Achieve Success from Setbacks: The Secret is being "At Cause"

“I got screwed!”

"…but it wasn't my fault!" Bruce was really upset and voiced his displeasure with the topic at a two-day offsite management training. Bruce was rejecting the premise of an exercise that, in hindsight, taught me the most valuable leadership lesson I have ever learned.

Like many heavily-technical organizations, Oracle Customer Support had a lot of first-time managers who came up from the technical ranks, some of whom were promoted into management based upon their technical "chops" instead of people leadership skills. During the Ray Lane era, Oracle was growing rapidly and saw the value in investing their people in order to drive continued business success by providing training for all managers.

The exercise was simple enough. The facilitators paired us up and asked us to take turns explaining in 5 minutes to our partner about a recent time when we got "screwed" i.e. when we were treated unfairly in the workplace.

Suddenly, things got a lot more interesting. After we told our “story,” the facilitator then instructed us to "Explain the same situation but describe what you did to cause or contribute to the situation." Some people immediately "got it" - they described how they didn't manage up effectively, ignored early warning signs, didn't make sure there was a clear definition of success, or made other mistakes. Other people, like Bruce, rejected the idea that they had any responsibility for what happened to them because they simply could not re-orient their own thinking. They were trapped in a world where everyone had wronged them so they were doomed to spend their time just waiting for the next “unfair” situation to unfold - when the people, the process, or the company would "screw" them again.

"At Cause" or "At Effect"

The facilitators described these two ways of analyzing situations as the difference between being "at cause" or "at effect." If you were "at cause", you looked at historical situations with a focus on your actions - what you did, didn't do, so you could learn from them and do things differently next time to get a more positive outcome. If you approached setback in "at effect" mode, you looked at situations as the unfolding of events and circumstances that were out of your control. When in "at effect" mode, the personal conclusions were to "not work for jerks" or to "not deal with people who play politics" or other defensive rationalizations. Essentially, they missed an invaluable learning lesson.  

When looking at a situation that didn't turn out the way you had hoped, here are the questions to ask to get in "at cause" mode so that you can learn from mistakes, improve future outcomes, and advance your career.

• "What did I do?" - if you calmly think through a situation after some time has passed, you may very well realize that you did things without intending to that contributed to the problem. For example, early on in my career, I approached some professional conflict situations with a “winner take all” attitude. Instead of looking for compromises or creating “win-win” situations, I acted like a student on the Debate team where the desired outcome was for me to “win” and for someone else to lose. But after reflecting back on those situations and asking myself the question, I recognized the pattern, changed my approach, and was more effective in the workplace.
• "What didn't I do?" - Often inaction will cause failure. I had lunch with a former colleague recently who was let go from a project management role after only a few months. "Karen" took over a high-visibility project that was already behind schedule. The date had been moved, and she was brought in to make sure things stayed on track this time. But Karen quickly realized that even the new date was unrealistic and that the team couldn't hit the deadline without a significant change to the resource plan. As a newbie, she was afraid to bring bad news to her boss and make others look bad. So she stayed quiet, hoped for the best, and was let go once the news was finally out that another deadline would be missed. The "at effect" view of the situation is that the delay wasn't her fault and she "took the fall" for other people's poor planning and poorer execution. The "at cause" view of the situation is that she hurt herself by not having the courage to raise the issue early. If she had done so, it's possible that the executives could have given her more resources, reset the date, or done other things to help get it back on track. But she didn't give the organization that chance, because she was more comfortable "hoping for a miracle" and avoid delivering bad news than calling out the issue.
• "What would I do differently next time?" If the first two questions don't yield obvious answers, it's time to take a broader and deeper view of the issue. Sometimes, the answer actually is "I should avoid working in that kind of culture again" or "I should recognize when my manager is a weak sponsor and find a way to move into another team." In other words, sometimes the changes necessary to avoid a repeat situation are not just small tactical adjustments, but fundamental realizations about the environments and teams where you’re most likely to succeed. Coming to understand this made a huge difference in my career choices and progression.

It's easy to spot people who commit to an "at effect" approach and suffer the consequences throughout their careers. They either stay in the same role for years and years because they can't get more opportunity, or they bounce from job to job and have only bad things to say about their prior managers, teams, and companies. Inevitably, they set themselves up for more failure because no one rallies around a finger-pointing complainer who seems to have more than their share of disappointments. In teams and projects, we gravitate towards people who take ownership and focus more on how to achieve team success instead of "blamestorming" or making excuses.

If you can practice taking an “at cause” approach to challenges and setbacks, you’ll find that it becomes very natural over time and it will dramatically improve your ability to learn from prior setbacks and significantly improve your judgment. It’s also a trait that I’ve looked for when I’ve chosen the next wave of leaders in my teams.

If you have experiences or advice on how to learn from mistakes effectively, please share your comments below. If you liked any of the ideas in this post, please use the social media icons to share on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere.

A 2012 Resolution: Keep Your Enemies Close

“All’s Fair in Love and War”

“Good news!” is what she said to me on the phone. She timed it while I was traveling, so it would be harder for me to react to what I saw as yet another attempt at professional sabotage. Over the years, I had become very suspicious of her because of “honest mistakes” that either hurt me politically, helped her, or both. This one made it crystal clear. There was no chance this one was a "mistake."

We’ll call her “Nicole.” Roughly 3 months before, our department had reorganized and our GM decided that Nicole’s favorite direct report (who we’ll call “Martin”) was going to be moved onto my team. Nicole had hired Martin originally, and groomed him for over a year. They had the highest level of respect and loyalty for each other.

Meanwhile, I had just extended an offer to a very promising young candidate. The “good news,” according to Nicole, was that she had suggested to Martin that the new employee joining my team should report to him (effectively promoting him to Manager), and that Martin was very excited about the plan.

Nicole’s tone was enthusiastic and friendly on the surface. But she knew that the position she had put me in would be damaging. I could either go along with the plan, in which case Martin would get an effective promotion orchestrated by Nicole, or I could undo the plan, in which case Martin would perceive me as taking away a deserved promotion. Either way, Martin would end up being even more loyal to Nicole (with the promotion) or would be demotivated in his new role (as an individual contributor) because I blocked his promotion. Checkmate.

This was a huge professional “wake up call” for me – that there were actually people who would set traps to undermine other employees for their own benefit. Because I was responsible for outbound product marketing and Nicole ran inbound product management, avoiding her was not an option. I came to the realization that I was now at the stage of my career where I had to “grow up” or be crushed by the “big boys” (and girls). I had to find a way to work with Nicole.

Beware of Your Enemy

Inevitably, everyone in high-tech encounters professional enemies i.e. adversaries that undermine your professional reputation, conflict with your value system, and sound your internal alarm for “fair play” and “justice.”

As common as personality conflicts are in the workplace, they are the toughest problems to solve because you’d simply prefer not to deal with those types of people on any level whether professional or social. Socially, you can control who you interact with. However, broken professional relationships can be cancerous to your career success:

• Wasted Time and Energy – it takes a lot of energy to dislike someone. This negative energy is wasted in matters that are counter-productive to the business. It also takes away from your job satisfaction.
• Lost Productivity – avoiding someone who is on your team or who is part of your natural workstream makes for inefficient work.
• Stalled Career Advancement and Promotions – it’s easier for your manager to promote you if she knows that there is consistent support throughout the organization. Adversaries can do a lot of damage to your reputation and make it hard for your manager or others to support your promotion.

On the other hand, if you’re able to work through these differences, you can do a lot of good for yourself in building up key skills as well as your reputation. Managed properly, people will recognize you as:

• A Team Player - Companies spend millions on “teamwork.” At Oracle in the mid-90s, Ray Lane was adamant in rallying every employee in every function to focus all energies on beating Microsoft instead of fighting each other. If you can be a role model for “teamwork” and create highly functional cross-organization teams, you will significantly increase your chances of getting more responsibility and rising up the ranks.
• A Leader - Leaders work through differences and come up with solutions. Anyone can point out problems. Great leaders always find a way to work with all types of people and to motivate them to a common cause.
• Politically Savvy - You simply can’t avoid “Politics,” because “Politics” still exist everywhere and won’t avoid you. Playing good politics is required and it doesn’t mean you have to compromise your values. True North by Bill George provides a great foundation for understanding how your personal values align to your professional goals. People will respect you as someone who understands the game, but doesn’t “play dirty.”

“Keep Your Friends Close. Keep Your Enemies Closer!”

By the time HR gets involved, it’s usually a lose-lose situation or at best win-lose i.e. someone will lose. While it’s improbable that you’ll get along equally well with every person in your workplace, it’s also impractical to think that you can turn all adversarial relationships around. Take the first step to improve a bad situation. It’s to your benefit (as the old saying goes) to “…keep your enemies closer.” Here’s how:

1. Be the bigger person - If you lower yourself to internal infighting, people above, across, and below you will notice. And even if you “defeat” your enemy, people will be hesitant to build strong relationships with you because they don’t want to become your future “victim.” Resist innate behaviors to defend and attack by controlling or better yet disconnecting your emotions. Some of my greatest professional missteps were caused by inability to control my emotional response and reactions.
2. Stay in frequent, close contact – this gives you an “early warning system” so you can look out for their tactics. Find things in common to talk about. Look for “windows of opportunity” to make small talk. Then build up to non-work related topics, hobbies and shared interests to discuss. If you can find a “real person” within your nemesis that will help you to relate better to him in business situations down the road.  It’s also possible that you can slowly build some trust over time, but don’t be so naïve in thinking that given the opportunity he won’t throw you under the bus!
3. Keep focused on the business - Business is business so don’t make it personal. You will set an example for your team and send a strong message up your management chain if you are committed to put your interpersonal issues aside for the good of the business. It’s useless to worry about things that aren’t in your control. You can’t control what other people do (to you) but you have complete control over what you can do for the business.
4. Promote your enemy - Most of my executive clients have the greatest difficulty with this part. Finding ways to promote your enemies will clearly demonstrate that you are not competing with them and instead are focused on company success vs. your own personal agenda. This is a very powerful technique to disarm your enemies and demonstrate to the organization that you’re well above petty in-fighting.

Since then, I’ve faced many more “Nicoles” (and “Nicks”) in my travels as a high-tech exec. At best I’ve been successful in turning difficult relationships into productive, collaborative ones. At worst, I’ve kept my arch enemies at bay - limiting their damage by keeping them on my radar.

What strategies have you used to work through personal conflict situations? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

Don't Roll Your Sleeves Up Too Far

“I’ll Do Whatever it Takes”

I’ve never been a “not my job” kind of person, whether I was a front-line technical services professional at Oracle or a VP at a billion dollar software company like Business Objects. If the team had a job to do, and if I needed to stretch outside of my basic job description to help get the job done, I’d gladly do it. Moreover, I truly felt that I was  modeling the business culture that I wanted my team to embrace and “leading by example.” It’s only in hindsight that I’ve become aware of the pitfalls and downside of that attitude, and how it could hurt me, my team, and even the company.

I was a VP of Marketing at a startup company. It was the day before a big trade show and we were inside a large convention hall setting up our booth. I had decided to run the event with minimal staff. That meant that there was only one other person from my team there to set up the booth. Not only would it take much longer with one person, but there were some sections that were physically impossible for one person to assemble. So I did what I thought any team-player and startup person would do. I spent hours helping to screw pieces together, hang graphics, arrange collateral, test demo stations, and more.

The new VP of Sales (we’ll call him “Rich”), who had spent most of his career in very large organizations, came by during the setup because he wanted to talk to me about an important partner meeting that we were tag-teaming later that week at the show. Rich and I got our game-plan together and outlined exactly what each of us would do to impress the partner and make them excited to do business with us. As we parted after our meeting, Rich said “Well, you probably have to get back and vacuum the carpet in the booth.” I thought it was a good-natured joke about how I was really “rolling my sleeves up.” It wasn’t. In hindsight, he was clearly concerned and maybe even annoyed that his executive wingman for the big partner meeting was also the guy with an allen wrench assembling the booth. In my mind, I was being a team player. In Rich’s mind, I didn’t know my role and had chosen to apply myself to low-value, manual tasks rather than strategic opportunities. He probably wondered why we hadn’t chosen an “executive” to be our marketing leader.

Consider Your “Stage” Presence

We’ve written about company stages and stage-relevant skills before. As your company grows and evolves, the way you execute your job and even the image and tone that you project must change.

Early-stage startups are often wary of “big company” executives coming in. They’re afraid that a new executive will join who’s no longer capable of doing real work, and instead just wants to build out a team, hire an admin, and set priorities and direction without helping on execution. When my startup was only 15 people in total, I often didn’t have any options when it came to handling mundane or administrative tasks here and there. To me, it didn’t matter that in my prior job at 4,000-person company, I had a global team of 35 and an admin. The work had to get done.

As we got more traction and our growth accelerated, we got into bigger deals, bigger customers, and bigger partnerships. We got on the radar of our competitors because they saw us as a potential disruptor in a very large market. The culture generally remained team-oriented, fun, and aggressive without being self-important or self-serious and I loved it. By the time the Rich came in, we were significantly larger and still scaling the business. In that world, executives didn’t set up booths.

My failure to recognize that perspective (which was also likely shared by other new-hires who came from larger companies) created unnecessary obstacles . In one sense, it’s as if some ideas or initiatives that came out of my team were viewed through one of two lenses 1) a good idea from a strategic, experienced marketing executive and industry veteran, or 2) a questionable idea from a “grunt” who puts booths together. That made me less effective, created some headaches for my team, and was a (minor, but meaningful) negative for the company.

Here are some suggestions to avoid typecasting yourself in a “small company” role as your organization grows and transitions to the next stage:

• Recognize and embrace organizational change – Once successful, your company will grow and the personalities and attitudes will evolve. This is true for mid-sized companies growing from 1,000 employees to 5,000 as well as early stage startups growing from 10 to 100. Rather than trying to preserve the status quo in terms of culture, approach, and how you perform your job, recognize this change and push yourself to evolve ahead of the curve, not behind it.
• Play your position –It’s an old marketing joke that you can’t market the same product simultaneously as a floor-wax and a tooth-polish. It’s true for people as well. Earlier in my career, I was a featured speaker at a breakfast seminar. One of the field marketing managers no-showed, so I volunteered to help hand out name tags. That’s when the lone marketing manager said “For this event to be a success, I need everyone here to see you as a subject matter expert when you’re on stage. If they see you first as the guy handing out name tags, they won’t be able to accept you as a thought leader when you’re up there presenting. So do me a favor and don’t help with registration.” It made perfect sense then but I should have internalized it in a big-picture way rather than as an isolated event.
• Do what’s best for the company with a long-term view – If you’re like me, you feel snobby, self-important, and egotistical when you don’t pitch in to help. But a short-term decision to “help out” can create long-term challenges. It’s not worth creating doubt or potential instability for your team just to fix a minor emergency. Look for other ways to fill in the gaps. In my case, I easily could have spent a few hundred dollars of my budget to get a contractor to help set up the booth, or even pulled in another employee. If I had found another creative solution, it would have resulted in better outcomes not just for me but for my team and for the company.

How have you adjusted your approach as a leader in a high-growth company environment? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

Don't Be an "Accidental" Leader

Leadership Matters

I was a new manager at Oracle when I found out I had been selected as part of a group to get to meet face-to-face with Ray Lane, Oracle’s COO and #2 to Larry Ellison at the time. He gave a short presentation and took questions from the audience and I was amazed at his ability to thoroughly address any question ranging from detailed issues in specific geographies to strategic matters like Microsoft’s intentions in the enterprise database market. A few years later, Oracle announced that he was leaving the company. Oracle lost $8B in market-cap the next day. As a young manager, the headline for me was that “Leadership Matters.” Leaders like that are hard to find, and they aren’t developed overnight.

Hot Topic in Silicon Valley

Last Wednesday evening, ExecCatalyst hosted a high-tech Executive Leadership forum at the Four Seasons in Palo Alto. It was “standing room only” full of Directors, VPs and C-level execs from market leaders like Salesforce, Oracle, Cisco, National Semiconductor, SAP, Informatica, VMware  as well as hot startups like Gluster, Host Analytics, Kapow, KXEN, Intacct, Milyoni, Turnitin, and others. The event topic “Succeeding in the Era of the High-Tech Leadership Paradox” even drew leaders across many industries - from the pharmaceutical industry, health care, manufacturing, renewable energy and also from major leadership organizations including Monte Jade and Ascend. As new software delivery models including SaaS, cloud computing, and open source fuel the frenetic pace of business, these leaders came to explore new approaches to “make room for strategy” while managing time spent on operational and tactical delivery.

“Leadership Development is Deliberate”

Heidi Melin, EVP and CMO at Taleo was one of 4 high-profile executive panelists. Check out this video as she responds to the question “How do you manage strategy vs. execution in a fast moving SaaS company?”

Her point that leadership development is deliberate really struck me. High-tech certainly does moves fast and the pace even seems to be accelerating. I’ve seen many managers and even organizations ignore the need for deliberate development of high potential leaders. But leadership development won’t happen by accident while you and your team are busy executing against your task list. It takes prioritization, commitment, and investment – deliberate activity.

I was very fortunate early in my career when Oracle invested in my leadership development. It only happened because my EVP, Randy Baker, had the vision and commitment to invest in developing every manager in his 5,000+ organization. He made it his priority, committing time and dollars to leadership development programs. Over the course of 1 year, I spent 2 weeks out of the office and away from the business while attending leadership training. Huddled up with 40 other managers, I thought, “Wow, Oracle is investing quite a lot of money and time into us!” Years later, I reconnected with Randy, and he shared with me “The realization that in order to be successful as an organization we needed to develop a 'culture' of teamwork and that once operational, it would be obvious to other organizations in Oracle and more importantly our customers.”

Leaders are patient and intentional to set up and measure the hard, fast ROI. Randy continued, “Were the results measurable? Absolutely! We had all the measurements in place that demonstrated positive results on all fronts, most importantly customer and employee satisfaction- the drivers of everything. I could pull up, in my office, the customer and employee satisfaction for any manager in support worldwide! All this data was updated quarterly.”

Intuitively, every good manager has an internal compass that justifies investment in developing talent and building leaders. However, great managers act on the obvious and make investments today that will pay big dividends in the future.

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Get "Offensive" In Your Interview

I Thought I Had the Job “In the Bag”

Justin was heading into final round of interviews for a VP of Services role at a hot Silicon Valley startup. He was very confident since his future boss-to-be, the General Manager, had indicated to Justin that he was her first choice. You see, Justin had worked with both the GM and CEO of this new company at Hyperion Solutions before it was acquired by Oracle. He approached the interview thinking that it was his to lose. It sure was.

The CEO greeted him. “Hey Justin, it’s great to see you again!” After they finished getting reacquainted, the CEO proceeded with “I knew you at Hyperion as a Marketing guy, and never thought of you as a ‘VP of Services,’ so what do you do you really want to do?” Without a hitch, Justin responded “Yes, my early career was well grounded in technical services and the latter part of my career in marketing.” Delivering what he thought was his power position, Justin completed his response with “so as you can see I have a wealth of experience across different business functions and therefore can do anything you or the business needs me to do!” Justin didn’t get the job.

Offense vs. Defense

Most people are familiar with the phrase “bring your A-game.” However, in the competitive job search game and interviewing, that A-game needs to be offense-minded. You’ve got to compete for the job with the perspective of the interviewer - what are her top pain points and what needs to get done? Instead, Justin made the common mistake of playing defense. He told them what he thought they wanted to hear and delivered a generic response to a pointed question and by doing so, closed the door of opportunity. The company was hiring for a very specific role, VP of Services. However, Justin presented himself as a “Jack of all trades.” He assumed that his broad “wealth of business experience” would be viewed as a valuable asset but instead he was viewed by the CEO as someone who was “confused” and uncertain about his career path, and not committed to the VP of Services role. Offense employs deliberate action of attack with the intent of scoring (i.e. competing for a job on your own terms). Defense, on the other hand, involves tactics that prevent scoring (i.e. reacting to the questions and going along with the interview process “not to lose the job”). The difference, while subtle, will make all the difference in whether you will impress the prospective employer and get the offer or not.

3 Keys to Execute Your Offensive Attack

The longer you go without having a job, the more emotional and financial stress can undermine your confidence. The pressure of landing a job together with one rejection after another can erode your poise and positive attitude. And before you know it, you’ve slipped into “desperation mode” without even realizing it. This is the root of becoming “defensive” in your job search and interviews. It’s crucial for you to turn this around because these signs are more obvious to the interviewer than they are to you! Remember, they’re not evaluating whether you can competently perform the job, they’re evaluating whether you’re the best among the many candidates they’re interviewing. So “not blowing it” in the interview is a losing strategy. Here are some points to consider that can make you much more effective in your interviews:

1. “Need a job” vs. “Want that job” – When you act like you “need a job,” any job, it’s impossible not to project negative attributes like anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. Justin had been out of work for over 6 months. His previous job was VP of Marketing at a well-established SaaS leader. At this point, he was willing to take any job so he opened up his job search to Services roles, falling back on his experience and professional track record from 10 years earlier. Justin needed a job and he unintentionally projected that very clearly to the CEO. However, Justin didn’t really want to go back to Services, he wanted to pursue his career in Marketing. Once he changed his mind set to “want that job” (i.e. Marketing), he was able to focus on what made him an excellent marketer, what kinds of companies and environments he’d thrive in, and he pursued those marketing roles with new-found confidence (which he leveraged to effectively negotiate his next role). Put another way, interviewing for a job you don’t really want makes you far less likely to get it.
2. Reactive vs. Proactive – Another symptom of being defensive is not wanting to “rock the boat.” When an interviewer takes you through an endless list of questions, it’s hard for you to do anything else but to fire back with your answers.  The best interviews are when 2 people are having a dialog, not a one-way “interrogation.” Interview dynamics are very tricky and the worst thing you can do is to be reactive and just respond to questions that are thrown at you. This is even more true when interviewing for senior roles. How can someone hire you to manage a team, a project, or a product line if you can’t “manage” an interview? So when you find yourself in this situation, take control. Be proactive by asking questions to disrupt the Q&A pattern. Find a way to up-level the discussion with an insightful question that will get the interviewer to share more about his pain or needs. Then you’ll have an opportunity to promote your experience and skills in context, directly mapped to the interviewer’s needs. Otherwise, you’re just guessing and hoping that something in one of your answers resonates and “sticks” with your interviewer. Speaking as an experienced hiring manager, I appreciate when candidates ask smart questions and turn the interaction into a dialog. I dislike interviews where I’m pulling reactive answers out of a candidate one-at-a-time.
3. Eliminate the Guessing Game – All too often, people tell me that they think the interview went fine and are later surprised to find out that they were not selected to go further in the interview process. Before you end any interview, you should ask the interviewer “How do I fit with your expectations for the role?” or “Do you have any concerns about my ability to perform well in this role?” Not only will you find out exactly where you stand, but most importantly, in the event that there are any reservations about your qualifications then you’ll still have a chance to address those concerns and to convince them that you can do the job better than any other candidate.

Having the discipline to stop looking for the “wrong job” and start focusing all of your efforts on getting your “ideal job” will pay off by giving you self-assurance and poise that are contagious. You may surprise yourself in how direct and bold you can actually be, and better yet, those traits will be viewed as valuable leadership attributes. In fact, once Justin made the shift from defense to offense he got his swagger back landed his VP of Marketing role within one month.

We appreciate your thoughts, so please weigh in with comments.

For more information on leadership development and career management, please visit ExecCatalyst.

How to Nail Your Interview

No Trophy for 2^nd Place

I was leading our monthly Job Search Advantage workshop and most of the attendees voiced frustration and discouragement that they made it all the way to the final rounds of interviews numerous times but always got beat out. They came to the realization that being “good” or even “very good” was just not enough in this job market. Those of us who’ve punched our career ticket with a couple decades worth of rides on the up-and-down high-tech rollercoaster know that the laundry list of “experience” on our resumes alone are not enough. Interviewing, or better yet, selling-yourself skills make all the difference from being “The Chosen One” vs. the proverbial “runner up.”

Surely, if you knew what you were “missing” then you’d have a great chance at making the necessary course-corrections for the next job interview. Ah, if it were only that easy. One of my clients (we’ll call him Steven) made it to the “final presentation” stage twice, at both a disruptive startup and a SaaS giant. He didn’t get an offer from either. And as it typically goes, he never got the crucial feedback telling him why they didn’t feel he was the right fit. Unfortunately, the cold hard truth is that hiring managers are way too busy with their day jobs and working through the interviewing process with numerous candidates that they don’t have time to provide people like Steven with the simple courtesy of feedback. So left to his own devices, Steven’s best guess was that he needed to get coaching on his “interview and presentation” skills to ensure that he didn’t flame out again.

It’s an Employer’s Market

Although unemployment is improving slightly, 1 in 10 people in Silicon Valley are out of work and still looking. Just last week Oracle’s fiscal year earnings failed to impress and its stock price paid dearly the day after. Earlier this year, Cisco announced major restructuring, which resulted in killing off the Flip camera business (500 jobs lost instantly) and forecasted additional job cuts of around 4,000. My friends who’ve been at Cisco for 10+ years are still “waiting for the other shoe to drop” as the management restructuring works itself through and while HR tallies up how many people take the early retirement package. Even though these two Silicon Valley tech giants are showing signs of weakness, there are indications that hiring is picking up. That means more interviewing opportunities but still too many candidates for too few jobs - giving hiring managers and their companies the upper hand with interviews and candidate selections, offer terms, and more.

While Silicon Valley appears to be leading the comeback in California, the job market in the Valley has never been more competitive. So how do you make certain that you stand out from the crowd of hundreds if not thousands of other professionals who seemingly have the same experience that you have? But that’s really the point isn’t it? Those who are able to find key areas of uniqueness and to present and sell themselves in a way that distances them from everyone else will be viewed as the most valuable asset i.e. The Chosen One.

On face value, people really aren’t that different in the things that headline their resumes. If yours is anything like the thousands of resumes I’ve reviewed as a hiring manager, you’re putting a lot of focus on things that may not make you as unique and special as you might think. For example:

• You’ve worked at Oracle? Good for you. LinkedIn shows nearly 12,000 former Oracle employees in the Bay Area.
• Maybe you think Oracle is “old school” – you’re a Salesforce.com Alumni. Congratulations to you and the other 1,200 of you living in the Bay Area.
• What if you worked at Google, the one company known as a major internet innovator who generally hires only top-quality talent? Well, there are more than 5,000 ex-Googlers in the Bay Area job market.
• But you’ve got a degree from Stanford, one of the elite universities in the world? You and the other 45,000 Stanford grads in the Bay Area would more than fill the seats at AT&T Park in San Francisco!

So the question is: what really makes you unique? What can you bring to a potential employer that no one else can? The examples above are all things to be proud of, but those alone aren’t enough to make you truly stand out from the crowd.

The answer comes in how you tell “your story." Does your resume read like a laundry-list of roles and responsibilities? No one has the same combination of skills, experience, and accomplishments that you have so you must position your unique professional assets as your competitive advantage. Construct key messaging points to explain how you are different. Formulate well thought out themes together with your "career lessons" that are essential in shaping your story and explaining your career trajectory.

“I Nailed it!”

One of my prior clients (I’ll call him David) was in the “job search” stage. David has a stellar track record as VP of Engineering for over 15 years at large as well as startup software companies. In the first week of our engagement, we focused on preparing him for CEO and founder interviews with startups. But the following week he had an interview with the EVP of one of the largest companies in the Valley. As you can imagine, those company environments are totally different which required us to tune his “story” in ways that were very targeted and relevant to those business scenarios. As a simple example, consider how managing a team of 20-30 developers trying to get its first product to market is worlds apart from managing an army of 200+ developers that are releasing the next version of a mature product to an installed base of 10,000 production customers.

Well, David and I spent 2 hours preparing for the EVP interview. Fast-forwarding, David called me hours after the interview and his 3 words made my day: “I nailed it!”

Which “Nail” Are You Going to Use?

So how do you “nail it?” Preparing for an interview requires much more than reading up on the company, its website and competitors. You need to have a very clear understanding of problems that need to be solved and what challenges still exist that others have not been able to figure out. In other words, your unique skills and experiences are the “nails”. You need to pick the right nail according to the situation, and aim it squarely at that organization’s need.

The very first thing David and I did was to understand and categorize the business scenario with respect to the company and department he’d be managing i.e. Startup, Turnaround, Realignment, or Sustaining Success. For a deeper understanding of these stages, I’d recommend Michael D. Watkins book “The First 90 Days.”

The business stage dictates the internal and external drivers of what needs to get done and what specific tactics (drawing from your experience) you must use. We also made sure that he used the right business language associated with the business scenario.

Here’s a series of questions that you should be asking yourself:

• What are the hiring manager’s business pain points? There are some hidden pains that may not be readily disclosed. Try to find people in your network on LinkedIn who are willing to give you the inside scoop.
• Where, when, and how did you solve those similar problems? Get your success stories ready and make sure they are convincing and relevant.
• What makes you uniquely qualified and different from anyone else who has the same “on-paper” experience you have? You’d better make sure this passes the “me too” test! If anyone else could say “me too” to your story, it fails the test and needs more work.
• What insightful questions can you ask to elevate the conversation? You need to get out of the “defensive Q&A” death trap ASAP. Asking thoughtful questions about business challenges will get you off the hot seat, let you gain insight that you can use in the next interview, and make for a lively, strategic business discussion.

Answering questions like these force you to dig much deeper and below the surface. It gets to the core of your skills, experience, and abilities.

Whip out your hammer and take a good firm whack:

Once you know which nail to use (i.e. what you want to say), you need to get ready to drive that nail in. Making little taps won’t get you very far. In every interview, you only have 3-5 minutes to make a great impression. And remember, you only get one shot at a first impression. You need to come in and make a strong impact and a strong connection, or you’ll be spending the rest of the interview trying to recover.

Here are the keys to make sure you “hit the nail on the head”:

• Match your energy to the company culture and management style – The question that every interviewer asks without asking is “Is he a fit for this environment?” If the environment is intense and internally competitive, they’re not going to like a laid-back, measured, collaborative style. If the environment is entrepreneurial and non-conformist, they’re going to screen out anyone who seems like a “pattern-matcher” or a big company political gamesman. Also, what is the personality of the interviewer? Matching or complementing his ego is key for good communication. Again, use LinkedIn to find people in your network who know your interviewer and can give you clues about what makes him tick.
• Describe how you operate vs. how you think – too many people approach an interview with an intellectual and philosophical mindset. Give concrete examples of tough decisions you had to make instead of starting off with “I think…” For example, saying “I once allocated my entire bonus pool to only three of my six employees” (i.e. making a tough decision to only reward my top performers) sends a lot stronger message than “I think it’s important to reward top performers.”
• Project confidence with an edge – The higher you go, the bigger the stakes in your decision making. They expect you to have an opinion. They’re hiring you for a role where you’re going to need to convince and lead people who don’t agree with you. So coming off as overly-sensitive or wishy-washy with a lot of “that depends…” answers won’t serve you well. Don’t ramble. Rehearse so it flows naturally.

In addition to extensive role-playing, David and I carefully deliberated on how he’d handle tough questions like “You’ve been in startups for the last 7 years, so why ‘big company’ again now?” We closely examined the specific political and organization dynamics that existed within his target companies. Having a strong network to complement his also enabled me to reach out to a contact that had recently worked in the organization where he was interviewing and I found out that one of the key issues was lack of collaboration across different development teams.

The stakes are too high not to be fully prepared for final round interviews. Getting yourself organized in both content and form is most efficient and productive when you do it with someone you trust. Fumbling through your practice sessions will only help you to get better. Be prepared, because a misstep during game time could mean “game over."

For more information on leadership development, visit ExecCatalyst What techniques do you use to prepare for late-stage interviews? Please share your thoughts.

Perils of Probationary Promotions

The Win-Win-Lose Proposition
When I was at Oracle, there was a major reorganization and a new department was formed. I was a Sr. Manager in operations and my boss, a Director, was tapped to join a temporary global taskforce and disappeared for 3 months. Here’s where it gets interesting: his manager, the VP, needed me to do my boss’s job but he couldn’t promote me, at least not yet. I was offered the “job of a Director,” but didn’t get the title. On face value everything seemed fine:

1. The company wins – The job gets done and business moves forward.
2. The manager wins – The job gets done and s/he also feels good about giving you the “opportunity.”
3. You win... really? – You get more responsibility and learn more skills.

Here’s what’s wrong with the picture: You lose too! From a financial perspective, you get more work but have the same pay. You lose salary and bonus upside because you were compensated at the lower pay grade.

But the political ramifications are more serious. You have accepted a new role but don’t have full organizational support. Titles are important, particularly in mature organizations, because they give you the clout to represent your business function and to make decisions. Without the formal title and recognition, you are vulnerable to complexities and delays because people are questioning your authority. It’s effectively “the buck stops here” credibility that encourages people to work with you instead of going around you to make things happen. Also, without the title you have to swallow your pride because people in the organization will ask “why are Karen and Mike (your peers) Directors and you are not?” or “if you’re doing your boss’s old job and he was a Director then why aren’t you a Director?” Furthermore, when your promotion is finally official, the formal announcement is anti-climactic because you’ve already been doing the job. And worse yet, if you still haven’t been promoted then you are floating in limbo, while others are trying to figure out how they can get that promotion before you do.

How You Got Into This Predicament
Probationary promotions are commonly practiced within high-tech companies. They happen for several reasons: 1) your manager doesn’t have the power (or possibly the political will) to authorize your promotion 2) it’s outside of the focal/annual review process so you have to wait as a matter of policy. At any rate, managers play this card in order to get you to take on more work and hope that this “new responsibility” will be enough to keep you motivated and happy for a little while longer. One argument for the probationary promotion (instead of the “real deal”) is that it’s a good way to observe you in the role. It’s a low-risk “test drive” for your management where they can watch and see if you succeed without risking their political capital of officially promoting you first. That’s hogwash so don’t fall for it. If you are qualified enough to be given the responsibility, then you are surely qualified to get the title promotion and compensation that’s associated with it.

Negotiating Your Promotion
Let’s discuss how you can gain control over the process. Every high-achiever will chomp at the bit to get more responsibility and looks forward to being hand-picked to lead a new project. When you’re early in your career, taking on new challenges is a good way to get visibility and to demonstrate that you have high potential. Negotiating hard for that promotion at this early stage of your career is less important than when you are vying for Director and VP roles. At these levels, much more is at stake with respect to business need and impact as well as the professional risk and personal sacrifices that you take on. Here are important points to tip the balance in your favor:

1. Build your business case – articulate why it’s better for the business that you are promoted. Focusing solely on your own motivations can put your manager in an immediate defensive posture if he is not ready or able to promote you. Whatever you do, don’t build your case for a formal promotion around your needs and goals. Your boss might be able to ask for an exception to company policy for the good of the business, but he’ll never be able to ask for an exception because of your individual needs and goals. So equip him to make a case that his superiors can respect and support based on the business need.
2. How it benefits your manager – it’s in your manager’s best interest for you to be successful. Sending you off into the company to drive change, manage critical projects, etc. without the proper support can come back to bite him or her if you fail. Help her to realize how sending you in at the wrong level can undermine the projects that are most important to her. Another point is that the more senior her direct reports are, the stronger the case is for her next promotion since she’ll be managing Directors instead of first-line managers.
3. Show your political savvy – your promotability has as much to do with acceptance up, down, and across the organization as what your manager thinks. If your manager promotes you and then receives a backlash of criticism, his own credibility is shot. Do you know how others feel about your expertise and contribution to the business? You should have a strong understanding of this before you push for your promotion. If there are any concerns raised, then this is your opportunity to correct any misunderstandings. Removing these barriers will help to align the political timing of your promotion to the benefit of your manager and the overall business.

Give Yourself a Promotion
How you handle and present your case for promotion is an important preview of your leadership skills and style. Your ability to demonstrate balanced thinking around business, managerial, and personal benefits will provide insights to your potential as a leader and future executive. The more you think and act like the level you want to be at, the more people will view you as already being there. Moreover, applying the principles of SMART objectives (specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time bound) helps to ensure that you and your manager are on the same page regarding your promotion expectations. When the requirements for your promotion are “SMART”, you’ll be working hard based upon a clear set of objectives vs. suffering from the “moving goal post” phenomenon where your manager just invents a new requirement or throws out a new challenge for you to overcome before the promotion process can continue.

Observing how your manager handles this situation is equally telling. If he’s fully committed to your success, then he will work with you according to the principles mentioned above instead of keeping things very loose, unspecific, and open-ended from a timing perspective.

Have you ever taken a probationary promotion? Did it work out eventually, or did you get stuck in the “slow lane” as a result? How did you deftly avoid a probationary promotion or accelerate a formal promotion? Please share your thoughts.