The hard part

Long term goals are hard to achieve for 2 main reasons where our human nature betrays us.

1. At any moment, when we feel something is important, we want to do it right now. But you can’t accomplish a long term goal in a day.

2. It’s almost impossible to accomplish long term goals without some checkpoints and measures along the way. And checkpoints and measures are not a natural way of living. It’s an additional effort that many people don’t believe they have time for and are not practiced at. So it’s hard.

Your Career Year of Action

In this month’s webinar we talked about long term career goals. We used my Career Year of Action Guide as the basis for the conversation.

Download the Webinar Podcast Here

In the Career Year of Action Guide I have quantified how you can make progress on different aspects of your career over a one year period. The guide also helps maintain your motivation and focus by creating monthly measures and checkpoints for yourself.

Get the Career Year of Action Guide Here
(FREE TO MEMBERS)

Your Desired Outcome

It all starts with your desired outcome. Step back. Pause. Think.

What do you want all this work to amount to? What is the ultimate job you want? If you don’t have a specific goal, think about what your desired job would be like. Start to define what you want in your work and life long term.

Having a desired outcome defined gives you an abiity to ask yourself at any point in time, is what I am doing now helping me get to, or taking me away from my goal?

The hard part – the Middle

All strategic, long term goals share this problem, whether they are individual, personal goals or a strategic business initiatives.

Human nature gets us very excited about defining the problem up front, and then describing the end goal a year out.

But what happens in the middle? How do you specifically, get there?

When I work with teams or individuals to define that hard part in the middle, this is where the magic happens.

By defining concrete, intermediate, outcomes and measures to support your long term goal – things that you can achieve each month or quarter – you are way more likely to get there.

In the webinar, we talked about how to do this for your career and gave some examples.

4 areas of effort to think about

The Career Year of Action Guide is sorted into the following 4 categories to ensure that you make progress in your career, not just work yourself to death.

Test yourself. In a given month, how much do you think about the ideas covered in these 4 areas of effort? Careers get stuck when you let a year (or more) go by and only focus on the work.

1. Business Leadership & Strategy:
How to make sure your work delivers enough business impact and you are not just being busy. Topics are: Ruthless Priorities, Team Assessment, Delegation, Performance Management, Tuning your Job to have more impact

2. Career Development:
How to manage your workload so that your work is serving your career as well as your business. It covers topics like high-impact annual objectives, building on strengths, creating value specifically for your boss, and using mentors.

3. Personal Strategies:
How to incease your personal effectiveness and use your time better. This category covers things like Making Room, Managing Time & Energy, Building Trust, and Personal Brand

4. Steady Effort Communications:
How to build work habits to make sure you are not invisible and that you regularly share information. It includes topics like Stakeholders, Team Communications, and Networking

4 Specific Ideas

Because we couldn’t cover the whole Career Year of Action Guide in the webinar, we discussed one key idea in each category.

1. Ruthless Priorities

Business Leadership and Strategy: Decide what the business values and map your work to that. Create your annual objectives to make sure you are doing things that create real business value. We talked about how to negotiate specific, concrete outcomes and measures with your boss. Do not put your ruthless priorities at risk. Get them done. Develop a reputation for finishing important things. Set monthly and quartly goals for yourself to ensure progress.

2. Make Time and Energy

Personal Effectiveness: Remember, your job is to do your job AND keep yourself OK. If you lack energy you will not be good at your job. Think about what renews and give you energy and schedule time to make sure you are building and maintaining your energy. You need to think strategically, be creative, and overcome challenges. You can’t do that if you are burned out.

3. Mentors

Career Development: Do an assessment of your mentors. Add one this year. Think about your desired outcome. Figure out what type of person can help you, and start looking for them. Ask your boss, ask your neighbors, ask you accountant. We talked about how to find people who can help you, how to meet them, and how to create mentoring relationships.

4. Stakeholders

Steady Effort Communications: Remember, invisible doesn’t work. Know who your stakeholders are, and communicate with them regularly. Know who can influence your plans, resources, projects and compensation plan. Know all their names and make sure they know yours. Know what they care about and communicate with them, on purpose, in a way that is useful and relevant to them.

Your Stories

One other key thought we covered is to record your best stories so you remember them later.

At a minimum, update your resume each year. But when you accomplish things that you are proud of, or that others think are great, make a note of them. You will forget otherwise. And these stories are a powerful tool as you meet people, interview, or negotiate things moving forward in your career.

We also talked about how to proactively create headlines for the coming year as a motivator to make them come true.

Your next year

What do you want to be different this time next year? What are one or two goals that you want to commit to take action on this year? Decide, write it down, and create monthly or quarterly measures for yourself. Find a partner or a coach. Good Luck!

Want more?

Download the webinar podcast here

Get the Career Year of Action Guide Here
(FREE TO MEMBERS)

Become a Member
and get this Webinar, the Career Year of Action Guide, and free access to all the other webinars in the Member Library for one year.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, and follow her on Facebook and  twitter.

Special January Membership Offer – 3 Months Free

Get your career goals on track. Now is a great time to join.

 
Membership Benefits:

Members get free access to everything in the Member Library and…

• You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
• You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
• You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
• You get the Career Year of Action Guide (an additional $39 value) which provides step by step, month-by-month guidance to ensure you make progress in your career

Surprisingly low cost

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

If you join now, you’ll get 3 months free (15 months for the price of 12) AND you can get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

If you decide to join, I promise you are making a good decision. And if you don’t find it useful, you’ll get your money back.

Managers: Give membership to your team

Companies find this to be a highly practical, effective, and low cost option to provide meaningful development to their employees.

Contact me for Group or Corporate pricing.

Do you have the data?

People often ask me if they should keep a work journal of some kind.

I was encouraged to do this early in my career — I did it for awhile.

Was it worthwhile? I wasn’t sure.

But then something happened…

A manager who worked for me was really annoying me. It got to the point where I decided the organization would be better off without him.

When I talked to my boss about it he said, “Oh, I don’t know… he’s been in place for a long time, and I’m not sure you’ll have the support to make that move.”

But then he said, “Can you give me an example of what you mean?”

So, I went back to my journal, and in a moment I was able produce a list of about 20 transgressions which occurred over the last 6 months.

It included things like failing to communicate important information to his team, speaking badly of employees with his peers, not delivering on commitments then blaming it on others, taking credit for other’s work, being out of touch then miscommunicating things that led to confusion and re-work, undermining management decisions… And every entry had a date stamp.

There were two big aha’s for me in this moment.

1. I would not have had support to take action on this without all this data
2. I would never have been able to produce this data after the fact

So the lesson that I learned is this:

Keep a record of things that annoy you

I have given up on general journaling, but now if there is anything that I am struggling with, or that is annoying me, I create page where I note everything that occurs with regard to that irritant.

I note the date and specifically what happened — Not how I felt about it, just the facts.

I still do this in a physical notebook. If you use technology for your notes, you can make a file for things that annoy you, with a page or record for each violator. This can be a person, a task, a process — whatever is annoying you. Then make a note each time something happens.

Why this works

The big benefit of having the actual record in front of you, is that you can clearly see if this is a real problem or not. And if it is, you’ve already got it fully documented. And it makes you feel better.

There are three useful outcomes I have found from keeping a record of what is annoying.

Outcome #1 – This is a real problem and I will act on this

If you look at the data you collected, as I did in my case with this manager, you can clearly see, yes it is a real problem. And the list gives you both the appetite and the support to act on it.

It is almost impossible to re-create data after the fact.

But if you have maintained a list of dates and specifics about what happened, you have a lot of power to act on it.

This approach works for other annoying things too.

A Bad Process

If there is a process (or lack of one) that feels frustrating, feels like it’s wasting your time, make a note of the date and how much time you spent on it when it annoys you.

After a couple of months you can make a judgment if it’s worth addressing. If it is, your notes are automatically a great specification of what the solution needs to look like. You are not starting with a blank page.

An Over-demanding Colleague

If there are colleagues that seem to be complaining about something you’re not sure is important, or too-frequently involving you on things you shouldn’t be involved in, or making too many requests of your team’s time, make a record each time it happens.

You’ll see if there is a trend or not, and if there is, it will become clear what to do about it. And you’ll have the data to support making a change right at your fingertips.

A Bully

If there is someone who is bullying you, or putting you down, make a note each time it happens. I’ve also found that writing it down takes some of the immediate sting out of the situation.

Then you can read over the record to build your confidence that you are not imagining it. It gives you a clear, factual, non-emotional point of view to decide if and how you want to change the dynamic.

If you don’t write it down, you carry the bad feelings longer each time, and when you try to explain to yourself or someone else how bad it is, you lack specifics. So it’s hard to make a clear case that you are being abused. You’ll stay stuck longer.

Outcome #2. This is real problem, but it’s my problem

I was working with an executive who was being driven crazy by a micro-managing boss. He started noting the date and issue of each offense, and after a couple of months he realized that the problem was his own emotional response. He hated being micromanaged so much that when it occasionally happened, he was blowing it out of proportion.

When something really bugs you, it can become a trigger and feel like a bigger deal than it is.

The notes helped him see that the specific behavior from his boss was not that frequent — it’s just that if it happened at all, it made him angry and miserable. The data allowed him to put it in perspective and not get as upset about it.

Outcome #3 – This is a real problem, but I can live with it

One last insight that I found surprising was when I was in a really hard job for about 2 years. During about a year in the middle, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I was miserable. It was a combination of things: my boss, the business challenge, other organizations attacking….

When I read over my journal during this period, I noticed a pattern… There would be about 2 weeks of entries that said things like, “I can’t stand this anymore, I have to get out. I can not take another week”, but then there would be 3-4 weeks of things like, “we won product of the year”, or “I got a nice thank you from my boss’s boss.”

Seeing this pattern helped me realize that I could survive this. It wasn’t a matter of needing to gut it out for years, the pattern was that I needed to survive for a week or two, and then it would get OK for awhile.

This particular job was giving me great experience to put me on a path to becoming a CEO, so I decided to stick it out. I was able to stick it out because I had my own words proving to me that I could survive.

Make your case stronger

Many times over the years, by using this approach, I have been successfully able to drive change, negotiate something, fix bad processes, win-over adversaries, and just generally get the over-processing of annoying things out of my head.

Having a record of the things that bug you puts you in a very powerful position to change them.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, AND Liking Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Special January Membership Offer – 3 Months Free

If you have been thinking about joining now is a great time to do it.

How the Membership Program works:

Each month I do a webinar on a topic of Business Leadership and Career Success where you get insights and tools to advance your career.

Also you get me as a mentor in monthly Coaching Hour conference calls. You get to ask me your own questions directly.

Members get access to everything in the Member Library and…

• You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
• You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
• You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
• You get the Career Year of Action Guide (an additional $39 value) which provides step by step, month-by-month guidance to ensure you make progress in your career

Surprisingly low cost

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

If you join now, you’ll get 3 months free (15 months for the price of 12) AND you can get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

Managers: Give membership to your team

Companies find this to be a highly practical, effective, and low cost option to provide meaningful development to their employees.

Contact me for Group or Corporate pricing.

More Work Satisfaction

Sometimes work can pressure you into being less than you can be.

As we begin 2011,
I encourage you to take back your career.

Succeed More. Like your Life.

I created my membership program to give people the tools, support and confidence they need to create a permanent improvement in their career.

You can thrive more at work

I was lucky to have a lot of help in my own career.
I built this program to help others.
Help works.

People love this program.

If you enjoy reading this blog, you’ll benefit from membership.

Membership gives you specific, practical and actions you take take right way, to improve your business and career.

And it serves as a monthly reminder not to forget about yourself when you get too busy in your job.

Join Now (in January) and Get 3 months free.

That means you’ll get 15 months for the price of 12, and your membership won’t expire until April 2013!

Here are some of the topics we’ll cover in the program in 2012.

• Ruthless Priorities (and Guilt)
• Influence and Matrix Management
• Maximizing Personal & Team Brand
• Improving Business Strategy
• Communicating for Greater Impact
• Increasing Team Performance
• Executive Presence & Standing Out
• Authentic Networking
• Social Media for Career & Business
• Making More Time & Energy

How the Membership Program works:

Each month I do a webinar on a topic of Business Leadership and Career Success.
Also, each month, members get to call into a monthly Coaching Hour conference call with me to get personalized coaching.

Members get access to everything in the Member Library and…

• You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
• You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
• You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
• You get the Career Year of Action Guide (an additional $39 value) which provides step by step, month-by-month guidance to ensure you make progress in your career

Surprisingly low cost

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

If you have been thinking about joining now is a great time to do it.

You’ll get 3 months free AND you’ll get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

Managers: Give membership to your team

• Several companies have created a corporate membership for their employees.
• Many mangers have provided membership to their team as a development program.

.
Companies find this to be a highly practical, effective, and low cost option to provide meaningful development to their employees.

Your team wants career development. And it’s often hard to provide.

This program is a win-win.
Because my approach to career advancement is to add more value to the business, your team will add more value to your business and develop themselves in the process. And they will thank you for it.

Contact me for group or corporate pricing.

Steps to Effective Performance Objectives

Thank you for reading this far.

I’ll leave you with a practical way to establish your performance objectives for this year:

• Know what your business values in general, and this year in particular
• Establish your Ruthless Priories to deliver value to the business
• Create specific performance objectives to support the Ruthless Priorities
• Make sure you can connect the dots between your performance objectives and business value
• Tune your performance objectives to better suit your natural strengths and give you more energy
• Provide specific, concrete descriptions of outcomes and measures
• Provide a timeline for their delivery
• Document for your manager, a recommendation for how to measure you on your objectives
• Proactively negotiate the finer points of all of this with your manager, and get buy in.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

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Happy New Year!

I want to kick off 2012 with some big (maybe controversial) ideas about how you can genuinely like your job more.

1. Don’t try to LOVE your work

This may sound heretical, but I just don’t believe in trying to LOVE your work.

I know I am going against people like Oprah and the late Steve Jobs who keep telling us that the only path to true success and happiness is to find what you love and do that for work, and the money will follow.

But “You must love your work” is just BAD ADVICE.

Here is a picture that shows how we are told to think about this.

Obviously you want to avoid the lower right, “Hate your work” and “Don’t make enough money”. But the problem is that upper left is unrealistic for the rest of us.

Almost no one achieves it. So why torture yourself?

Setting the goal as “Do what you love”, and then trying to make enough money at it, makes otherwise competent, successful people feel like they are failing when they don’t achieve it.

Here’s what breaks down for most people in the pursuit of the upper left quadrant:

1. In the upper right: Make a lot of money, but don’t love your work. This makes people feel like they are selling out and doing something wrong. It leaves them feeling guilty and unsatisfied.

2. In the lower left: People who pursue things they truly love but fail to make enough money at it, also feel like they are failing. And they have also ruined their hobby by turning it into a bad job.

I want to redefine how we think about this to be more positive and achievable:

Try these labels instead.

Instead of setting the goal as “Love Your Work”, set a new goal so you can actually get into the upper left quadrant without needing to be a rare, mutant, superstar. I say, “Like Your Work” and “Make Enough money.” We can all achieve this.

I love my family and friends. I love scuba diving. I love art.
I work for other reasons than love. I make enough money. I spend the money on enjoying the things I love.

This is the first step in liking your job: Give yourself a break and don’t feel like you are failing if you don’t LOVE your work.

Now, to get to the second step of actually really liking the job you do…

2. Follow Your Energy

The trick is to to figure out what gives you energy (vs. love) and do more of that.

If you follow what gives you energy and avoid what drains your energy (certain types of work and people you can’t stand), you will find yourself liking your job.

Here is picture for how to think about this.

Advance your career and feel satisfied in your work…

The trick is to find the intersection of the three things in this picture.

1. Your Values: Who you really are when you tell the truth to yourself. What is really important to you in life? What is OK and not OK? You will not like your work (and your energy will be drained) if your values are compromised.

2. Your Strengths and Skills: Where you get energy. You will thrive the most when you get to use your natural strengths at work. When you are using your strengths, you build energy and feel great about what you are doing. If you are in a job where you don’t get to use your strengths, it will drain your energy and you will feel unhappy.

3. Your Actions & Behaviors: Learn what your company truly values. Tune your job description to do more of the things your company values, but make sure you find the places where those things intersect with your personal Strengths and Values.

Find this intersection for YOU, and you will like your job.

You can choose the kind of work you want to do, and re-negotiate your job description over time so you put yourself in a position to thrive most of the time. This is the what the most successful people have figured out and do.

When I finally figured this out in my own career, my family started saying to me things like, “Am I imagining this, or do you actually like your work now?”

It makes a huge difference. And it’s achievable.

I hope you can take these ideas and create an improvement in your career.
Best wishes and much success for 2012!

Want some help with all this?

A webinar

In last month’s webinar, we discussed how to find this intersection for yourself in your own career. We also talked about the steps to tune your job to add more business value and be more satisfying.

Members can download this Build Career Value webinar for free.

Non-members can purchase this individual webinar or become a member, and get this webinar and all the other webinars in the Member Library for free.

Special Membership Offer – Get 3 Free Months

SInce it’s the new year, and it’s a great time to focus on doing things on purpose for your career, I want to remind you of the Membership program, as a great resource.

If you are interested in becoming a member, here is how it works:

Each month I do a webinar on a topic of Business Leadership and Career Success.
Also, each month, members get to call into a monthly Coaching Hour conference call with me to get personalized coaching.

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

What you get

Members get access to everything in the Member Library and…

* You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
* You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
* You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
* You get the Career Year of Action Guide (a $39 value).

Join Now (in January) and get 3 months for FREE.

If you have been thinking about joining now is a great time to do it.

You’ll get 3 months free AND you’ll get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

Members report that they are able to create a permanent improvement in their career (and life) with the tools and confidence they gain from their participation in the program.

Managers: Be a Hero – Offer Membership to your team.

Membership is a highly practical, effective, and low cost option for you to provide meaningful development to your team. It’s a win-win. They learn how to add more value to your business and develop themselves in the process.

Contact me for group or corporate pricing.

Was this useful?

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
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Success and Satisfaction

In this month’s webinar we talked about how to maximize your success and get more personal satisfaction from your work.

BUILD CAREER VALUE

Listen or download the webinar to learn more.

The Magic Intersection

• Your Strengths
• Where you Get Energy
• What the Business Values

.
Satisfaction does not come from loving your work. It comes from working at this intersection where you get energy, you are using your greatest strengths, and you are doing things the business values — so you’re good at your job, you get the recognition and rewards you deserve, and you enjoy doing the work.

Strengths

Use your strengths
It is very painful be in a job where you have key strengths that don’t get used or appreciated. The most successful people know their strengths and make sure to use them. They renegotiate their job over time to put themselves in the position to use their strengths most of the time — that’s why they’re so successful.

Know your strengths
As humans we tend to take our natural strengths for granted. Our own strengths don’t feel impressive to us so we tend to overlook them. We talked about the problems this causes and how to discover and use your natural strengths.

Stretch
We also talked about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone, the difference between strengths and skills, and how to use your strengths to make successful leaps into new and bigger roles.

Energy

Satisfaction
When you get energy from your work, you feel more satisfied and have more fun doing it. We talked about how to learn to follow your energy and make job choices that will maximize it.

Build energy
The more energy you have, the more value you will create. Think about the things in your work that give you the most energy and the ones that drain your energy. We talked about how to tune your work so you are building energy, not having the life drained out of you.

Business Value

Negotiate
Don’t treat your job description as a life sentence. Your job is a contract with your company. We talked about how to renegotiate your job over time to suit you better. Don’t wait for someone else to figure this out or do this for you. It’s up to you.

Make a business case
You can’t just say, “I want my job to be different so I’ll enjoy it more”. You have to make a business case for the change. We talked about how to build that business case, and show your boss that your desired way of working is better for the business.

Visible, But not Annoying

Communicate
Share your value. Deliver high value outcomes and then communicate about them. As long as you are communicating based on excellent results, it is not annoying. People like to know about good results. They like to feel in the loop.

Less Chaos

Value not activity
Working frantically does not mean you are more committed. Think about outcomes not output. Make sure you are adding value. Don’t compete on being the most chaotic! We talked about the risks of being over-busy and how to compete on value instead (and how to deal with a boss that demands long hours).

Want more?

Downloads are free to members
Listen or download the podcast – Build Career Value
Download the complete webinar – Build Career Value
(includes the presentation and the worksheets from the webinar)

Become a Member

• Get yourself a membership.
• Get a membership for someone whose career you care about.
• Provide membership to your team as a practical and useful development program. (Contact me for group rates)

.
Become a member

• Get this webinar and all the other Webinars in the Member Library
• Get personal access to Patty in monthly member-only Coaching Hour conference calls
• Get a personal career advantage

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
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What is the job worth?

Many people ask me how to go about negotiating their compensation.

They struggle to figure out “what they are worth”.

Or sometimes when I suggest they are not paid enough and they should ask for more, they ask “am I worth that much?”.

What you are worth is never the point.

Whenever you negotiate for salary or contract rates, don’t focus on what you are worth, focus on what the job is worth, and what the outcome that job delvers is worth to the company.

You need to do some homework to figure this out. Find out what others in a similar role are getting paid. Understand what outcomes the business values most.

If anyone ever says, “You are not worth that much”, You can come back and say,
“If this job delivers these outcomes at this level, my data shows that it is worth x in this market, what does your data show?”

“You don’t have the experience…”

I was thinking back to a time in my early career when I was a field-based sales engineer. It was my job to be the technical counterpart to a sales person. I needed to demonstrate the product, and show customers how our product could be configured to meet their needs and improve their business.

It was my second job out of college and I was about 22. (I graduated at 20).
My salary was $30k/year. About 6 months in, the only other female in our peer group said to me, “Do you know that all the guys in this job are making $36,000 a year?”

My first reaction was, “I guess it’s because they have more experience”. She said, “It’s not fair”. (She got paid the same as me, but had more experience than I did).

Gather the data. Build the business case.

So I thought about it for a few weeks. Then I watched how the guys did the job. I looked at what they were doing and not doing, and compared it to what I was doing.

It turned out that on every aspect of the role I was performing at the same level or at a higher level than the guys. In addition to that, I was doing a bigger job. I was being used in sales in situations on additional parts of our product that some of these guys either, couldn’t or wouldn’t do. I was being left alone with customers to close business, and develop marketing and training with reseller partners.

So I then I finally thought, “this doesn’t add up.” ( I was a little slow…)

Ask for it

Back to the plot, in my next meeting with the VP of Sales and the CEO, they thanked me for my good work and I said, “You’re welcome, and I want a raise”. Their first response was, “You haven’t been here long enough”. I said, “All of my peers are making $6k more than I am”. “They said, “They get paid more because they have more experience.”

So I then said, “But I don’t seem to be getting any kind of slack or break on the work because I have less experience. In fact I am doing more advanced work than they are. I do everything thing they do, and more, so why is their attendance record worth more than my results? I think my salary should be raised at least to what you are paying the others.”

They agreed to raise my salary shortly after that.

The final point in the story is that the other woman called me later and said, “Thanks, you got me a raise.”

What are the lessons here?

1. If I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t get
2. If I didn’t do my homework on knowing what the job was worth, I would not have had a business case to base my request on. Learn the market rate for your job.
3. A business case is much harder to argue with than, “It’s not fair”
4. A business case is much more productive than, “You are discriminating against me because I am a woman.”

It’s worth expanding on this fourth point. Looking back, of course they were paying me and the other woman less than the men. It took me about 15 more years to notice that by the way. (Again, I was a bit slow on this point…)

Business results speak loudest

But I’m glad I was oblivious. If I had become upset about being treated unfairly as a woman, I would have used up a lot of energy and emotion on that. I might have argued on that basis. I might have got labeled, even unofficially, as “difficult” and that might have cut off future opportunities.

By focusing on the business case, I was putting all the right energy in all the right places. I was distinguishing myself on the value I was adding to the business, instead of complaining about how the world works.

No one is completely immune from stingy bosses or companies trying to get you to work for the absolute minimum they can get away with.

But I can tell you, at any level, whether it’s an entry level job or a C-Level position, it is always more productive and compelling to focus on building and selling a business case for the compensation you want, based on what the job is worth the the company, than debating about fairness.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

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The Chasm

Sometimes even when people agree, they can’t communicate with each other.

I’ve seen this common problem play out with bosses and employees when they are both really smart, capable people, but they just don’t get each other — they drive each other crazy.

The issue is that we all have our own preferred style of thinking and communicating.

When we get a match with our boss, life is easy. When we end up as opposites, the interactions can be highly stressful and annoying, leaving both parties scratching their heads about why this is so difficult.

(If you are thinking Myers-Briggs, yes, that is a good way to explain this. But let me jump to specific point I want to make and I’ll put the Myers-Briggs stuff at the bottom for anyone who is interested.)

The Issue

These two types of people look at making progress very differently.

1. BIG PICTURE/GO
2. DATA/PROCESS

Because of that, what should be simple conversations often fall apart. Here are two examples of the problem.

Problem 1. BIG PICTURE/GO boss and DATA/PROCESS employee

(In Myers-Brigs, NP vs SJ)

Your boss says to you, Make it so.

You respond, OK, but here are the things we need to consider to make that happen. And we need to do this first, learn this, and fix this before we can complete that.

You feel like you are being smart and engaged, but what your boss hears is you putting up roadblocks, or giving excuses about why you can’t do it.

You start to feel your boss’s disapproval and frustration, but don’t get it. What you are saying is, Yes, I’ll do it! And here’s how. In your mind, you are showing your boss that you are capable and ready to take this on.

But what your boss’s reaction seems to be, Why are you arguing with me?

The more you talk about what it will take and how you will do it, the more frustrated your boss gets.

Solution: Stop explaining.

When your BIG PICTURE/GO boss says, “Make it so”, you say “Will Do!” and leave the room.

It’s import and to give him the, “YES and GO” feedback in the moment.

Any more information, explaining how it will work, or noting problems to solve at this point will not only NOT add value, it will aggravate him.

Your BIG PICTURE/GO boss is looking for you to join him on the “GO” wagon. Just say, I’ve got it. I’ll report back later. Then GO.

Once you are off on your own you can say to yourself, oh crap, this is difficult, we can’t just jump to that outcome, this might not work, we need to do all this other stuff first… At this time you can study the situation, get inputs, break the task down into steps, start solving problems, etc.

Stay in the Big Picture

Then when you go back to your boss, your BIG message is, I am making progress.

If you need some help, resist the urge to explain or show your work, and keep it a big picture request.

…I have broken this down into 4 areas. All are moving forward but one. I need you to make a decision on this one and then I can continue. Here are two choices.

Keep all of your sequence and process to yourself and reveal only what is truly required, to your boss.

You don’t need to show how capable you are by exposing the machinery. The good news is that your boss trusts you and doesn’t need as much data and sequence as you need.

Score points on his terms not yours.

Problem 2. BIG PICTURE/GO employee – DATA/PROCESS Boss

What about the opposite, where you are the big picture/go person and your boss is the data/process person.

What happens here, is you say to your boss, I’ve got it, but then your boss wants to see all the spreadsheets and project plans. He is thinking about way more detail than you are, even though you are the one doing the work.

He expresses concern that you don’t have enough data. You feel like he doesn’t trust you.

You just want to get on with it and your boss is slowing you down.You are miserable going on data fetching exercises which are not helping you move forward.

Solution: Switch to productive detail.

You won’t get away with not giving detail. So satisfy his need for data and detail but change the conversation so it doesn’t slow you down.

Always have a flow chart with you that shows what you are doing between now and delivering the outcome. Go into the conversation with at least a block diagram of your process. This can deflect a lot of detailed questions.

Focus his detail energy on getting more data about the outcomes, not the process and activity:

…Are these measures OK? Are there other outcomes I have missed? Can you think of other things we need to test or measure to make sure this delivers what we need?

Bridging the Communication Gap

If you are having these kinds of dis-connects with your boss or employee, stop and think about how you are both reacting. Chances are, it’s a big-picture/go, data/process disconnect.

Once you are both aware of if, you can start changing how you interact, have a much more productive and pleasant relationship, and get better business outcomes.
You might even find yourselves joking about it.

Myers-Briggs Information

If you are interested you can take a Myers-Briggs personality test here:

Here is the short-hand about what the assessment tells you.

On each of 4 scales there are two end-points and a range in between. Most people are more toward one end than the other on each scale, but seldom wholly one or the other.

Below are not the official definitions. These are my practical take-aways that I use as a rule of thumb when I interact with people. (By the way, I am an INTJ.)

1. I or E
How you learn and process information about the world: In your own head (I) or by talking things out with others (E)

2. N or S
How you form your picture of the world from that information: Big picture, top down (N), or bottoms up, built from lots of detail (S)

3. T or F
How do you decide what to do about it: Logic/thinking (T) or Caring/Feeling (F)

4. J or P
How you take action on it: Sequence and process (J), or Go now and learn as you go (P)

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

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New Random House Edition

I’m excited to share the news with you that my book RISE has been picked up by a large commercial publisher.

Here is a sneak peak at the new cover. It’s also been updated with additional examples, and re-organized a bit, but the content and the tone remain the same.

If you loved the original, all the stuff you liked is still there.

Get RISE now, or wait till May

I wanted to let you know that RISE will be unavailable for a few months as we switch over to the new version.

So if you want to get a copy as a holiday gift, or for your team or book club, you’ll need to order now. Otherwise you’ll need to wait till May 2012.

Here is all the information on availability.

Dec 31, 2011
The last day to buy the original version.

Jan 1, 2012
You can pre-order the new version.

May 1, 2012
The new version will be shipping.

Get your copies now

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Barnes & Noble

CLICK HERE FOR
VOLUME DISCOUNTS

Increased Distribution & Audio Version!

RISE will be published May 1, 2012 by Ten Speed Press, an Imprint of Crown Books, a division of Random House.

Starting in May 2012:

• RISE will be in book stores and in major airports nationally
• We will also finally have distribution in India which many of you have been asking for
• There will be an audio version (with my voice…James Earl Jones was busy).

Thank You

Thank you for all your support, interest and feedback on RISE. I really appreciate all the reviews, and how many of you have passed it on and are buying it as a gift for others. That is such an honor!

Thanks again.

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About Patty

Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

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I was doing a series of leadership workshops last week and one of the things we talked about was creating a thank you habit in the organization.

Create a “Thank You Habit”

What I mean by a Thank You Habit is to make it known to everyone that the organization wants to acknowledge good work.

Make it clear that the executives want to be informed when good work happens, so they can personally say thank you.

This in itself builds good will, and a helps build a culture of trust.

Create a process for recognition

I don’t think organizations are necessarily stingy with saying thank you, the problem is that good stuff happens all the time and you don’t know about it.

Everybody’s busy, people travel, people are in different sites, so great work happens all the time and you just don’t see it.

All you need to do is create a simple process for any individual in any location to feed a suggestion for recognition of a peer up the management chain.

Make it personal

Commit that when a thank you request comes in, an executive will personally say thank you to the individual, whether that is by a drop-in, a phone call, or a hand written note. (Notice I did not say email).

The more personal the thank you is, the more value it has.

If an executive goes to an individual and recognizes the good work personally, not only does the individual feel great, but everyone in the group is left saying “Wow, they actually know what we do here!”.

It costs nothing

Many organizations over-engineer their recognition programs and it becomes a exercise in spreadsheets and gift certificates.

If you have a reward system in place, that’s fine, but don’t forget about the personal part — the part that takes more time and trouble, but costs nothing.

Make a genuine connection with someone who has done something you appreciate and let them know.

Act on the Thank You

We all fall victim to appreciating things people do for us and never saying anything. I have a far from perfect record on this myself.

But I find that it helps to create a task for yourself that turns into a habit — when you feel gratitude or apprecation, always say so.

So finally…

Thank You!

I am very honored that so many people read my blog and my book, and share it with others. THANK YOU.

I am very grateful for those of you that hire me to come and speak to your group or work with your team. THANK YOU.

And I am very thankful for all the kind words, feedback, and ideas you share with me.

Thank you all. And to those of you in the US,

Happy Thanksgiving!

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

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Driving Action

In this month’s webinar we talked about how to optimize your communications to drive action in your organization.

HIGH VALUE COMMUNICATIONS

Listen or download the webinar to learn more.

Trust & Confidence

Useful assumptions: It’s useful to assume as a starting point, that people don’t listen to you, don’t believe you and don’t trust you. If you then proactively work on trust, your communications will stick.

Consistency: The repetition and consistency of your message is as important as the content. If people don’t hear it over an over again, they won’t believe you are serious. We talked about methods and technologies to show that you are serious this time.

Concrete language: The more concrete you make your language the better. We discussed the use of a timeline, and how to use it to create concrete examples of goals and progress.

Communicate on their terms: It’s important not to modify your communications into sanitized “business speak”. Address tough issues head on and answer questions in the same language as people ask them.

Decisions: Don’t undermine your communications with decisions that go against what you are telling people. We talked about the kind of mistakes organizations make that leave people suspicious and skeptical. (So action stalls.)

Getting Action

Keep it Simple: Greatness of Strategy = Strategy * Execution. You should be able to explain your strategy in straightforward terms that anyone can understand. Complexity undermines execution. If execution is zero, greatness is zero.

Spell out the next steps: High level strategies can be exciting and motivating, but don’t tell people what they need to do differently when they get to work in the morning. We talked about how to give people clear direction and measures that increase accountability across the organization.

Getting Communications to Spread

Get more people talking: You know you have communicated successfully when you are not the only one communicating. The goal is to get all the people talking amongst themselves about what you are communicating. We taked about a few ways to do this.

Create a new social norm: The pull for people to go back to working the old way is very strong. Unless you build communicating about the new way of working into the work day, people will think that you have given up on it and go back to what they were doing.

Get Personal: The more you personalize communications the more impact they will have. Get inputs, and ask questions and get more people communicating about what matters. Things like brown bags and breakfast meetings work well.

Use Social Media: We talked about how internal blogging and community sharing technologies can help groups of people share knowledge efficiently and reduce the email load.

Want more?

Listen or download the podcast – High Value Communications
Download the complete webinar – High Value Communications
(includes the presentation and the worksheets from the webinar)

Become a member – Get this webinar and all the other Webinars

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

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