Reach Out And Touch Someone

Monday Morning Pep Talk!

Reach out and touch someone was a tagline for AT&T back in 1979 to increase long distance calls.

Staying in touch with friends in midlife is tough. The Mayo Clinic published, Friendships: Enrich Your Life and Improve Your Health, in April 2011 touting the benefits of friendships. Recently a person shared with me that despite hundreds of connections on LinkedIn, a healthy Twitter following and thousands of Facebook friends, she has never felt more lonely. Her candor took me by surprise, but before I could respond her phone beeped twice and she excused herself to respond to a couple of text messages. She continued our conversation barraged by ringers, buzzes and bells indicating text messages, new voice mail messages and e-mails. Finally, I asked her to power down, so we could finish our coffee in peace. My friend did not want to continue her conversation about the loneliness she was feeling, but her phone told the tale.

There is something about connecting with your friends outside of work either by picking up the telephone, actually sending a birthday card (imagine their surprise) or seeing each other face-to-face that cements a relationship that e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, your Google+ circles and LinkedIn connections cannot replace. I have all of the aforementioned technology and it is great—in moderation.

I have learned if I don’t manage the technology---the technology will begin to control me. So, there are boundaries---Facebook is for 80 friends at any one time. It allows me to share photos, keep up with friends and family members I don’t live near or our schedules don’t allow us to see each other frequently. Professional connections are part of my LinkedIn network. I try to know most of my 260+ connections personally. A few are friends of friends. Other LinkedIn connections are friends of the blog or professional acquaintances including some I have only met once at a conference or workshop. Then, there is Twitter—they are my blog connections. Many of the people I follow on Twitter or that are following me, I’ve never met. We may admire each other’s work or have a mutual professional or writing interest. For me, Twitter is not personal. It is an extension of Work, Careers and Jobs @ 40+. There are no Tweets of vacation destinations, great concerts or family news. Organizations may follow you on Twitter. I doubt the American Management Association or Diversity Journal wants know the finest gem of a gourmet restaurant I discovered in Roanoke, IN last month. I might suggest Joseph Decuis to my Facebook friends or to you (http://www.josephdecuis.com).

That is part of my personal technology strategy. Everyone has to develop a system that works for them. According to the Mayo Clinic article investing time in strengthening friendships has a pay off in better health and a more positive outlook toward life. So, this week, call a friend and at least leave a voice mail. Give your friendships CPR and good feelings will flow both ways. You have 168 hours, make it a great week!

Owning Your Work/Life Balance

Monday Morning Pep Talk

You are one of the lucky ones, you have a job. If you feel like you’re working harder, you are probably right. According to the mandarins at the U.S. Department of Labor workers over fifty years old work harder than their younger counterparts because they value work more. In 2010, Professor Jean Twenge, from San Diego State University, published results of a generational differences study in the Journal of Management. The study found, “young workers place little value on teamwork, company loyalty and see their jobs as merely a means to make a living; they like their leisure time, want more vacations, and don’t want to be under a lot of pressure at work.”

It is up to you to carve-out some “me time” away from the pressures of work to create some work/life balance. Your company isn’t going to do it for you and working 60 hours-a-week is no guarantee you won’t get laid off in the next round of  job cuts.

"The impact that taking a vacation has on one's mental health is profound," said Francine Lederer, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in stress and relationship management. "Most people have better life perspective and are more motivated to achieve their goals after a vacation, even if it is a 24-hour time-out." Various other studies support the impact of vacations and time away from work on increased productivity, stress relief and a boost to overall health. So, why don’t more people take time off?

 Corporate America has a “24/7, never stop culture” and when senior corporate managers work seven days a week it permeates throughout the organization. Europeans embrace the idea of time away from work to recharge almost religiously. Vacations are enshrined in law. In countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, employers are required to provide up to 20 days of paid leave. Americans, on the other hand, get an average of 12 days every year. A study conducted by the Families and Work Institute found that less than half of U.S. employees take their full vacation benefit.

Probably the best evidence of the “vacation effect” can be found in the Framingham Heart Study, which scientists have examined for years to understand what contributes to our well-being. More than 12,000 men who were at risk of heart disease were followed over nine years to see if there were ways to improve their longevity. Among the questions they were asked annually was about vacations. "The more frequent the vacations, the longer the men lived," says Karen Matthews, of Pittsburgh’s Mind-Body Center, who analyzed the data to assess the benefits of vacations.

Even if you can’t afford a trip away or you are unemployed and feel guilty about taking any time off your job search, a “stay-cation” in your own town or house-swapping with friends or relatives from another city are ways to recharge your batteries. According to Matthews,"It is important to engage in multiple leisure activities, both as a way to enjoy life more, but also to potentially have a benefit on health and be a stress reliever.” This Monday Morning Pep Talk was written a little late as I am taking my own advice and enjoying some time off.

Increase Your Job Satisfaction

Recently I addressed an alumni group about navigating the multigenerational workforce and creating a satisfying career. The overall age of the audience is somewhat younger than the groups I generally present to—most of them were at or close to a decade in the workforce. This provided a great opportunity to learn how the work experience differed than what they expected in college. I also asked what the audience thought they might be doing if talked again in ten years.

Their responses were surprising. Over half the audience had aspirations to own a business. Now maybe it was because the audience was young, intelligent and ambitious (they were spending a Saturday morning at an alumni networking breakfast) or maybe this audience viewed their roles at work much differently than the 40+ worker.

I’m guessing it is the latter. Of the twelve participants that planned to evolve into entrepreneurs, all of them are currently employed by large business and many are already promoted into supervisory roles with direct reports. Three of the young 30-somethings had impressive budget responsibility and large organizations reporting to them. Rather than look at their current companies as a place to make the proverbial climb into the corner office with plush carpet, a gatekeeper in front of their door and other discreet executive perks; they appeared to view their jobs as an extension of their education. Their income was being used to pay off student loan debt, but what company’s name was on the business card could not have matter less. Emergency in the employee engagement aisle!

Employees joining the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s, came of age in more of a “carrot and stick” management style. The carrot was the first promotion. If Bob performed well as a technician II; then Bob become a technician III or (gasp)—a Senior Technician. That changed for many Fortune 500 companies in the mid-1990s as they dabbled in “Broadbanding”. If you worked for a company that missed the Broadbanding bus (lucky you)—it is when a company flattens the hierarchy, eliminates levels of management, makes it really difficult to get a promotional title change and replaces a large number of salary levels with a small number of salary grades with broad pay ranges. That is as simple as I can make it sound. It would take a highly paid consulting practice leader to make Broadbanding sound logical today. In the era of mergers/acquisitions that was the 1990s, a suave HR consultant could spin it to make sense. My audience impatiently expects titles and pay increases now--or they are leaving even with 8% unemployment.

The 40+ worker believed their company was the beginning and the end while this cohort of twenty-five to thirty-two year olds view their work as a means to an end.   They were much more interested in my four years of entrepreneurship and how I build blog traffic than an audience of their peers a decade or two older.  They appeared to be simultaneously engaged in their jobs today and could fire off a text with their resignation tomorrow. Corporate loyalty? They snickered as if my AARP card had fallen out of my wallet.

Over dinner, I was discussing this event with friends for their assessment. One astute observation was that my audience included children of Baby Boomers. They lived through their parent’s being laid off in corporate downsizings; they were relocated as children when their parents moved to start new jobs and they understand that for as much as a company provides their payroll direct deposit today—these young people think like freelancers or 1099-workers. More experienced workers have additional considerations including aging parents, health issues, young adult children or in some cases second families with young children---adopting the mindset of a younger generation where it makes sense, could be your ticket to increased career satisfaction.

Happy Labor Day in the USA

For those of us who labor and those looking for employment, a good rememberance for Labor Day.

 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

READ THIS BOOK

Monday Morning Pep Talk

The Coming Jobs War is the most important business book you have not read. It is by Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, the annoying pollsters who call you during dinner to ask a few questions. Generally, I am suspect of books published by companies where the author is the CEO or any other executive, but this 2011 tome had me hooked by page ten.

This is the point where I should mention to you that I was not sent a complimentary copy of this book since that happens now nor did I buy this book. I checked it out of the Fishers (Indiana) Public Library. For the audiobook-obsessed, I didn’t find it on audible.com, my favorite book download or as an audiobook. This book is a quick read at less than 200 pages and for my time-starved friends in the Human Resources profession—just read Chapter Eight, High Energy Workplaces, then I’ll bet you will read the rest.

Why this book is so important?

The subtitle is “What every leader must know about the future of job creation.”  For the age 40+ employee to redefine retirement and continue to work past what was normally considered standard—65 or maybe 62---there has to be jobs. We all know there are fewer jobs today and the decline began before the recession of 2008. Job creation has been an issue since the meltdown in 2001. That is when the perfect storm of the dot.com bubble, the September 11 attack and the implosion of Enron (which a year later would infect and destroy its accounting firm that had existed for ninety years) forever changed how senior management viewed headcount and FTEs. What this book does brilliantly is explain how to create jobs.

Why is this book vital to workers in their 40s and 50s?

You have read it here before; it has never cost more to retire. According to AARP, the “average” retiree is paying $300-$400 a month in Medicare supplements and co-pays. Even the best retiree health plans do not cover vision or dental. Then you have companies that cannot fund their pension obligations (read up on the city of Stockton, CA filing bankruptcy to learn more about this issue). Clifton explains why you can’t count on Medicare or Social Security (pages 33-35 for the skimmers). I’m not the chicken little-type or a survivalist building a bunker in the backyard—but as a realist, you have to surmise that both of these safety nets have big holes in them.

One of my dearest childhood friends resides in the suburbs of Detroit and Clifton uses the Motor City as a cautionary tale for where America is headed. While the book may have a United States orientation—there are global indications too. (Yeah! if you’re reading in China and not so smiley-faced everywhere else). For my dear friends in the health information management profession, chapter eleven was written to motivate you to keep fighting the good fight with EHR, EMR, e-Rx, and the other e-initiatives you are advocating to modernize health care.

I read the book and ran out to support small and medium-sized businesses (the future of job growth) this weekend; had the local bookstore order copies to send to my 2 good friends- the 55+ mayor of his town and the encore-career entrepreneur. Let me know what you think of the book--you can leave your comment anonymously.

Innovation, Disruption and YOU

Monday Morning Pep Talk

Innovation is a good thing, right? Companies win awards for their innovations and it is the buzzword of the moment in business. It drives profits, market share growth and top line revenue. Innovation solves problems we didn’t realize we had with products and services we didn’t know we wanted that now we can’t live without. It is the reason my home is filled with gadgets that start with lowercase, “i”.

Everyone at their company wants to be known as an innovator. It is an honor. The lucky sap that is viewed as an innovator can show up anywhere in an organization, but generally innovators reside in R&D, marketing or I/T. The innovator’s reward is a big salary, a title on his/her business card as Senior Director of Something No One Understands and Teflon status during corporate reorganizations. Innovators appear relaxed and smiling in a sea of nervous chaotic types when senior management enters a room.

Innovation leads to disruption. Disruption leads to....job loss. The innovation of ATMs made bank tellers nearly irrelevant and the ones that remain work as slowly as possible to remind us of their fate. Other innovations led to the demise of the switchboard operator, the ice man, newspaper print setters and manual street sweepers. Because of innovation, there are fewer jobs for radio announcers, executive administrators, general manufacturing, parking lot attendants and a broad spectrum of other positions. It is all automated.

Since innovation is not slowing down and it leads to disruption and ultimately job loss; what is a 40+ worker to do? First, we have to acknowledge that with innovation and the disruption is produces there is going to be change. Jobs will be lost and other jobs will be created. For every milliner, bookbinder or pinsetter that isn’t needed today; there is a job for a Director of Digital, a Patient Advocate, Social Media Strategist or Interior Design Stager. A couple of years ago, there was an uproar about the Karl Fisch video clip reminder, “The jobs in highest demand in 2010 did not exist in 2004.”  Today we accept that premise. As experienced workers have to think ahead about problems that don’t exist yet—we have to anticipate, stay flexible and embrace continuous learning. There is no guarantee the job you do today is going to be done the same way with as many people--there is no guarantee your company will exist the same way it does today. Technology will somehow impact every job we are doing in 2012.

Innovation is a good thing, and we have to start by innovating ourselves. Create your own disruption—learn a new language and become bilingual. Take a vocation vacation. (Check out: http://vocationvacations.com) to learn more. Brush up on your technology skills or take a class to learn about social media. You have 168 hours—make it a great week!

Where Did My Confidence Go? I Know it's Around Here Somewhere

Monday Morning Pep Talk--July 30, 2012

Sometimes in a long career, you begin to lose your confidence. It starts around the time you can't remember where you put your keys. A misstep or two may make you believe it is time to get out of the game. Your co-workers and managers are decades younger, and you begin to minimize your accomplishments and focus on your flaws.

Loss of your confidence as an employee, entrepreneur or job-seeker in your 40s, 50s, and 60+ is the beginning of a downward spiral you have to address and reverse. Losing your confidence at work feels like rejection, paranoia, and excessive worry. You may have seen this in others on the job. As a human resources consultant, I have worked with clients that have lost their confidence and lost their way (and almost lost their businesses). While coaching was never a primary line of business in my HR consultancy; loss of the leader’s confidence had a disastrous affect on the workplace (and that was my focus). Well-meaning business professionals turned into tyrants. It showed up as micromanaging, bitterness of the business owner/leader toward their staff; lack of trust in their team; poor business results and increased turnover (of the wrong employees).

If your confidence needs a boost, try these three things this week:

(1)  Watch what you say when you talk to yourself. Admit it—you do have those private internal conversations. We all do. As self-confidence wanes, our imagination runs wild. We begin to speculate instead of waiting for the facts. Every time disruptive negative thoughts enter your mind or internal conversation this week—counter it with a positive thought or affirmation. “I have done it before; I can do it again.” One of my favorites, “When you are young, you learn; when you are old, you understand.” (I am not calling you “old” think of it as wise).

(2)  Give Yourself Credit for What You have Accomplished. The 40+ crowd is a lot different from the group I call the “T-ball generation.” In the “T-ball” world everyone was a winner, they played sports where no one kept score (except parents/grandparents on the sidelines) and it developed a sense of entitled narcissism—they have now moved into management jobs-hiring 40+ workers. We, on the other hand, easily forget our successes and dwell on our failures. When faced with this dichotomy, remember the accomplishments of your past are the foundation of your future. So lighten up, already!

(3)  Get Support if Needed. Confidence at work is essential and if you need help looking for yours, don’t be shy in reaching out. Whether is it calling that positive, affirming friend, joining a job club or hiring a licensed, certified professional (psychologist, life coaches and career coaches do this type of work)—do it this week.

Reclaiming your confidence is like re-igniting a fire inside you. Confidence fuels your energy. The boost you feel will increase your effectiveness as a leader, entrepreneur or in your job search.

You’ve got 168 hours! Make it a great week.