“If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs…”
That is the beginning line of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.
How do you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs?
When the news is all bad and everyone else is starting to panic and lose it how do you keep your head about you?
“I can’t find a job”
“I have a great Job”
“I’ve been let go from my job”
“I hate my job”
“I need a job”
“I was laid off from my job”
“I lost my job”
“I didn’t get the job”
We have all heard these statements and more like them regarding that thing we all love to hate, a job.
A job can provide the income and benefits we all need. A job provides a sense pf pride when we do well. And it provides a sense of identity for what we do. All of the are good things.
And many times we look for security in a job. But, in reality, those who are ‘let go’ understand that there is no security in a job. What feels like a great secure job one minute can quickly be eliminated by corporate changes or economic events.
So why are jobs at their core really no security at all?
Job by definition means “someone else”.
If you have a job someone else is paying you. Someone else is managing you. Someone else is setting the agenda. Someone else is deciding the larger issues of employment. Someone else is taking the risk to provide goods and services to the market place. Someone else is in control.
Someone else.
Not you.
Granted, you can quit. However, if you still need a job, you are in the same boat as before, relying on someone else.
Certainly you benefit as a byproduct of doing a good job through salary, bonuses and other benefits. If you do well you can get promoted to a new job.
However, you are not the purpose of the job. You are the doer of the job. And if you don’t do it, someone else will. We are all replaceable.
A job is an equation that has to be balanced. It goes something like this:
(Real Value you deliver to the company) > X * (Your total cost to the company)
Where rarely X is 1. Many times it is much greater.
If a salesperson simply makes their equivalent salary in sales for the company they won’t be around long.
If that equation fails to balance then you may be invited to attend work elsewhere.
So if you can’t trust a company to provide job security then where does it come from?
Well, it comes from you.
Employment security is derived from your inate abilities, skills and attitudes that are valuable to any employer. Those are the things inside you that will get you another job.
What are they?
Ultimately we are the stewards of our own selves. One of the best job related investments you can make is in yourself.
Invest in your training, self improvement and growth.
As William Earnest Henley said in the classic poem Invictus:
You are the captain of your self and you are responsible to do those things to grow and improve. The world won’t do it for you.
In this, you take steps toward building your own security.
So captain, where are you sailing?
Leadership is a set of highly integrated skills that, in many ways, are better learned in real life on the job than in other types of educational scenarios.
Here are some simple ways to augment your leadership training I have found to be effective in my career. Their only real cost time and attention.
Coaching a team helps you practice preparing, planning, communicating and making decisions in real time.
When my son was younger I coached his youth soccer teams for several years, even though I was not a soccer player in my own athletic pursuits. I had to schedule practice, communicate with parents and players, actually train, evaluate and coach the players to improvement and manage games.
I learned to communicate more simply and cleary and repeatedly – all of which are key skills for any level of leadership.
I learned to train our players in routine and I learned to use fun and competition to encourage effort. These concepts also apply directly to coaching your employees.
I am not a green thumb. Growing plants for me is not easy. I have to be persistent. However, I have noticed that growing plants can instill habits that serve well in leading organizations.
Plants require a certain consistency in checking and care. Plants require observation, diagnosis and corrective action.
When plants are cared for you are rewarded with food or beautiful flowers or greenery.
Plants are a lot like organizations. Organizations need constant care and feeding. They also sometimes need observation, diagnosis and corrective action. I have a row of plants on my office credenza which are constant reminders to me of the care and attention needed for organizational health.
Working with kids are great ways to practice your communication and your ability to think and plan ahead.
Managing a room of small children makes you think ahead and plan. You will become better at anticipation and acting to head off issues and problems.
Teaching kids also forces you to communicate clearly and repeatedly to make your message clear and understood.
Kids also ask very direct and penetrating questions much like employees or customers. You get to practice forming clear, concise answers in a low risk environment.
When you teach kids you also get to deal with those times of kids are acting out or causing problems. Dealing with these situations in real time trains you on to think, act and reason quickly to regain control of the situation.
Watching kids grow and learn and develop is also very rewarding. Much in the same way an organization grows and achieves goals and objectives.
Teaching kids is amazing practice for leading an organization.
The best leadership is lived out by serving your organization. Practice service, meeting the needs of others.
Serving forces focus on another, specifically meeting their needs. It’s so easy to get so self absorbed as to be of little use to the people around us. Service puts the pause button on our self focus and invites us to focus on others for a time.
Service helps build your generosity muscles, giving time, emotion, experience, encouragement or resources for the good and help of others.
And, as you serve, especially if you are working with those less fortunate than you, it builds your own sense of gratitude.
As an organizational leader the qualities of service, focus on others, generosity and gratitude are key to building your people and building their trust in you as a leader.
Have a time of daily reflection where you can quietly, calmly think about the events of the day and your reaction to them.
What went right? What went wrong?
What could I have reacted better to?
How could I have handled that situation better?
Was my work today in line with my character, plan and goals?
What did I learn today that will change what I do tomorrow?
This type of reflection builds a feedback loop for continuous improvement and better planning for tomorrow.
I have found these ways helpful in my leadership development, when I was willing and humble enough to learn the lessons these environments were trying to teach me.
What are your simple ways to improve leadership capability?
“You’re fired.”
“We are letting you go.”
“You are being transitioned.”
“You’re being furloughed.”
“We are laying you off.”
“We’re going in a different direction.”
“We aren’t renewing your contract.”
It doesn’t matter how its said. It always means the same thing.
Your job with that employer is over.
Your paycheck stops. Your benefits are over. Your daily routine changes. You have to leave fellow employees you have become close with. Your future becomes uncertain. Your financial situation may be put in distress. You may feel emotionally traumatized. Your focus is suddenly and violently redirected. And you have to deal with a range of emotions.
And at the end of the day the reason is almost meaningless unless you did something wrong.
When you are let go, here are things you can do to cope and start moving on.
It is easy to become fearful or worse, angry and bitter, when you are terminated. When this happened to me a few years back, I immediately imagined losing our house, not being able to send my kids to college, not being able to buy food etc. You can easily go to a dark place very quickly.
However, those emotions are counter-productive to your progress.
Remind yourself of your talents, characteristics, experience and knowledge that you have gained.
You got the job in the first place. You have proven you can learn and grow. And you can do it again.
Let that boost your confidence as you begin the process to re-group and find a new job.
When bad circumstances happen to us we need to return to our true foundation, our faith in God.
Remind your self with scripture that God has a plan for each of us and a job change, even un-planned, can be a part of a greater process for your development and growth. God can use trying times to deeping your faith and lead you to even better circumstances and personal growth.
Renew your committment to prayer, scripture reading and engaging with your church community. In doing so you will find encouragment and motivation to move ahead.
When this happened to me, my family was unbelievably supportive. We all sat down and talked through what had happened. Even with the kids. I involved them all in the process of reacting to and beginning to move on to something else.
My family helped me process what had happened. They talked to me. They helped me brainstorm ideas. They helped me with new contacts for potential jobs. They encouraged me. They prayed for me.
If you, because of fear, embarrassment or anger, shut off your family from participating in the process you are eliminating a strong source of support and encouragement.
In today’s environment, the importance of your network cannot be overstated. It is most likely that your next job will come, directly or indirectly through your network.
You should always be building your network. And when you are let go from your job, lean on your network. Inform them.
I recommend you send individualized messages to people in your network. Ask them if they know of any opening or any one in their network who may know of any openings.
The day it was announced that I was let go, I notified 61 people in my network individually that night. I received lots of support and numerous leads which I immediately started following up. And that immediate effort got my mind off of the negatives of the situation and it got my transition off to a good start.
Resist making network wide posts. These are easier and may invoke sympathy from your connections but do less for you than individualized direct messages and conversations where you can reconnect with people you know and get advice and leads.
Its easy to spend a lot of time focusing on what happened and why and try to assess blame. It can be cathartic to work through that for a time. However, only thinking back will not prepare you for the future.
Decide to discipline your mind to leave the past behind and to focus on your future. Learn what you need to and laser focus on your activities needed to move you forward.
You now have a new opportunity.
You have a chance for a clean slate, a start over in a new job or even a new career if you so choose. Focus on that. Pour your energy and effort into that. Your new future awaits.
Make sure you monitor what you read and listen to.
Focus on content that helps you move forward.
It is easy, especially during difficult times to succumb to allowing too much negativity to influence and further drag you down.
When I was let go, I watched very little news media. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of how high the unemployment numbers were. Most of the news is negative anyway and it won’t help your frame of mind.
Focus your content consumption on leads, connections, industry information for your area, skill building, motivation and renewal.
Take time to read some of the books on your reading list to grow your knowledge or skill set.
Take some online courses on Udemy, Coursera or LinkedIn Learning to brush up on or gain a new skill.
Find a meet up in your area that has subjects of interest.
All of these types of content will help you, and make you more informed for the next interview you have.
When this happened to me I started tracking my own stats like a baseball player would.
I made a spreadsheet and tracked the number of emails/messages, phone calls, resumes submitted, jobs applied for and recruiters I had engaged with. These numbers became my job search KPI’s. I was tracking the activities that I know would eventually result in me finding a new job.
Having my own personal job search KPI numbers I could update and review each day motivated me to keep going, to keep making the calls and sending the emails etc.
Putting effort into these activities will help you re-focus and transition after the jolt of being let go.
Put all your effort into that. The momentum of this effort will help you deal somewhat with the pain and frustration of the situation.
Look forward and embrace a better future.
Note: Observant readers will notice I actually have seven ways not six. Well, I edited this post after I published it and didn’t want to change the title. So you get one for free. Who doesn’t like a free bonus?
So you as a software developer didn’t have any of the career-limiting habits from my previous post. Great! Congratulations! You’re totally good and on your way to career growth and unlimited success.
But wait, there’s more.
There are many other habits that can severely mitigate your career growth. So here are three more.
So you have completed a feature and think it’s good to go. Your code is committed. You are feeling good about meeting your deadline. The QA folks are unleashed.
Then it happens. Thirty minutes later a problem is found. Oops.
Many times, I have had developers come into my office, proclaiming that a feature or bug fix was completed, tested and ready do go. Then, when external validation started, something was found within just a few minutes.
Granted we all miss things on occasion. But, if this situation happens too many times in your code, you might be forming the habit of lack of thorough testing.
There are many reasons this occurs. Everything from time pressure to just plain laziness can contribute to this. Sometimes it’s a lack of environmental understanding or unclear requirements. Regardless of the origin, this habit will severely curtail future career opportunities.
You can overcome this by using TDD, BDD or similar methodologies where appropriate. Thinking “testing first” can help you identify and code for those issues up front. Even if your organization doesn’t make formal use of test-driven development methodologies, you should still spend some time thinking through all the ways your code could fail and make sure you handle or document each one. Making that a habit will reduce the chance of an embarrassing situation with your boss or QA just minutes after you pronounce something done.
For an application that is larger than one person can manage, there is a natural migration to particular areas of expertise by the team members. Alice knows the database interface, Bob knows the CSS and front end, Sarah knows the business logic, Arun knows the device drivers and so on.
We all build silos of information and expertise. This is good and helps us provide value to the organization.
The career limiting aspect occurs when we withhold knowledge (either implicitly or explicitly) that could help other team members. The lack of free flow of information across developers reduces productivity, increases the odds that defects are found late and reduces overall department effectiveness.
If you become known as the person who “knew that last week” but didn’t bother to share with the team, you will become a pariah. The team members who could have benefited from that information will grow to resent you and begin to exclude you, exacerbating the problem of team effectiveness.
It’s a good habit to err on the side of too much communication as opposed to not enough. In the end, you will make the team more productive and be seen as a better team player and better example. It’s a karma-enhancing habit if you believe in karma. 🙂
Software tools and technology move at a rapid pace. The hot technical tools and trends of a few years ago become the archeological artifacts of tomorrow.
Back in my high school days, I was pretty good at BASIC.
Guess what. Nobody cares.
If I still relied exclusively on my ability to do BASIC for employment, if I had made it my ‘one trick’, I would have starved long ago.
I moved on to other more mainstream technologies over time such as FORTRAN, C, Perl, Python, PHP and the like.
If you, as a developer, acquire the reputation of being able to only do one thing, it will, over time, severely limit your opportunities.
Think about how technology has changed in just the last 10 years, then extrapolate that out over the next 20 or 30 years. We all better be embracing change. In the future, the most important skill could be the ability to learn new things.
Over a 40 or 50 year, career time span it is imperative to stay relevant. The saying goes “Adapt or Die”.
If you become a ‘one trick pony’ you will be limited in the opportunities that are available to you.
Hopefully, none of these describe you. However, if you have any of these tendencies, now is the time to change your habits so you can reap the future benefits.
Are you a software developer? Has your career flat-lined? Are you relegated to the back of the pack when it comes to assignments? Are you picked last when it comes to new projects? Have other developers stopped coming by and asking your advice? Has your manager stopped concurring with you for future work planning?
If you answered any of those questions with ‘yes’, then read on.
You may have developed some career-limiting habits without knowing about it.
Estimating effort in a software project is problematic at best and complete fantasy at worst. Some methodologies try to mitigate this, such as agile. But there are still times when a critical fix or change has to be delivered in a bound timeframe. In that case, when the manager needs an estimate, that estimate also encapsulates an implied promise, even though it is called an ‘estimate’.
As developers mature in their craft and environment, the accuracy of estimates generally improves. However, some developers habitually underestimate how long it will take them to implement a given fix or change.
I have worked with team members who, when asked how long a particular ticket would take to resolve, would say with certainty that it could be done in 4 hours. Then, 2 days, later I am in their office asking why that 4-hour change is still not complete.
When you, as a developer (or as a manager for that matter), miss the estimation mark regularly, you are falling into the habit of “over promising – under delivering”. It could be that you simply ‘shoot from the hip’ and make estimates without really considering needs to be done. It could also be that habitually bad estimates are a sign you have a fundamental lack of understanding about the project, tools or environment. Either case is bad and will erode your credibility and the perception your team members have of you.
If you struggle with small change estimate accuracy, start doing some light weight tracking in a notebook or spreadsheet (if you don’t have a tool that does it for you) for those types of estimates. Use the data you collect to give you better insight as to how accurate you really are. Once you have a few data points, you can start comparing estimated to actual delivery time. Try to answer the “why did I think it would only take that long” questions. Then use what you discover to adjust your future estimates.
Experienced developers have standard ways of architecting and implementing software. This shows itself in the way they organize code, name elements, test or use language idiom among other things. These are all good and are what make an experienced developer deliver quickly with higher quality in most cases.
I have seen cases in my experience where a ‘my way or the highway’ developer will go into an existing code body and completely violate the architecture and coding standards to implement a feature because it’s not their way.
The career limiting aspect comes in when that developer will ONLY do projects that way. Developers like this only function well in their little worlds. Since most companies have projects that need to be maintained (that you didn’t write), you will always end up writing code outside of ‘your way’. This behavior frustrates the team, confuses future maintainers, creates contention and generally adds to the chaos with little to no actual benefit to the project itself.
The modern software development environment has a wide array of excellent tools to make work go faster, and at higher quality. The capabilities of today’s IDE’s (integrated development environment), compilers, languages, editors, debuggers, frameworks and DEVOPS tools are must have for any professional developer.
Tools are a necessary force multiplier in our industry. Mastery of a tool set for your environment is prudent and a productivity enhancer. I once had a developer on my team who was an Emacs wizard. It was a real show to watch him edit and refactor code with Emacs because he was so adroit with its interface and shortcuts. However, when you have that level of mastery you tend to want to use that tool for everything. You have heard that old saying: “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
The problem is when we get so used to one thing and stick with it to the detriment of learning new ways and methods. When we stick with only one tool, regardless of the circumstance, we artificially limit our ability to solve problems with more advanced or idiomatic ways with other tools. And that is the career limiting aspect of tool worship. The software tools at our disposal today are evolving at a rapid pace. And by sticking with the tools you are comfortable with you forgo the personal career growth that comes with learning new tools and the commensurate skills.
Would you trust a car mechanic who tried to solve every car repair with just a wrench or just a screwdriver? Of course not. There are many repairs that need way different tools. Neither should you be a developer that only has mastery of one tool.
A little introspection on a regular basis, and some heart to heart discussions with those who know you best, can illuminate these or other career-limiting habits you have picked up. Knowledge is the first step towards change and improvement.
Cue the Psycho music. Throw in a Wilhelm scream. Run for your lives!!! To some alpha developers, the mere thought of a software development manager coding is worse than 12 hours of fingernails on a chalkboard. And scarier than a night in the Bates Motel.
Yeah, I get that. But wait.
There are some valid, and practical reasons for a software development manager to also take a few story points in a sprint now and then. Here are five.
Today’s development languages, technologies, tools, and environments evolve with ever quickening pace.
The experience you had as a coder 10 years ago is aging faster than the milk left out on the counter last night.
Taking a few story points now and then forces to you learn and keep up with tech, staying relevant in your field and your own product and environment. It also allows you to communicate with better understanding and at a deeper level with your development team.
But doing a development turn now and then you keep fresh in your mind the nuances of your companies particular development environment. And the pain or bliss it causes your team.
This knowledge can also improve your on-boarding process and make you more relevant in discussions when it comes time to migrate to new elements in your environment.
By actually doing development on the products you manage, you will be far more knowledgable and effective in your communication to customers and superiors. You will understand the context of defects and issues that come up more thoroughly. You will be able to communicate with your team at a higher bandwidth during feature design or sprint planning.
Sometimes you will find yourself in a pinch.
Your key developer is out, camping in the remotest parts of the Colorado mountains and completely off the grid for 2 weeks. The other guys are slammed and a defect found in his code needs to be addressed and pushed to production in 2 days.
If you have been keeping your skills sharp and doing your turns, you can step in and cover this situation in most cases. I know I have.
If you can still take a ticket or two now and then, you will also silently earn greater respect from your team. They will believe you are in the foxhole with them. Your questions to them will be more on point and from an orientation of better understanding.
There is an influence from the professional management ranks that anyone with the requisite management training and skills can manage software development without the pre-requisite of coding experience. I have worked with PM’s who were good enough to pull that off. However, the PM’s who had actual development chops were far more effective in my experience.
So scare your team to death and sign up for a few story points in the next sprint. In the long run, I believe you will be a more effective software development manager for it.
Excellence separates us from average. Excellence separates winners and losers, those who get the prize and those who go home empty handed. Excellence attracts. Excellence is aspirational. Excellence motivates. Excellence influences. Excellence rewards. But how do we live excellence in our service, work, family and other interactions?
Notice: The following contains some statements taken from the Christian faith. If that causes you problems, well, you have been warned.
I had the privilege to speak with a small group of Christian leaders recently. I shared this 5 element framework with them that will help implement excellence at the point of decision and action.
The framework is formed by the letters in the word “EXCEL”, and no this is not referring to the popular spreadsheet from Microsoft.
The first letter in ‘EXCEL’ is ‘E’ and stands for Effort.
Excellence at anything requires effort. Excellence without effort is like a golfer without golf clubs or a fisherman without a pole or a football player without a ball. You can’t even begin to play the game without the fundamental starting equipment. Effort is the fundamental starting equipment of the excellence game.
In our society we are surrounded by the allures of convenience. Don’t be seduced into thinking excellence can come from little or no effort because it can’t. Olympic champions don’t come from the couch potato ranks. There are no short cuts. No pills, no three minute workouts, no get excellence quick schemes. Effort for excellence can’t be borrowed or subscribed to as a service. You must put in the effort needed to excel at a given task. Many times that really not much more than the effort required to do something halfway. But the end result of that little extra effort can be amazing.
In every task you do, put in the effort to do it correctly and completely. Let excellent results in everything you do be your calling card.
The second letter in ‘EXCEL’ is ‘X’. It stands for eXamine.
Excellence invites measurement and comparison. Excellence separates and divides. The very definition of the root word excel implies comparison. Examine your life. What’s going right? What’s going wrong? Where is God leading? Where are the needs in your life/family? What are you ignoring that needs attention? What needs more effort? What needs to change? What do you need to stop doing? These are all the questions of examination.
The pursuit of excellence demands we examine ourselves and implement changes where results are less than desired. Examination is the only way to get the necessary feedback to improve.
Embrace the changes you need to make that help you pursue excellence in your lives and work. It’s part of our growth and maturity. If we aren’t examining ourselves and growing how can we expect those who follow us to grow?
The third letter in ‘EXCEL’ is ‘C’ and that stands for Christ.
As a Christian, I believe that Jesus provided our ultimate example for excellence. He gave us our template for love, life, interactions, service, sacrifice, care and work.
Jesus’ initial command to his disciples was “Follow me”. That explicit command is one to look to Him as example and do as He did, to love, serve and help others. By living a life based on those attributes we can more effectively serve, give, love, impact and make the world a better place. But it must be genuine. People can spot a phony pretty quickly. Your showing of these attributes cannot be to manipulate, they must be to serve.
As leaders, we should be able to do the same thing with those who follow us. We should be able to say “follow me”. Watch and emulate what I do. We can only do this honestly if we are pursing excellence in all we do.
The fourth letter in ‘EXCEL’ is ‘E’ and that stands for Engage.
Can you imagine Denny Hamlin texting friends during pivotal laps of the Daytona 500? Can you imagine Von Miller, Super Bowl 50 MVP, waving to the crowd while rushing the passer on a key 3rd down and goal play? Can you imagine Jordan Spieth snapping a selfie while putting the final 18th at Augusta? Of course not. That is ridiculous. The loss of attention would have resulted in defeat.
We are all horrible multi-taskers. When we try to do something without really engaging we are just ‘going through the motions’ or ‘mailing it in’. That communicates loudly that you don’t really care. People know when you ‘aren’t there’, especially your family and close friends. Anything you do with half attention or half engagement usually results in mistakes, miscommunication, misunderstandings, poor results and do-overs. Or worse.
Excellence demands engagement. Attention is the currency of engagement. This is your full mental presence and focus. Enthusiastic engagement, your full attention, will influence and motivate people when you interact with them. Energetic engagement is contagious to those searching for what you have. Engagement is a gift to those you interact with. Be engaged with your family, church, work and personal pursuits. Be all there.
The last letter in ‘EXCEL’ is ‘L’. This stands for Love.
Love should be the true motivation of our actions and the foundation of our excellence as we serve those around us. The Apostle Paul in the New Testament reminds us that love is “the most excellent way”. Remember that true love is a choice, an act of the will to act to benefit another even at the expense of self. Our world today is desperate to see authentic love from leaders, businesses and those in government and education. This is also true for customers, employees, families, friends and others you come into contact with.
Those are the 5 pillars of excellence: EXCEL – Effort, eXamine, Christ, Engage, Love.
To excel as leaders takes all of them. Daily, project by project, task by task, encounter by encounter, relationship by relationship.
Applying the 5 pillars of ‘EXCEL’ will help every decision and the subsequent actions be done with excellence.
What are the real fundamentals of success? What are simple, small things everyone can do that will set the stage for larger success? In our technology drenched and dependent lives here are 7 non-technical, simple things that can help pave the way for true success.
If your job requires you to be in the office you should be in the office when you are supposed to. If you are required to be at a remote office, or call on a client or prospect then SHOW UP. If you have an online webinar or conference call, SHOW UP. Be there, on time, prepared and ready. As the old saying goes, “You can’t win if you don’t play”. And you can’t play if you don’t show up.
This also means being mentally engaged with your team, customers and company. Checked out, isolated team members are worth little. They waste everyone’s time and don’t help row the boat. Show up fully engaged and ready to contribute, physically and mentally.
Everyone in the company has work together. Make it a better experience by being nice to others. You need to treat other employees, customers and vendors with courtesy, respect and decency. Treat others with the same courtesy and respect you want from them. It helps communication and improves the working environment and enhances collaboration. Some companies have a “no jerks” rule. Some companies use stronger language to say the same thing. Don’t be a jerk.
Being nice doesn’t mean you won’t have debate and disagreement. It doesn’t mean that issues are not confronted. It means you need to resolve those situations in a civil, calm, mature and professional manner and move along. Anger, frustration, name calling, back stabbing, gossip, outbursts, tantrums, passive aggressive behaviors and the like create more problems to solve, slow down communication and create resentment if they continue over time. Show caring and concern for your team, fellow employees and customers.
Rules are there to protect the individual and the organization. They help maintain order and define interactions, boundaries and expectations.
Image if everyone driving cars in a large metro area suddenly went anarchist with respect to the rules of the road. Can you image the mess? The wrecks, injuries, property damage and time lost? It just wouldn’t work. But with proper rules, traffic flows (usually) and people get to and from their destinations safely.
Every business needs rules. I know, sometimes the dress code or attendance policies may not be what you would design. If you want to be a rebellious cowboy, go work on a ranch. If there are serious problems with rules talk to your leader. Otherwise man (or woman) up and respect the rules. It will make the entire workplace flow better.
We are all professionals. We get paid to do a job. Do your job like a professional. Don’t leave problems for others to clean up later. Don’t do your job half way. Don’t finish late. Don’t deliver half the results. Your work products should demonstrate competence, excellence, and be professional in quality and implementation. This includes your personal and professional growth and continued learning. Ultimately only you can control that.
No one can read your mind. What you don’t say or communicate, your other teammates and employees can’t know. Talk. Write. Inform. Repeat. Ask clarifying questions. Over communicate. Effective organizations communicate well, clearly and continuously. When you have clear, consistent communication the team can move faster and provide better results.
Serve the customer as if your business depends on it, because it does. Customers fund the operation of the business. Customers pay your salary. Customers can help you sell and market. It doesn’t matter if they are Internal or external customers, you are there for them, and not the other way around. Always remember that. Customers can quickly tell if they are really cared for and are being served properly. They will move to businesses that show genuine care for them in a heartbeat.
Always carry your share of the load. Slackers can move along. You should always promote an “I have your back” culture. Support your team with your help, assistance, learning, sharing and collaboration. Be a consistent example re-inforcing the behavior you want your team to replicate.
These are 7 simple actions that, if you implement as habits, will yield results and build the foundations for your success.
If your company has had a layoff, you know that can be a real drain on morale and motivation for those still working at the company. Layoffs result in questioning the viability of the company and diminish hope for the future for those still at the firm. Layoffs alter the workload, add uncertainty, cause upheaval in working arrangements and can contribute to lessened commitment. In my previous post, I wrote about what leaders can do to help a company move on after a layoff.
But what about those that are still at the business after a layoff? What can you do?
Here are 7 ways for you to move on.
Usually many things conspire to create a situation where layoffs are necessary. There is typically no single thing or person to blame. It’s usually a combination of decisions, circumstances and market forces that combine to force the issue. So don’t waste a lot of time worrying about things in the past you can’t control. It happened. It’s over. Now the real issue is what you will do.
Layoffs most likely result from difficult business situations. These may situations not be rectified quickly. There may be additional pain before the business or market improves.
Remember the Stockade paradox and be willing to face the reality of where the company is but also express your faith that the company will prevail. Part of facing the reality is figuring out what needs to be done to stabilize, recover, grow and improve. Knowing the true reality but choosing to approach the task ahead with a positive mindset can help your attitude and commitment and improve your work atmosphere.
After a layoff has occurred at your firm, it is a time to reflect on where you are in your engagement with the company and how that aligns with your larger career plans.
Assess the layoff in terms of your plans and goals. If the company is slowly shutting down the function you do then you need to plan appropriately. If you still see growth and upward advancement opportunity in future products and plans then it may be worth it to stay put and forge ahead. A layoff can narrow our focus to the company and our direct ability to get a pay check. However, a more thoughtful assessment of your overall career goals and how the current company helps you meet those is advisable.
Examine what caused the action to be necessary. Evaluate what your leaders say about the causes, mitigations and the future plans and strategies.
Ask key questions about the situation. What can you learn about the market or your product from what happened? What can you learn about your company from what happened? What can you learn from your skill set or your position or career from what happened? What can you learn about future potential and direction of the company and your function?
Learn all you can about the situation. Talk to your leaders and listen carefully to what they say. That helps you make more informed decisions in the future. Although painful, the situations surrounding a layoff should be viewed as a learning event for the whole company. Learn, and act to avoid the situation in the future.
Your true security does not come from a job or a company or a title or a boss or leader. All of those will let you down at some point, guaranteed.
Your job security is in YOU!! It is in your own talents and abilities. Your true job security comes from using your capabilities to learn, adapt, grow, solve problems, create solutions and bring value to a company or business. If you concentrate on that, and are always learning and investing in your development, you will rarely be in need of a job because you will always have one.
Every layoff also brings opportunities for employees to step up, take on new roles and responsibilities and handle new job functions. Watch for opportunities that present themselves and be ready to step up if the opening aligns with your goals and objectives. Taking a new opportunity can be a time to stretch yourself, learn new capabilities and enhance your experience base.
It is good to remember those things you actually have direct control of. Focus on those. Your job, your tasks, your effort, your attitude, your responsibilities, your behavior, your quality. Redouble your efforts to do your responsibilities with excellence. Worrying about what you can’t control just wastes time, makes you angry and increases the feeling of helplessness about the situation. Resist the temptation to mope around and discuss what you can’t control with other mopers.
The best antidote to the malaise of the after-layoff time, is to focus on actions you can do and get busy. By doing this you help maximize your chances of success. To have hope for your future you have to amp it up. If your company has been losing the battle but you don’t amp up the fight you have no hope for victory. And if you do this, you will help influence others to do it as well.
As an employees left at the company after a layoff you face a choice with three options:
From my experience there are really only the first 2. At least those are the proactive choices.
If you decide that the circumstances warrant you to continue with the business then be all in. Re-commit to do as much as you can to move the business forward. Be an agent of change and improvement and influence others to do the same.
If you decide that you can’t continue there then don’t hang around and further stink up the place. Update your resume, find another job and move on. If you stay with a bad attitude, you will just pollute the rest of the folks with your bad karma, and slow down the whole recovery process for everyone.
Any way you slice it layoffs are tough.If you are an employee still at a firm after a layoff, apply these 7 principles and it can help you get back to moving the business forward sooner.
