One of the ways to prove your readiness for a promotion or why you should be hired before a sea of other candidates is to create hypothetical case histories of different business problems and discuss the problems, business ramifications, and proposed solutions in great detail. We are talking pages, not two lines on your resume. Put your remedies on the table with a deep, strategic discussion of why they offer the best ROI (return on investment) for the business situation and be willing to be graded/critiqued for your proposed fixes before or early in the interview process. It will help you get into higher level interviews sooner and more often.

It is giving away free consulting, perhaps, but in a risk-adverse job market, it may move you past other contestants. It is actually safer in this instance not to offer remedies to the potential employer’s current problems, because it is likely you will not know some choice business tidbit that suddenly makes your proposed remedy look foolish. If you write about enough different business situations credibly, you will suggest that you could make future headway on the problems of the employer you are hoping to impress even if you don’t currently have all the information to score an A+ today for the target project. It is an effective way to show you are viable for a new industry.

If you were thinking of whining about all the work I am suggesting, one of my coaching clients, who had been at $150K before being laid off, moved to a $235K salary in his next move by creating a “portfolio” showcasing his business insights. He intends to repeat the strategy in the near future to accelerate his next promotion. (He also pointed out the exercise cost less than his MBA and accomplished more.)

Another approach is to write an erudite white paper or two on bleeding edge industry issues. Write an article that gets into the WSJ or Financial Times or the leading trade magazine in your industry. You can’t plagiarize or try to “snow” anyone with these. You need to be ready to discuss any of the topics for 2-3 hours convincingly in an interview.

This process is a good exercise to test how credible you are as a candidate for a more senior role than you have had previously without long term risk to any party. Both you and the hiring manager may need to see the concrete proof of how you rank versus other candidates.

It is also good way to remove the personal stigma of having been at a failing company in a senior title. I just recommended the process to someone who has been at several small start-ups that did not make it long term.

The flip side of this strategy is that, for something like 10 years now, companies have been pulling in 10-15 candidates and giving them 40-70 hour assignments of what would they do in X situation without paying consulting fees. Then the company takes the consensus of all the hopeful applicants and doesn’t hire any of them. I first saw this phenomenon amongst high level IT Project Managers with PMPs. I happen to think this is unethical and would never work for a company that asked it. One way to defend yourself against it is to offer solutions to problems at other companies as suggested in the second paragraph, before or regardless if the company asks for “free advice” with bad intentions.

It is all about demonstrating your thought leadership in a way that allows you to hop, skip, and jump past other potential candidates.  It also allows you to grow as fast as you can rather than waiting for company projects that allow you to flex your muscles.

Topics: branding + positioning, communications, getting ahead, innovation, interviews, leadership, management skills, salary, selling skills, solving problems, technical skills, visibility | 1 Comment »

Just because you work for someone else, doesn’t mean you should not consider yourself 100% responsible for your own business success.

I am always surprised how many people, when asked why they were laid off, say “I don’t know why I was in the 10% laid off.” The same people frequently say things like  “I make my revenue quotas every year” without really knowing how they are viewed versus others at their current employer with the same quota track record or title. It is also typical of those who rely too heavily on relationship-building strategies.

You need to know how to make opportunities for yourself in any situation, independent of, or in spite of, the organization agenda.

Because employers will experience more and more pressure from globalization and innovation in the future, employers will have less and less ability to care for an individual’s destiny. It will be increasingly critical for you to know, defend, and augment your value to the current organization and the larger industry. It is just as important to a happy, currently working employee as to someone unemployed.

So how do you gain traction over your own image?

The key strategy is to gain awareness of your impact on the organization and customers as others measure it. You need to solicit constant feedback from your internal and external customers: What can I do to serve you better? Where do I (and we, the company) impact your business most? What do you value? What would you like me to do less of? Who are the other stakeholders I should get to know better (and serve) better? How do I rank versus your other providers? What are your unmet needs?

You need to be sincere about these questions, and ask them in an “open-ended manner” so that you hear issues other than the ones you expected.

If you have grown up in an engineering-driven or sales-driven environment, you need to become more customer-centric. The customer doesn’t care much about your agenda as provider, and will care less and less in the future as they will have more and more providers and services to choose from. You need to be seen as the preferred provider. Are you?

Career coaching is as relevant to someone happily working as to someone in transition.

Topics: branding + positioning, communications, getting ahead, management skills, networking, selling skills, visibility | No Comments »

Innovation in a service organization is usually driven by consumer demand or displeasure with previous services available where as, in manufacturing, innovation may be the result of engineering or VOC. As services are not protected by patent, it is more difficult for service companies to maintain the advantage over subsequent competitors. To win at this game, the company first-in-market must expand or adjust its service quickly to pre-empt the competition, and invest sufficiently to establish and maintain a leading brand image. For the more commodity-like services, response time and flawless execution are relatively more important. Ongoing continuous improvement and performance metric strategies are recommended to maintain a leadership position.

Consider that marrying new technology to a new service (especially if patentable) is an effective way to slow down competitors. On the other end of the spectrum, providing a deliberately higher level of touch with the customer provides an advantage.

For any of these strategies, the company that spends more time carefully designing and process-mapping the service to be offered in depth before launch will be more successful. Similarly, the company should invest heavily in training its staff and run simulations before opening for business with the public.

Note that the distance between tangible and intangible activities is blurring in the discussion above. The service companies that dissect their services and activities into tangible, trainable, measurable competencies – even for activities that provide a higher touch experience for the customer – will have the advantage.

Topics: innovation, management skills, product development, selling skills | No Comments »

One of the leading VCs (Venture Capitalists) in the country, Arthur Rock, maintains that a “great idea won’t make it without great management.” That turning a good idea into a good business is about everyday management of the company. “Good ideas and good products are a dime a dozen…Good execution and good management … are rare.”

He looks for leaders and teams who will know how well or how badly things are really going and not be deluded by their own optimism, ego, or their staff. A successful or innovator or entrepreneur must have enough self-awareness to know his/her own limitations and when to ask for help or delegate. Know when to change his/her management style as the company grows. Know how to select the right team. How to inspire others. How to make the hard decisions. Good managers need to be able to adapt, and change strategies quickly and gracefully if something doesn’t work.

Good business results are more about the EQ of the players than the technology of the product.

source: Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1987

Topics: business skills, ideation, innovation, leadership, management skills | 4 Comments »