WTF Have I Been Doing??

Working, yo!

Busy bee, busy busy bee. Heads-down, goin’ to town, gettin’ down. Executing, talking back, talking sass, bias for action.

Telling all the so-and-sos to quit the bitchin’, quit the moans, and get off yr ass to do something about it if you’re gonna open yr mouth to complain.

Holding the bar, raising it higher. Holding people accountable. Expecting excellence. Expecting resilience.

Delegating up. Telling my boss what I think.

Also: spring cleaning, donating money, donating clothing, play date, day off, run run run run run very fast, makin’ chicken, baby eatin’ chicken now, fixin’ the car, washin’ the car, washin’ the laundry, seeing old friends, seeing the neighbors, bringing the bacon and frying up in a pan, eating lots & lots of bacon.

See you, space cowboys!

Strokin’ Teh Ego

Joan strokes my ego all the time so of course I love her, but nonetheless it’s nice to get positive feedback from a director.

Today she left me a voice mail, You’re an activator, MFK, an ACTIVATOR. I want you around me all the time!

All because I told her, let’s just declare you the owner of this data instead of asking around for permission and hoping someone drives a top-down decision. I’ll broker an agreement between you and the other department, and we’ll get the SVP to bless it and then we can just get STARTED.

Sigh. Sometimes it’s soooooo annoying working in a consensus-based culture.  And sometimes you just have to be an ACTIVATOR.

Your Daily Poetry: My Groovy Learning (Free Verse, I’m Not Rhymin’ Yo)

In regards to  entirely unrelated set of
Mildly hysterical partners,
I was reminded once again
Sometimes best response is

Stay away

Do absolutely nothing

The hysterical people will sort themselves out.

Does not always work
More art than science
Always seems to resolve in my favor
I am hysterically unscathed

Sometimes helps to ask a small question
Like seeding a cloud
So that it rains
Just bring umbrella

Or get coffee

Return when dry.

Rant About a Bunch of Leaders in a Twist

I am very frustrated today.  Let me just describe the situation to you in a neutral fashion:  a bunch of mid-level managers, certainly though all in pay grades way above mine, all with their man-panties and lady-panties in a twist, and none able to agree with each other on:  a) presenting problem, b) possible approach, c) solution options.  All with a falsely heightened sense of urgency. None (well, maybe one) with a methodical approach. And I am caught in the middle.

I am feeling a little sorry for myself, and also pulled in about four directions simultaneously.

Hmmm, I should buck up.  Buck right the hell up.  What would I tell my employee, if this were her caught in the middle?

• You add value by creating clarity, simplicity and a methodical approach where this semi-hysterical group of leaders can’t.
• Don’t rely on your leader(s) to fix this for you. Influence w/o authority.
• You want to be promoted? Act like you already are.  How would a Manager Level 3 handle this?
• It’s your job to get these partners organized, cooperating and moving forward.
• Need the boss to actually fix something? First identify really clearly what you need. Then delegate up, setting really clear expectations. Don’t just ask him to “help me manage Leader X” — that’s too vague.
• Be a calming influence.
• Help Leader Y and Director Z act. Stop their spin.

Interestingly, I can do all this.  Creating clarity, finding a plan through the mud, calming, stopping spin, bias for action are all things I do.  I’m a little tense about influence w/o authority, but that is on my developmental agenda for this year.  And gee, the powers that be (God? Universal force for good? Martians?) have handed me a perfect opportunity here on this old silver platter.

I really need to stop feeling sorry for myself.

For now I will just adjourn to watch Battlestar Galactica on DVD.

Nerd Update

Still a nerd.

But I figured out how to game it.  Now I just slouch and slob around on a ridiculous looking balance ball instead of slouching and slobbing in a chair.

Abs not sixpack. Back not strong. I actually feel like I gained weight.

Plateau? Darkest before the storm? I dunno but I signed on for two more weeks.

Rypple Review

As you know, I got viral-marketed and bit the bait. (Sorry everyone – now I’m reinforcing viral marketing tactics as valid, and now an army of Intern Nathaniels are going to march into our blogs with product advertisements thinly veiled as yes-man comments.)  Rypple is a service that lets you ask focused, specific questions and get fast feedback.

So now I’ve tried out Rypple.  I asked two questions of two groups:

• I asked my team what is the one thing I should do more of to support them and what should I stop doing
• I asked two partners & their boss how I can be more effective in my format & the info I provide to them when I ask for updates and corrections to expense center credits. (They manage the process and I can’t be successful without their help but they have a lot of trouble executing our correction requests accurately/at all.)

Here’s what I liked about Rypple:

• It enforces character limits on the question you ask, encouraging you to ask a short, focused question.  No long-winded, gasbag-of-vague questions.
• It saves your questions and your feedback in your account — If you’d asked me I’d have said I didn’t care about such a feature, but having stumbled into that part of the site, I think it’s handy and cool.
• It makes the feedback anonymous, so the people you ask can feel safe to be candid.
• It pre-fills but lets you customize the little intro note that goes with your question.
• It emails your feedback to you as it comes in. No need to monitor the site.
• Recent questions people have Ryppled scroll on the front page — they’re good questions and gave me good ideas.
• User interface is cool and Mac-like. I can’t stand poor user interfaces.

What I hated about Rypple:

• It took them about 18 hours to activate my account once I signed up. WTF? In this era? Activation should be instant!  HOWEVER, looks like this will be fixed once they exit private beta and launch wide — activation will be instantaneous.  The rationale for delayed activation in beta is due to a desire to monitor the sign-up list and reach out & personally connect with beta users. Well, they connected with me already when they viral marketed me, and there was no reaching out when I signed up, just delay.  Delayed activation may add some value to Rypple developers, but it adds no value to users — if Rypple wants to connect, activate immediately and then reach out. It makes so little sense that I’m inferring (right or wrong) that the activation delay in beta is  not about better connection to users but rather serves some security or development need — so just be honest and say so.
• Every time you hit the home page, an irritating message pops up saying they notice I don’t have IE 7 and that Rypple works best with IE 7. Rypple is targeting corporate folks, but people in large organizations almost always don’t have admin rights to upgrade software on their own. Most large corporations are not on the current version of Windows because upgrading can cause major disruption, and becasue upgrades are often done on wonky schedules related to contracts w/ Microsoft. Etc. So don’t bug us with this irritating message.
• Rypple offers helpful training on how to ask good feedback questions. But it’s video, so I completely ignored it.  In my cubicle farm at work, watching video with sound is really irritating to others. They need some text-friendly stuff for those of us in open workspaces.
• Rypple enforces that character limit, but that alone doesn’t prevent you from asking vague, unproductive, nonspecific questions.  It just prevents you from asking long unprodicutve questions. (But it’s a start!)
• Most of my askees haven’t yet responded.  Rypple is only good if people participate with your questions.  If they are busy, feel intimidated to answer, don’t want to be candid, or forget to answer. Rypple will not help you.

All in all though, I’ll keep giving Rypple a try. I also told three people whom I thought would be interested, and now I’m telling you. Hmmmm, who’s the viral marketer now? You can just call me Tool of The Man.

PS: intern Nathaniel just pointed to this article on getting good feedback. Love the POV!

Dorking It up at Work

I am nerding out at work, by sitting on a huge green stability ball.  In a serious suit. And heels. And pearls. For two weeks.  Here is my dork FAQ:

Why are you such a total nerd, yo?

Karen was very, very pregnant and had back trouble and therefore a stability ball at her desk.  I asked, do those things really work??? and she was all, hells yeah my back is cured, nerd! Now Karen is gone on maternity leave so I am borrowing her stability ball to see if it works for me.

What are you trying to accomplish, such that you would be willing to max out dork style?

I have a notoriously weak core and lately my back is killing me, I’m accident-prone and I slouch.  Sitting on a stability ball all day every day is supposed to strengthen your core.  I’m hoping it also helps with balance and posture, because of how you have to hold yourself and constantly re-correct wobbles, to stay upright.

How can sitting around all day give you abs of steel?

That’s what I said.

How big a nerd you gonna be?

A two-week nerd, minimum.

Expected results:

• Everyone asks, Hey did you have one of those bouncy things where you sat on it and bounced when you were a kid?
  
• My back is killing me, but it’s only day 2 and Karen said the first week is rough and the rest of the weeks are magic.

Unexpected results:

• My boss is all like, hey be careful on that thing, do I have to get you a helmet?
• And I’m all like, yeah you need a business continuation plan.
• Total autistic zone-out with the repetitive motion if you get into just a slight bounce. Very soothing.
• Sitting in a regular chair feels super-weird now.
• JOY! bouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebounce

Weekly Review 12/14/08

OK, here’s the deal:  I’m going to stop weekly reviewing about my goals for this blog, because my goals are basically to write great content and to comment a lot on career blogs that interest me.  Those goals aren’t going to change any time soon, so I’ll drop back the blog weekly review to quarterly or so.

What I really want to talk about and what you really want to read about is not how I’m managing the blog but how I’m managing my career development.

So going forward my weekly review here will be all about the career development stuff I don’t put into my public flash status at work.  I’m all about being public about wins, ah-ha moments and regrets, but some career development stuff just isn’t appropriate for my direct reports to read, and/or I just don’t want analysts six pay grades below mine all up in my beeswax.

Recap of last week:

Done, but of course I always feel I could & should & want to write more and comment more, so I will keep focused on that.

On to next week:

1. Goal: strengthen reputation as outperformer. MIT: push hard hard hard in the goal/objective setting offsite Monday to ensure the management team in general, and I specifically, do NOT sign up for ANY objectives that are not seriously specific and measurable. Our work lists towards the squishy strategic side.  It’s very hard to make strategic objectives measurable.  Without measurability and specificity it’s very hard to set a baseline.  Without a baseline, I cannot set a bar.  Without a bar, I do not know what success, or outperformance, looks like. I DO know that performance reviews looks best with outperformance on it, and I want some o’ that:  I’m really good at what I do, but I want to stop relying on subjective assessments and start proving it objectively. (Tim, I am imagining that you’re reading this and chuckling, ’cause yeah we’re often pretty squishy.  Let me know how well you think we do.)

2.  Goal: strengthen my reputation as an outperformer. MIT: once the offsite locks down the management team goals/objectives, lock my g/o into a final draft by Friday. Let’s get this crap out of the planning stages and get some game ON!   Bias for action, holla!

3.  Goal: be courted for new roles & new jobs.  MIT: work on re-opening my network, by scheduling two coffees, lunches or statuses, one with a hiring manager who has a prospect for me, one with a former manager, director or VP, to reconnect, hear what’s up in their world, drop my elevator speech, and remind them (sweetly, graciously) how great I am. D’oh, better update that elevator speech!

Cool Orderly Not-Mess

Team, as you know I’m a hot jumbled mess this week.  But I’m taking steps to fix it, so here’s some crack for you organizing junkies out there: how I organize my career files.

Admin: administrative stuff like job descriptions, compensation comparison calculator, salary survey results, etc.

Accomplishments: I like to have things easy to find at my fingertips come review-writing time.

* Feedback – written feedback on my performance & contribution.

* Flash Status -  a short status document we produce at work highlighting our major accomplishment, learning and regret each week

* Goals & Objectives – my long-term and current-year GO (both job-specific and developmental), my boss’ and VP’s GOs, any recaps of GO accomplished.

* Reviews – mid-year and annual reviews.  I keep my self-review write ups & my boss’ write up if I have it in electronic form. I keep a hard copy of all reviews, with signatures, and compensation change summaries as well.

* Wins – tracking of major projects and key accomplishments throughout the year.  In order to dissuade myself from tracking every single minute task, I call these Wins to help me keep focused on the key accomplishments.  (The flash status could, and probably should, replace this. It’s faster & easier.)

Branding: Let’s face it, interviewing is just a type of personal branding, and personal branding is about way more than just resumes, interviews and job searches.

* Bio & Elevators – occasionally I’m called on to write a short career bio blurb for panels I’m on or other such uses.  And we must always have our elevator speech (who you are, what you’re working on now, how you add value) at the ready.  I update/re-write my elevators on a regular basis.

* Interview Prep – I save, if I can, copies of interview forms I’ve encountered over the years, and I have an extensive question set of possible interview questions.  This helps me practice my answers, and is also handy when I’m called on to be an interviewer.  Sadly, I think I may have to re-consolidate my enormous question set. Back up your files weekly, people!

* Presentations Portfolio – I save copies of really great presentations and writings I’ve done, in case I ever need to provide samples or a portfolio to prospective employeers or collaborating partners.

* Resume – I have writing-focused and a project-management-focused versions of my resume and of the internal resume format that my company uses. While each resume is tailored to showcase different talents and focus, they all have key components in common: highlighting my strenghts, showcasing leadership & people management, and showcasing steady promotion/progression. I also keep all prior copies of my resume in an archive, as well as sample resumes, action-word lists, and even job postings I find exciting/compelling (to copy the language used).

Career Library: Copies of really useful or inspiring articles and presentations — because you can’t always count on things staying in place on the interwebs.

Development: All things career-advancement-, skill-development-, and assessment-related.

* Career Statuses - notes and agendas from career development meetings with bosses and mentors.

* Diagnostics – tools, inventories, tricks, tips for diagnosing or clarifying aptitude, interest, values, vision, work style, preferences, etc.  And results of the diagnostics I’ve done that I find most helpful.

* Learning Journals – notes/postmortems from key learning moments. I haven’t used this technique lately, but have found it very helpful in the past.

* Networking – copies of networking correspondence, contact tracking and networking to-dos.

Job Searches: cover letters, correspondence, one-time tailored versions of resumes, and all other schwag related to specific job hunts.

More Books

I’ve added more book mini-reviews to the Books page. Check it out!