Leadership and the Young Professional

January 12, 2009 By 2 Comments

Every academic quarter for the past few years, a good colleague has invited me to be a guest speaker in her  senior-level college management class and talk about leadership.  I’m on the schedule tonight and I love this experience.

It’s great to have to stand in front of a group of early-career professionals and go through the humbling experience of recognizing that you are talking based on the road traveled and their view is on the uncharted horizons in front of them. Talk about different perspectives!  You have to try and look backwards over their horizon to understand what they are looking at.  Fail this and you will fail to relate.

You have to work hard to not come off like some dinosaur pontificating on your incredible body of experience. Remember, all that this audience cares about is “How can this ancient 40-something help me?”

The world that these young professionals are entering is very different than the world that many of us experienced.  From technology to time and the nature of work (how, where and what), everything is different.  It’s essential and a bit frightening to try and look through the eyes of a twenty-something at a world filled with an incredible array of technologies and opportunities, all cast against the backdrop of a world on watch for terror.

This college speaking experience always serves to remind me of how smart and worldly young professionals truly are.  During the session, I provide them with a case that tends to befuddle most experienced managers.  The crisp and correct answers that are communicated in this session showcase what its like for people to make decisions completely unbiased by corporate politics and all of the other barriers that we create for ourselves as we gain experience.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

As indicated, my principal topic tonight is leadership and while everything in our world is different than when we were starting out, some things are the same.  The attributes and approaches that make a leader great still apply. Credibility, the ability to articulate a vision, ensuring that your words match your actions, delivering timely feedback and offering constant coaching are timeless practices of the best leaders of every generation.

Of course, we all know as well that you cannot teach people how to be leaders in a course or workshop or in a book.  The best I can hope for is to plant some seeds on the commitment and hard work that it takes to be an effective leader and how all of us have to take responsibility for our own career and professional development. Come to think of it, these are good lessons for anyone of any age.

I look forward to feeling younger and smarter after my session tonight.  I always do.

Filed Under: Career, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A Snow Day, Oprah and Finding Your Strengths

December 19, 2008 By 1 Comment

It’s a snowy Friday, December 19 here in the Chicago-area and I’m late with my post.  The schools are closed, our high-school senior is thrilled that he is getting a one-day jump on the Christmas vacation, and our college sophomore is home for the next month.  And I watched Oprah this morning.

There, I said it.  Let the record reflect that I’ve never actually sat down to watch her show until this morning, and I have several great excuses.  First, it is my wife’s birthday, and instead of disappearing into my office for the next 8 hours, I vowed to spend most of the day with her. (I feel guilty typing this!)  Second, snow days always feel like found time where you can relax just a bit, and it felt like a guilty pleasure to sit down with a cup of coffee and watch a morning show.  Last and not least, Oprah had a fascinating show this morning, featuring Marcus Buckingham of First Break All of the Rules, Now Discover Your Strengths and his 2007 book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work fame.

The focus of the show included a series of career interventions with professional women who were absolutely miserable in their jobs. Buckingham offered counseling to the women to help them find and begin leveraging their strengths.  The outcome as you might expect was that they all made adjustments in their jobs, attitudes and habits and reported a remarkable transformation in their jobs and level of satisfaction.

One of the more startling observations came from Oprah citing a survey that indicated that 84% of respondents hate their jobs. That’s a lot of career hating going on at one time!  (Note: there is a ton of information about the episode at Oprah’s site, as well as the opportunity to take an on-line course from Buckingham for free.)

The airing of the Buckingham episode was serendipitous following my last two career/resume blog posts on marketing yourself (Part I and Part II).  I continue to receive e-mail or phone calls from professionals in all walks of life struggling with what to do next in their careers.

One of the more interesting discussion threads of discussion that was prompted by the “What’s Your Professional Value Proposition?” theme in the posts, has come from individuals struggling to describe who/what they are professionally. It seems that as we gain experience and develop a portfolio of successes, it becomes harder for us to state who and what we are and how we add value.

I’ve spent my career in sales and marketing, but absolutely feel like my proposition is more around developing great teams, developing and executing on winning strategies and helping develop leaders than it is about the selling or marketing functions.  Creating and managing world-class sales and marketing teams is easy.  Developing people…now that’s hard and rewarding work and that’s what I’m all about. Of course, unenlightened employers may not care about the leadership development and want to focus solely on my ability to drive results.  It gets interesting when you sit down and try and describe your own personal value proposition.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

OK, it’s time to go shovel the driveway, and rumor has it that there’s a Monopoly game breaking out this afternoon.  My parting observation is that it is absolutely essential for us to explore and develop our skills and talents in our professional lives. Life is precious and preciously short, and it’s a good idea to quit wasting time and start sorting out how to leverage our strengths and talents in our work.  Those strengths and talents define who we are as individuals.  Perhaps Buckingham has some good tools to help the 84% of us that hate our jobs.  I love what I’m doing, but if it makes sense for you, take a peek at his books or his free couse at Oprah’s site. It might be a great way to spend a snow day.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Yourself Part II: Defining Your Professional Value Proposition

December 18, 2008 By 2 Comments

Job search is a hot topic right now, and I received a number of notes from individuals who read my Irreverent Opinions of a Resume Hobbyist post the other day, asking for input about how to craft a Personal/Professional Value Proposition to support their job-hunting activities.  In essence, people want to know how to stand out in a crowd. A well-developed Professional Value Proposition is an essential tool for differentiating yourself from the herd, the pack and the flock!

I said in the post that I view this as the hardest task in developing an effective resume and self-marketing strategy.  This is where you will  spend the most time creating content and agonizing over wording. Many people struggle to effectively articulate how they have created value in the past and how they will do it again in the future.  You need to get this right!

After receiving the inquiries, I spent some time thinking about how to help by offering some guidelines and suggestions for navigating the slippery slope of defining your own Professional Value Proposition.

A quick health warning.  I’m neither a resume writing pro or career coach, although a lifetime of hiring, developing and leading professionals along with many years leading marketing and strategy initiatives at least give me a license to fly here.  Part of Management Excellence includes effective career development, so I don’t feel like I’m too far afield with this important topic.

Please feel free to add in your thoughts and comments below or use the “Suggest a Topic” box in the far right column of this blog.

What is a Professional Value Proposition?

Don’t let the fancy strategy and marketing words get in the way of a straightforward concept.  Your Professional Value Proposition (PVP) is simply a central message that that describes how you as an individual uniquely create value for your customers, companies, co-workers and stakeholders.

When do I reference my Professional Value Proposition?

In short, all of the time.  Your PVP is the core message that needs to come through in your marketing materials—your resume, cover letter and other supporting materials.  It also defines the core message that you will reference and support during interview processes.

OK, I still don’t get the Value Proposition part.  What is it?

In strategy terms, a simple explanation of the concept of “Value Proposition,” is: Why people buy.  Firms and hiring managers will buy you because you very uniquely solve complex problems for customers and stakeholders.  Of course, the devil is in the details of describing why you are unique and providing evidence to substantiate your claim.

Another way to relate to your PVP is as your personal elevator pitch.  If given the chance to pitch yourself for a job during a ride from the lobby to the 14th floor, how would you effectively communicate why the hiring manager should consider you.

Last and not least, your PVP is not a single sentence statement, but rather a concise message map with a core message at the center and supporting messages and evidence hanging off of that core message.

How do I Develop my PVP?  Questions about you.

I’ll offer a series of questions for you as thought prompters.  By thinking through and answering the questions, you will have the materials needed to finalize your PVP.

What is it that you do that creates value for your organization?

For example:

As a leader, I am uniquely gifted at identifying and developing talented professionals and teams that fuel growth and create positive change in organizations.

I connect strategies to execution and guide teams to innovate, experiment, learn and adapt tactics and strategies to better solve client problems.

As a sales manager, I create operationally excellent and innovative sales teams that work relentlessly on developing high quality business by solving specific client problems.

What evidence supports your value-create statements?

This is the part where you need to clearly and succinctly substantiate with numbers and examples.  Include answers to what you did that drove results, how you did it and how you impacted your team and organization.

PVPs Can’t Just Focus on History…You Need to Look Forward

While your past experiences define where you have come from and what you’ve accomplished, the hiring manager is looking at today and the near future at that need solving.  A good PVP will incorporate both the historical examples and data points and then offer a forward-looking component.  You need to connect the dots on how your past adds up to creating value in the future.  Otherwise, you’re just offering a personal biography.

What qualities, skills, approaches, and outcomes can you describe that show why you are unique and different from typical candidates?

Remember, I didn’t say this was easy.  What are your unique skills and experiences and how do they help you create value?  If you reach this point in your exercise and you cannot confidently state why you are unique and distinct (talents, skills, successes, evidence, go forward abilities etc.), then you need to keep working. If you get stuck, ask a valued professional colleague for help.

Who’s Your Buyer? Tailoring Your PVP to Your Buyer:

This sounds dirtier than it is.  It’s actually good marketing.  The CEO seeking an executive hire has one set of needs, HR another and prospective peers have their own.  Your absolute core message does not deviate, but you may emphasize different skills and experiences to better match with the needs of your immediate customers.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Describing who you are and what you bring to a firm and a team is remarkably important to your search success.  Ideally, your Professional Value Proposition will be a Resonator (thanks, Tuned In authors!): something that shows how you so perfectly solve unresolved problems for your buyers that they have to have your services. Creating the genuine message about you that resonates with hiring managers require a lot more effort than constructing the typical run-of-the-mill chronological/functional resume.

So, tell me about yourself.  Why should anyone hire you?

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Yourself: The Irreverent Opinions of a Resume Hobbyist

December 17, 2008 By 4 Comments

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a resume hobbyist.  I am not an HR professional and I am most definitely not a professional resume writer.  I also consciously leave the accent mark off of the word Resume, so get over it.

After reviewing untold number of these fascinating documents over two decades as a hiring manager, as well as working with many former colleagues to help put their best foot forward, I’ve developed a few opinions about what works what doesn’t when it comes to crafting your personal marketing materials.  I’ve also discovered that there are a lot of so-called experts out there with conflicting opinions of their own.  And of course…we all know that is advice is worth what you pay for it, so remember that this is free.

I should highlight that I share my “hobby” with a good friend.  Over the years, we’ve both made it a habit to study the current-state of resume writing while sharing samples of what we found to be effective and ineffective.  I suspect that many of the opinions that follow have their genesis in those discussions with my colleague.

Resume Approaches that Don’t Work (in my book) and What to Do About Them:

  • Accomplishment oriented resumes with no chronological order.  Give me the accomplishments but don’t make me solve your own personal chronology puzzle.  I don’t have time and your resume goes into the discard pile with a satisfying thud.
  • Resumes that read like job descriptions.  This is the single most common gaffe that I see in these documents.  It’s good to communicate the scope and accountability of your positions, but please focus on how you created value (accomplishments), not on just listing your duties.
  • Accomplishment listings that make you out to be (insert your favorite superhero character here).  You must be able to substantiate your accomplishments, and I know that you didn’t do it all yourself. I once had a recruiter criticize my resume for reflecting the role that others (team members, direct reports) had in my successes.  He felt that it showed weakness to distribute attribution.  My response…a not so polite, “go jump.”  It’s a team-oriented, project focused world and while there are real opportunities for individual heroics, I would much rather understand how someone worked with others (led, motivated, learned from) to create success.
  • Lack of a personal value proposition.  I have to grasp in a hurry what makes you unique.  Many resumes are dry two-dimensional statements of career progression with no clear thesis about the individual as valuable professional that I would want on my team.  Crafting your personal value proposition is hard work, but absolutely essential for success.  The bulk of your resume creation time should focus on this component.  Remember to test your value proposition by seeking feedback from people who are not your wife/mother/husband.
  • Length. Size counts, but of course, it is truly a matter of personal perspective.  I will read a good resume regardless of length.  Recruiters have their own opinions, and few of them are consistent.  I’ve had recruiters absolutely love my 3-page format (the long form), and others question my reason for existence after sharing this “onerous” document.  Cover your bases…create a short-form that indicates the availability of a long-form.
  • Narrative versus bullet format.  One expert suggests a long-form narrative for executives, with total disregard for length.  Another emphasizes using short bullets that are generally incomplete sentences.  Frankly, I like to see a narrative intro for each major position or company change and supporting bullets, but that’s just me.  I’ll read either one if they effectively communicate who you are and what value you’ve brought to your positions.
  • Tense. I cannot intuit from your total past-tense focus how you will help me going forward.  It’s your job to make certain that the personal value proposition is clearly stated as what you can do for me now and in the future.  This is a subtle but important issue.
  • Format.  Keep it clean and simple with ample white-space, even if you are using the narrative format.  You don’t want to fail the first-glance test.
  • Video resumes. Still not interested.  I may have to get over this one sometime soon.  If you are an executive or someone that is engaged in public speaking, I will look at your YouTube link if your resume passes through my filters.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Marketing yourself is a tough job and one of the most important jobs that you will ever undertake.  And then undertake again.  And again.  I have no claims on “expert” status when it comes to personal marketing materials, but I do have claims on hiring expert talent to grow businesses.  Somewhere out there is a hiring executive hoping that the next superstar is in that pile of paper or e-mail messages.  A little common-sense advice might just help you stand out and show this executive why you are the answer.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Marketing, Marketing Yourself Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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