Happiness Is Different Things To Different People

It's always fun to see surveys that are taken by different organizations on the same subject. In this case, my colleague Robyn Greenspan, the Senior Editor of our bi-weekly newsletter the CareerSmart Advisor, made me aware of one conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association and reported in an article on eWeek.com. Some interesting stuff. Always is when they are asking people how they feel about the jobs they're in versus the ones they think they want.

In this case, 60% of the 1,000 IT types who responded indicated they were looking for new jobs, and if you believe the numbers, 80% of those who said they were looking, considered their searches "very active."

I guess with the economy still chugging along at a decent pace, it shouldn't be too surprising that folks are looking. Indeed, our own survey, which includes a much broader spectrum of functions, including IT, indicated that 53% were dissatisfied with their current gigs, and 72% were ready to put their money where their mouth was - i.e. planned to bail within 6 months.

What has interested me in such surveys over time is what appears might be a shift from money always being the prime motivator on both ends of the "why" people want to make a change. Time was when people left it was because they wanted to make more money, and when they took another job is was money that topped the list.

Not that the world has turned completely idealistic. Money still "talks" as they say, and in the CTIA survey it was the top reason (73% said money was the driver motivating them to look) but there was a substantial percentage (58%) who cited "looking for a new challenge" as the prime factor. Considering this survey was focused on the IT world, I guess the results might not be too surprising in the sense that the conventional wisdom has always indicated that in the IT world, it has always been about "challenge" and money.

In our own survey,The Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, however, and as I said, it covered a much broader spectrum of executives, the numbers came out quite differently. Specifically, the reasons given for expecting to make a change within the next 6 months were:

Personal Reasons: 30% (limited opportunities; lack of challenge/personal growth)
External Factors: 26% (company/industry prospects not favorable; job security)
Atmosphere: 22% (differences with culture; boss not a good match)
Lifestyle: 11% (work/life balance; volume of business travel; commute)
Compensation: 11%

It was the first time that I had ever seen money that far downt the list.

Maybe Maslow was right, once you get to the point where you feel you can put food on the table other factors start to become strong enough to really start to influence behavior.

Things like 911 do too.

Where Has All The Wisdom Gone?

Where have all the Flowers Gone was a 60's song written by Pete Seeger. It's a song that would still be recognizable to many of us today, especially the song's message that was repeated in each and every stanza:"When will they ever learn?" "When will they ever learn?"

If you follow the human capital space at all, you are keenly aware that that one of the key issues being discussed in the press, in professional journals, websites of every stripe and blogs across the electronic universe has to do with the brain drain forecast as the boomers leave the workforce and those coming in behind them, rather than having the benefit of their advice and counsel will be faced with a learning curve driven by trial and error. Not a great picture when played against global competition.

Many organizations, including ours, have asked corporate America if (a) they are aware that this is turning into serious issue, and (b) if so, what are they doing about it. In our
Executive Market Intelligence Report this year, 67.7% of the recruiters told us they felt there was a shortage of executive talent, and 76.6% of the corporate recruiters who responded indicated that their companies were concerned about retention, and all agreed the proverbial "war for talent" was heating up.

In addition to our own data collection on this topic, we also had the opportunity to work with Ernst & Young on a survey they were doing in this area as well. Whether one is part of the boomer generation or part of the manpower planning world, the challenge of filling the coming void with talent and keeping that talent is an attention getter.

For those who might have an interest, on the 20th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, the National Institute of Business Management is hosting an audio conference with Bill Arnone of Ernst & Young's human capital practice and our President, Mark Anderson who will be addressing this topic in a program entitled Aging in Corporate America: How to Retain Wisdom & Recruit Leaders

NIBM is noted for the quality of their programs, and we are pleased to be able to contribute to this one.

Life Altering Events

It happens at all different ages, and if you live long enough, it probably happens more than once. (e.g. the days that JFK, RFK or Martin Luther King were assassinated.) Five years ago it was 9/11. Events like these change all of us, and each of us takes different paths in how we process the pain, hurt, and anger.

There were many very moving reminders over the past week or so, both in print and on television. I would like to draw your attention to one more, particularly if you were not directly affected by 9/11.

Steve Levy and Maureen Sharib co-host a blog called The Recruiting Edge There is much I could say about Steve's post on remembering 9/11, but after reading it, anything that I could say seems totally unnecessary. It speaks for itself.

"...With a Little Help From My Friends"

I have always felt that one of the best, if not THE best, sources of advice and counsel when it comes to career management is to talk to your peers. Indeed, trying to foster that sort of discusssion was a key factor when we started ExecuNet "back in the day" as they say. Given that we started in 1988, most of that peer counseling and experience sharing came from my logging long but very gratifying hours on the phone. It wasn't long before I was ready to buy stock in Hello Direct or Plantronics.

While I still spend my days strapped into a headset, the avenues now available for people to help eachother have, through the wonders of modern telecommunications, multiplied big time. In our case, in addition to the 40-50 face to face meetings we have in cities across the county on a monthly basis, we have members sharing all sorts of "learnings" both online and off.

Whenever I explore the myrid of topics being discussed, the thing I get the most satisfaction from is the degree to which members "get it" in terms of sharing and trying to help each other. Sure, each of us have our own agendas, interests, and goals. Everyone "wants" something. But if you don't have others who are willing to try and help you get to wherever it is you want to go, you may get there eventually, but for sure it will take you much, much longer.

As an example in our ExecuNet Forum, there has been an on-going discussion amongst several of our members in the sales function. The topic they have been kicking around is the challenge of changing industries, and as an aside, something that is on more peeople's minds than you might think. In our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report this year over 70% said they were considering this as a potential next step in their career.

Here's a sample of the kind of sharing that people are doing that came from one of the forum participants who goes by the handle JimOSales:

A few comments on the recent posts on this topic. One relates to the questions Steve in Jersey listed. I think they are all excellent things to explore. Ask what they are looking for and why, and what has worked for them in the past. If you find that industry experience has been no guarantee of success in the past, you might be able to get them to see beyond that factor.

I also agree with the post from 491318 suggesting that reaching this type of career crossroad is a great time to "re-think your life and do something you would really love doing." For me it was becoming a coach and helping people to become more successful--something I truly love. It is much easier to sell something you love than something that is just a means to the end of putting food on the table. I confess I had a lean year and a half while making the transition, yet I never looked back and I am better for having taken a road less traveled. Many of you have extensive sales experience and have probably trained other sales professionals. Perhaps a career in sales coaching is another avenue to consider. There are organizations like Resource Associates Corporation and Sandler Institute that are always looking for new people to do this kind of work.

Jim OSales continued:I met an interesting speaker and author recently (Kenneth Gronbach) and just finished reading his book, "Common Census: The Counter-Intuitive Guide to Generational Marketing." Some of you might find it of interest on a couple levels. First, it might give you some insight into industries that are likely to be up, as well as ones that are likely to be down, over the next 10-20 years. It might also be encouraging in that generational shifts have us heading into a period where we are likely to face labor shortages as Baby Boomers start to retire and a significantly smaller Generation X moves along in their careers. There is good news and bad news in these generational shifts. The key is to use the knowledge of where things are heading to your best advantage.

One final comment re: trying to convince someone that being an outsider is an advantage. We have a saying in our sales development process: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Your job is to make the horse thirsty." We ultimately can't convince anyone of anything. What we can do is ask them the kinds of questions that might help them convince themselves. It's hard for me to believe that every hiring manager out there has always had success with new hires from within the industry. I'm sure many hire the "experience ones" simply because that's the way it has always been done and it seems logical. But if you can probe and get them to acknowledge that the "experienced ones" don't always work out, perhaps you can shift the conversation to those qualities that do seem to have a direct correlation with success in the job.

Best to all in your transitions!

To coin a phrase, "what goes around comes around."

The Lexus Syndrome

I don't know if they still use it, but the tag line that Lexus had for a while was "the relentless pursuit of perfection." I loved it. Not because I thought it ever applied to me as such, but just because I thought it was so clever in terms of capturing and conveying their sense of commitment to producing a high quality product on an on going basis.

For many of us, it isn't so much the challenge of getting to perfection that holds us back. After all, I suspect that most people are realists when it comes to batting 1.000. In the real world, most of us find ourselves having trouble moving out of our respective comfort zones and pushing on. Somehow we just can't seem to "get started" or as Michael Bungay Stanier, who I had the good fortune to hear speak at our local ACP chapter meeting recently, puts it, "Getting Unstuck."

Michael, Canadian Coach of the Year among other things, is one of those career coaches who when you first check him out you are thinking "nah, this is too far out for me." "Too idealistic for the real world," but like most good consultants, he overcomes the skepticism by giving his audience examples and tools that can't be ignored. He also does a great job of putting things in a perspective that transforms one's thinking from "there are just too many hurdles to overcome" to one of "wait a minute, this really isn't as impossible as it looks."

To help with putting things in context of the "doable" he has developed a pretty cool set of tools, 10 little cards actually, each of which addresses different aspects of helping someone to "get unstuck." An example:

Provocative quote: "One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time." You are then asked the question: Who's against you? How are you letting that get in your way? Perspective.

One of the tools I liked the best was the card entitled: Probabilities. This card has the following list which comes from ASTD (American Society of Training & Development)

The probability of completing a goal:

10% if you hear an idea.
25% if you consciously decide to adopt it.
40% if you decide when you will do it.
50% if you plan how you will do it.
65% if you commit to someone else you will do it.
95% if you have a specific accountability appointment with the person to whom you committed.

Pretty good list, but one that I had not been aware of until Michael shared it with us.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that these percentages really play into why it is that we host around 40-50 face to face networking meetings around the U.S. and Canada every month. The meetings give those attending (they are open to anyone) a chance to not only expand their personal and professional networks, but an opportunity to build the kind of relationships that help people to turn their individual 10% probabilities into 95% probabilities.

When people commit to helping each other, good things happen.

Money Isn't Everything & Other Revelations

I was checking out the most recent issue of BusinessWeek while basking in one of the most beautiful weekends of the year. Temp in the low 80's, no humidity to speak of, just enough breeze to keep you cool without having to worry about shade. It felt like the biggest decision for the day would be where to go for some outdoor dinning. The whole experience made me wonder if this is what living in San Diego must be like.

In any case, if you missed it, it was one of their "special issues" called The Competition Issue. Some pretty interesting stuff and among other things, they had some factoids from a survey they had run this past July in which they talked to just over 2500 Americans described as being in "middle management."

One of the questions asked was "Which work objective gets you out of bed in the morning?" Finishing ahead of "a high salary" which came in at 9% were "respect of your peers" (11%); "a good balance of work and home life" (30%) and "knowing you did your job well" (44%)

So there was money coming in as close to "an also ran" and somewhere in the deep furrows of my memory, I recalled not just the statement that money is a short term not a long term motivator, but that it had been empirically demonstrated.

Indeed, in our own annual survey (The Executive Job Market Intelligence Report) we asked the question a bit differently but got a similar answer. Our question was around the reasons that people choose to leave their jobs. 30% of our members said it revolved around personal issues such as limited advancement opportunities, lack of challenge and personal growth. Another 26% said external factors such as company or industry prospects were poor, and another 22% felt the culture match wasn't right for them. Compensation came in at 11%.

So if it isn't the money, what is it? In my head I knew, but as I read the rest of the issue, there was something that Joe Torre said in an essay that he had written for this issue, that w while I am not a Yankee fan, I am a Torre fan, and I thought the way he said it covered it very well. He said:

"...But in the end, it still comes down to people. You have to make people feel necessary. Even if their contributions are minor, it adds to everything else. That's what makes the machine work."

As I closed the magazine, I thought to myself, why does something that seems so self-evident come as a revelation to so many?

Life Changers

Kent Blumberg has a blog in which he shares his thoughts on "leadership, strategy, and performance." There is much that I like about his writing style not the least of which is the sincerity that comes through in the sense that he is simply willing to share. He is not keeping score.

In a recent post, he was prompted to write about his "three most influential teachers" which he says was prompted by a post by George Ambler. Based on Ken's recommendation, I checked out Ambler's blog and immediately added it to my favorites list along with Ken's.

In any case, be they teachers, which I suspect they were for many of us, or maybe even some bosses we've had, there is no question that almost anyone can name two or three people who have touched their lives in such a way so that if someone said name the 3 people who you feel most influenced you by the time you were say 30 (parents & spouses don't count) most people could easily come up with the names.

In Ken's life, the names were Ken, Rod, and Mike. In my case, they are Eddie, Buddy, and Ken. All teachers. All I met when I was 13 and had just moved back to Connecticut from North Dakota. (Not sure if the move was by choice, or as I often say, was due to our family being paroled.)

If you asked me why these three in particular made my top three I am not sure I could really say, all I know is they are there, and it was a "no brainer." That said, if I had to take a shot at explaining why, I guess it was a combination of what each taught me in the class room and on the athletic field. Eddie taught biology, Buddy math, and Ken history. Eddie was an assistant football coach and varsity basketball coach. Bud was the school's AD and head football coach, and Ken coached varsity soccer.

I probably knew Buddy the best as I attended his summer day camp for many years in my early teens, and more importantly, spent almost every Saturday morning back on the school's campus in his class room trying desperately to catch up on my non-existent math skills.

Ken makes the point in writing about the three people in his life that they each taught him something about both himself as well as instilling in him qualities that have remained with him as guiding principals in his professional life.

I guess I would say the same about the three I have mentioned here, and now that I think about it, I suspect that most of us would feel the same about those who have influenced us deeply. It is about the value systems they demonstrated, not in words so much as in behavior. The standards that Ed, Buddy, and Ken set in the classroom were high, but each had his own way of supporting me (and my classmates) in a way that made even those of us who weren't "as smart" to give it our best and in so doing most of us ended up doing far better than we had ever imagined both in the classroom and on the playing fields.

I was an okay football player, a horrible basketball player (so they turned me into a diver in the winter) and in baseball, a disaster waiting to happen (so they turned me into a pole vaulter and javelin thrower). We went undefeated my senior year.

Many years later I was asked to serve on the school's Board of Trustees. At the time I was working in New York City, so making board meetings was not going to be easy, but I said yes instantly. Why? Because among other things I felt it was the least I could to for three men and a school which helped to give me a chance in life that I otherwise would never have had.

I still owe them.

The Virtual Handshake

One of the really fun aspects of ExecuNet being a membership organization rather than a subscription is that we get to talk with members all day long both on the phone and by email. There are a lot of benefits that come from that sort of a relationship, one of which is that you get to hear first hand not just what is on people's minds, but you get great ideas on things you can do to help meet their needs.

With the advent of not just the Internet, but the explosion of email, IM, and "social networking" as communication channels of choice for millions, for a long time we had been searching for a subject matter expert on the use of cyberspace for the care and feeding of one's network.

When the book The Virtual Handshake came out we knew we had found the answer in terms of the right resource, the issue was trying to get either David Teten or Scott Allen to slow down long enough from their various and sundry enterprises and speaking engagements so we could put together a webinar on the subject.

Given the degree to which we talk to people about the importance of expanding both one's personal as well as professional network, we are more than just a tad psyched that on the 4th at 4:00 co-author Scott Allen will be presenting a FastTrack webinar which will show the audience how to effectively build a online presence that will help senior level executives to present themselves electronically in a way that builds effective relationships.

To that end, attendance at our networking events has always been open to anyone, be they members of ExecuNet or not. This program is no different

There's a Reason They Call it Caveat Emptor

I never took Latin in school, and my kids think I look old enough to have been going to school when that was the 'only' language they spoke in school. That said, you don't have to know Latin to know that the phrase caveat emptor gives one the feeling of and a message of "watch out"!

So, what does that have to do with the space within which
ExecuNet operates? The answer lies in a story that showed up in a recent issue of Information Week that carried the headline "FBI Warns Job Hunters of Online Scams."

In reading through the story, written by K.C. Jones of TechWeb, it struck me that I have heard stories about job seekers be scammed almost ever since I can remember. Even though I am well aware that this stuff still goes on and note that there is a very well worn path on this subject that shows up in our online member forums that our members use to exchange information and ideas, nonetheless, almost a day doesn't pass where I don't get a call from someone who has been ripped off by some firm that is selling smoke and snake oil to someone full of the fear and anxiety caused by the pressure of wondering if they are going to be able to make the mortgage payment next month.

Fortunately, more and more of the members we hear from are contacting us BEFORE they have written a check, and one of the reasons I think is the degree to which people are using the "net" to share experiences and to warn each other. For those who may not be aware, there is also a website called RipOff Report that I have watched grow over the years. The good news is that it is there, the bad news is that it is so packed with visitors that sometimes you have to come back to do a search, although the last time I went to the site they said they were pounding forward on some improvements which would speed up the wait time.

I guess we all have seen the segments on 20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes, and other magazine shows over the years, and every now and again they do a segment on one of these outfits that continue to pray on the vulnerability that comes when people are under enormous financial and emotional stress.

It can get very, very sad. I recall many years ago a fellow in Florida (and this was long before the Internet) who had been burned (and emotionally scarred) so badly by one of these companies that he literally devoted the rest of his life to trying to discredit the crooks and help people who had been victimized by them.

One wonders in this day and age how it is that really "smart" people can continue to be conned into this stuff, but they are. Maybe ole P.T. was more right than wrong, I don't know, and I am certainly not among those who might be looking for Uncle Sam to get more involved in anything,(heaven forbid!) but when I see this sort of thing going on for as long as it has, it certainly drives home the reason that regulators get involved.

Why Do You Work?

I guess everybody has a couple of "favorite" interview questions. One of mine has always been to ask "why do you work"? If you have never tried it, give it a go, you get some interesting responses aside from the normal "to pay the bills."

Over the years lots of people have asked me that question in one form or another, or if it hadn't been asked, it certainly is something I've thought about a lot. As a recovering HR person, I guess it would come as no surprise when I tell you I learned long ago that money is not what motivates me.

This all came up for me again a few evenings ago when I had the chance to have "reunion" dinner with our Sr. Contributing Editor Joe McCool and Bob Benson, Chairman of Slayton Search Partners. I have known Bob for years as has Joe, but I had not seen Bob since he returned to the U.S. after working in Europe for several years. It was a fun evening to say the least.

Especially when Bob asked me how things were going at ExecuNet. Since he and I are roughly the same age, and I was well aware of the passion he has for his work, I knew he could relate to my reply. What I told him was that aside from the fact that things were going very well in the network, in terms of job satisfaction, this has been the most exciting and rewarding experience of my career.

The reason it is, I told him, is that we felt so blessed to be able to make our living from being able to help as many people as we do. It was a tremendously satisfying feeling. He knew exactly how I felt.

In fact, I went on to tell him that while we had lots and lots of members who when they joined were all looking for senior executive jobs, and many of them got the next gig after responding to one of our postings, that since most people make a change via networking, that I got a much bigger kick out of the emails that we get from members who have made a change and who tell us how helpful we were to them as a resource as they managed a job change.

So all this was still fresh in my mind when I walked in the office today and found the following email from a VP of Marketing member which said in part:

"Your firm and what you teach via ExecuNet has been invaluable to me. My life is much better, different and more rewarding as a result of the opportunities and jobs I've had, the skills I have learned and the people I have met. Thank you! You all do important and life-changing "stuff"!!!

Maybe a lot of people would tell me to "get a life" in terms of what turns you on, but as I told Bob and Joe, I live for this stuff. It's why I work.

Role Models and Working to Live

One of the problems (and that's with a small "p") of being in the same business for a while (in our case nearly 20 years) is that your "friends" send you stuff that they see in which they think you might have an interest because it relates in some way to your personal or professional interests.

I should quickly add here that I really don't mean this to sound like a complaint for in truth people who do things like that are the type one remembers - and for all the right reasons. In addition, and as an organization that bangs the networking drum as hard as we do, I should and do applaud these types of communications. All of which is a long way of saying my friend and colleague Robyn Greenspan, our Senior Editor, sent along a copy of a recent article by Anna Bahney of the NY Times called A Life Between Jobs.
One of the stats in the article stated that between 1978 and 2002, people between the ages of 18-38 had held 10.2 jobs. According to my calculator (I would never trust myself to do it otherwise) that says these folks were changing jobs every 2.3 years give or take a few months. No wonder the service award industry is in a slump!

What struck me about all this was when I went back and checked some of the data in our annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report
it told me that our ExecuNet members (whose average age is 49) said they changed jobs every 2.7 years and companies every 3.3 years. So much for " 25 and out" which if you are an executive with more than 25+ years experience you already are well aware that the old saw of "25 and out" "went out", as they say, "with high button shoes."

Each generation looks to the next for role models on a lot of levels, and given that I am of the generation, which I am not proud to report, put the organization ahead of not only ourselves but worse, our families, The generation behind us took a gander at that and said "not on my watch." None of my kids took jobs in corporate America. For sure they understand one needs to work in order to live, but having seen the "price" of "living to work" they have elected to work to live.

When I look at the stats above, and while clearly there are many factors that cause the numbers to be what they are, one of them, I think, has something to do with putting job satisfaction and life style issues, if not in front of dollars and cents, at least much higher on the list than they used to be. As I say, seeing what has gone on with our parents is certainly part of what has brought about this change, but only one factor. There's another called 9/11 that probably has something to do with it too.

New Rules in a Flat World

I guess if you're a business magazine reader you probably saw the cover story in Fortune that was blasting out the news that Jack Welch's rules for running a successful business have gone out, as they used to say, with "high button shoes" and the poor guy has only been out of the corner office for five (5) years. How time flies.

If you didn't see the piece, the list was kind of interesting:

Old Rule: Big dogs own the street. New Rule: Agile is best.
Old Rule: Be #1 or #2 in your market. New Rule: Find a niche.
Old Rule: Shareholders rule. New Rule: The customer is king.
Old Rule: Be lean & mean. New Rule:Look out, not in.
Old Rule: Rank your players. New Rule: Hire passionate people.
Old Rule: Hire a charismatic CEO. New Rule: Hire a courageous CEO.
Old Rule: Admire my might. New Rule: Admire my soul

I guess it is one of the "benefits" or some might say "curses" of having been running around the planet for a while and the business part of that world for more than forty (40) years that one gets either "wiser" or some might say cynical. I guess it depends on one's point of view.

Anyway, when I first saw the Fortune story, the image that flashed across my mind was the segment on Bill Maher's show on HBO called "new rules." No matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, some the stuff he does is really very funny.

As much as I, along with the rest of the universe, admire the results of what GE accomplished during Jack's tenure, it does not necessarily follow that his leadership "rules" are the be all and end all. Becasue of Jack's personality and style he is often looked at as a benchmark when it comes to leadership. Understandable, but as we all know, there are lots of other companies that have done extremely well with leadership styles that were very different from Jack's. There are also plenty of examples of ones that have failed with leaders whose styles and rules were like Jack's. I guess that is why they call it "situational management."

So I don't know if it's the fact that the "rules" of leadership have really changed so the old ones don't work anymore or if it is simply that we have "new rules" driven by the epiphany of the 90's when U.S. industry discovered the realities of globalization. A discovery which on an individual level translated to the knowledge that the Puritan work ethic in return for job security was a myth from the get go. Whatever it was, things changed, and companies and those who work for them have been trying to adapt and adjust ever since.

In our case, ExecuNet as an organization was born out of the aforementioned 90s epiphany, and the "new" rule that we started to apply was "nobody cares about you more than you" and if you were not going to become proactive in terms of managaing your professional worklife, you were playing career roulette with a fully loaded gun.

It took a while for the notion to catch on, but as we look at our membership now, some 70% is made up of senior level executives and professionals who are currently employed. They are not necessarily looking for their next senior executive jobs, nor are they necessarily interested in anyone's rules other than the one they have now internalized: The company I work for is "Me, Inc." and we outsource our services.

Very 21st century.

Friends vs. Allies

I saw an article the other day written by Ely Portillo in which he was talking about study results published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review indicating that as a society we have fewer and fewer close friends. Now, don't get me wrong it's not like my "first read" on a daily basis is the the American Sociological Review, indeed until I saw it referenced in Portillo's article, I didn't even know there was such an animal; Sports Center is more my speed.

What struck me was that the article said in 1985 the people surveyed said they had only three close friends. That was surprising enough, but the new study indicated that the number was only 1 out of 4.

In the name of full disclosure, essentially "friend" seemed to be defined as someone with whom one felt they could discuss "important matters" whatever that may mean.

Aside from being struck by how low this number was, it made me think about something I had observed on a personal level over the years, and which has simply been underscored even more as we talk with our ExecuNet members on a daily basis.

The "learning" that most members seem to take away from making a job change is that the folks who they expected (i.e. my "A" list) would be the biggest help turned out to be pretty much a bust. The question is why? After all, aren't these guys supposed to be my "closest friends"? Well, not if you buy what Portillo's article reports. Indeed, and while we have not yet done any surveys on "friends", we have done a number of surveys on how people make changes, one of the most recent being this year's Executive Job Market Intelligence Report which underscores the value of trusted introductions.

The answer we keep getting is not "friends" but rather contacts and relationships that came about as the result of "networking." The last time I looked, the number I recall seeing from those members who checked in following their most recent change was some 70% said it came as the result of networking, but not necessarily networking with those who would be thought of as "my closest" friends, but rather people that I met during the course of my search with whom I "hit it off" and we just started to help each other. In fact, even after making the change, most would not describe these individuals as "friends" but rather as "allies" in a common cause.

Works for me.

Graduation Time

This time of year is always fun in that there are lots of pieces that show up in print or in short segments on the evening newscasts all of which are focused on advice to the new grads.

If you had not seen the one below authored by Charles Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add, I think it worthy of attention.

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Okay Mom and Dad, let's adjourn to the bar!

The Hidden Benefits Of Getting Away From The Office

A few months ago, Ken White, who has been involved with MIT Sloan Alumni Career Services ever since I met him some 10+ years ago, called and asked if I would be on a panel that he was putting together for this year's reunion.

When I asked him what the topic was he said networking. When I asked who else was to be on the panel he said it would be Lawler Kang, who had just published a book Passion at Work : How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life and Ian Ybarra (an MIT grad) who works with Keith Ferrazzi the author of the current best seller Never Eat Alone (you have to love the title!)

The event was in Boston which isn't all that far from my home in Rhode Island, and since it was to be held on a Friday, I thought it would be a great way to be able to spend some extra time at home since I would have to come up from our offices in Connecticut beforehand.

When I asked Ken why would he want me sandwiched between two books, he said that since we had been in the networking world for close to 20 years he thought I might bring a different perspective (translation: feedback from the real world?)

So I thought, why not, and besides, I thought it was pretty neat that the school was offering a program like this to returning alums since so many alumni offices are under such stress from a workload they are usually no where near staffed to meet or funded to deliver.

By the time I got back to Rhode Island after experiencing my first (and I hope my last) homeward commute from Cambridge at the absolute zenith of a Friday Boston rush hour (and if ever there was an oxymoron it's "rush hour") I had had more than enough time to reflect on the day's program. All in all it felt pretty good, and I enjoyed listening to what my fellow panelists had to say as well as the time we had to dialogue with our audience.

One of the really beneficial things of getting out of the office and participating in events such as this one is that you get to hear how different people can focus on the same subject but the way in which they communicate it helps to drive home the point with a sense of clarity that had not come through before. In short, you learn from each other.

Case in point was when I was trying to help people relate to the kind of relationship that's necessary when it comes to effective networking. The example I used was asking people to visualize a scene that we all have experienced time and time again. It was: when you get back from lunch and you have a stack of "while you were out" slips and a ton of email that just piled up, but you have a meeting in ten minutes...Whose message do you always return and whose do you put off until later?

After the formal program, a number of participants told me that this particular example helped them to "get it" - it was a nice feeling.

For my part, when Ian was talking, one of the key points he made was around the word "generosity". His coming at the same idea but from this angle, helped me to recall that while there were other reasons as well, one of the key motivations
that made me pick "the" call I was going to return was that it came from someone who at some time (and often more than once) had done something for me for no other reason than they were generous with their time, experience, or information, and the time that had passed between contact with each other was irrelevant.

Said differently, “People do not remember what you say or what you do, over the years, but they never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

Recruiting Super Stars and Also Rans

I got a pleasant surprise the other day when I got a call from Bill Vick, a name well known to the recruiting community for many, many years. Bill was one of those who was well out in front of the learning curve when it came to understanding the care and feeding of the Internet as it applied to the world of recruiting. Self-described as a "Big Biller, Author, Recruiter, Entrepreneur", one of his latest ventures is a site called XtremeRecruiting which is essentially a site of Podcasts Bill is collecting for a book he is getting ready to write.

So, as I said, I got a call from Bill wanting to set up an interview with me. Since I am not a recruiter, I was curious as to why, and was flattered to hear that since he has known of us for many years, and is aware of the relationships we have built with the search community, he thought my perspective might be of some interest to his listeners. He had some interesting questions to ask, one of which was what I thought made the difference between a good recruiter and a great recruiter, in other words, between a "super star" and an "also ran."

As I thought about it, lots of thoughts flashed across my mind, such as: research, segment expertise, presence, interviewing skills, written and verbal communication skills, educated intuition (if there is such a thing) and work ethic and personal ethics among others. But for whatever reason, what came out of my mouth was trust.

Essentially what I told Bill was that for me at least, what made recruiting super stars was not all that different from what differentiates people no matter what their profession - namely, how we perceive the sincerity of the relationship. I told him that the rap on the recruiting world (as he knew far better than I) was that it was transaction oriented, and thus gave it a feel of artificiality so far as the nature of the relationship between the recruiter and the candidate was concerned, and those recruiters who were able to build real relationships were those who became the "big billers." Indeed, it struck me that this was the underlying key to the success of anyone in business, and particularly anyone who was selling a service.

Later on in the day as I reflected back on our conversation (and as all of us are wont to do in terms of beating ourselves up about how we wish we had been better at saying this or that) it crossed by mind that since ExecuNet was founded some 18+ years ago, the majority of our members, both recruiters and executives, still come by referral, and referrals are the result of real relationships.

So I said to myself, "Dave, lighten up, go have a glass of wine." It was a nice way to end the day.

Gray Matters

For a number of years now at ExecuNet, in addition to our two bi-weekly newsletters, we have included as part of membership, a series of PDF career guides for our members. The last time I looked I think we were pushing near twenty of them.

They cover a wide variety of career related topics from networking, interviewing, job search research, working with recruiters, and digital dirt just to name a few. One of the most dog-eared (if such a thing applies to a PDF) is when we publish one that has to do with age.

Thanks to the great work of our Senior Editor Robyn Greenspan, the most recent of the guides is called Gray Matters: Experienced Executives Gaining the Edge and when we checked over the weekend, several thousand members had download their copy in the first 72 hours it was posted.

I certainly can both understand and relate to the interest our members have in the topic. For many, if they have been fortunate in life, when they first bump into age discrimination, it is their first "personal" experience on the discrimination front. What I mean is while they likely have seen discrimination in action, they were observers not recipients. It is like the difference in understanding something on an intellectual level versus understanding or experiencing it on an emotional level.

For anyone who has ever experienced discrimination on any level be it for race, sex, age, religion or whatever, the frustration and anger is some of the most intense feelings one can ever have.

So the question is what does one do after the anger and frustration have been exhausted? To me, at least when it comes to the age issue, it has always been a question of deciding how one wishes to use their time and energy.

We all have biases. In my own experience, for most people I know, they lie somewhere in the middle of a spectrum, not on the extremes, meaning while they are there, people are willing to listen and learn. They are, in a word, subject to be influenced.

While not trying to be too simplistic, if a salesperson has done his homework, he goes into the selling process knowing what some of the customer's potential "objections" are and has made his plans accordingly.

In Gray Matters, what Robyn has done is to try and provide our members, particularly those who may not be seasoned in selling themselves, not only with an understanding of the issues, but more importantly, with some ammunition to fight back.

Headline: Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, there is value to experience.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

I was reading Steve Levy's blog The Recruiting Edge the other day, and his post was entitled Truth, Justice and $$$. He was writing about a story that appeared on Bloomberg.com entitled, Trial Lawyers Are Down Now; Let's Hit Them Again. The author was Kevin Hassett who is director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, information I add for those interested in the author's political affiliation.

It is an interesting read, and it reminded me of the degree to which the thought of lawyers raises my blood pressure even though I am well aware that my bias is grossly unfair to that small number of lawyers who, simply by the law of averages, must be very decent, ethical people. In fact, now that I think about it, I have even met some.

That said, and as I wondered where this bias I have came from in the first place, I was reminded of how many times over the years I had seen instances where those whose role in life seemed to be to make their living by "beating the system" were represented by lawyers who made their living by helping the scoundrels to do it while the rest of us sat back and paid the tab.

It all reminded me of how I felt as a Labor Relations representative during the first 10+ years of my career when I recall thinking how incredibly expensive it was for a company to manage what probably amounted to 1% or less of the employee population.

At the time I was working in a manufacturing plant of some 3,000. We had a labor contract that I think could have been weighed in pounds, not ounces. It didn't take me long to figure out that for 99% of the people I was dealing with we didn't need a contract, all we needed were two people who instinctively knew what "fair' was, and that was it. The other 1% kept lots of us, including the legal staff, very busy and, if labor agreements ever had a "dedicated to" section, it should have been dedicated to that group.

As I look back on those days now, when I was a twenty something, I tell myself I felt the way I did as the result of "innocent idealism" as yet untarnished by the real world.

Now, some 40+ years and several Global Crossings, WorldComs, Enrons, Adelphias & Tycos later I realize that given the road we have traveled, and like it or not, it looks like we are going to need more lawyers not less.

Not a happy prospect.

The Age Thing

While certainly the issues surrounding age as an issue in employment is no joking matter, every once in a while you hear a story that makes you smile anyway. The most recent for me came when I was referred to it by Gerry Crispin's post on his blog (The CareerXRoads Annex) which if you don't have it on your reading list would be an excellent one to add.

The post Gerry was blogging about was about a piece he saw in John Sumser's Electronic Recruiting News. Specifically, a piece that ran on the 22nd of May called The Hunt. As Gerry pointed out it isn't just that it is a really wonderfully well written piece, but one that brings a smile as well.

After I had read it, it reminded me of another "smile" story that my friend and world-class executive coach Bob Cuddy once told when he was talking about the age issue at one of our networking meetings some years ago.

He told us that the oldest client he had ever worked with was 92. So as it turns out, the guy gets an interview for a CFO opening with a manufacturing company in New Jersey. Bob gets him all tuned up for the interview and sends him off. Next day, Bob calls him to see how things went, and the client says "Well, I spent several hours there. Talked to the CEO, the VP of Operations, VP of R&D, Logistics, and VP of Sales & Marketing. So Bob, says, "Wow, that's great, what's next?" The client says "Well, they made me an offer, but I don't think I'm going to take it."

Bob, of course, was thunder struck and after explaining that getting interviews much less offers at age 92 is not an everyday occurrence, asked him why he thought he would turn it down. The client shot back "Well Bob, to be honest, after spending all the time I did with these guys and listening to what was going on there, I really am not sure how long they'll be around!"

Bob swears it is a true story. Knowing Bob, I don't doubt it for a minute.

Advice vs. Opinions

Everybody has pieces of their job that you like and look forward to. It helps to somewhat offset those pieces that drive you crazy and leaving you feeling like you could easily become a two or three martini poster child in very short order.

One of the pieces of my job that helps me to repress the martini merited events is when I have the chance to get out of the office and meet and talk with executives at one event or another. It's just plain fun for me, and more importantly, a great learning opportunity.

Last night it was an especially rewarding evening because I had been asked (by my colleague Bob Weber our VP of Enterprise Marketing) to not only be on a panel to talk to a joint meeting of the Wharton and Columbia Bschool clubs in our area, but because the other panelist was going to Judy Rosemarin, President and Founder of a NYC based company called Sense-Able Strategies.

I have been fortunate enough to have known and worked with Judy for 10+ years (I never can remember exactly how long) as she has served as the host and facilitator of our networking meetings in Manhattan. We have also been lucky enough to have her as the presenter of one of our most popular FastTrack programs which she calls: Winning Interviews: Converse, Connect, Convince. She has a passion for what she does, and among other aspects of her coaching practice, she loves getting her clients ready to be killer interview candidates. All of which is to say that having been an executive coach for more than 20 years, it isn't surprising that every time I listen to her, I learn something, and last night was no exception.

We were talking to the audience about the types of things that help people to become more effective at networking, and in particular what were some of the things that made people more comfortable and willing to help.

It was at this point that Judy suggested that one critical thing to do was to not ask people for "advise" but rather to seek their "opinion." It was one of those moments when you slap yourself on the forehead and say "why the hell couldn't I have thought of it that way?" It is such an important distinction, and as she went on to explain asking for advice creates pressure because there is an implicit risk of "what if my advice is wrong," whereas if you ask me for my opinion, the risk feels much, much less. Hell, as Judy said, "we all have opinions, and actually like to express them."

Every time I go to any event, or listen to any speaker, it is always my hope to walk away with a "take home." Something I can use in my job that will hopefully help to make me better at what I do. Judy does coaching for a living, I don't, but I do get "networked with" a fair amount, and while I have never objected to it, I vividly recall the discomfort I have felt as people would ask me for advice.

From here on out, I don't plan to offer as much advice as I will offer an opinion.
Thanks Judy.

There Is No Such Thing As The Universal Solvent

I recently saw a study published by blog search engine Technorati taken in February that said that blogs were being created at a rate of
67.000 a day. Obviously, and even with modern conveniences like RSS feeds, etc., it is still impossible to keep up with what at times very much feels like a digital tsunami.

The bottom line is that one has to make choices, and one of the choices I made when it came to trying to stay tuned into the career management world was to make sure that I was on Pete Weddle's newsletter list. Anyone who follows the online recruiting space certainly knows who Pete is, and even if they don't, they still read what he has to say with great interest.

For our part, we spend a good deal of time trying to help our members, especially those who have not been active in the job market for a number of years, to come to understand what the real world of career management is really all about. In the age of point and click and when answering ads is simply a matter of turning on your PC or pressing send on your Treo, it is very easy to be seduced into a posture of simply sitting back and waiting for the world to come to you.

Leave it to Pete to help bring things back to earth, and the piece he did in his May 11th issue was just one more example of his ability to provide really worthwhile advice to anyone who has fallen into the trap of thinking that one's ROI in a job search is simply plug and play.

The article he wrote was entitled The 7 Bad Habits of Ineffective Job Seekers. As they say in the UK, it was "spot on."

Here is Pete's list:

Habit #1: Limiting the time and effort you invest in your job search

Habit #2: Limiting the research you do to plan your search campaign

Habit #3: Limiting your search to a handful of the same job boards

Habit #4: Limiting your application to clicking on the Submit button

Habit #5: Limiting your use of the Internet to reading job postings

Habit #6: Limiting the care you take with your communications

Habit #7: Limiting the preparation you do for employer interactions

To borrow a phrase, "the man knows whereof he speaks."

With Friends Like That....

Ever wonder when it comes to referrals when you are in an "active" job search that your "A" list never seems to be the group from which the "link" really comes? I certainly have, and I am guessing so have a lot of others.

While I am not sure it is a definitive answer,while attending the annual conference for ACP in Boston a couple of weeks ago, I had the chance (and privilege I might add) to sit in on a presentation given by Larry Stybel, the Stybel in Stybel Peabody & Associates in Boston.

Larry is both an outstanding writer as well as speaker. The subject of his talk in Boston was based on an article he wrote in the MIT Sloan school management newsletter entitled "Friend, Foe, Ally, Adversary...or Something Else?" Very interesting stuff, and when I was listening to Larry explain to us the difference between friends, allies, adversaries and enemies I thought this would be a good thing to post in the blog, but my friend Sheryl Spainer whose blog I subscribe to posted something on the same subject and captured, as she always does, the essence of the message. So rather than reiterate what she has already stated so well, I would suggest if you are interested you just check out what she had to say. The blog post is called Enduring Allies.

If you are tired of hearing us at ExecuNet talk about networking that "isn't working" and were wondering why, you might want to take a few minutes and check out what Sheryl has to say. While we are banging the same drum, sometimes hearing it from someone else can help.

Talent Management vs. Career Management

A couple of weekends ago, I was in Boston attending the annual meeting of The Association of Career Management Professionals International - ACP for short. Great weather and great content quickly made me not to be upset over the fact that I was giving up a glorious spring weekend.

In any case, among the featured speakers was Dr. Edgar Schein, the well known and respected professor of management at MIT's Sloan school of management. The title of his talk was Discovering Your Real Values which was built around his many years of research on what he calls discovering one's career anchors. Fascinating stuff to those of us who follow this sort of thing, and hearing it from a source such as Dr. Schein, was an added treat.

What prompted me to say something about this experience here wasn't Dr. Schein's remarks per se but rather a phrase that he used during his presentation. The phrase was Talent Management versus Career Management. I am almost certain that he said the phrase did not originate with him, but in my notes, I guess I didn't write down where it came from, so for that and to the inventor I apologize.

I bring it up because the phrase, at least for me, was one of the most precise ways I have heard to describe the change in relationship of employer and employee. Indeed, it is a phrase that one could really say has applied to many, many years, not just recently. It is just that it may seem like it is new concept because up until 10 or 15 years ago, most of us kept telling ourselves that our employer was really "interested" in helping us to more effectively manage our careers, and while there have been and even are today, some companies that really are, by and large, they aren't.

What lots of us wanted to think of as company sponsored career management was really company sponsored talent management, and there's a significant difference as I am guessing anyone who has read this far already knows. Talent management is the WIFM for the employer. Career management is the WIFM for the employee. If they happen to match up from time to time, that's great, but make no mistake about where the interests lie for each.

I don't mean to say that this is necessarily bad. I really don't think it is. Indeed, with something that makes the delineation as clear as this phrase does, I think it can only help individual executives internalize and therefore hopefully act upon the notion that when it comes to your career, nobody cares about you more than you.

To Be Remembered & To Be Referred

Robyn Greenspan, the Sr. Editor one of our member newsletters, (CareerSmart Advisor) sent me some stats the other day on what was going on in the blogosphere. Pretty wild stuff:

Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs
- The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
- It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
- On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
- 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
- Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour

With numbers like the foregoing one wonders a lot of things, not the least of which is if all those people are blogging, who the heck is reading it all? Well, as we all know, the answer is a lot of people are, and there continues to be an on going debate about the impact of blogs on almost anything you can name, including one's career.

I came across a blog the other day called Scobleizer. It is authored by Robert Scoble who is a bit of a guru on the subject of blogging and has a book on it entitled: Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Of particular interest to me, however, was the commentary going on relative to a posting he had on the site titled Blogging and Careers. By the time I got there, there were already some 17 comments covering a wide variety of flavors.

Even though they have been around for a while, I am not sure anyone is really totally sure if (a) blogs are here to stay, and if so, (b) what they will ultimately morph to.

What I do believe, however, is that when it comes to careers and the managing thereof, the use of telecommunications can be, as they say, a two-edged sword.

Indeed, my colleague Robyn actually has done a fair amount of research on the subject, and because "digital dirt" is becoming such an issue, even wrote a career guide for our members called Dealing With Your Digital Dirt.

On top of that, I got a call a couple of weeks ago from a producer at NBC Nightly News who wanted to talk me about the same subject as they were doing segment on the good, bad, and ugly of putting yourself out on the net be it MySpace, blogs, or whatever.

As the taping was winding down, the producer asked me if there was anything more I thought the audience should know about the impact of managing their careers when people are running around telling the world what they think about almost anything you want to name.

The response that came to my mind was not to try and argue the merits or demerits of "free speech" etc., but to remind people of two things:

1. The world operates on perception, and what you say and how you say it has an enormous impact on the perception they have or will have, and

2. If you are serious about managing your career, at any level, the name of the game is “To Be Remembered & To Be Referred,” and before you press the send button, keep in mind that you can be remembered for the wrong reasons as well as the right reasons.

Selling Experience

Last Tuesday's Journal had a piece entitled: Getting a Foot in the Door at 50-Plus. This article is only one of scores that I am sure we all have seen and continue to see, especially with all the hype around the boomers and their refusal to surrender in the War for Talent.

Given that the average age of ExecuNet's membership is 49, it is not at all surprising that we get lots and lots of questions and comments on the subject of age, age discrimination, age advantages, and lots in between. Since we have been around a while (18+ years) we also have been engaged in the dialogue on this subject for a fair amount of time as well. We also ask about it in our surveys, and in fact just recently did a "flash survey" which confirmed there was still some good news and bad news on the age front.

The good news was that while 63% of the respondents said that age discrimination is a serious problem in today's executive employment market, the percentage was down from the 77% in 2004 and the 82% that was the number in September of '03.

The fact that the percentage is down a fair amount I suspect is tied to both the economic cycle (the economy is lots better now than in '03) and the War for Talent demographics that may be starting to kick in.

I would also like to think that there is also a piece of this that speaks to the "education" of organizations who are discovering that if they don't take advantage of the experience offered by the over 50 cohort, they are shooting themselves in the foot on any number of levels.

Even if we can't ascribe some of this change to an epiphany on the part of employers, maybe it is just pragmatism coming from such factual realities that have been shared by such luminaries as Tom Peters who back in a presentation made at Radio City in September of '05 quoted some stats from David Wolfe and Robert Snyder's book Ageless Marketing which told us that the new customer majority was the age group of 44-65, and that this group was 45% bigger than the 18-43 segment and would be 60% bigger than that group by 2010.

Whatever the case, the facts seem to support two things:

1. Sad to say, age discrimination is alive and well, and

2. The revenge of the grey panthers, at least for the foreseeable future, may be taking shape.

The Difference Maker No Matter What

Guy Kawasaki as his bio says, "...is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Forbes.com. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. where he was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer." He also has a very, at least to me, interesting blog where he writes about a lot of subjects, but a good deal about customer service.

One of the most recent pieces was called The Art of Customer Service. Guy has a list of 10 points any one of which could be posted in most companies and if followed would stand them in very good stead indeed. I thought it so powerful that I have made a copy to share with our team at our next staff meeting.

It may be an over-reaction on my part, and I know that it goes without saying that if your product or service is not competitive in the marketplace, outstanding customer service is irrelevant, but I truly do believe that all else being relatively equal, customer service is the largest difference you can make.

We live in an age where there is so much emphasis on automation, robotics, scanning, chips embedded in our pets (and our kids?) that it often seems like companies are doing all they can to separate themselves from the customer with an electronic wall. And don't get me wrong, I am all for technology as an enabler, but not as a substitute for customer care, both internally and externally.

Said differently, if you buy the argument that there isn't a heck of a lot of difference in most products or services which are priced roughly the same, then the one thing that can really separate one from the other is how they deal with their customers.

All of us as consumers know all too well what it feels like when customer service is poor. It makes you more than angry, it makes you feel violated and taken advantage of by people who could care less once the check has cleared or card charge has gone through.

Over the years, I have had a lot of people ask me how it is that the vast majority of our members still come to us by referral. My answer has always been the same, I think it's because we have always tried to make sure that we understand the difference between a member and a customer.

Environment or DNA

Last week I was in Chicago attending a conference of folks who these days come under the heading of “human capital professionals.”

Like most conferences this one was filled with networking, power points and pontification. The speakers talked a lot about what we at ExecuNet have come to call “retention deficit disorder.” Companies who are worried that the generational demographics coupled with an economic rising tide will translate into a talent retention nightmare. Could well be. Our recently released 2006 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report says that more than 50% of executives are unhappy campers, and more than 75% plan to vote with their feet in then next six months.

So what’s the answer? Obviously the solution is made up of a lot of things, but to me, it still comes down to something pretty simple. Retention is about relationships. Hell, for that matter, and to state the obvious, life is about relationships. Good ones and bad ones.

I have also always felt that relationships, be they personal or business are fundamentally driven by the attitude that each party brings to it. Hardly an earth-shattering hypothesis. I don’t know if it’s DNA or environment, but my bias is that people, and therefore organizations, can be sorted into two groups. They are generally either “givers” or “takers.” While the “givers” are going to be taken advantage of from time to time (probably because they are too trusting) at the end of the day, it still reminds me of the wonderful Maya Angelou quote:

“People do not remember what you say or what you do, over the years, but they never forget how you made them feel.”

What Matters

It is always a good idea to get out of the office every now and again if for no other reason than to make sure that you don’t lose touch with the real world. I had the chance last week to do that in Chicago while attending the national human capital summit put on by one of our alliance partners, The Human Capital Institute.

It was a two-day affair, and I had the chance to not only listen and learn, but also ExecuNet had been asked to chair a panel the title of which was: The Executive Crisis: Grooming the Next Generation of Leaders.

As I reflected on my trip back to Connecticut, I was thinking that HCI might have just as easily used a conference tag line of the old standby: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” While it is almost an embarrassment to admit that it has been nearly two decades since my work days were spent in corporate America, the issues under discussion by such luminaries as Wharton’s Peter Cappelli, or author Richard Florida (Flight of the Creative Class) or other well-known gurus such as Rich Karlgaard, author of Life 2.0 and publisher/columnist for Forbes, or leadership development icon Noel Tichy, gave me a Rod Serling sort of feeling.

The descriptors have changed. Now we call it “human capital” versus “human resources” or “personnel” or “employee relations”, but underneath it all, we were still trying to get our arms around the triad of employer needs, employee needs and life’s impact on both. Twenty years ago this was all more localized. We were just starting to wake up to the notion that there was a global economy. Now it is the case of dealing with all of it via cell phones, Blackberries, and wireless web access.

So what did I net out of the 2 days I spent trying to listen, learn, and where I could contribute to the discourse?

It’s always about leaders and our never-ending struggle to find them or develop them. In addition, it was also clear that the degree to which trust plays the key role in any relationship has a huge impact. Organizations who not only understand this but whose actions demonstrate their understanding daily are the ones who definitely have more than just a leg up in the race to Life 3.0 -- which is just over the horizon.

The Find & Replace Feature

As I have mentioned here before, I try to stay tuned into the articles, discussions, and blogs that are all a part of the Electronic Recruiting Exchange. Because the postings are often thought-provoking, I'm a frequent visitor and the most recent piece by Lou Adler, CEO of The Adler Group called, Why We Lost The War For Talent got my attention.

In the article, he shares some figures from a survey he conducted along with some stats from a Gallup survey. The clear message from both surveys was that while companies recognize that finding good people was a major challenge (59% in the Gallup poll said that it was their "most pressing problem") very few of the companies that Lou polled (of which there were over 350 both big and small) said they felt good about how they were coping with the newest skirmishes in the war for talent.

This certainly squares with our own data. This was one of the many issues we recently addressed in our annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report for 2006.

What somehow seems pretty weird at this "late date" is that while organizations say they are really concerned about dealing with a human capital marketplace that, absent any unforeseen events, (a sad commentary on the times in which we live) will continue to only get tighter, the number that are really trying to make it a top priority seems incredibly low, especially given the competitive risks at stake. How concerned? Over 80% of the recruiters we surveyed, which included both 3rd party and corporate, were clear in saying that they felt the war for talent was heating up and 79% agreed that there was a shortage of talent at the executive level.

Our survey of executive leadership came back with data that showed some 72% of the senior level executive respondents were planning to get out of Dodge within the next 6 months, and when it comes to filling the holes they will leave behind, we were seeing numbers like 75% of employed executives had turned down offers and so had 40% of the unemployed ones. There is a message in numbers like that and it isn't good for organizations that somehow haven't gotten around to reading the tea leaves surrounding retention of talent. This is one battle they can ill afford to lose.

Should be interesting to hear what others attending the Human Captital Institute's conference in Chicago next week have to say. We've been asked to head up a panel on this issue, which is titled: The Executive Crisis: Grooming the Next Generation of Leaders, and are looking forward to expressing at least one point of view and articulating some specific calls to action. The question before the house, of course, is not will be people listen, but rather will they act.

Lessons from the Ethics Panel

One of the other sites I like and follow as best I can given the stresses of living in the 24/7 business world is the Electronic Recruiting Exchange where I find some pretty interesting discussions and blogs.

While the site is primarily designed for corporate and third party recruiters my interest in following the discussions is because to some degree we are part of the staffing space (one of the reasons we became a charter member of Pete Weddle's International Association of Employment Websites) and our membership is made up of both senior level executives (who have feelings and perceptions about the recruiting world) as well as recruiters - both corporate and third party (who have feelings and perceptions about candidates and clients).

That the ERE should be having discussions on the subject of ethics is no surprise. The recruiting industry has been talking about and around this subject for a long time, just as companies have been talking about it for a long time.

The most recent exchanges on this topic arose from a panel on ethics that was featured at ERE's recent conference in San Diego. One of the more recent posts on the subject was titled Lessons from the Ethics Panel if you wanted to check it out to see how the discussion was going. Clearly people have feelings on the subject, but it also makes one wonder why it should be a topic of discussion after all these years.

As I have followed the discussion and digested the points of view expressed, it reminded me of a couple of things:

1. Whether it is an individual, a group, a company, a profession, an industry, a country - we all (rightly or wrongly) have our reputations. Proof once again of the old saw: "Perceptions are real to those who hold them," and

2. "Actions speak louder than words."

Careful What You Wish For

Robyn Greenspan, the Senior Editor of our Career Smart Advisor newsletter as well as the senior editor and writer of our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report that just went out to our members this week, has, among her many talents, a seemingly unique ability to find the quirky little tid bits here and there and then always has something thought provoking to say about it.

She sent me the following blurb that she found in the NY Times:

FINAL TAKE Some 21 percent of workers said they pitied their bosses, and 54 percent said they "could never be paid enough to take their boss's job," according to Money magazine, which also reports that the average chief executive's salary increased 14.5 percent in 2004, compared with a 3.7 percent raise for the average worker.

This lead the Times to comment:

"That leads to one of two possible conclusions. Either the boss deserves the money, or those who feel sorry for him may want to rethink their position."

Robyn's comment after she read it was: “Every company needs bench strength, so it’s probably a good idea that the 54 percent stay out of the way of the high-achieving 46 percent.” Love her sense of humor!

It also made me think a bit about the shots that bosses take. When I was growing up, the American dream was to rise up the corporate ladder and become a "boss." Sounded great until I got there. Once I got there, I found out in a hurry that it wasn't anything close to being "as advertised."

I also think that my experience in working with different bosses over time was probably not too different from my peers. I had a couple of really good ones, and some who were so bad that I kept saying to myself that they would get a separate chapter when I write my book.

Good or bad, however, I would like to think that I learned from each and as I continued on with what I now must look back on as a "career" it is my hope that I was able to save and apply the "good learnings" and drown the "bad learnings" in apple martinis.

The Cost of March Madness

I think many of us saw the stats recently attributed to Challenger, Gray & Christmas on the cost of the lost productivity due to NCAA men's basketball tournament. Was a pretty impressive number, and makes one wonder how much more we "lose" when it comes to super bowl pools, fantasy football, baseball, NASCAR, and we hear there is even fantasy golf! It's a wonder anything gets done at all.

Anyway, in case you missed it, here is how Challenger et al got to their numbers:

- 58,548,000 = the number of Americans who are estimated to be fans of college basketball (41 percent of a workforce of 142.8 million).

- 13.5 minutes = the average amount of time U.S. workers are expected to spend on NCAA-related websites over the 16 business day tournament season.

- $4.05 = the average amount earned every 13.5 minutes by American workers

- $237,119,400 = the cost to employers nationwide in lost, unproductive wages for each 13.5 minutes of time wasted on the Internet.

- $3,793,910,400 or more = the total amount March Madness could cost employers over 16 business days of tournament.

Just for the fun of it, ExecuNet decided to take John C's formula, add a bit of data of our own, specifically compensation data of our membership based on our survey figures, along with occupational data from our friends at the Dept. of Labor. We came up with a number that says executives are responsible for $315,000,000 all by themselves.

If you have nothing else to do at half time, here's how we totaled it up:

- 943,000 = the number of executives who are estimated to be fans of college basketball (41 percent of the 2.3 million executive jobs in U.S., according to DoL).

- $20.88 = the average amount executives earn every 13.5 minutes (ExecuNet found that top executives, on average, earn $92.79 per hour).

- $19,689,847 = the cost to employers nationwide in lost, unproductive wages for each 13.5 minutes of time an executive wastes on the Internet.

- $315,037,440 or more = the total amount executive fans of March Madness could cost employers over 16 business days of tournament.

Not being a "numbers" guy, I didn't want to ask our team to go back and recalculate everything based on the fact that I stopped watching once two of my final four got knocked out by Sunday!

The Wonders of Modern Telecommunications?

One of the e-newsletters I follow is The Herman Alert. It is published by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, and frequently has some interesting insights.

One of the more recent posts was titled Ubiquitous Cell Phones Blocking Relationships. Without going into great detail, the essence of the article was that the use of cell phones (and by implication other electronic communications) has gotten to the point where is was replacing personal relationships and in general going a long way to making the world far more impersonal not to mention impolite.

While people talking on cell phones in restaurants, on trains, and in other places where it really is pretty hard not to be annoyed by both the ringing and the conversations is certainly not anything I would endorse, I thought that this particular piece went a bit overboard in terms of sounding the death knell of modern society.

For example, one of the major complaints of the article was that we have people who work within a few yards of each other who communicate via email rather than getting from their desk and going to talk to someone in person.

On the surface I guess that may seem a bit odd, but frankly, it didn't strike me as that crazy. Maybe that's because we do so much of it here, but in doing so, and as I look around (and yes, even walk around) our office on a daily basis, I don't sense that the use of the technology is causing us to lose the personal relationships that we all value and feel are important.

Just because the technology is there doesn't mean that organizations can't do things to ensure that people stay connected on a personal level as well as an electronic one. In fact, I even believe that the electronic tools can help ensure that organizations "stay connected" and that the "connection" is even more personal, not less.

As an example, in our company, we have an email newsletter that goes to everyone in the company every working day. We use it to not just communicate "what's happening" that day on a business level, but often the "Buzz" as we call it, reports on personal achievements as well as contributions to the business. We have fun with it, and it is the technology that makes it possible.

In short, my feeling is that technology is an enabler of communication, both personal and professional, and not a replacement for personal relationships be they personal or professional.

The last time I looked, we manage the systems, the systems don't manage us. Bad manners are one thing, but organizations don't fail because of bad manners or technology that is "abused". They fail because they are not managed well. If things are too impersonal to the point where people don't care, it's because management doesn't care enough not because some jerk wants to show off his latest Bluetooth gadget.

The Happenstance Theory of Career Planning

David Lawrence has a blog which he calls Ripples which I have followed for some time. He, in turn, follows a blog written by a fellow named Adrian Savage whose blog is titled: The Coyote Within. Had I stumbled across the title I would have taken a look just because I thought it was intriguing. He explains the title and his blog's purpose as follows:

"Coyotes are quick, smart and adaptable; everything a small business should be. And despite decades of persecution, they're still doing what they do best: being themselves.

A blog for sharing insights and thoughts into how to survive and prosper in a harsh world."

He has some interesting things to say about careers and how we do or don't manage them.

As I was reading through Adrian's most recent post and the suggestions he has for his readers (which made a lot of sense it seemed to me) it reminded me that I, like so many of my friends and colleagues, sit here some 40+ years into a "career" and realize that that while for the past 18 years I can say that I have never been more excited about what I am doing for a living, I also realize just how lucky I am to be able to say so, because the fact of the matter is that most of my career I had just let the "world happen to me." I was not proactive at all. Things happened, and I reacted as best I could. A sad commentary, but as life has gone on, I realize that I am far from alone in having managed my career in what I would now call "The Happenstance Theory of Career Planning."

As we all know, times change, and one generation observes and "learns" from another. In my generation, senior level executive jobs was the goal for a lot of us, even if we weren't quite sure why and didn't have any great strategy figured out on how we were going to get there.

In today's world, it feels to me like one of the key lessons learned by those who aspire to senior or executive level jobs is that if you are smart, you will not wait for the "world to happen to you." Indeed, given the type of turnover at the executive level that has surfaced since the early 90's, and if the make up of the membership here at ExecuNet is anything close to being representative today's executives are not sitting around waiting to react to events. The last time I looked at our membership mix, nearly 70% of the membership was made up of executives who were currently employed but who were keeping their both their eyes as well as their options open.

We also publish a comprehensive survey of the executive marketplace every year called the Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, and just one of the telling stats that surfaced this year was the fact that over half of the respondents described themselves as unhappy campers in their current jobs, but even more telling, over 70% said they planned to do something about it in the next six months.

While that doesn't give the nation's employers high marks in terms of figuring out how to retain the talent they have, it does indicate that executive level talent isn't just sitting around waiting for the world to happen to them anymore, and given the swing that we have seen in the market from buyers to sellers, there are going to be a lot of companies hurting for hires in the coming months.

The Wisdom of the Flying Pig

I have always wondered why I was such a sucker for those cool little books on managing that come out every once in a while. I am thinking of things like The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson that was so popular some years back, as well as their more recent one, Who Moved My Cheese, or even Tom Peter's mega hit In Search of Excellence.

Prior to that, I used to look forward to getting these little gems published by Price Pritchett that were chuck full of quotes, affirmations, and pithy inspirational statements about "the right way to manage" in the 20th century. (Shows you how long ago that was!) They had great titles like Carpe Manana.

I still have them, and every now and again a break them out and sit there and nod my head wondering why it still rings so true and remains so hard.

I was reminded of all of this again when there arrived in the mail a cool looking, slick covered 103 page 5 x 8 book that was so slippery I had trouble turning the pages. In it was a note from its author, Jack Hayhow that read:

"Dave, Your post on 2/16, Building Retention the Old Fashioned Way, made me think you might enjoy the enclosed book."

The book was titled:The Wisdom of the Flying Pig, Guidance and Inspiration for Managers and Leaders.

How right he was.

Maybe I liked it so much because it seemed to be written for someone like me where patience is measured in nano seconds and any chapter that is more than 2 pages is a struggle. Maybe it is because it was full of lines like:

Reciprocity is a fundamental law of life and an indispensable lever for management effectiveness.

Managers don't get paid for what they do, they get paid for what their people do.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

Using learnings from Drucker, Dr. Seuss and Cyndi Lauper, and a lot of folks in between, this little book, I thought, did in fact live up to what its author says was its intent on the back cover which simply stated is Word for word, we intend for this little book to the be most productive business reading you've ever done.

I don't know if is was the most productive business reading I've ever done, but nothing else comes to mind at the moment, and even if it wasn't, it's right up there.

I have spent lots more than $17.95 for business books, but I don't think any I have read in recent years provides a better ROI.

You can check it out at www.pigwisdom.com

Writing Checks is the Easy Part

I guess because of the business we're in that maybe we are a bit more sensitive than the average bear about noticing how different enterprises go about their business. When you have your own company, and therefore control over both your time and web real estate, it is interesting to see how different companies use both.

Peter Clayton, the Senior Producer and Director behind Landed Radio aka landed.fm is one of those folks who uses his time and real estate to do more than just promote his enterprise, and to that end, every now and again he shares one of these things he hears about (or is involved in on a personal level).

The most recent of these was a neat idea called Get In Their Shoes. The title by itself was enough of a teaser to get me to want to find out more. The short answer is that it is a concept started by the founders of the International Mentoring Network Organization, and Their Shoes Campaign is a call to action by successful business leaders, athletes, entertainers, and politicians to rally youth and aspiring leaders to lift themselves out of their limiting circumstances by proactively interviewing successful professionals within their own communities.

Aside from the fact that the whole concept struck me as pretty cool, I was also impressed that it involved people's personal time, not just having some sucessful folks write a check.

The fact that the individuals involved, and it's an impressive list, are giving of themselves is what will really have an impact on those they spend time with. My thanks to Peter for passing this along.