Harmonics

With the recession behind us and the economy growing, the competition for top talent is intensifying. Interestingly, it’s not just the experienced or specialist employees that are in demand but the open-minded, fresh-thinking millennials are just as sought after as our workforce becomes increasingly transient.

They are the much talked about generation fuelling endless tomes of research, studies and reports. And while past reports of job-hopping millennials may have been exaggerated – some companies still struggle not just in hiring millennials but retaining them. They will make up 50% of the global workforce by 2020, so companies need to consider making changes to their organisational structures and management styles – now.

Overall, millennials value career and personal development over money and status. So, strategies beyond remuneration need to be developed. Here are our 5 recommendations for businesses who want to respond to the new world of work and engage millennial talent:

1. Flexible and trusted – Millennials have ambition and drive but this should not be seen that they want to work all the hours to be like the generation before them. Now they are seeking more work-life flexibility. They want to be trusted to work remotely, they want to dress casually, speak liberally and receive feedback to help them grow.
2. Career Growth – They need to see opportunities to grow, where they can join a team working on projects that have meaning and purpose. They may only be around for a few years so don’t speak tradition and legacy, instead redefine the career development conversation and give them time to speak about their career and personal interests.
3. Openness and transparency – Growing up with technology and social media, millennials expect a culture of transparency and for management to be upfront on why decisions are made. Keep them informed and satisfy their sense of purpose by helping them understand how their purpose links to company values. Millennials will be more engaged and committed if they are informed regularly on progress against the company’s strategy.
4. Mentorship both ways – Millennials appear to be more interested in finding mentors than their previous generations. Leaders and Managers can play a key role here (and not just their direct line managers) – helping millennials with their personal growth or demonstrating the characteristics of a strong leader. However, the real opportunity is in millennials offering ‘reverse mentorship’. If Managers are open to accept the mentorship, the reverse mentor-mentee relationships can add significant value for both parties to learn and utilise one another’s strengths.
5. Listened and recognised – Millennials expect a high-touch approach to management – listen to them and give them feedback. Since their early education, they believe their ideas are important and valuable, so listen to them or they won’t respect you. They really desire a great deal of  feedback – which goes outside the normal parameters of a performance management system. Managers must take the time to engage in formal and ad-hoc constructive feedback on a regular basis.

Perspectives from here and abroad

It’s all about Change

In October, I attended our OI Global Partners meeting in Turin, Italy where over 20 European, Australian and US Partners came to share best practice and themes from their respective countries. Harmonics is the exclusive Irish partner firm of OIGP, a global network of independently owned consultancy firms specialising in Organisation and People Change.

There were a number of themes that dominated our discussions that has implications for us all – whether as employers or employees:

Digital Disruption – Each partner firm reported digitisation was disrupting organisations business and workforce planning. Automation, robotics and AI are now rapidly changing the nature of work as we used to know it. D Amazon, Airbnb, Netflix are all examples of Digital platforms offering global market reach and capturing exponential market share at record speed. We are seeing the 4^th Industrial revolution take hold as digital start-up ventures are infiltrating traditional business models.  What will this mean for people at work? In a recent PWC Survey of over 10,000 global members, 60% think “few people will have stable, long term employment in the future”. This means we will all have to adapt to much change.

Adapting to Change – Our own recent OI Global Future of Work study indicated ‘adapting to change’ as the number 1 challenge facing HR Directors. There was consistency across partner firms that requests to design and develop change programmes was on the rise to enable Leaders and Managers to adapt to change. There is also an interesting development in organisations offering “should I stay or should I go?” career planning programmes. These interventions are to help those who need to decide if they want to stay and upskill to meet changing business needs or leave on a voluntary redundancy programme to pursue new external career options. This career alignment support is now forming a critical part of organisations change programmes.

Growing divide between haves and have nots – Each country shared low unemployment levels but also a growing inequality between the highly paid, highly skilled and the lowly paid, lowly skilled. The hollowing out of the middle class, middle age worker is taking hold and there are worrying signs that this will lead to even greater future inequality. Specialism in much sought after skillsets is highly valued by employers. Technology is moving so fast that the highly valued specialist skillsets are changing rapidly, so there is a perpetual need to unlearn, relearn and learn new skills. We are being approached by many of those in their 40’s and 50’s who are now being impacted by this change and are seeking career coaching to plot a new way forward. This is something that we will see more and more of as the huge disruption takes hold for those with previously well paid and skilled jobs. Organisations need to become more proactive in putting career planning and upskilling in place to support this change or fear losing previously talented people who are not prepared for this change.

International mobility – We are seeing a growing rise in coaching to support international career moves. This is predominantly for millennials who have been promoted to a global role and need to hit the ground running in a new international location. They are coming to terms with a promotion and embracing a new culture in one sweep. This can be overwhelming and career transition coaching is being seen as an imperative to succeed in a new country and in a new role

Future of Work Global Research Study – There has been excellent feedback from our clients to our 2^nd Global Future of Work research study. We are seeking to further deepen the research for the year ahead. This added value to our clients is helping them to understand the challenges and skills required to be successful in the highly competitive and changing world of work.

Market saturation of coaches – The number of people becoming qualified in coaching is growing year on year. While this is great for more and more people to have new coaching skills in the workplace, it is leading to oversupply in the coaching market. Many partner firms reported requests from newly qualified coaches to become join their books and become associate coaches. I have seen this first hand and receive multiple requests weekly from newly trained coaches to join the Harmonics team. From our perspective we need to offer our clients qualified coaches with at least 5 years coaching experience, commercial business experience and specialist knowledge in a core area that matches our client’s needs. Many enter the coaching profession because they are passionate about helping others but what each coach needs to learn most is how to commercialise and niche their offering to become attractive to clients and partner firms like OI. It was recognised by clients that our strength in OI is being recognised as the home to quality coaches globally.

Overall a great meeting and an opportunity for us to take time out with our partners to see how we will pivot our own businesses to stay ahead of the change curve. This quote below was never more relevant.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not into fighting the old but on creating the new” – Socrates

It’s September and back to school season. Every household with school going kids are now firmly back into the routine. My daughter Sarah is starting Junior Cert this year and I look at her books and wonder how much has really changed since I went to secondary school. The big difference seems to be schoolbags got heavier with bigger books, yet we are living in a technology enabled age! In this post, I want to share how our life journey from school to college to work can be one of endless opportunities but only if we approach it with the right mindset.

Routine and archaic

Sarah, like me circa 3Oish years ago, is educated in a similar size classroom by teachers who will teach the same subjects with little change year in year out. Each night she has routine homework to do, answering questions and memorizing stuff for her teachers. Unlike me 30 years ago, she can now google the answers from her mobile device. This is an example of humans applying technology to become more efficient in the modern technology enhanced world. And rightly she wonders why she should learn off stuff she can google and find instant answers. Her generation are stuck in an archaic school system falling further behind to stay relevant in meeting the needs of the Future World of Work. There is an increasing and growing disengagement in the classroom between teachers following the system and students who don’t believe in the system anymore. This is leading to increasing stress for teachers, students and parents.

Questions not Answers

Pablo Picasso once stated, “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” I think Picasso just meant that real intelligence stems from curiosity or the ability to ask questions. In science, it is curiosity that makes you ask questions and then you go and experiment in order to answer them. So if Picasso were around today, he might ask “why are teachers looking for kids to remember answers that computers can give them in a millisecond?” He might also wonder why our teenage kids are not now educated in live learning labs that foster deeper questioning, curiosity, creativity and social interaction. A great example of teenage kids becoming highly engaged is the Young Social Innovators Project. Here they get to work voluntarily on projects they are passionate about and make a difference to society. They have a purpose and they want to learn.

Disengagement and College Drop Offs – 70%

The current approach to education creates a high level of disengagement in the classroom.  Instead of creating well rounded young adults, the one measure of success after six years in second level education is the number of points earned to claim a coveted college place. There seems to be little or no research undertaken by the students or assessment by the college on whether the student is a fit for the course subject matter. This makes it easy to explain why up 70% of students drop out of certain college courses.  Interestingly computer science and business courses recorded some of the highest levels of non-progression. Yet these are considered two of the most important courses in terms of preparing for the future of work. The system is badly broken and no one seems to want to fix it.

We need to move away from “heads down and study hard” education only. Space needs to be created for students to explore the Future World of Work and the changing skills required to succeed. This will give them a clear strategy and help them identify the courses and work that align to their talents and market needs.

Disengagement at work – 70%

We progress to the workplace and find the same number; 70% of millennials are not engaged or actively disengaged at work according to Gallup research. Millennials are accused of job hopping, but from experience they are simply looking for organisations with a purpose they can connect to or work which they find challenging with an opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge. They want an environment that stimulates them and offers them opportunities for growth.

Jonathan Mildenhall Airbnb’s Chief Marketing Officer makes this excellent point about purpose. “Purpose-driven companies outperform their competitors in terms of the financial performance of the business, creating much, much more shareholder value than non-purpose-driven companies. There’s also increasing research and data that proves that purpose-driven companies naturally attract top talent, but they also manage to retain top talent as well,”

If purpose driven organisations outperform their competitors, we as individuals need to define our purpose and what we stand for and believe in to outperform our competitors for jobs.  We in turn will attract more career opportunities in alignment with our purpose because we are clear on what we want and where we want to work in the future.

Creating Chances – 70%

Dr. Jim Bright co-author of the “Chaos Theory of Careers” shows in his research that approximately 70% of interviewees reported chance events had significantly influenced their careers to date. Change, Chance and Complexity play a huge role in where we end up working. In my own career, this happened many times. The first time was a chance meeting in a Co. Clare hotel lobby with an American entrepreneur in my early twenties. This led me to emigrating to the US three months later and changing career direction. I have seen this play out time and time again in our career coaching practice. A chance meeting at an event leads to a change in career direction. It is complex to explain but it does happen and changes the course of careers at least 70% of the time. In sport, if you don’t create chances, you don’t score. In our careers, we need to create more chances by meeting new and interesting people and learning more about the changing world of work. It is not something we only do when we finish our exams or when we lose our job.

 My Career –My Business Model

We have developed the My Career-My Business Model below in response to the rapidly changing future world of work and increasing levels of disengagement and to offer people a practical career model. Let me explain briefly how the model works. It applies strategic business planning directly to career planning. Every successful business will have three core functions;

Research & Development – Develop new products and services to stay ahead of the game

Operations – Manufacture products or deliver services to clients

Sales & Marketing – Create and maintain a pipeline of sales to deliver revenue

If the Business focuses all of its efforts in Operations mode and does not invest in Research & Development or Sales & Marketing, the business will no longer remain commercially viable. New products and competitors will eat their market share. And it’s the same for our careers.

At school, college and work we spend the majority of our time working in Operations or ‘Doing mode’. We have been taught to work hard and you will succeed. The rules have changed and today, we need to work smarter to succeed and this means having a “heads up approach”. Our career advice is to see your career as a business and use the three core functions to guide your career focus;

• Research & Development – Seek to bring new ideas and thinking to the table. As Picasso might say, ask more questions in work meetings and experiment more to add value to your employer and customers.
• Operations – Execute and deliver excellent services for your employers and customers, but do not become swamped with only working hard in this function as the other two functions are door openers to future career opportunities.
• Sales & Marketing – Create and maintain a pipeline of valuable connections both inside and outside your current employer and keep your LinkedIn updated with recent work achievements which showcases your purpose, passion and potential to future employers.

70% Lessons

While we cannot change elements outside our control, like the economy or the environment, we can control the controllables. So, like we used to do in school, to revise on my 70% stats:

70% College Drop Out – This statistic could be reduced significantly if we use our Research & Development Skills to find out what we want to study and why.

70% Disengagement at Work – If we are clear on our career purpose, we can use our Sales and Marketing skills to seek out and attract employers where we will be engaged and aligned to their purpose.

70% Creating Chances – If we are curious and open minded about the wider world and interested in meeting different people outside of our own network, we can change the course of our career direction in the most interesting of ways.

4 Aces Masterclass Series

Last February, John Fitzgerald wrote a blog called “4 Aces Hold the Key for the Future of Work” which looked at the new rules to succeed in the New World of Work. It received a huge reaction and prompted Bank of Ireland to ask how the concept could be brought to life for their employees.

Here, Justine Negri tells us how Harmonics developed a two page blog into a Masterclass Series which was rolled out to all Bank of Ireland manufacturing employees across Ireland and the UK over a couple of weeks.

 Q. John’s blog focused on four key criteria he believed were necessary to succeed in the Future World of Work. Why do you think there was so much interest in this concept?

Justine: In the Masterclass, I highlight how the traditional and rather predictable career model of the past is no longer relevant in today’s rapidly changing world of work. In the traditional model, you graduated from college and through hard work and loyalty alone you could progress up the corporate career ladder. But there’s a new model in town, the self-directed career management model, which implies that the onus is now on you to proactively develop and manage your own career.

Career development and career progression is showing up on Employee Engagement surveys worldwide as being of huge interest to employees. The world of work is being disrupted and organisational change is happening at an exponential rate. Because this model is relatively new, employees want tools, tips and techniques to stay ahead and succeed in this rapidly changing world of work.

 

Q. How did you go about developing the concept into a 45 minute Masterclass?

Justine:  I’ve been working in the career management space for over 15 years now and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with individuals from many different cultures and levels in an Organisation from graduate to CEO level. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet hundreds of Bank of Ireland employees over the past 3 years through the facilitation of the My Career Best workshop, coaching or the implementation of the online career management portal. To make this Masterclass as relevant and practical as possible to Bank of Ireland employees, I tuned into the pulse of emerging themes, needs and wants that I’ve been hearing over the past 3 years so that all participants were leaving with tangible and applicable insights and takeaways.

I introduced participants to the key ingredient that I genuinely believe, if applied correctly, can help us all advance in our careers and that is curiosity. This formed the main component throughout the talk and helped bind the 4 Aces – Awareness of Self, Awareness of the Environment, Adaptability and Anticipation – in a fun, engaging and insightful way.

I also wanted to make sure that everyone left with key learnings that they could apply immediately, so each participant received their own deck of 4 Aces career cards to take away. Each of the 4 Aces has a deeper meaning and will serve as a navigational point to guide them at any stage in their future career journey. The 4 Aces cards, with provocative coaching questions, offer a rich takeaway they can keep in their side locker or wallet to help them prepare for future career planning, performance, interview or career conversations.

Q. What kind of feedback have you received to the Masterclass Series?

Justine: The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I met approximately 1,700 people across Ireland and the UK over the past couple of weeks and the general consensus of praise has been the practical nature of the talk. Numerous people mentioned how they could really identify with the challenges, opportunities and expectations that this self-directed career management model presents and how tangible the 4 Aces are in helping them to plan and prepare for their future career. Participants also worked on live examples during the talk so they got a chance to be truly immersed into this new concept and experience the 4 Aces for themselves.

Q. Do you expect to be delivering this Masterclass again?

Justine: Yes. At Harmonics we are constantly researching the future of work and gathering data from the various Organisations we work with by adapting any masterclass or workshop to ensure it is relevant for every client we work with. This is a new model and it’s here to stay for now, so it’s important for employees to be aware of how they can take control, navigate and stay ahead in this rapidly changing world of work.

CIPD Mid West Event Addresses Employee Engagement Challenges During Exponential Change

Veteran CNN Reporter Gina London and John Fitzgerald, MD Harmonics Group, were the guest speakers at a recent CIPD Mid West event focused on the importance of driving employee engagement during organisational change.

Sponsored by Harmonics, it was the last CIPD Mid West seminar for 2016/2017 and featured an end of year BBQ social which was enjoyed by over 50 HR practitioners from across Limerick, Clare and North Kerry.

John Fitzgerald, MD Harmonics Group and Executive Coach outlined the significant impact disruptive technologies and organisational change is having on the workplace. He described how the ‘liquid workforce’ now demand rapid career growth as well as a compelling and flexible workplace but HR processes are failing to meet their needs. John presented a business case for HR Practitioners on why a new approach to employee engagement is required to address the exponential change that is now happening within traditionally linear work structures.

International campaign strategist and corporate consultant Gina London explained why employees believe organisational change means ‘more work plus uncertainty’ and shared some tools to improve communications and move relationships forward so that employees trust leaders more and buy-in to the change that’s happening.

Speaking about their sponsorship of the event, John Fitzgerald said “The speed and amount of change being faced by employees in the workplace is unprecedented. We were delighted to sponsor this event and have the opportunity to share with the HR Community in the Mid West some of our insights on how to improve employee engagement and the employee experience.”

Career Transitions Require Time

Following a telephone conversation with a panicked Senior Executive this week, I felt compelled to share his story with those who may be in the same situation now or at some point in the future.

The Senior Executive recently left his former employer and was due to start an Executive Outplacement programme with Harmonics in 10 day’s time as part of his exit package. A bespoke programme of outplacement support was developed with his needs in mind and comprehensive pre-work was sent to him to complete in advance of the first session.

But he called this week in a state of blind panic. He had met someone for coffee who told him that he needed to get back on the horse ASAP and not leave a gap in his CV. Their career advice suggested he needed to start job hunting sooner rather than later or he would regret it. This friendly advice led him to this urgent call to bring forward his first session to the following day as he needed to update his CV before the end of the week and start job hunting immediately.

Like many who have faced a job-hunting period, he was in an emotional place.  In his early fifties, he had never been out of work before and felt out of control. Trying to speak to him in a logical manner was not working because of his state of fear and panic. He was like a man racing into Harvey Norman before a deadline because he had just heard the advert, “when these jobs are gone, they’re gone!” His friend had put the fear of God into him, that he would never get another job if he didn’t take the first one that came along.

We have fine-tuned the Harmonics Career Transition methodology after working with thousands of people over the last 10 years. It works and it delivers job placement success when practiced. But it is a process and there is an art and a science to how we work. The science piece first. Executive Job Search is very much like the birth of a new baby because it typically takes 9 months from conception to delivery. This man wants a baby in 9 hours not 9 months!

The 9 Month Gap

A nine month career transition might seem like a very long time for an emotional Executive, but finding the right opportunity takes time. It’s important to allow space and time to come to terms with often emotional endings after a long service with one employer. Next, we help them create a new career identity to grow within them first so that they can then communicate this articulately to their network and potential stakeholders in their next career move.

A few years back, during a first Outplacement session, an IT Director demanded that I help him find work in 6 weeks as he didn’t want a gap on his CV. Knowing he had lots of IT project management experience, I asked him if he could deliver a complex 9 month IT project in 6 weeks. He said it wouldn’t be possible as there would be too many variables and stakeholders involved in the project and the client wouldn’t get the results they wanted. Short cuts would not deliver the outcome required. I agreed and shared the similarities in career transition. It is often overlooked that Executive Search projects typically take 6 months, so why would his Executive job search take any less?

Restricted by the Paradigm of the Past

Instead of using the opportunity to take stock, many candidates go back to what they know. They design their future career move from the paradigm of their past role. They are limiting themselves by their own bias, prior experience, former job title, industry sector and career specialism. In career transition, and with more time on their hands, people will meet well-intentioned friends for a catch up coffee to start networking. These coffees turn into multiple career advisory sessions. These friends are all well-meaning but the career advice is clouded by their own bias and likely siloed view of job search. Our methodology at Harmonics brings people through a guided process on what they have to supply, what skills are in demand and bridging the gap between both – but only when we have mapped out the full picture.

100 Yard Dash to Nowhere

Back to my panicked caller. The friend offering career advice had never changed jobs themselves but knew of someone else who had struggled to get a job after they were made redundant. It turned out to be someone with few relevant skills or qualifications so inevitably they found it harder to find a job. We need to be careful who we listen to in life!

I spoke to him about how he needed to make the next move the right move, rather than just another job. His first session would not focus on just his CV but on designing from first principles to create the best outcome for him. This Harmonics Career Transition methodology is a once in a lifetime process, to take stock rather than a CV writing service. In career coaching, we aim to create a Career Destination on the map before we set off at pace in a race to an unknown land. This 100 metre dash video clip from the famous Monty Python sketch team will give you a laugh and an idea of what people can be like when they start out in career transition.

Managing Uncertainty is a Key Trait for Future of Work

Leading and managing through uncertainty is one of the key traits for successful leaders in the future workplace. How he manages through this period of change will serve him well if he listens to his intrinsic motivators and trusts his intuition. Change is a process and it takes time to readjust and re-calibrate our career direction. The gap in your CV is often now viewed by recruiters as someone who took the time to ascertain what they wanted rather than a rapid response to the first job that comes along.

Change is not a straight line and the Bridges Model of Change makes so much sense for those in Career Transition. This quotation from Susan Bridges sums up for me the space we need to give ourselves between endings and letting go of the past before the new can come to life.

“The essence of life takes place in the neutral zone phase of transition. It is in that interim spaciousness that all possibilities, creativity and innovative ideas can come to life and flourish.” —Susan Bridges

Personal Innovation Project

I encourage people to think about their career transition as if they were going to work on an innovation project for an employer wanting to transform the way they do business and re-position for the future.  Set your transition up as a Personal Innovation Project and take the time to redesign your future not based on the old principles of the past, but with a blank slate and focused on first principles.

My parting career transition advice

1. Design from first principles – start with a blank canvas not from your former job title
2. Start from the inside out – Ask “what do I want?” rather than “what will others say or think?”
3. Trust the process of nature – It takes time but all new babies do too!

Let nature be your guide and trust the science and methodology of the career transition process. Personal renewal starts with rest, the brain needs sleep to refuel, the baby needs time to grow, the seeds planted in spring can only be harvested in autumn.

Watch this Space

If you are in between jobs or know anybody who would benefit from reading this blog, please share. There is no need to panic; it is just the space you need to create between endings and new beginnings.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not into fighting the old but on creating the new” – Socrates

Do you know anyone waiting for a package? There are so many among us who have given years of service to one employer and would love a change but think they should hold on for the Voluntary Severance package. Working in career transition for years, at Harmonics we know there comes a time (somewhere after 8 years) when people feel they have too much to lose by leaving without a package. And there can be a sense of entitlement that others before them have received packages so why not them.

I define people who are waiting for the package as FedEx. Fed up with where they work but waiting for an Ex Gratia payment from an employer to leave.

This FedEx mindset can be detrimental to their careers. In this article, I share some tips on how to manage your career better and honour your talents.

Waste of talent

There is a lot of well documented waste in the world like food, energy, water but there is even more wasted talent in Organisations. I have seen too many people wait and wait for the package, year after year, and allow their talent to waste away. They’ve told me privately they would be gone in the morning if only there was a package going. They speak about having to follow protocol, keep the head down, how their boss is a living nightmare and the work environment will never change. One civil servant recently described themselves as “being imprisoned by the system”. The statements are always filled with negativity and powerlessness to change anything. The end result is that the person has plateaued in their career and wasted their talent waiting for the package.

So what would do if the package arrived tomorrow?

When I ask what exactly they would you do if they left, the response is usually “anything else but this”. I could count on one hand when someone has articulated clearly to me what they would do if the package arrived. Having a FedEx Mindset removes personal responsibility. Being Fed up with your current manager or employer can be blamed on them and how they will never change. Waiting for an Ex Gratia payment simply means you can’t afford to leave unless you get an attractive enough package to do so. There are many different personal circumstances individuals face when considering whether to stay or leave.

Depression and Regression

Susan (not her real name) recently engaged me as a career coach. She has worked with her current employer for 18 years.  She described the culture as toxic; the canteen chat littered with stories of poor managers, round pegs in square holes, having to do more with less resources, etc, etc. If the rumour mill is true, a Voluntary Redundancy Programme may open up in the coming year.

Susan came to me because she didn’t know what else she could do if she took the package but she wanted to broaden her career options. She took personal responsibility to pay for career coaching privately to create a new future beyond what she only knows now.

In recent years, Susan suffered from depression and was on medication. It became clear to her, as we worked together, that her depression was directly linked to her workplace environment. Susan had taken medication for depression for the first time in her life, all the time waiting for the package to arrive and letting her skills to regress. Now she cannot bear the thoughts of another 10 years waiting for a package and knows she needs to get out.

What to do while you wait for a package to arrive

While I don’t encourage people to wait for a package, sometimes their level of debt and personal situation means it is the only realistic thing to do. Susan has a big mortgage, is the main earner in the home and a family that will need college education soon. She needed to know what her family’s financial needs are before making the next step.  Susan completed a personal financial exercise with my colleague Liam Croke, MD of Harmonics Financial in advance of knowing what the package could be.

She also completed a Career Stocktake Programme with me to evaluate her new career options. The work we have done together has completely opened her mind to using her talents and skills in a new way in a new sector. She is now working actively on her future with an excitement she hasn’t experienced since she first started out in her career almost 20 years ago. Now, with a realistic plan B in train, the negativity in her workplace washes over her head. She is committed to her new future and growing her network of connections and knowledge of new careers outside her own sector. She knows where she is going and why. She is off all medication and feeling like a new woman.  She has joined a reading and yoga class and found new friends outside her negative workplace.

Bridging the Certainty Gap

There is always a gap people will have when making a career transition. The gap between what they have now. This includes the certainty, the structure, the known, the same people in the canteen, the same route to work. Even though this place is not where they want to be, there is a certainty and security about the old and proven.

Making a career move seems a lot harder the longer you have been with one employer and especially into a new sector. You are unknown, unproven, uncertain and fearful you might fail. As children, we don’t worry about failing, we just fall and get back up again and try to walk and eventually make it. As adults, we have a lot invested in our former selves, who we are and often worry way too much about what others may think. Bridging this gap and trying something new is filled with the opportunity to make mistakes, rejection and loss. Change can be like a turbulent flight; you can expect moments when you do need to tighten your seat-belt.

It sounds scary, yet the people, who we have helped transition with the proper career and financial planning ahead of time, tell me instantly they would never go back to the old. They tell me “They needed a push”, “My instinct was right”, “I put up with it for way too long”, “I knew I could do it”. We simply dishonour our talents by waiting too long for the package.

Parable of the Talents

I was reminded recently in a coaching session about the parable of the talents. The coachee shared his father’s guidance when he was growing up: The parable of the talents was an instruction for the disciples to use their God-given gifts which were seen to include personal abilities (“talents” in the everyday sense), as well as personal wealth. What a wonderful message to have endured the course of time from father to son.

Four Questions to Consider

Here are four questions I ask people considering why they feel they need to change. I get them to think about career transition as if they were spring cleaning their house:

1. What do you want to keep? It will often be what they do best, my most important values
2. What do you want to discard? It could be old habits, a toxic work environment
3. What do you want to change? It may be self-limiting beliefs, a new role, a new challenge
4. What do you want to add? These could be new skills, knowledge and networks

If you are honest with yourself in completing this exercise, you have authored your own reasons on what you need to change and why. Allowing yourself to wait and plateau without taking action on this list is doing you and your employer a disservice. It is like staying in a marriage for show and not being really committed.

Three Important Lessons

Susan has learned three important lessons:

1. If you need to wait for a package because of your financial situation, start the process of change yourself and commit to it so that it becomes harder to stay than leave.
2. If your job has had an adverse effect on your health, then this is only a symptom. You need more than a doctor’s prescription, you need a career stocktake to take you out of the toxic environment.
3. If you don’t feel brave enough to do it on your own, engage the help of a career coaching professional who has worked with many people just like you for support.

In summary, if you are over 5 years with your current employer and can sense that you are at a plateau, don’t wait for 8 years or 18 years to feel powerless to change. Don’t wait to be told by your manager where you should move in the organisation or to be offered a package. Take proactive action and recalibrate; take the time to refocus on your career and become reenergised as a result. Be more than ready for that time when the package arrives. Be so ready that, if a new role appears while you are waiting, it is easier to leave. The more often you complete career transitions, the less scary they become. Career transitions become a part of your DNA; you have less to fear and more to gain. You will become more marketable and employable in the longer term.

Be mindful when the package runs out

Always remember the package offers you a certain amount of money which will last for a defined period of time. Reinvesting in new skills and educating yourself with labour market knowledge provides a lifetime platform for new career opportunities. The only barrier to this reinvestment is your mindset and what you believe is possible for you!

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not into fighting the old but on creating the new” – Socrates

Hearing that the Aintree Grand National takes place this weekend, I was reminded of this piece which I wrote a little over two years ago.  At the time I had just finished a 3000 piece jigsaw and it was the same week AP McCoy retired from racing. It seems appropriate to share this article again as the message is still very relevant today – particularly for Senior Executives on an upwards career path or facing transition…

I had never completed a jigsaw as big as this before. It was the picture that grabbed my attention. It was the 7 wonders of the world. I thought WOW that would be really great to complete some time. Well that time came over Christmas when I thought I could potter away at it in my own time while I am off work.

I used to love jigsaws when I was younger and said it would be fun to do something different. We have an open space upstairs and this became my playroom for my jigsaw. I started it on December 28th and since then and now it’s been part of my life, a place to go to chill and forget about the rest of the world, my part time job! On February 8th I eventually got it knocked out.

Over the past few months, both my parents have been in hospital and it has been a particularly stressful time for my sister and I building hospital runs and home care trips into our daily routines. Doing the jigsaw became my chill zone even if it was stressful at times when progress seemed painfully slow.

It’s interesting what goes through your mind doing a jigsaw. For me it was a test. You see, I’m the best at starting something, great with new ideas and getting stuff off the ground, but my completion rates are not great. I’m not a completer finisher, so finishing this seemed like a new challenge. Finishing gives you such a high on one level and an anti-climax on another level. Almost straight away after finishing I started thinking “what will I do now?”  Do I really want to open another box of 3,000 pieces and have to start again? Or will I go for a bigger test of 5,000 pieces and really test myself to the limit. Or will I step back down to my 500 pieces. Sure wouldn’t that be grand, my wife said to me rather than staying up half the night trying to complete the 3,000 pieces.

As I put my final pieces in the jigsaw, I heard Sky in the background on TV; they were speaking about the announcement of the retirement of the world’s greatest jockey. On February 8^th, AP and I had something in common; we are finishing on a high.  He won the Hennessy Gold Cup in Leopardstown for the first time and I finished my 3000 piece jigsaw for the first time. His achievement has not come without a cost as he has broken over 700 bones in his riding career, my meagre achievement a lot less painful!

We seek more

Both AP and I have come to the end but we are not fully satisfied. We seek more. AP is driven; he is the best in the world at what he does. He knows if he has to start something new again, he will have to start right back with the 3000 pieces in the box and has no idea what he wants the picture on the box to look like. From what we know of AP, he will want the largest jigsaw possible to complete. 3,5,10, maybe there is a 100,000 piece jigsaw for him to have a go at!

Many people reach a high like AP in their careers and find they can’t ever repeat it. They were at their best and happiest doing what they did and then they can’t, for whatever reason, do it anymore. Professional sports people stand out because their retirement often comes at such a young age, usually in their 30’s. They were once driven to achieve, pushed themselves to the limit, but after stepping down they just can’t get that buzz anywhere else. One of my clients said to me recently, “John, your job is to get me off the drug of more, I’m addicted. I can’t stop this insatiable drive to go for more and more!”

It’s great to find what you love to do and it is possible to replace it with something more or less, but it does take time to stand back and not rush it. You may want to look back at all the great days, all the stand out winning days you had, but that’s the past and we need to learn to look back fondly but never wantingly.

When I got to the end of my 3,000 piece jigsaw, I found I had a missing piece. One missing piece! I had 2,999 pieces but one piece got0 away. I searched high and low under couches and carpets but no sign. I could have decided that it was a disaster, after all my hard work that one missing piece could ruin it all! But no, I just have to accept this will always be a missing piece, the one that got away. I’m sure if you asked AP have you any regrets, he will probably speak about all the close races he nearly and should have won – even though he has ridden over 4,000 winners.

Just accept it and move on

The important thing is never to let the missing pieces take over your life. Just accept it and move on. Life isn’t perfect. Careers aren’t perfect. Just enjoy building the picture you want to build and take the learning that life brings along the way. Accept that change will always bring new challenges and opportunities.

For AP, he has started a new career in the media as a racing pundit. He has admitted he would love to go back and ride again to test himself on the racetrack once more. That’s his drug of more – missing the drug of racing and saddling up every day. While he has replaced it with punditry, I get the sense this isn’t enough for him. In my opinion, he will need to replace it in time with something more personally rewarding to fill the void. This takes patience and time, just like building a jigsaw, to create a new career picture that will intrinsically meet your needs. Others will gladly suggest what they think is right for you in your career future but AP and others who change careers need a new burning ambition. This burning ambition video by Peter Fuda on how to approach change is a helpful link in creating change from within.

Fear is not a sustainable energy source

In an interview some time ago, AP said the fear of failure had driven him on for years. Fear is a powerful motivating fuel but a fuel that eventually burns you out.  Fear is not a sustainable energy source over the course of a lifetime. I am currently coaching a Senior Business Leader and they work crazy hours because of a life message from their mother to “work hard”. This served him well in his earlier years, but he is now nearing 50 and still driving on with the foot to the floor. Coming from very little, his life belief is that he has to prove to his parents that he is now a success. He doesn’t have a degree and fears he will be found out at some stage in his career, yet he hasn’t made the time to go back and study part time. What he needs, more than a degree, is to change his leadership style from doing to leading, from busyness to creating boundaries and saying ‘No’.

For AP, and for all of us, the missing piece is not riding more winners, chasing the next promotion, working longer hours, driving for more sales, building bigger businesses or bigger jigsaws, it is finding another piece altogether, peace within ourselves that we are OK. That we don’t have to be, do or have anything more than anyone else to prove this. Taking the time to listen to our inner voice of wisdom rather than taking too much notice of what the commentators and amateur life pundits have to say.

The missing piece is that we are all OK; we just need to take the time to find that inner missing peace within ourselves.