It’s Your Career-7 Key Do’s and Don’ts for the Newly Minted MBA

May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

It'sYourCareerIt’s graduation season again in the U.S. and for most newly minted MBA graduates, it’s time for a reality check. Here are some hard-won words of wisdom on how to navigate the steps immediately following your graduation.

All over the U.S., there’s a fresh new crop of MBA candidates preparing to say goodbye to their classmates as they wrap up what will be for many, the final phase of their academic careers. A key question on their minds is, “What’s next?”

For the graduates, there’s an expectation that the degree will reasonably and quickly translate into new opportunities, fresh promotions and improved earning power. While those who graduate from the top-tier schools may find themselves on a fast or at least faster track towards opportunities and increased earnings, many (read: most) MBA graduates face a reality that looks an awful lot like more of the same, albeit, with a bit more free time.

There will be ceremonies and speeches and parties, and rounds of drinks offered up by coworkers at local watering holes.  Bosses will congratulate the new graduates, and then June will melt into July, and in many cases, not much will change for the now former students.

For those who find themselves facing a post-school return to corporate or professional normalcy, without the hoped-for “pop” from the degree, here are some thoughts on coping and capitalizing:

7 Key Do’s and Don’ts for Newly Minted MBAs:

1. Do accept that your boss views you the same on the Monday after graduation as she did last Friday. Nothing has fundamentally changed about you in her mind. Sorry, but there’s no immediate mantle of legitimacy or wisdom bestowed upon you as you shake hands and grab the diploma. You’re a work-in-process, just like the rest of us.

2. Do congratulate yourself for having the intestinal fortitude it takes to complete your degree while working, balancing family responsibilities and all of the other challenges of life. Believe it or not, your current and many future bosses will view your accomplishment not so much as remarkable or rare, but rather as a sign of your tenacity and ability to stay-the-course.

3. Don’t expect a promotion just because of the degree. It happens, but it’s not as common as you might have anticipated. The almost immediate post-MBA promotions are most often an outcome of a development program already in-place coupled with the recognition that the timing is right to task you with more. Every boss knows that the new MBA will toy with the idea of moving to greener ($) pastures, however, if you weren’t on the high-potential or fast-tack list prior to the degree, the sheepskin won’t make much of a difference in the current environment. Translation, you’ll have to navigate your own way up or out.

4. Do use the milestone as an opportunity to work with your boss and refresh your professional development plan.  It’s a great time to sit down with your boss and update or create a professional development plan. There’s every reason for you to assert that you can and want to do more for the firm, and every civilized boss will recognize the need to start feeding this fresh appetite or risk losing you.

5. Don’t even remotely hint that unless you are promoted you are gone. It’s time to show what you can do, not show that after 3 years and $150,000, you’ve grown arrogant.

6. Do accept that the completion of your MBA is the beginning of your next apprenticeship as a leader and a professional. Grad school doesn’t teach you how to lead, nor does it turn you into a great strategist, a future CEO or a management innovator.  You’ve apprenticed on the tools…mostly the science of management (hey, no jokes about the dismal science, please!), and you’ve got a license to begin applying them.  The real work of learning to lead and learning how to create value for your stakeholders has just begun.

7. Do recognize that your primary task is how to make yourself more valuable to everyone around you. Now that you are no longer distracted by school, it’s time to answer, “What have you done for us lately?” Accomplishments are the currency of the realm, not degrees!

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Congratulations! I’ll buy the first round and then tomorrow, we’ve got to figure out how to thump competitors and survive and thrive in this incredibly complex and fast-moving world. Sure hope you paid attention. Now show me what you’ve learned!

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:book cover: shows title Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development by Art Petty. Includes image of a coffee cup.

Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here

For more ideas on professional development-one sound bite at a time, check out Art’s latest book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.

New to leading or responsible for first time leader’s on your team? Subscribe to Art’s New Leader’s e-News.

An ideal book for anyone starting out in leadership: Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.

 

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Getting Ahead, It's Your Career!, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth Tagged With: , ,

Just One Thing: How to Defuse Difficult Workplace Discussions

May 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Just One ThingAlmost all of us get this wrong in the professional environment at some time or another. Myself included.

We find ourselves in a tense situation with someone or some group who is attempting to assert a direction or insert themselves into the area we perceive as our domain, and we react by aggressively defending our position and by challenging or attacking their position.

In this situation, the part of our brain that says “fight” has won, and by dealing with the situation as a turf battle or a battle over “how” we’ve given up the chance to learn, advance and importantly, help our team or our firm.

The opportunity and the challenge is for us to take a step back and focus on uncovering the interests of our colleague (the Why) and to reconcile his or her interests with our own core thinking on the issue.

5 Ideas to Help Derail Arguments by Uncovering Interests:

1. Learn to recognize and tame your “fight” response when approached with a position-based assertion or encroachment from a co-worker. Your natural inclination is to react in kind. The right inclination is to pause and recognize the situation as an opportunity to move towards interest clarity.

2. Use “Why?” questions to uncover interests. One of the tools popularized in the Toyota Production System,  the “5 Whys Method,” is an example of this at work. When someone presents you with an idea or need, a series of “why-focused” questions will help you move from position to the essence or interest behind the idea. While it can be obnoxious to respond to every utterance of your co-worker with “Why?” you can creatively adapt this technique to fit your situation.

3. Lead the conversation by example and share your own interests. Effective resolution requires a dialog and it’s fine to be the first one to open up on the drivers behind the issue at hand. You immediately change the tone and tenor of the conversation by moving off of position and on to the motives and intentions for your approach. Your counterpart will typically respond in kind.

4. Seize and single out convergent interests. Too many people end up arguing points they already agree upon. Capture points of alignment, acknowledge the agreement and move on to identifying and discussing any divergent interests.

5. Add an objective third party to the discussion on remaining divergent interests. The objective 3rd party can listen and probe and help whittle down points of seeming divergence to their base level. Unless you’re faced with a world-domination versus let’s all live peacefully set of opposed interests, most workplace topics share a common set of interests around one or more of: improve, learn, reduce, strengthen, move faster etc, and this third party can help both of you zero in on the points of alignment.

 The Bottom-Line for Now:

Like it or not, our world of work is held hostage to our ability to communicate effectively with each other. Focusing on interests and eliminating the arguments over positions is a great way to improve communication effectiveness and gain better alignment in your organization.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:book cover: shows title Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development by Art Petty. Includes image of a coffee cup.

Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here

For more ideas on professional development-one sound bite at a time, check out Art’s latest book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.

New to leading or responsible for first time leader’s on your team? Subscribe to Art’s New Leader’s e-News.

An ideal book for anyone starting out in leadership: Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.

 

 

Filed Under: Career, Getting Ahead, Just One Thing, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: The Difference Between Finishers and 70-Percenters

April 14, 2013 by 5 Comments

image of a coffee cupThere’s a class of professionals in the world one of my former bosses labeled as “70-Percenters.” They’re the people who are great at making noise, and even getting things started, but they don’t know how to close. They’re not finishers.

Are you a Finisher or a 70-Percenter? Are you cultivating Finishers on your team?

5 Key Behaviors of Finishers: 

1. Finishers walk into the heat. The 70-Percenter runs away from messy situations, while the Finisher understands that she owns a problem or difficult team situation until it’s solved. She recognizes that one of her jobs is to lead the cleanup on organizational spills, and she relishes the opportunity to help a team move from disaster to success.

2. Finishers understand that commitment IS commitment. The 70-Percenters are masters of excuses. Finishers eat accountability for breakfast, exude responsibility all day long and display fortitude in the most difficult of circumstances. Projects are completed, issues are resolved, problems are fixed and opportunities are pursued with a vengeance.

3. Finishers want the ball with time running out. 70-Percenters fear the implications of blowing the final shot. They look to pass the ball. Finishers are the sales representatives who engineer game-winning drives to bring home the orders at the end of the quarter and the engineers and developers who understand what it takes to go from whiteboard to finished product.

4. Finishers aren’t glory hounds, they are results fiends. 70-Percenters love the limelight, and live to find it. Finishers value the results and lessons learned. They climb mountains because they’re there and they complete their work, because anything else is tantamount to giving up. Finishers don’t know the words, “I give up.”

5. Finishers look around corners for answers. 70-Percenters run from vexing dilemmas and situations where the answers might involve a blend of experimentation and hard work. Finishers understand the iterative nature of most solution development activities and live to experiment and to gain insights from non-traditional sources in untraditional ways.

 The Bottom-Line for Now:

Finishers make the world go. 70-Percenters are along for a fun ride, but they don’t provide much locomotive power. As a leader, strive to cultivate Finishers on your team. Reinforce accountability and importantly display the behaviors that teach by example. As an individual contributor, adopt the behaviors above. They need to be part of your professional DNA.

While a team filled with Finishers offers its own challenges, it certainly beats the painful monotony of coping with the chronic under-performance of 70-Percenters.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:book cover: shows title Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development by Art Petty. Includes image of a coffee cup.

Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here

For more ideas on professional development-one sound bite at a time, check out Art’s latest book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.

New to leading or responsible for first time leader’s on your team? Subscribe to Art’s New Leader’s e-News.

An ideal book for anyone starting out in leadership: Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.

 

 

Filed Under: Career, Getting Ahead, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine Tagged With: , , ,

New Leader Tuesday: Start Leading Before the Promotion

April 2, 2013 by 8 Comments
Image of a sign that reads: Under New Management

New Leader Tuesday at Management Excellence

In Monday’s Leadership Caffeine post, I strongly encouraged senior managers to accelerate the pace of their leadership development activities for their high potentials. Today, it’s your turn.

Quit waiting for the boss to bestow the mantle of leadership responsibility on you. It’s time for you to seek out opportunities that help you cultivate the critical communication, motivation and decision-making skills so critical to your development as a leader.

5 Ideas to Gain Leadership Experience Before the Title:

1. Volunteer to Lead Something. Anything. Seriously, whether it’s the planning committee for the holiday party or Summer picnic or an initiative that’s on the boss’s wish list, jump in with both feet and learn what it’s like to bring a project in on time, under budget and with great results.

2. Interview the Firm’s Leaders about their Leadership Experiences.  I enjoyed watching a newly minted college graduate who was set on quickly moving into a supervisory role, navigate her way through a series of interviews with the firm’s senior leaders. Her enthusiasm, great questions and interest in the challenges and experiences of people in positions of authority left a great  impression that certainly kept her front-of-mind for one of the next promotions.

3. Make a Project Manager a Mentor. This often under-appreciated role is filled with great professionals who achieve miracles with little direct authority over their resources. They build trust, motivate people who don’t work for them and facilitate the art and science of delivering initiatives. Shadow, observe and soak up the lessons!

4. Step into Sticky Situations on Your Team. I make it a habit of looking for those individuals who display the ability to bring calm and focus and who can promote progress in situations where everyone else is flailing or panicking. Be that person and you’ll be noticed.

5. Strive to Be a Great Follower. While perhaps counter-intuitive, striving to be a great follower for your boss helps you strengthen your understanding of the role of the leader. Personally, professionally and politically, it’s a great way to build your reputation and gain trust from your boss.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

While I’ll work on prodding the boss along to create and implement an aggressive leadership development program to help you make that move into a role responsible for others, don’t wait for either of us. You own your career and you own your professional development. Set a brisk pace based on a deliberate plan of action and keep moving forward.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:book cover: shows title Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development by Art Petty. Includes image of a coffee cup.

Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here

For more ideas on professional development-one sound bite at a time, check out Art’s latest book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.

New to leading or responsible for first time leader’s on your team? Subscribe to Art’s New Leader’s e-News.

An ideal book for anyone starting out in leadership: Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.

 

 

Filed Under: Career, Getting Ahead, Leadership, Marketing Yourself, New Leader Tuesday, Professional Growth Tagged With: , ,

Best Of: Trying Not to Fail is Not the Same as Striving for Success

December 31, 2012 by 2 Comments

Road sign with Succes in one direction and failure in the otherThis post is excerpted from my collection: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. There’s a definite difference between focusing on not failing versus striving for success.

When we focus on not failing, fear rents most of the space in our mind, and we see monsters in need of slaying everywhere we turn. We lose track of the original vision that propelled our actions, and the sheer act of working becomes at best a passionless exercise and at worst, drudgery.

Lousy Leaders Thrive on Your Misery:

Sadly, many leaders provide fuel for the “don’t fail” machine through their actions.  Show me a project team or functional group that exhibit all of the energy and passion of a collection of late-night television zombies, and I’ll guarantee there’s one or more tyrannical, micro-managing leaders at the source of the dysfunction.

The Scarlet “F

The “don’t fail” disease isn’t limited to the corporate world.  I know small business owners and solopreneurs who have stepped into this gooey emotional muck during the past few years of economic unpleasantness. Instead of lessons-learned and fuel for problem solving and innovation, setbacks are worn for all to see as Scarlet F’s, where F stands for failure.  Of course, what they forget is that no one can really see the Scarlet F’s unless they go out of their way to project them through their attitudes.

You Own Your Attitude:

Striving not to fail is like walking up to take your turn at bat when the only thought running through your mind is, “don’t strike out.”  The last two words, “strike out” are all that you remember as you flail wildly at everything thrown your way.

If you’re caught up in an environment where an evil leader holds court, remember that you still own your attitude.  While it’s not easy to escape the fog of uncertainty and doubt created by these characters, it’s unlikely that their attempts at mind control can survive in a pitched battle against your own good attitude.

If you are your own boss and you feel weighted down and exposed by the scarlet F’s you believe you are carrying around with you, it’s critical to rediscover the feelings of excitement, hope and opportunity that likely propelled you off on your own in the first place.

Rediscover or Reset Your Sense of Purpose:

Somewhere buried beneath the baggage and stress of the past few years, you had a sense of purpose that fueled your efforts.  Whether it was providing for others or an intense desire to change the world, it’s important to scrape off the muck and recall that sense of greater mission.

Of course, we change over time, and what fueled us at one phase of life may not be so relevant at another stage.  I know many people who have recharged their lives and their work as professionals by resetting their sense of purpose from a focus on success to an emphasis on making a difference for someone or some group.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

It’s easy to focus on failure.  It’s a lot more fun, it’s a lot healthier and it darned well is a lot more inspiring to rationalize our efforts and actions and combat our demons in the context of our bigger purpose.

Those who focus on success see victory around every corner.  They view obstacles and setbacks as minor challenges to be overcome on a longer journey towards something worthwhile.

No one can take away your sense of purpose, unless you let them.  Focus your gaze clearly on the bigger picture and longer term, take a deep breath and then take the first step forward.  You’ll quickly remember that steps taken with a purpose in mind are effortless.

Now, keep moving.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:

Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register herebook cover: shows title Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development by Art Petty. Includes image of a coffee cup.

For more ideas on professional development-one sound bite at a time, check out Art’s latest book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. 

Download a free excerpt of Leadership Caffeine (the book) at Art’s facebook page.

New to leading or responsible for first time leader’s on your team? Subscribe to Art’s New Leader’s e-News.

An ideal book for anyone starting our in leadership: Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.

Need help with Feedback? Art’s new online program: Learning to Master Feedback

 Note: for volume orders of one or both books, drop Art a note for pricing information.

 

 


Filed Under: Career, Getting Ahead, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth, Values Tagged With: , ,
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