Start ‘Er off on a High Note

January was a grousy month.  The general consensus around the office last Friday was, “Whew.”  It was a tough week getting through the layoffs, and it was a tough month all around at the F50C.  I think it was a tough month for many of us, having to confront 2008 actuals for both our personal finances and our companies’ performance. Good thing I have a blog, because venting here is definately better then pouring out my angst all over my family.

Actuals are in, goals are locked, and all we can do now is go forward.

So I’m done complaining. We’re gonna start February off on a high note. Here’s what I’m excited about at work right now:

• I have almost unlimited potential to expand my responsibilities right now. I think for a little while this was giving me pause — I have a lot of big things do do.  But big responsibilities mean opportunity to make a real impact. And my boss is more of a point-and-push kind of guy, so I have a ton of potential to define my world as big as I want.

• I have a lot of opportunities to make my boss’ life easier by taking on meetings and statuses so that he can exit and focus on other stuff.  And the good news is that these are almost all either decision-making meetings or statuses with folks way above my pay grade. More exposure for me, plus my boss is happy that is world is simpler.

• I am really excited about the direction one of my employees is going in this year. Her major project will be ending and what’s next for her after that is both cutting edge and a great fit for her sweet spot of skills & strengths.

• I totally schooled my Gen Y employee in my expectations — I used him as a guinea pig to talk expectations in a way that was far more specific, blunt & spelled-out than I ever had before. It’s already sooooo much easier to catch issues & redirect before they get big.

• Another employee asked for some really direct & blunt feedback on Wednesday, and I was very honest and gave examples of behavior and consequence. We also talked through tactics and the fact that she’s more empowered than she thinks she is.  Already on Thursday she was applying some of what we talked about. I hope it sticks!

• I had a great presentation on Friday to one of the VPs and his management team. We have good support from them for a new initiative I’m trying to start up.

• After the presentation, I had coffee with my old Director.  She soundly reconfirmed that I’m being positioned to promote (even though the timeline may have slowed for all promotions, given the layoffs) and that she supports me.  Even better, she highlighted for me the exact key strength that she sees me bring to my boss & my peers on his management team and said she’d see a huge gap if I wasn’t on his team.  It’s really nice to have this confirmed by a third party whom I really respect!

• There’s a posting that went out this week (despite the layoffs….It must be one of the only postings in the company) and two people approached me to apply. It’s a communications-specific role, but I’m highly skeptical that it would be a lateral move with no promotion potential. I’m also a little skeptical about whether the hiring manger’s style is a good fit for me.  My former Director said that while she’d love to have me in the role, it’s probably a poor move career-wise.  I’m not gonna lie: I love that I was approached, I love the vote of confidence and mentoring from my former Director, and I love the power of saying, “no, thanks!”

• Oh, and that big, big f#%! up? My client is a total trooper, he got the retraction out within a day, totally took responsibility & ownership, kept it professional and kept it friendly.  We had a big apology fest, apologizing to each other, and he also apologized to my boss.  He models all the best in professionalism, and between the two of us, I think we underscored my favorite career truth: failure and screw-ups are less important than how well you move forward and deal with them.

Layoffs

My company announced today that it is reducing its HQ workforce by almost 10%. Approximately two-thirds of this reduction is due to layoffs, effective this morning; the rest is due to not back-filling open positions.
I, and my team, are not directly affected.  But many of our partners and clients are.

I was off-site all day, getting a tour of a sattelite location.  One poor gentleman in our party was essentially laid off over the phone — just as our bosses were contacting us with the official news, he recived a call instructing him to get back downtown ASAP.  Because they don’t do layoffs over the phone.

Since I was off-site, I missed a lot of the angst.  One of my partners emailed me towards the end of the day to say the mood was like a funeral.

My public radio station called me for a quote as I was driving home.  I said no way, I’m not able to speak to the media.  I’d be shocked if they get an on-the-record quote from anyone who wasn’t laid off. I honestly think that’s an easy way to get fired.

I F#%!ed Up

Days like today are the best days to have a blog, because what else would I do with my angst? With a blog, I can store it all neatly right here and get it out of my head.

So….I f#%!ed up today in a very big and very public way.

Actually, I messed up back at xmastime; it just came out today.  I have a client, who is sunsetting a Small Subject-Area Tool.  At xmastime, I proofread a newsletter release he wrote about the sunset.  I failed to catch a critical error: He stated that Large Important Tool (the parent of Small Tool) was being eliminated entirely in 2009.  Not true. Only Small Tool is being eliminated.  It was my responsibility to catch the error — my client wasn’t in a position to know.

The newsletter went out over email today, to a third of the company.  The newsletter clearly & falsely stated that Large Tool is being eliminated. This caused quite the shock & surprised, and the newsletter began being forwarded.  Within minutes it had hit my boss’ boss’ inbox.  She’s the SVP.  If she got it that quickly, it was only minutes before the Executive Committee and the CEO got it.

The Executive Committee and the CEO loooooove the Large Important Tool. News, even false, of its demise  has likely triggered heart attacks.

But you know what? I’m not worried.

Sure, it’s an incredibly public mistake. Right before review time.  Visible to important people who control my promotion. And I have to publically issue a retraction. And apologize to my client for my mess-up, since he never would have released the news item if I hadn’t green-lighted it. And I don’t get to be a jackass and hide, or point blame at my client, or in any way deflect my responsiblity.

I‘m not worried, because I’m confident that I’ll be judged not on the fact that it happened, but on how I fix it. The fix — the retraction — is already underway, and I’m managing my SVP’s expectations. My boss is in the loop, and I’m over-communicating to him (insurance he likes).

Bear in mind, my personal brand is protecting me. If I wasn’t a great performer, and if my past actions hadn’t consistently showed I deliver results, prevent problems, fix problems and communicate well, then I would be judged on the fact that I caused the problem.  I think about a couple of my employees, past & present, whom I would have judged very harshly if this had happened on their watch, because they were inconsistent performers and this would have reinforced my perceptions of  spotty performance.

Great performance, a willingness to take partners and consistent ownership of weaknesses & mistakes are like money in the bank: I’ve got a little checkbook balance now I can spend, without being over-drawn.  If I handle the fix well, I might break even or end up with net positive credibility.

But GOOD GRIEF, there’s nothing like public massive fail in an area of strength to really make a gal feel like a million bucks! Plus, I broke my mother’s car key today, the remote-access kind of car key that costs $300 to fix/replace. MASSIVE FAIL.

Guess all I can do is keep on dancing, and laugh a little, so as not to end on a sour note.  HAHAHAHAHA!

A Little Paranoia

WSJ.com has one of those boilerplate doom-and-gloom economy stories in their career strategies section: Five Signs You May Be on the Layoff List.

In a nutshell,

1. Others are losing their jobs
2. Hiring freeze
3. Training budgets cut, projects slow down
4. Office gossip
5. Company is missing targets

At the F50C, 3 of 5 of these situations are already occurring, and a fourth, #4, is starting in some sectors.

I will be frank here: I stripped back my 401k withholding to just meet the company match, not because I’m concerned about how much I’ve lost in the last two quarters (a lot – but I have a long term view), or about buying equities (in fact now’s a great time to snap up tons of shares on the cheap), but because I want to maximize my cash flow and move those savings rapidly into cash. This is temporary, but:

In case.

In case something goes very wrong.

Because while senior management is not at this time sending any signals into the employee community about layoffs, my industry is extremely sensitive to macroeconomic forces, consumer confidence, and most importantly credit-fueled consumerism. And the latter is not just in practicality impossible for most people at this time, it’s also waaaaay out of vogue.

Also my company, within that industry, is not the low-cost leader nor do we have the low-cost perception among our customers.  We differentiate on style, quality and brand experience.

So I’m moving into cash.

Careful, MFK, that you don’t attract a layoff by dwelling on layoffs. Law of Attraction and all that.

If you were unexpectedly laid off, would you feel a tremendous sense of loss or a tremendous sense of relief? I’m not sure I know my answer to that question!

PS to E: good luck on your interview today!

Economy Hits Home

The economic downturn meltdown recession is starting to heat up around here.

• One of my friends just got laid off — he has the dubious distinction of being the first official person I know to be laid off.
• Another friend, out of work for some time, has finally applied for unemployment assistance.
• A third friend is receiving mixed messages from his boss. She wants him to work on three specific developmental goals, implying one minute, do this or we’ll lay you off and the next minute, do this so we can promote you.
• One pyramid in my company has an official hiring freeze. My pyramid doesn’t have a freeze but unofficially we are not posting or back-filling.  Accross the board, officers are reviewing open positions in their organizations and will propose to the executive committee which to post and which to ditch.
• One of my employees is freaking out a little because she is project-funded — capital is contracting (fewer projects) and she has seen bad results at former companies for project funded people during economic downturns.
• My nonprofit (I’m an emeritus board member –  treasurer & exec committee) is highly likely to be facing state funding cuts in the upcoming legislative round.
• I know several people stuck in homes they cannot sell.
• One friend recently received terrible personal financial news.

I should clarify that I live in Minnesota and while we are not dependent on traditional manufacturing here in the metro, we have a ton of Fortune 500 companies, all of whom are tightening the bootstraps.  We are also home to Northwest Airlines (recently merged with Delta), and we all know how healthy that industry is: they are hinting at layoffs.  Outstate, half of the state’s six mining companies expect layoffs. MN, like 41 other states, is facing a severe budget deficit.

All I can say is, I’m going to be focusing on what I can control. I will be making very measurable goals & objectives and then outperforming on them; sharpening my skill set through education; increasing my marketable experience via stretch assignments; laying groundwork with this blog to eventually diversify my income base; seeking freelance assignments now; helping my friends; praying; counting my blessings; and drinking wine.

Best of luck to you and yours, as well.

Now I Will Eat My Hat

No one has gotten promoted.

Contrary to my complete knee-jerk reaction, it was all a complete fabrication that I myself fabricated in my crazy old head.  Rather: titles were changed across several positions to bring title, pay grade and bonus status in my pyramid in line with title/pay grade/bonus combinations throughout the rest of the company. This is really good news, as now peer relationships with partners are more symbolically and factually even.

I have to eat my hat now, because I’m not an idiot, I’m not falling behind, I’m not on the slow track.  But because I let my icebergs take over I spent all weekend in a shame spiral, making all kinds of wild assumptions about what a non-promotable loser I was.  Icebergs suck.  They don’t serve me at all.  I am not a non-promotable loser, and there is objective proof to the contrary.  If I had just asked about it (neutrally, gracefully) when I first noticed the new titles, I would have gathered facts, and  facts are not a problem for me.  Crazy mangy headbees are my problem and without facts they swarm.

Please, please, the next time your icebergs pop up, or your hot buttons get pushed, or you receive news to which your first reaction is to be devastated, or your headbees buzz, please remember this incident.  I know I will.  Remember how crazy I went over nothing.  It’s no good for your mojo.  Remember to step back, stop making assumptions, and start gathering objective facts.  Remember that your icebergs don’t serve you.  Remember that your inner critic doesn’t have your best interest at heart.  Save yourself a lot of time and energy. You can mitigate your icebergs.  They don’t have to control how you feel or react. You can learn to be more optimistic.

Remembering this incident, and the fact that I did it publically on my blog, and how very delicious my hat tasted:  this is my new iceberg-melting heat lamp.

Feeling Really Discouraged

So I found out Friday that two colleagues whom I like and admire have been promoted. This is great news and I’m very happy for them.  I am also feeling super discouraged.

Why does this bother me?

Because these two, I thought of them as peers.  Peers who were one management level ahead of me, one title ahead of me. (This isn’t about pay or pay grade for me, it’s about title and the publicness of title.)

So I was behind, right? This is my thinking. If they’re a title level ahead of me, yet my peers, I must be doing something wrong and need to catch up.  They were a yardstick of sorts, because we were more alike than different.  And I did not measure up.

And now they are two title levels ahead of me.

So I feel stuck. Stupid.  Not even stuck: sliding backwards.

But why does this bother me so much?

I have been asking myself this for a year, ever since I read The Resilience Factor and took a class from the author.  I’m not yet 100% sure.  I know I have big hot-buttons, icebergs the book calls them, about:

• Recognition, especially by authority
• Public recognition of success, in this case via my publicly-known title
• An idea that I’ve failed if others succeed at a faster rate than me

Icebergs are those really deep-seated beliefs, the ones that are hard to even make yourself aware of, let alone let go of.  I am not sure where these icebergs came from. Something in childhood, early school perhaps? My parents set high standards, but never unrealistic expectations nor conditional love.

These icebergs do not serve me.  These icebergs directly contribute to my caution in reaching out to take risks with big payoffs (like aggressively positioning myself for promotion) or trying new experiences (it took me a year to decide to start this blog, and six years to decide to go to graduate school).  Of the several types of resilience the authors have identified, I am far less resilient than the norm on reaching out.

Plus, these icebergs make it easy for me to feel embarrassed and ashamed about myself, depressed, and apathetic (“why try”).

So what am I gonna do about it?

Two things.

1. I will work to neutralize icebergs when they get activated. (The book has useful tactics for doing this, but they are new behaviors I have to learn.) I will keep working to consciously make myself aware when an iceberg gets activated, deliberately choose to feel differently instead of giving into the auto-emotional response, and tell myself, “This doesn’t serve you at all, let it go.”

I will also make lists of factual proof contrary to what the icebergs are telling me.  In this case, proof that I am not failing nor unpromotable includes my stellar performance review score and explicit statements from my boss, former boss, and director that I am ready to promote and that they are positioning me for promotion.

2.  I will figure out how to more effectively and aggressively promote my career. Advocating for myself is perhaps my biggest weakness. I’ve long complained that I don’t know how to promote myself, but this isn’t true: via feedback I know I’m a great career coach to my employees and other colleagues.  So I will become a student of this. (I’m the daughter of academics, after all).  I will look for concrete, actionable tactics. I will ask myself what I’d council another to do, and take my advice.  I will seek out blogs & books about career advancement and study them.  And I will ask a couple of trusted colleagues for recommendations on a mentor for this specific topic/skill set.

Oh, and I will blog about it

That’s why I started this thing, yes?  Among other reasons, I just need to lay bare my biggest shame and my biggest blind spot. Ruminate on it, learn from others, hear comments & feedback, think out loud.

Really Good Problems to Have

Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!

I want to take a minute and remind myself — and all of you — that the problems I talk about on Open-Source Career, and that the other HR, career management and personal finance blogs talk about, are often really excellent problems to have.  I’m reflecting this Thanksgiving week on my situation and I’m finding myself lucky.

Here’s how I’m answering my Inner Critic, and reminding myself of just how much I am blessed:

1.  I haven’t been promoted yet, and people I used to know are promoting past me. That may be true, but the economy is melting down and I have an excellent job.  And I still have the job.  And there is no talk of layoffs at this time in my company.  Not only that, but I know how the pay grade structure works — they overlap by quite a bit — and I may easily be making more than some people with more advanced titles.  Finally, I know some folks who fast-tracked it up there.  I also know from conversations with others “up there” that there are not a lot of places to go once you’re there, that it is still an up-or-out track once you’re there, and that it’s incredibly competitive, disingenuous and bordering on back-stabby “up there.”  Bottom line: I’m on a marathon, not a sprint, what I do is basically very easy for me, and I don’t have to worry about back-stabby politics.

2.  I haven’t found or engineered my perfect role yet. Wow, talk about a navel-gazing, first-world, privileged problem to have. This is a GREAT problem.  I’m actually on easy street:  I’m well paid for what I do, and my industry is still relatively healthy.  I do not have to do manual labor.  I don’t work around dangerous equipment or chemicals, and the worst health impact my job could cause is carpal tunnel syndrome.  I can spend my time and angst focusing on finding the perfect role because I’m not spending my energy walking eight miles to get water (and plenty of folks in the world have to do that), surviving in a war-torn city, or dealing with abuse.  Bottom line: I’m really lucky, and I’m grateful for that.

3. I am deeply torn between being a working mom and a stay-at-home mom. Another great problem to have. Because the problem implies that I’ve got a choice.  Theoretically, I could choose to stay home, even though I’m more of the breadwinner.  Our standard of living might change drastically, or it might not, since by staying at home I’d have more time to do the artisan and homemaking things that I pay for now: cooking, housekeeping, gardening to raise our own food, acting as my own car mechanic, doing my own major home improvement projects.  Hell, I could even homeschool – he’d be able to figure compound interest by age seven! On the other hand, I’ve undertook a series of really big projects all throughout my maternity leave — I needed something challenging and interesting to do all day. Plus, while it’s a lot harder to work while my kiddo is very young, if I step off the career track now and find myself wanting to work on something difficult, competitive, lucrative and interesting once he’s in school, I might never get back on track.  A recent study shows that women who keep their careers end up happier in middle age. I’ll continue to re-assess full time vs. part time and work vs. stay at home.  As my mom always reminds me, being a stay-at-home mom is hard work. And no big changes for at minimum 30 days. Bottom line: at this point in time I want and need to work, and that’s not a bad thing.

What to Do When You’re Totally Overwhelmed? Smackdown!

Team, I’m privileged to be a guest poster over at the excellent 101 Smackdowns For Your Inner Critic.  I wrote about a great technique for calming the whirlwind – and your Inner Critic’s negative voice – when you’re totally overwhelmed.  Here’s an excerpt:

I am prone to a) inserting myself into totally-out-of-the-comfort-zone situations and b) getting totally overwhelmed as a result.  Since part a) is what helps me grow the most, and generally pays the biggest dividends, I have had to find a smackdown to combat part b). I’d like to share it with you by way of my favorite example:

I graduated from a very small liberal arts college with a writing degree and then for the next six years worked exclusively in and with non-profits and lived a freewheeling lifestyle of clubbing, tattoos and underground commix.  Suddenly one day I decided to pursue an MBA and a life in corporate America. This decision was borne not from cool-headed thinking, but from the emotional aftermath from a political takeover of my agency and the firing of my mentor.

Talk about out of comfort zone.  Not only did I have no undergraduate education whatsoever in business or economics, I had no corporate experience at all.  Nor did I even own a suit. Nor do I really have a head for math. Or skill at golf.

But I had decided to join a top-30 ranked business school, study finance (math math math!), sell out into a corporate job, hold my own with the “golf playing assholes,” as I mistakenly thought all corporate types were, and wear a suit.  And because I’m both a perfectionist and competitive, I took it upon myself to kick ass at it all.

Talk about overwhelmed. Totally, utterly, unbelievably overwhelmed.

What did I do to combat this? Head over to 101 Smackdowns to find out.

Relieved

Back to work = not nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be, although I am shocked and scandalized at how little time remains in the day to be with the babe (bedtime is 7:00).  More later.