“I finished my MBA. What’s Next?” A Few Do’s and Don’ts for New MBAs
Filed under: Career, Life and Business, Management Education, Professional Growth, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
All over the U.S., there’s a fresh new crop of MBA graduates leaving behind their books and case studies, and in some cases, preparing to rediscover their families after several years of their noses buried in books and their fingers glued to their keyboards. A key question on their minds is, “What’s next?”
Putting aside for this post any thoughts you might have of the value of the degree in or you belief that MBAs might fit nicely in line with the lawyers singled out by Shakespeare, these individuals have worked hard and invested a great deal of time and someone’s money in achieving this milestone.
Their expectation (realistic or not) is that the degree will mean something in the workforce. They are looking for it to help open doors, remove career barriers and lead down new paths.
The Reality: “Congratulations, Now, Let’s Get Back to Work!”
There will be ceremonies and speeches and parties, and perhaps even a few rounds offered up by coworkers at local watering holes. Bosses will congratulate the new graduates, and then work life will return to normal and June will melt into July, and in many cases, not much will change for the now former students.
Great Expectations?
A common question people ask of students nearing their degree completion is, “What are you going to do?” There’s almost an implied understanding that the now pedigreed professional will look for a new position in or out of their company, as a means of monetizing or at least leveraging the degree. Some do just this, and view the end of school as a phase-gate leading to something beyond what they’ve been doing thus far. Others hope/expect their organizations will recognize their new enhanced value and offer an increased challenge as a means of knocking down their sudden career wanderlust.
In too many cases, there’s a lot of hoping, false expectations and plotting to leave that adds some toxicity into the celebratory waters of June. An alternative might well be for everyone to adjust their attitudes and expectations just a bit, and for the MBA graduates to recognize the need to ramp up for the next round of professional development.
7 Ideas for New MBAs following Graduation:
1. Keep your feet grounded in reality. Accept that 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. I’ve heard of this happening, but degree-triggered promotions are rare. In the case where they occur, its usually more due to a good on-going professional development plan than anything prompted out of response to your graduation.
4. Speaking of professional development plans… . Do sit down with your boss and refresh your professional development plan. If your plan is clear, good…conduct a status update and reiterate your willingness to take on more. If there is no plan, it is reasonable at any point to show interest in doing more, however, the MBA milestone is a nice discussion prompter. Do use the occasion to very professionally indicate how excited you are to have completed the degree and how motivated you are to have the extra time, insights and tools to dedicate to helping the firm.
5. Don’t even remotely hint that unless you are promoted you are gone. Especially in this economy, where regardless of degree, buyers hold all of the power.
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?”
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 during that class.
The Millennial View: Why Job Hunting is Like Dating
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Life and Business, Marketing Yourself
Note from Art: Eric Rodriguez is the author of The Millennial View here at Management Excellence. His periodic posts provide insights into the career and business pursuits of a young professional striving to navigate our challenging world.
You sit at home looking at your smartphone, your palms are sweating, you wait in anticipation that the woman you met last Thursday will call you back. She told you she was interested, you said the right things, you shined your shoes, you gave off the right body language, and you shouldn’t worry because she told you she would call you today, and today’s Monday, right?
Monday passes, Tuesday ends, Wednesday’s over, and finally on Friday night you receive an email stating, “We’re sorry, but you have not been selected for the position.” It feels like you just got dumped and it’s moments like these that make you relive your worst breakups.
Job searching is like dating and I can relate to these feelings because for the past couple of months I have been trying to transition into a new career. It hasn’t been easy and sometimes it feels like I stand a better chance of scoring a date with Katy Perry than I would to land a new job – ok I’m exaggerating.
Here are four thoughts on why job searching is similar to dating:
Thought #1: If you don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend job, the worst thing you can do is obsess over it.
According to CNN a job seeker can be out of work for as long as 39 weeks. It’s a long time, and if a job searcher constantly thinks about their unemployment it starts to plant negative thoughts about their ability to get a job.
Like dating, a job seeker has to put himself or herself out there and let employers know that they’re available. But, once someone has done all they can do in relation to a job search, it’s important to do something else to take their mind off the job search. The longer you think about your unemployment the less confident you’ll be in yourself. This shows on a date and it shows during an interview.
Thought #2: When you’re single looking for a job you may meet many different people employers before you find someone who wants to commit.
The majority of job seekers are not going to find the right career on the first try, although a few lucky people do. It’s just like dating, a job seeker is going to meet a lot of interesting people, and some job seekers may even picture themselves having a future with one of them.
It’s dangerous to think that one job or one person may indeed be the one you’re looking for. Interviews are like dates, they’re either fun or horrifying, but they don’t mean anything until a job seeker gives someone a solid commitment. A prospective employee can meet a lot of employers in their job search, but it’s important to keep on looking (even if there are future interviews scheduled) until the right job is offered.
Thought #3: Rejection sucks
When an employer doesn’t call when they say they will or when a job seeker receives a rejection letter it hurts. Nobody likes rejection, but that’s the practice companies engage in – only one person can get the job and like dating a company is going to go with the right fit.
The best way to deal with rejection is to accept it because nothing in life is ever guaranteed. Rejection is beyond our control, but one day the right job will present itself.
#4: The right person job is out there!
This thought comforts me when I am looking at classifieds on Indeed. There are many stories of people who have landed a good job, but it does take effort and a commitment to keep searching no matter how bleak things may seem. If a job seeker looks regularly they’re going to find something, it may not be in the immediate future, but they’ll get the right job.
Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never give up!” this is the right attitude to take in both a job search and in life. Always remember when dating or looking for a job, that it’s usually the last person you meet before you find the right fit.
Leadership Caffeine: When Leading is an Unnatural Act
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Life and Business, Management Education, Talent Management
One of the interesting outcomes I’ve observed when engaging truly thoughtful people in the process of understanding the role of a leader and the commitment required for success, is that some people decide it’s not a good fit.
They decide to become great followers instead of great leaders. And they feel relieved.
We Tend to Make Saying “No to Leadership” Difficult:
I’ve learned from a number of individuals who walked to the edge of the leadership path and then turned back, that we often make it difficult for them to say, “no.”
- There’s pressure inside organizations to show growth and increase contribution by taking on formal leadership responsibilities.
- Yes, there are still working environments where the only way to increased financial reward is through directly managing others.
- In our zeal for the support and development of great leaders, we (existing leaders, leadership writers etc.) tend to mythologize the role of the leader and position it as an aspirational goal for everyone. Leadership is built up to be the noble end-goal, while the decision to not pursue a leadership life is to carry a negative connotation…a kind of Scarlett Letter that brands the individual for everyone to see.
Three Key Reminders for All of Us:
1. Not everyone should lead. Some people lack the skills and appropriate intelligences (social and emotional) to lead. Others simply want to cultivate their skills in an area they are passionate about, and a voluntary or forced decision to move away from that passion is like a prison sentence. As a promoting manager, it’s your job to help assess all of these issues. Don’t force people into unnatural roles.
2. More money is a lousy motivation to lead. Do I really have to explain this one? For those of you working in firms where the compensations structure was defined in the 1950’s, it’s time to start pushing for something that eliminates the dollar need and greed as motivation to pursue a leadership role. Start with a dual-track system that supports professional and financial development for leaders and individual contributors.
3. Great leaders require great followers. You don’t win championships in sports without critical role players, and you don’t win in the business world without people committed to working and contributing according to their strengths.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Perhaps it’s time to start offering “followership” training and mentoring along with all of our leadership offerings. Kudos to those who decide that leading is not for them. No more unnatural acts, please. It’s OK not to lead.
Don't Expect Easy-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping as a Professional
“Easy” is not a term that should be on your mind, except when it comes to improving the experience for your customers. Outside of making life easier for your customers, there are few circumstances where “easy” shows up or where you are justified in expecting things to go that way.
If you’re at the early stage of your career, the transition from home to school to job is an interesting one. If you are a recent graduate, chance are that you’ve already discovered that things aren’t so easy in this economy as you pound the pavement looking for a job. While this awkward phase will pass in time, your immersion in the workforce will underscore why “easy” is a foreign term.
And of course, if you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ve already discovered that “easy” is rare indeed.
Things That Are Most Definitely Not Easy in Business:
- Working for a difficult boss
- Becoming a boss
- Becoming a good boss
- Finding great people
- Hiring the right people
- Undoing the process of hiring the wrong people
- Competing in the market
- Competing internally
- Leading without authority
- Creating a new strategy
- Implementing a new strategy
- Getting others to follow
- Following
- Making mistakes
- Learning from mistakes
- Developing as a senior contributor
- Switching jobs
- Switching careers
- Continuing your education
- Reinventing yourself
- Balancing life and work
Guidance-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping with “Not Easy”
- I’ve known a few people that seemed to have a free-pass through life’s difficulties, but for the rest of us, here are my suggestions and words of encouragement:
- Attitude is everything. Make certain that yours stays positive about the challenges in front of you.
- There is no substitute for hard work. Keep pushing the rock.
- Success is in the details. Don’t be a 70-percenter. Learn to finish.
- It’s all about learning. Mistakes are your best teachers, just don’t make the same ones over and over again.
- As my former boss would say, “Man plans and god laughs.” Interpret that to mean that things mostly don’t go as you expect them to.
- Hope is a crappy strategy. See also the note on hard work.
- You’ll make mistakes. Don’t wallow for more than a few minutes. Then shrug your shoulders and move on to your next challenge.
- There are no guarantees. There are no guarantees of how long any of us will be here, much less guarantees of employment and advancement.
- You’ll have to work for everything you get. Get over it.
- Fear is the mind-killer. I love that quote from Frank Herbert. Don’t let fear rule your life.
- Measure-twice and cut once. An extra emphasis on quality will serve you well.
- Compensation is nice. Ultimately enough is enough. It’s a hollow goal to just chase the money.
- The joy is in the journey, not the destination.
- Touch people in the right way during your journey. You go through this once. Make it count.
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Notes from Art:
-Don’t miss the latest issue of the Management Excellence Newsletter. Register at Building Better Leaders or Management Excellence (far right column)
-Just announced: The Management Excellence Book Series, with episode #1 featuring an interview with Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss.
How Not to Build a Better Leader!
I had a great conversation the other day with a talented twenty-something who just exudes confidence, competence and excitement about her career and her interest in professional development. Her reviews are top flight, she has been managing a major client account to great results, and she is actively pursuing her M.B.A. degree. This is one motivated young professional!
It’s too bad that her biggest dilemma is, “My job is fine, but I’m starting to get bored. I want some bigger challenges and I want to lead, and they keep telling me that they are working on a program for that. They also tell me that they are worried that any new projects will distract me from my main job. But I have the time and energy to do more.”
First, let’s tackle the program issue. A program for what? A program to figure out how to give an aggressive, capable person more responsibility? A program to magically teach someone how to lead, when there are ample opportunities to begin learning in the workplace every day?
You don’t need a stinking program to sit down with your team members and talk about next steps and then work together to define some good developmental challenges. You as manager and leader must be interested in ensuring that people are challenged, learning and growing. There’s no HR program in the world that replaces your responsibility to spend time challenging and coaching your team members. You own this responsibility.
As a manager and developer of early career talent, here’s a newsflash. Leadership and talent development is free. Your only cost is time and maybe a bit of creativity.
I like to apply Ram Charan’s “Apprenticeship” approach, where you as the manager are responsible for providing your employee with a series of increasingly ambiguous challenges. Over time as the individual confronts the challenges, they are gaining valuable and relatively risk-free experience learning to cope with the realities of more responsibility. (Note: I guide participants through one of these programs in my course: Considering the Move to Leadership-What to Expect and How to Prepare.)
Often, the outcome of this program is that individuals begin to zero in on what they truly want to do next…manage others, manage projects or focus on developing their skills as an individual contributor. Without the apprenticeship program to uncover interests and identify strengths and weaknesses, everyone is left guessing.
As for my conversation partner, I encouraged her to take the initiative to outline her own rough career plan and next general steps (she wants to lead) and then sit down with her managers and share this plan and ask for their help. She of course is responsible for convincing them that she is capable of executing here current role without missing a beat, and I encouraged her to position herself as someone both interested in contributing more and solving more problems as well as someone that welcomes coaching.
She will learn a lot about her managers if they continue to push her off, and she will learn a lot about herself if they appropriately support her. Either way, it’s worth politely pushing the issue.
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