The First Career Transition

I don’t care how old we are, going through our first major career change is dramatic.  You could be 22, 29, 35 or 40.  No matter what the age making a shift in our careers brings anxiety.  And a shift can be as straight forward as shifting industries but staying in a similar role.  For some that is hugely dramatic.

I vividly remember the early years of my career.   Yes, like many young professionals today I went through similar challenges.   I too started my career in the middle of a recession.  I began my career in human resources.  HR has been the constant through-out my career in various forms, but early on, I bounced around to various jobs within HR around the Boston area.  Employers were really beginning to change regularly and layoffs were becoming more common.  About 3 years out of college I landed a great recruiting job.  After about a year of that I transfered to another office, within the same company, but as an assistant to the benefits manager.  Well, I just thought that was crazy.  Of course I was experienced enough to actually do benefits job, not the assistant.  Why was I the assistant?  I hope you are getting my humor here.  The thoughts that filled my head were of confidence but very arrogant.  Fortunately I had a wonderful VP who was kind enough to set me straight and gave me the option to either stay, and buckle down, or leave without any recourse.  She offered to be a reference if I needed one. After a long stressful weekend of debating my options, I decided to leave and head out looking for something else.  A year later I was being laid-off from a great HR job.  More drama.

My time out of work, fortunately, was not too long.  I did struggle to figure out where to go.  The one thing I did know is that I wanted to stay in human resources in some fashion.  So I kept my job search with that target in mind.  I picked my top companies for the two locations I wanted to check out, Boston and New York City.  I did a couple of trips to NYC in my job hunt.  It was fun but I decided to not venture there.  I opted to stay in the Boston area.  

So I had a target, human resources.  I had a location, Boston.  I pulled my resume together and my elevator pitch with the help of a career services consultant.  This was the first time I had heard of such a thing, an elevator pitch, in regards to a job search.  It was the most important skill I learned while working with him.  

What else did I learn through my early career transition?  First, that I needed to always be connecting with others.  I never knew when I would need to move onto another job either because of my arrogance or the economy.  (more humor - not so arrogant anymore - I hope).  Building your network and nourishing it are keys to success in any era.  When I say to build your network I don’t mean just online with Facebook either.  I mean, use more professional online tools such as LinkedIn and definitely get offline.  One point on LinkedIn, it may be boring but you need it, so get over the “boring” and build a branded profile.  

On the offline network, get out and meet people.  You never know who knows someone else who has a job of your dreams open and waiting for you.  Attend networking events.  Attend events that are outside of your normal circle of friends and family.  It could be an art exhibit opening or a unique community event.  They are fantastic opportunities to interact with new people. 

Secondly, I had to learn to be resilient and not take all of this too personally.  I learned to  manage my attitude.  To see the glass half full.  To look for opportunities.  Opportunities were not going to come out of thin air.  I needed to be aware of them and to look for them.  Which I did.  

I learned to surround myself with positive people, read good books, keep exercising, and find a good healthy hobby.  So rather than being out at the pubs many nights a week eating bar food, drinking beer, and spending money I didn’t have I took up getting to a gym and hanging with a different crowd.  I eventually picked up golf which was wonderful when I worked in sales.  I still love the game but hardly get a chance to play. I am hoping to get my boys on the golf course soon so we can play as a family.

With time I was gainfully re-employed at an human resources systems company training clients.  I had my own single bedroom apartment.  I loved it!  It was the best job.  I made new friends.  I traveled.  I built up my professional skills and especially learned to love giving workshops and presentations.    I began to learn what my strengths were.

What are you dealing with in your transition?  What are you learning about yourself through it?  Are you building your network?  Do you know what you are targeting next?  Do you need someone to walk alongside and guide you like I did?  If so, ask for help.  With the right career coach you can get to your next job with confidence and faster.

Remember, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”  Journey on.

Strategies for Dealing with the Passive-Aggressive Boss

Have you ever worked for someone who was the "passive-aggressive" type?  Meaning they would aggressively change something you were working on but passively address it with you or your co-workers.  Here is an example.  Manager decides to change an employee's responsibilities but decides to tell others before telling the person involved.  Or another one.  Manager knows there is an issue but avoids it for weeks, hoping the issue will fix itself, rather than being the leader and taking care of the challenge quickly and decisively.  In a passive-aggressive type of manager the decision making is not very clear or concrete.    If you have reported to someone like this, you know how awful this can be.

I have had a few of these bosses and it was the most frustrating time I have ever had in my career.  I am seeing more and more of this in today’s corporate culture and it is disturbing.    I am wondering if any manager is being truly "trained" to be an effective leader of people.  It is strange, middle management is passive-aggressive but in the board room they yell at each other.  Go figure.  I think a bit more reading of good leadership books are in order.  My newest favorite is “The Mentor Leader”, by Tony Dungy.

In my research of this topic, I found some great articles and resources.  Here is what psychologist Neil Warner says about these types of managers.  Notes in () are my additions.

There are some characteristics of a passive aggressive manager, which in present times look like the necessary tools for survival of the meanest. These tactics sometimes get confused within the authority aura that higher ups exude, but after some time there is no more denial possible. Your own reactions are telling you to watch out and not be surprised by some backstabbing and dirty tricks.  Are you familiar or have you been in the receiving end of someone of the following “nice attitudes”?

1) The boss that takes full credit from the team’s work thus sabotaging employee advancement;  (and moral)
2) The boss keeps complete control over the project; (and changes their mind every other day about the direction of the project or the process to be followed)
3) The boss restricts necessary information for the worker to do a good job;
4) Planning for meetings with the employee and showing up later or never;
5) Overriding the worker’s authority with his team;
6) Criticizing an employee in public, making him feel worthless;
7) Exploiting an employee’s particular talent;
8 ) Withholding employee recognition and praise;
9) Playing another worker against old time employee;
10) Micro-managing decisions which are in the employee power to do.

Neil couldn’t have listed these any better.  Have you seen these?  If so, how did you react?  How did it make you feel?  Generally known as a high energy, get things done kind of person, this type of behavior in my manager, drove me to shut down.  I became very unproductive and eventually started to show my own passive-aggressive behavior which is NOT the best way to handle this type of manager.  So what is?

There is not a cookie cutter solution for every situation but here are some strategies that can help.

1. Make sure it is not you.  Yes look at yourself first to truly access the situation.  I may have lost a few of you here but really we have to do a gut check first before we can point fingers.  Be honest.  Is your boss really off their rocker or is your behavior triggering some of the reactions you are getting.  Be sure you are the hardest most ethical worker this manager has ever had.  Also be humble.  Pride causes the worst problems in any organization.  Ask a close friend and confident who will be honest with you if there is something in your behavior that needs some adjusting.  If you determine it is not you move onto #2.
2. Stay professional.  Always keep your head clear and work professionally no matter how crazy the boss gets (and they can get nutty - believe me I know).  Enough said.
3. Don’t take it personally.  Any difficult boss that continues in bad behavior for long stretches is truly worth of your sympathy more than your anger.  They are struggling and don’t know how to fix it.  Perhaps you can politely and professionally guide them, without them knowing of course.  Once you realize it is not you triggering these reactions, try to be sure to not take their attacks personally.
4. Set clear expectations.  Yes, I am asking you to “manage your boss”.  Have a meeting with your boss to be sure you know what they expect of you.  Have them state it very clearly and with deadlines.  Then be sure it get it in writing. 
5. Get it all in writing.  Any and all conversations that have discussed important details or goals be sure to send an email or write a document that reviews the conversation.  Be sure to get a response from your manager, again in writing.  You may need this later to clear up any confusion.
6. Stand up for yourself.  If you continue to let this behavior go on without defending yourself, you are just as much at fault.  I know this is a hard one.  I struggled with this.  Many times it was easier to work around that manager than to directly confront them.  Besides I never knew what they would be like that day.  The key here is to be professional, not emotional.
7. Find another manager.  This can take on various forms.  One strategy is to find another manager / VP with whom you can work more closely with and who would be willing to mentor and support you even if it is just throughout the life of a project.  This is when a “dotted line” manager can be a blessing.  Or find a new manager.  Do a transfer within the organization.  Or really find a new manager and make a leap to a new company or job.  That can seem extreme but if significant time has passed and all the strategies in the world are not making your work environment more pleasant, it is time to move on.
8. Get a hobby.  Make sure your work is not all encompassing or this crazy manager who changes their mind all the time will send you to the looney bin.  Life is not all about work.  There is so much more.  Go find the more and enjoy it!
9. Get desk toys.  Meaningless humor I know.  But really, a stress ball can be amazing in helping the mouth from spewing profanities at the next innocent co-worker who comes by your desk to ask you something.  Consider it.  I had a Zen garden.

To go deeper into strategies find a mentor that can help.  One that either knows the organization well or is completely separate from the frustration, so they can give you an objective view.  Either way, you will grow and learn something you didn’t know before this experience.  Look for the positives.