conquer yourself." . . .  Learn all your life. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes, When you hit a spell of trouble, ask "What is it trying to teach me?" The lessons aren't always happy ones, but they keep coming. It isn't a bad idea to pause occasionally for an inward look. By midlife, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves. We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by growing older, by suffering, by loving, by bearing with the things we can't change, by taking risks. Boredom can be a disease of mid-career, but it's a disease with a cure. We just have to know it when we see it and then take steps toward self-renewal.   Are you bored at work? What are you going to do about it?  ___________________________________________________________________ Want to begin your own journey of self-renewal? Sign up for one of my upcoming online workshops and take advantage of my "pay what it's worth" pricing offer. 

For a social artist, their in-breath is observing, allowing, listening, and understanding and their out-breath is connecting, enriching, inspiring, and enlivening. As with any artist, they seek out opportunities to stretch their capabilities beyond what they could imagine.                                     ----Polly Superstar For months now I've been trying to get a handle on what it is I'm trying to do as I make shifts in my own career. I operate better when I have a framework for understanding my work, so I'm always looking for the thread that ties together what can seem like disparate pieces of myself and my career identity.  Serendipitously, I ran across  Nancy White's post on social artistry a few weeks ago. In a flash, it became apparent how everything I'm doing comes together.   If this were just about me, I would have kept it in my career journal. But I realized it's not. Social artistry is something that many of the people I work with are trying to do, too. It's a work identity I see more and more people striving for without realizing it. I think it's a necessary identity, so it made sense to me to share.  What is a Social Artist? Through Nancy's post and my own research into social artistry, I came up with a few definitions that I think tie together Etienne Wenger in a comment on David Wilcox's blog says that social artistry is "knowing how to use who you are as a vehicle for opening spaces for learning. . .it’s about being able to use who I am to take my community to a new level of learning and performance." Jean Houston defines social artistry as: ". . . the art of enhancing human capacities in the light of social complexity. It seeks to bring new ways of thinking, being and doing to social challenges in the world. …Social Artists are leaders in many fields who bring the same order of passion and skill that an artist brings to his or her art form, to the canvas of our social reality.  Social artistry is about creating space for change and transformation, which is what learning is really all about. How do we create the space for people to be together, to learn from their experiences and connections and to move them to make a difference in their part of the world? How do we help people grow into their possibilities? Jean Houston, who developed the concept, calls this: Creating the lure of becoming What a beautiful image for transformation. We lure people into the process of "becoming," which is essentially luring them into the possibilities of change.  Why Social Artistry?  Etienne Wenger in his comment referenced above talks about the need for us to become "learning citizens" and to consider how we can act as learning citizens in this world. Social artistry asks all of us to consider how we create and support learning in our lives. How do we help ourselves and others continue to grow?  This seems huge to me at a time when we see that lifelong learning  is so necessary for work. But more than that, as I look at the social problems that face us, problems that cannot be solved without all of us working together, becoming a social artist feels even more critical as an aspiration for us all.  Social artistry is about understanding that deep learning is an emotional experience, not just an intellectual one. If the learning we are trying to facilitate goes beyond helping people develop mere technical skills and veers into the territory of supporting people in realizing and sharing their creative gifts, then we must see the work we do differently.  We must bring different awareness and skills to the process.  The Skills and Attitudes of Social Artists First and foremost, I think social artistry requires us to have a growth mindset. We must believe in the possibility of growth and transformation. If we don't, then there's no space for us to practice our art.  There's also no purpose for it.  Jean Houston has more on what she sees as the necessary skills and capacities of social artists, including the skills to: Work with diverse cultures and contexts. Preserve existing culture, while helping a culture's members move to new stories and ways of seeing the world.  See new trends and patterns in apparent chaos. Help people work in collaborative networks and circles of connection, and move away from hierarchies and power structures.  Present a model for a constantly learning society and new frameworks for learning. Use story, art and metaphor to draw out individual and organizational potential. Be a fool, a humorist or a comedian when laughter is required.  Be a healer, recognizing that transformation is in some ways a process of creation and evolution that moves us to a higher order--to our best possible self.  Respect the individuality and unique qualities of each person he/she works with, helping people grow into their own possibilities, rather than teaching them how to conform. Reflect on experience and embrace the role of the inner journey in creating outer change.  To this list, I would add skills in: Asking good questions--questions that are thought-provoking and inspirational and that invite new ways of seeing and solving problems.  Being honest and transparent and creating a safe space for others to do the same. This builds learning, trust and community, all of which are essential to the practice of social artistry, I think. Facilitating the creation of vision, helping people see potential, but then also facilitating the recognition of reality to create the necessary tension for change.  "Deep seeing" and "deep listening."  This involves listening for what is being said beneath the words and seeing what is apparent, beneath surface appearances. And then facilitating others in the process of deep seeing and listening.  Implications for Learning and Career  So what does all this mean for learning and careers?  First, I believe that the skills of social artistry are skills we should all strive to build. They seem to me the core of participating in a creative economy and building for ourselves the world we want to live in. Developing the skills and attitudes I outlined above can only enhance our capacity to perform acts of "radical imagination" and bring new problem-solving skills to our work and personal lives.  On a very practical level, the skills of social artistry--using story, art and metaphor, working with diverse populations, working in collaborative networks and asking good questions--these are the skills necessary to thrive across a variety of occupations. In a creative economy, these are also the skills that keep you relevant and irreplacable.  Social artistry as a a working identity has powerful career implications, too. If I see myself as a social artist, then I am using the skills of social artistry to uncover and share my own gifts, to get clearer about the ways that I can create space for learning and change in my corner of the world.  It keeps me more flexible because I am more than just my occupation. I am something bigger than my job, with many permutations and options for playing out who I am. For me, seeing myself as a social artist opens up new lines of inquiry and discovery. For example, I created the images above over the course of a long afternoon of contemplation. Using art to explore the topic led me to deeper thinking and insights, which in turn led me to re-think what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. I am delving more deeply into how I can facilitate conversations and story-telling and how I can use practices like circles and art to deepen learning. What are my unique gifts and how do I use them in the world to help others find their own possibilities? This is an exciting, inspirational and energizing way of looking at the work that I do. Already it has had huge implications for my thoughts about career and the ways I operate my business. I think it's something we should all be looking at to add meaning and inspiration to our work.  What would happen for you if you thought of yourself as a social artist? How could it transform the work that you do?   ___________________________________________________________________ Are you interested in finding your inner social artist and discussing how to support social artistry at work? I am and would love to facilitate conversation on the topic! Drop me a comment or send me an email at michelemmartin(at)gmail.com so we can connect and start discussing!

When I was a junior in college, we were hit by a severe outbreak of salmonella, a result of undercooked eggs in some stuffing. It was so bad, people were literally collapsing in the quad. The walls of the infirmary were lined with retching students and the National Guard had to be called in to help with the situation.  In the aftermath, a weird sort of competitiveness set in among those who had been unfortunate enough to contract the disease. People tried to one-up each other over who had lost the most weight or had the most wrenching story of illness. It was weird and always stuck with me as a bizarre kind of commentary on my fellow students and the culture of competition that existed at a college known for its pre-med and pre-law programs. Who competes over misery? I've seen a similar kind of competition in the work world--who is most stressed and over-worked? We see exhaustion, depletion and anxiety as a strange badge of honor. On some level it seems to communicate our worthiness.  We complain about being overworked, but at the same time, there's a competitive edge to our complaints. "I have it worse than you do," we seem to be saying, as though this is somehow the measure of our lives. We secretly judge those who seem to be less stressed, as though they are not working as hard as we are and therefore are less worthy.  I no longer want to be part of the anxiety wars. I don't want to feel somehow inadequate if I'm not putting in 12+ hour days and working from a state of depletion and worry.  I don't want to judge the worth of my fellow human beings based on whether or not they seem to be "working hard enough," which in our culture has come to mean working to the point of exhaustion.  I don't want to compete anymore on misery. I want to start a new competition, one that focuses on how energized and creative we feel. I want to support a culture that says there's something wrong with our lives if we are constantly living with a low-grade (or higher grade) anxiety. A culture that doesn't value depletion, but asks what we can do to re-fill people's wells.   I want out of the Anxiety Wars. Who wants to come with me? ___________________________________________________________ It's not too late to sign up for tomorrow's career visioning webinar at 8 p.m. EST. I got great feedback from the first group that the session really helped them start to get some clarity about their careers and where they want to go. Instructions for participating and the link to sign-up for the webinar are here. 

The quest for technical best is a form of hiding. You can hide from the marketplace because you're still practicing your technique. And you can hide from the hard work of real art and real connection because you decide that success lies in being the best technically, at getting a 99 instead of a 98 on an exam. What we can become the best at is being an idiosyncratic exception to the standard.  (my emphasis) Joshua Bell is often mentioned (when violinists are mentioned at all) not because he is technically better than every other violinst, but because of his charisma and willingness to cross categories. He's the best in the world at being Josh Bell, not the best in the world at playing the violin. The same trap happens to people who are coding in Java, designing furniture or training to be a corporate coach. It's a seductive form of self motivation, the notion that we can push and push and stay inside the lines and through sheer will, become technically perfect and thus in demand. Alas, it's not going to happen for most of us. (my emphasis) --Seth Godin Achieving ever-higher technical proficiency in our occupations is seductive, but fruitless. Past a certain point of competency, the ways we need to develop become less about specific skills and more about infusing our own personality, strengths and point of view into the work that we do.  Knowing when to start this process can be difficult. Our organizations often resist the idea because they are focused on "competencies" and "career ladders," which from their perspective are easier to manage. Companies, especially large ones, are in the business of bureaucratizing and codifying work, which lends itself to a focus on technical proficency at the expense of the person. They need this for efficiency and productivity and because it's easier to do than supporting the development of individual people. Less risky, too. If you supported the growth of individuals, then they might take that growth someplace else. Better to focus on making people great at working for YOUR company, rather than helping them to be better in general. For many organizations, it's just not part of the culture to look at the growth and development of individual people, so counting on your employer to signal when it's time to make the shift is useless. Instead, my friends, you have to find this time for yourself. For some people,  the itch to be more than just a collection of skills, to become that "idiosyncratic exception to the standard," is felt as a certain restlessness and boredom with their profession. There's an urge to tweak and shape and be more authentic at work, a certain rebelliousness of spirit that begins to take hold.  For others, there are no signals. Just a sinking into inertia, a "going through the motions" approach that sucks the life from them and makes going to work a chore.  Regardless of how it manifests, the only cure for the disease is to shift your focus. You must move from building your technical skills to infusing your work with your unique gifts, talents and points of view. This is the time for you to dig deeper into yourself, to excavate the buried treasure and bring it to the surface where you can use it to construct something only you can create.  Last week I wrote about social artistry and how this is the work of using who you are to create spaces for learning and growth. Ultimately, I would argue that this is where most of us need to land in terms of own career development. We need to find our core strengths and the key talents we bring to what what we do and find ways to infuse these parts of ourselves into the work.  What this ultimately looks like will vary, of course. I have no recipe or easy list of steps I can give you to make it happen. It is really a messy, iterative process of working each day to uncover the core of who you are and to bring that authenticity to your work.  Although I can't tell you HOW to do this, I can tell you what it feels like when you get it right. You will feel energized and whole. What you do will feel like art, like a passion, rather than drudgery or a series of steps you must take to achieve a soulless end. Your work will feel "right" to you, like you're fitting into a slot that you made for yourself, rather than forcing yourself into a slot made for you by others. You won't feel like you are wearing a mask or assuming a role at work. You will feel like YOU being great at what you do.  So don't shoot for technical competency long past the time when you've achieved it. Instead, stay alert for the time when you must make the shift from the being good at your occupation to being great at being you. That's what "being the best" is really about.  ____________________________________________________________________ Trying to figure out your next career move? Check out my upcoming 4-week Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9, 2012. You'll get 4 weeks of activities, 5 live events and lots of support as you figure out where you want to go next.

Derek Sivers, serial entrepreneur and founder of CD Baby,  shared some advice last week on his business model: I feel like I know almost nothing about business, because the only business I’ve ever done is the co-op / sharing model. It goes like this: 1. You already have something that people want. It might be something you own, something you’ve learned how to do, or access to valuable resources, space, or people. 2. Find a way to share it with everyone who needs it. Share because it’s what you do for friends, because it’s the right thing to do, because it makes the world a better place, and because it’ll make you deeply happy. Share as your contribution in return for all the things and ideas that people have shared with you. (If you’re having a bad day, or someone has recently wronged you, you may not feel the world has shared much with you, but here’s a reminder.) 3. If it takes some effort for you to share it, you can charge a little something for your effort, to ensure that this giving can continue. Many people I know are thinking about starting businesses of their own. It's the next iteration for their careers. A good place to start is figuring out what you have that other people want, sharing it the way you would with friends, and charging a little something for your effort. Clearly it can get more complex later, but as a simple model for starting up, why not start with what you have to share?   __________________________________________________________________ Want to work with a creative way to explore some major career questions? Sign up for one of my upcoming Career Question Image sessions. In December we'll plan for 2012. In January we'll look at defining success and in February we'll explore what may be holding you back. You'll get a chance to try out the VisualsSpeak Image Center and work with other professionals in a live online discussion of your image.  You can also try out this online icebreaker to see how the Image Center works. 

In my experience, when it comes to career, there are two kinds of courage.  The first is the courage it takes to pick yourself up after you've fallen. This is the courage to make a career change or find a new job after you've been laid off or fired. An event occurs and the person responds. This is reactive courage.  The other kind of courage is the courage it takes to say, "This situation is not working for me. I don't know where the road after this leads or how I'm going to get there, but I know that I need to make a change, regardless." This is the courage it takes to quit your job and start a new business venture or to go on a totally different career journey.This is the courage to act when action is not required.  This is pro-active courage.  Here's another way to think about it: Reactive courage is being pushed off the cliff. Pro-active courage is about deciding to jump yourself.  There's nothing wrong with reactive courage. It's a wonderful thing and necessary when life hits you with unexpected events. But it can feel a little disempowering, too. It's about life happening TO you and you having to respond. Someone else made the circumstances and now you have to deal with them. You feel the blow to your self-esteem and the world seems just a little more chaotic and random than you'd like.  Pro-active courage is something different. It says, "I'm going to act on MY timetable. I'm going to take the situation into my own hands and do what it takes to turn it around. I will set the circumstances and parameters for this change and I will be in charge" It is empowering to do this, but also scarier than finding courage once an event has already happened. No one is forcing this change, so it's easier to second-guess yourself and wonder if the change is necessary at all.  In my life I've been both pro-actively and reactively courageous. I can tell you, though, that while scarier at the beginning, my pro-actively courageous decisions have had far greater payoffs than my reactively courageous ones. I can also say that in my career, I've tried very hard to be pro-actively courageous as much as possible.  The decision to quit my job 15 years ago and start my own business was a pro-actively courageous decision that has paid huge dividends.  The decision to begin shifting my business in new directions as I see my own passions and skills evolving is another pro-actively courageous decision I've made. Even if it doesn't pay off financially the way that I'd like, it already is providing me with greater career fulfillment and much-needed energy.  The point I'm trying to make is this. We can show courage when we are pushed from the cliff and we can show courage in making the decision to jump. Which form of courage feels the best to you?  _____________________________________________________________________________ My upcoming Career Clarity Camp may be just the thing you need to find some pro-active courage. And if nothing else, it's a great way to get clearer about your career direction. Details and the sign-up are here. 

This weekend, I went on a retreat with 10 other women to reflect on our experiences in 2011 and plan for what we wanted to do in 2012. It was a fabulous experience that I'll be writing more about.  One of the most eye-opening realizations I had in our weekend away was the profound LACK of meaningful conversations at work and in our personal lives. Sure, we're talking all the time about transactions and meetings and getting work done. But we aren't talking about the meat underneath, the stuff that is really bothering people or that inspires people--the stuff that makes us tick. What became clear to me in our weekend away was that there is a HUNGER for this kind of conversation in our work and personal lives.  In a work context, it's easy to say that there isn't time or that work isn't the place for this kind of talk. But I would argue that work is exactly the place right now where we need to be having deeper discussions.  It is the lack of meaningful conversation that is draining us of our creativity and commitment.  According to a recent Gallup Poll, the majority of US workers are disengaged from their work--that is, 2/3 of American workers are not "involved in and enthusiastic about their work and contributing to their organizations in a positive manner." I would argue that part of the reason for this disengagement is because we are not talking about the deeper, more systemic issues that are going on in the workplace and what we can do about them. We spend our days talking about the work, but do nothing to really get at what's going on underneath that leads to those undercurrents of tension, dissatisfaction and anxiety.  Here's a sampling of some of the things we discussed during our retreat: There's a sense that workers are "disposable"--we can put our heart and soul into the work that we do, and it can still result in a pink slip at the end of the day. That leaves people wondering if it's worth it to do anything other than put in their time.  So many of us are being under-utilized or mis-utilized at work. We have some amazing gifts and talents, but instead of work playing to our strengths, in many cases we are shuttled from one project to another as though we are simply interchangeable cogs in a machine, rather than human beings with real passions and strengths.  This is demoralizing and de-humanizing. And let's not lie to ourselves. It has an impact.  The employment contract is starting to feel extremely one-sided. We are expected to give our all, putting in the long hours and demonstrating the "commitment" to our work. Many of us sacrifice family, friends and personal renewal to keep those commitments. But we don't see the same commitment from employers, who remind us that "employment at will," means we can be let go at any time.  I don't belive that this is sustainable in the long-term. We are already paying the price in terms of disengagement, which costs companies billions.   Much as we don't want to admit it, gender issues still impact the workplace. We may have curbed the most virulent forms of sexual harassment, but the more subtle influences of patriarchy are still alive and well, influencing many of our beliefs about the workplace and "acceptable" forms of behavior there. This is a trap and a problem for both men AND women.  What came through loud and clear for me is that for many people, it's not safe to have deep conversations about issues like this at work. Yet it is these unspoken issues that are having a profound influence on how we engage with our work and on our relationships with colleagues.  One thing I know is this--when we don't address the elephant in the room, he keeps getting bigger and bigger. We're forced to move furniture and shrink up against the walls in order to make room for him.  Pretty soon there's little room to even breathe. But if we started acknowledging and discussing what was going on, we could ease him out, making space for people again.  So what meaningful conversations are you NOT having at work? And what can you do about it?   ________________________________________________________________ Want a chance to have some more meaningful conversations about work? We'll be talking about meaty stuff in Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9. Info on the Camp and the sign-up form are here. 

Our careers are all about decisions. What do I do and when? How do I know when to act?  Through conversations with others, as well as observing my own behavior, I've discovered a couple of creative strategies to LOOK like we're making decisions, when, in fact, we are not.  Crowdsourcing the Decision  A regular reader of this blog (she knows who she is!) tells me she's excellent at crowdsourcing her decisions. This generally involves asking other people for input and feedback on their experiences as a way to gather information. This can give us valuable insight. It can also be a trap. We keep waiting for that one person's story that will make us finally dive in. But we're really substituting the information-gathering for an actual decision. I've done this many times myself.  Making Irrelevant Decisions When I'm avoiding a big meaty decision (should I change the fundamental nature of my business, for example) I'm a big fan of making a bunch of smaller, irrelevant decisions to cover the fact that I'm avoiding the big one. So I will start looking at things in other parts of my life that I think need cleaning up and focus on those so I can avoid looking at the real elephant in the room. I feel like I'm making progress, but really I'm not.  So what creative strategies do you use to fool yourself into thinking you're making a decisions when you're not?  ___________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.    

Earlier this week,  I wrote about the need for us to have more meaningful conversations at and about work, digging deeper into the real issues that influence us. Today I want to share some thoughts on how we can start to move in the direction of having more meaningful discussions. I'm "thinking out loud" here, so bear with me. . .  Ask Different Questions.   Conversations start with questions. It can be easy to get into a "tell" mode at work, where we are talking at each other, rather than with each other. We can also get into the habit of transactional questions--questions that are strictly about the transactional nature of our work. Where's the report? Who is going to be responsible for this task? Asking different questions can start to move us toward more meaningful discussions. You can start small with questions like: Why do you think that happened? How are you feeling about what happened? What do you think we need to do about it?  What do you need from me?  As we develop the questioning habit, we can go deeper. We can start to practice with positive questions , with debriefing questions and with looking for important questions in our work. We can ask questions that challenge the status quo or that are the questions we usually try to avoid.  Our questions shape our discussions, so this is the place we have to start.  Reveal Yourself  We all wear masks to work. We all play roles. Both of these things tend to force us to act in accordance with those masks, keeping us on the shallow side of life. To have REAL conversations, though, we have to go beneath our masks. We have to be willing to speak our truths as we feel them and to say the things that are on our minds.  That means that sometimes we have to show the raw, vulnerable parts of ourselves that lie just beneath the surface. We have to share when something evokes an emotional response, be it pleasure or pain. I'm not talking about being a walking wound at work. I'm talking about sharing the human side, the part of you that feels unsure about a decision you've made or that sees that people are having a difficult time getting along and calls attention to it. Or the part that feels really grateful for a few co-workers and says so.  Several years ago, I stopped in the middle of a facilitator training session that was going off the rails and said that I needed us to break for the day. We were clearly headed into bad territory and I needed to collect my thoughts on how to proceed. This was a MAJOR removal of my mask and I was scared to death to do it, but it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It completely transformed the rest of the course. And we ended up having a very real discussion about how people's identities were being challenged and the fears and concerns they had as a result.  Make it Safe For Others To Reveal Themselves Of course, one of the main reasons we don't reveal ourselves is because we don't feel safe doing it. We can't control how others behave in the workplace, but we can control our own behavior. So if someone reveals themselves to us, we can make it safe for them to do so. We can keep their confidences. We can ask questions to draw them out. We can try to put aside any of our own defensiveness that may be getting in the way. In doing this, we start to create a safe space for others to come to us have more meaningful discussions.  One strategy I use all the time is the "Vegas Rule"--what's said in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I've found that this is an excellent way to help people feel more comfortable about getting into meatier discussions. And it helps when I'm explicit about it. "This goes no further."  Be Intentional One thing I realized about our retreat was the fact that there was something about the intentional nature of it that allowed us to be more open with one another. We created a space specifically for people to talk and share. We came to the space knowing that we were going to have conversations that went deeper than the norm.  In structuring things, I drew on the ideas in Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea's book, The Circle Way. There's a lot of great information in there on how to structure space to make it safe to have more meaningful discussions. I highly recommend it. Not only does it talk about the need to be intentional, it also has some valuable insights on the use of circles and how the physical structure of the discussion can be transformative. There's intention in having the discussion, but there's also intention in creating the right space for it to happen.  Go with the Flow So here's some advice that contradicts what I just said about being intentional. Something I learned from two teenage daughters was that often the best conversations happened when I least expected it--in the car, walking through the mall, just before bedtime. I learned to pick up on the signals that told me that they wanted to talk. Often it was at a time when they didn't have to look me in the eye. Somehow it felt safer to talk without having to see my face. This has been true of work-related conversations, too.  We have to be alert for the doorways that open up and be willing to go through them. Sometimes they don't appear when and where we expect them to or plan for them. We have to be willing to go with the flow and to ride it into something deeper than what we expected.  Take a Chance Ultimately, the biggest shift we have to make is in our willingness to take the risk on meaningful discussions. I'm acutely aware of the toll that anxiety and fear takes on many of us. When you're worried about your livelihood or spending your days putting out fires, it can be hard to see the space for any kind of meaningful discussion.  But I would argue that fear and anxiety are actually clues that deeper conversations are necessary. It is precisely those emotions that tell us it's time to start getting real about what's going on.  There are no guarantees that our first attempts, or even our second or third attempts will get us anywhere. We can keep trying, though, in small ways with a few discussions with a few trusted colleagues. And then maybe in bigger ways, speaking up in meetings or deliberately calling together a larger group of people.  We are the only ones who can really make things happen. If we wait for someone else to do it, we could be waiting quite awhile. If we're feeling the need, then we need to take the leap, show others how to do it and bring them along with us. I know from experience that major shifts take place when we do.  What else can we do to encourage and support meaningful conversations at and about work?  ____________________________________________________________________ Want a chance to have some more meaningful conversations about work? We'll be talking about meaty stuff in Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9. Info on the Camp and the sign-up form are here.