What Are You Doing to Reinvent Your Professional Self?
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing, Product Management, Professional Growth, Project Management
A fact of life in our world is that you will inevitably face the prospect of having to reinvent your professional self. For many this is a daunting task that gets put off along with getting in shape, painting the house and writing a book. The dream is nice, but the lack of action keeps it firmly out there somewhere in a hoped-for future.
By now, we all know people that have been adversely impacted by the current economic circumstances and are in the midst of looking for their next job and even their next career. We also know others that are hunkered down behind walls hoping to survive.
In both cases, it is critical for the individuals to think clearly about and act on the need to reinvent themselves as professionals.
Some thoughts for the audiences that I engage with regularly:
- Marketers, most everything has changed. If you cut your teeth on marketing in the 90’s or earlier, and have not stayed on the painful and bleeding edge of what is going on, you are in deep trouble. While core notions of identifying vexing problems and solving them in great ways will never go out of fashion, the way people buy, how they communicate, what they respond to, where they look for information and how they respond and react to marketing tactics is no longer recognizable.
- Mid-level managers, you are in danger of extinction. You had best find a way to standout and develop as a senior contributor or you will go the way of the Dodo bird.
- Product Managers, your role is critical, but you face an uphill battle in gaining a “seat at the table” of senior leadership, in spite of your very customer and market focused existence and your strategic perspectives.
- Technical Professionals, the skills and knowledge that helped reach this point are insufficient to take you forward. Grow your technical skills or recognize the need to grow your professional skills as leaders and businesspeople, but do something!
- Project Managers, what are you doing to improve your ability to lead laterally, integrate strategy with projects and improve your batting average in developing high-performance project teams? Your process expertise is not enough to earn you a future seat at the table.
As for those of you in other roles inside or outside of corporations, if moving into an entrepreneurial role is a dream, are you planning and acting on the steps that will move your dream closer to reality?
And finally, for those of you that have hit the panic button after realizing that the job you’ve trained for and worked is no longer out there, well, since you didn’t have a plan, it’s time to get going.
Suggestions:
- Recognize that only you own your career, not your company. Do not wait for your company to retrain you and help you develop skills for the new world. Invest wisely in yourself for the type of training and development that will help you move forward or that will at least keep you employable.
- Take time now to begin investing in developing the knowledge, skills and credentials that you will need for the next step. If you want to be a teacher someday, start taking classes now.
- Develop great habits. Read something related to your professional development for 30 minutes a day. Use the DVR to tape your show and watch it later, but read.
- Start building your brand now, not after you are out in the street following a round of lay-offs. Speak, publish and lead somewhere in your industry or your community.
- If you have entrepreneurial dreams in the future, start researching, planning and saving now. Can you find a job that will get you one step closer to your entrepreneurial self?
- Work through your ideas with your significant other. They are a critical part of whatever you do, and particularly if your vision involves risk, I cannot over-emphasize the need to balance your dreams with your partner’s ability to tolerate ambiguity and risk.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
There’s no doubt that many of us identify closely with our jobs and titles, and the loss of job or title can stimulate a real personal crisis. Strive to view yourself as something other than your job and recognize that you can succeed and be happy in many different environments. Then take action. Just do something to move forward and your activity will beget energy and more activity. It’s a great day to take control.
Professional Development: It’s Time to Improve Your Presentation Skills
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Professional Growth
You’ve likely heard this quote: “In a survey about what people fear the most, speaking in public edged out dying.”
While I question the existence of this now legendary survey, it is at least not far from the truth for many individuals.
Whether you enjoy speaking in public or would rather have honey smeared all over you and be staked to an anthill, the ability to speak effectively in public is one of the admission tickets to success in many professions. Master this art form and doors open effortlessly in front of you.
A very wise manager once indicated something to the effect of, “you will be as successful as you are able to communicate.” It’s an odd twist of words, but the point is clear.
I credit another teacher, Mr. McSherry, at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, IL with helping me move beyond my fear of speaking. From Freshman Speech to his courses in Argumentation and Public Broadcasting, and as coach of the Debate Team, he helped many of us hone our skills and develop a passion for the podium. I’ve tried to pass this along in my professional career.
Whether you are one of the survey respondents above or someone that has honed your skills and developed some degree of confidence and competence at public speaking, it’s important to recognize that you can always improve.
Speaking in public is much like playing an instrument. You never really master an instrument. Great performers constantly push themselves to explore new areas and new limits and the best speakers do the same.
During one of his many visits to the aforementioned Hersey High School in the late 70’s, Doc Severinson, the bandleader for The Tonight Show and an accomplished trumpet player told the audience of concert band enthusiasts, “If I don’t practice for one day, I can tell. If I go two days without practicing, my band can tell. After three days, everyone can tell.”
How much time do you spend practicing this skill?
Timothy Koegel, author of The Exceptional Presenter—A Proven Formula to Open Up and Own the Room (2007) offers up a similar quote on practice from a speaker in this excellent and helpful book. I checked it out from the library and found it so practical and useful that I ordered it and will add it to my collection of professional tools.
The Exceptional Presenter offers practical advice for:
- Crafting your message
- Relating to your audience,
- Managing your own physical positioning and body language
- Managing question and answer sessions
- Recognizing and overcoming common bad habits
- Leveraging passion as a powerful speaking tool
- And much more in this idea and exercise packed little book
Koegel’s stated goals in the book are to:
1. Provide a proven formula that will enable you to communicate at an exceptional level in any venue to any audience.
2. Share practice methods that help you develop skills that will not fail under pressure.
3. Serve as your personal diary to document your improvement.
In my opinion, he succeeds in good order. If you’ve postponed thinking about and acting on improving this part of your professional skill set, The Exceptional Presenter is a great way to jump start your development program.
The Bottom Line for Now:
Of course, it’s impossible to improve your skills by reading a book without putting the ideas into practice. Seek out opportunities at work to stand up and talk. If you are not comfortable practicing at work, it’s surprising how many opportunities you might find in your community through school activities or church groups. The important lesson is to start practicing and keep at it.
If you are really hungry for a development opportunity, consider joining a local chapter of Toastmasters. I know many professionals that credit much of their speaking success to the lessons learned and support provide at Toastmasters.
You may never completely overcome the nervous anxiety that accompanies the lead up to a public presentation, but you can definitely improve your success. Remember, you will be as successful as you are able to communicate. You heard it here.
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