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Is it Worth It? When it’s Time to Question Your Career Ambitions

career
career
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The late New Zealand-based art director, Linds Redding has recently gained notoriety for his brutal rant against the soul-grinding culture of the advertising industry. He started a blog after he was diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer. Many of his posts reflected on his career – a rather impressive one in the creative field. Yet despite his accomplishments, he felt it was all a waste of time.

Redding wrote, “It turns out I didn’t actually like my old life nearly as much as I thought I did…Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be? We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota.”

Could that have been his understandably stark end-of-life perspective, or a legitimate warning to all who put pleasing the client and the company before their own wellbeing? And is this exclusive to the advertising industry?

Pushing yourself – or others – past their limits isn’t sustainable. Burnout, resentment, and backstabbing are common symptoms of work cultures that expect everyone work at a break-neck pace. But some of the most successful organizations recognize that productivity, profits and personal fulfillment are intertwined. Such a corporate mindset is often identified as “good work.”

Multiple Intelligences author, Howard Gardner defines good work as a combination of the three Es: excellence, ethics, and engagement. When what we do becomes good work, we love what we do at every level: we feel competent, happy, and that our efforts have meaning.

[PODCAST: What is Good Work?]

How Can Leaders Create a Culture of Good Work?

Creating a workplace that embraces the good work concept must start from the top. When Daniel Goleman spoke with Gardner in his Leadership: A Master Class video series, he asked him: What would a business leader look like who exemplified good work? Here’s an excerpt from their discussion.

Gardner: A business leader who exemplified good work is somebody who understood himself or herself, understood the corporation or company that they were in very well, knew something about their history, understood the domain and had some sense of the mega-trends going on in the world. You cannot be an excellent leader unless you’ve thought about this kind of knowledge, so that’s excellence.

Engaged means they really love their work. They want to do it. Their energy crystallizes other people, and the other people on their team love them and want to be with them. Charisma doesn’t hurt, but you ought to be able to inspire people even if you’re not charismatic, because of the way you behave.

And a person doing good work is someone who is always trying to do the right thing. The right thing, of course, involves the self, and it involves the company. But if it’s only about advancing the company, then it cannot be ethical. There are many things we could do to advance the company that are bad for the company in the long run, or bad for society.

Goleman: Well, I think I need to push back a little. Did I hear you say that you can’t be a good leader if all you care about is promoting the company?

Gardner: Of course you need to promote the company, otherwise you shouldn’t be the leader. But if you’re promoting the company at all costs, you’re not thinking about how the workers are being affected, what happens to the company in the long run, what are the externalities. If you’re not thinking about the people that might be hurt by what you do, then you certainly would not be an ethical leader, and it’s a continuing conversation. You never get to be ethical or not. There’s always an effort to try to figure out what is the right thing in the broader picture, and whom we respect over the long run.

Don’t Wait to Make a Change

If you find yourself in an organization or an industry that puts profit over people – and don’t know how to transition out of it – consider Gardner’s tips on developing a career using the good work model as a guide.

Decide what you really would like to spend your life doing. According to Howard, this is much more important than deciding what particular job to hold, as the employment landscape changes so quickly. Let’s say you went into journalism with plans to work for a newspaper or magazine. Those outlets may not exist in their traditional forms now, but you still might want to write about interesting things. You want to investigate and talk to people. So you have to say “Where could I carry that out?” and be very, very flexible about the venue and the milieu, but not flexible about what you really get a kick out of and where you excel.

Think about people whom you admire and respect. Then think about people whom you don’t want to be like. Consider why you admire certain people and why you’re repelled by others. If you can’t think of people you admire, that’s a warning sign. It’s not necessarily a warning sign about you; it’s a warning sign about the culture around you. Perhaps you’re in a situation where you can’t admire anybody at all, or the people you admire don’t do anything related to what you do.

Consider where you want to work. Then ask yourself, “Is this the kind of place where I can see myself in others and where I can see others in me?” For example: Say you have job offers from both a small startup company you believe in, and a large corporation with a worrisome reputation for treating employees unfairly. You might make five times more money in the latter position, but does that reflect who you are and where you want to be?

If you’re a coach working with people in career transition, help them approach their search through the good work lens by asking them these three questions:

  • How much of what you do now is good work?
  • What could you do to boost that percentage?
  • How could you develop your career to maximize good work?

Additional Resources

Good Work: Aligning Skills and Values

Today’s Leadership Imperative

The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership

Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader’s Toolkit

The Competency Builder

The Coaching Program

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The Executive Edge Excerpt: Leading Through Change

executive edge

The following is an excerpt from The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership.

Leading Through Change

Daniel Goleman: The main task of so many leaders today is leading change. And there’s a saying””which I’m not sure is true””that people resist change. But how can this insight about the mind’s eye and so on help a leader make the change that they’re trying to make?

George Kohlrieser: Well, this is one of the very destructive myths around””that people naturally resist change. They do not naturally resist change. They resist the pain of the change. They resist the fear of the unknown. Now, the brain naturally is going to seek””be curious, explore, do new things””and it actually creates new neurons. It’s how the brain thrives. But to do that, you have to feel safe. You have to be able to have your survival needs taken care of. So when you’re defensive, you can’t change. When you feel safe enough, then you go out and you want to explore. That’s what a leader has to do. A leader has to be able to give that trust, that sense of security, and then explosions of creativity will occur.

The failure for many leaders is that they are creating negative states in other people because they’re in a negative state. They cannot hold on to the positive energy, the positive focus, and change is painful. We’re not denying that, but with the flashlight””the mind’s eye””you have to seek beyond the pain, beyond the frustration, to what the opportunity is. And you know the great stories of people in life who had catastrophes””personally, professionally””who have been able to overcome it by seeing opportunity. They can live with what they have and be able to get beyond setbacks, so that in the end they come back to the joy of life.

Goleman: It seems what you’re saying that if a leader is held hostage by his or her emotions, it really limits that leader’s potential. How can you tell if you are being held hostage, and what can you do about it?

Kohlrieser: Well, you can tell when you’re playing life defensively as opposed to playing offensively. Playing to win is a special attitude. This does not mean competition. It means that you take the right risks at the right time. You focus the mind’s eye on possibilities and opportunities””not on regrets and fears. Anytime you’re speaking about yourself””or people, or life””with a sense of regret, a sense of complaining, a sense of you are not able to do what you want, then the possibility is very strong that you are held hostage. So you can be hostage to a person, to a place, to an event, to an experience, to a memory.

And a highly performing leader who isn’t held hostage is always thinking of talent development. For instance, how can I learn something new? How can I expand what I already know? And using Ericsson’s research, we know that you need 10,000 hours of practice. But to be able to do that, you can’t be held hostage by frustration, by failure, by all the things that stop you. You need to be able to practice correctly”””deliberate practice,” he calls it””and do that over and over again, without complaining. Enjoying learning a musical instrument, learning a language, or learning something new regarding how you deal with people. And emotional intelligence provides the greatest learning there is: discovery of people. People are really wonderful! But they’re also complex.

Then lastly, having somebody to help teach you””a mentor or coach””who is emotionally intelligent and can help develop your talent. Then you can stop feeling like a victim. I think when people haven’t gotten over something, when they feel like victims, there’s something wrong in the way they’re looking at life. It’s in the mindset, and the most powerful thing that we have is our mindset: having that be clear and focused, and being adaptable and being flexible, and always being willing to learn.

About The Executive Edge

The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership examines the best practices of top-performing executives. It offers practical guidance for developing the distinguishing competencies that make a leader outstanding.

Every leader needs threshold abilities to get by at work. But in today’s complex business landscape, getting by isn’t enough. It’s the distinguishing competencies that are crucial for success. You need elements that will give you “the executive edge.”

As a collection of Daniel Goleman”˜s in-depth interviews with respected leaders in executive management, organizational research, workplace psychology, negotiation, and senior hiring; The Executive Edge contains the necessary research findings, case studies, and shared industry expertise every motivated leader needs.

Available in print and on Kindle, iTunes and nook.

You might also be interested in:

Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader’s Toolkit

Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide

The Coaching Program

The C-Suite Toolkit

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Expand Your Leadership Style Repertoire

There are six leadership styles that are vastly underused: affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, coaching, coercive, and authoritative. Employing the right approach at the right time could make all the difference when it comes to closing a big deal, improving production quality and speed, or managing conflicts. Even though most leaders would say they only use two or three of the styles, it is important to understand that all of them can be mastered and used to your advantage.

Short-Term Solution

A simple solution to making up for the leadership skills you currently lack is to surround yourself with people who possess the style you need. For example, let’s say you’re the vice president of a food distribution corporation. You successfully did business in your home state of New York and expanded up into New England and down along the coast to the Carolinas using the affiliative style. You traveled frequently between the states, met with restaurant owners and eased their concerns, and made sure the customers felt like your company had a personal touch.

However, you know your tech knowledge is lacking, and technology is needed to distribute the food as quickly as possible. Efficiency is the most important appeal to your customers. Therefore, you informed a trusted colleague about the performance standards and let them delegate the strategy using their authoritative approach. You also told this person to appoint a second-in-command to bring along on visits to make sure you don’t spend too much time at each restaurant.

Long-Term Solution

While surrounding yourself with people who possess the skills you lack, it’s also a good idea to work on your limitations. The first step is to acknowledge your gaps in emotional intelligence so that you can work with yourself or a coach to develop them. Take an authoritative leader, for example, who may want to add some democracy to their workplace. They need to work on collaborative and effective communication skills.

They’ll want to master the affiliative leader’s strengths:

  • Empathy: Sensing how people are feeling in the moment allows the affiliative leader to respond to people’s emotions immediately, which helps build trust.
  • Building Relationships: Meeting new people and cultivating a bond comes easily.
  • Interpersonal Communication: Say just the right thing at just the right time.

Enhance your leadership styles

Gain practical insights from the following resources:

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters presents Daniel Goleman’s ground-breaking, highly sought articles from the Harvard Business Review and other business journals in one volume. This often-cited, proven-effective material has become essential reading for leaders, coaches and educators committed to fostering stellar management, increasing performance, and driving innovation. This collection reflects the evolution of Dr. Goleman’s thinking about emotional intelligence, tracking the latest neuroscientific research on the dynamics of relationships, and the latest data on the impact emotional intelligence has on an organization’s bottom-line.

What Makes a Leader is also part of the C-Suite Toolkit.

The Coaching Program is an online streaming learning series for executives, highlighting methods for enhancing any leader or manager’s effectiveness, creativity, and ability to connect with their teams.

Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide offers more than nine hours of research findings, case studies and valuable industry expertise through in-depth interviews with respected leaders in executive management, leadership development, organizational research, workplace psychology, innovation, negotiation and senior hiring. Included is an extensive, detailed training guide around the video content for human resources professionals, senior managers and executive coaches. Each module offers individual and group exercises, self-assessments, discussion guides, review of major points, and key actionable takeaway plans. The materials allow for instructor-led or self-study opportunities.

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Happy Employees, Happy Customers

Happy employees tend to go the extra mile with their customer service when they feel encouraged and supported. The relationship between workers, their environment, and customer service has actually been proved by a logarithm; customer service climate and revenue are directly proportional. In fact, a positive atmosphere doubles revenue.Throughout his studies at the University of Maryland and his observations in a multitude of industries, Professor Benjamin Schneider has found that when employees responded more positively to their work environment, customer satisfaction and business results increased. Inversely, a negative work environment led to unhappy workers, poor customer service, and declining revenues.

The service industry is among the most stressful of all occupations. Workers have to deal with everything from insufferable customers, disagreeable managers, challenging working conditions, long hours and, more often than not, low pay. Not much to smile about.

Emotional Contagion

Bad moods spread faster than wildfire. Rudeness can transfer from the employee to the customer, in turn making them angry or dissatisfied, regardless of how well the actual service was executed. Furthermore, disgruntled workers who aren’t thorough can create a wake of trauma in their path. Cardiac care units, for example, where nurses’ described their outlook as “depressed” had a patient death rate four times higher than comparable units.

Great service, in contrast, can make a world of difference for both the consumer and the employee. If consumers enjoyed their experience, they are likely to return, and share good reviews to their friends and colleagues, or online. If the employees feel upbeat and cared for, they are also more likely to work harder to appease the customer. Jennifer George and Kenneth Bettenhausen concluded in their study, Understanding Prosocial Behavior, that stores with positive salespeople had the best sales results.

A Good Leader Can Make a Difference

The manager is often the person who sets the mood. If a leader is confident, optimistic, and shows genuine compassion toward their workers, both the overall atmosphere and the sales will be lifted in the right direction. There are three factors that make or break a job: working conditions, salary, and leadership. Resonant leaders are perhaps the most important of the three.

How leaders carry themselves and their relationships with their employees directly impact their emotions and performances. Between 20-30% of an organization’s profit can be traced back to how employees feel about their place of employment, and 50-70% of this view traces back to one factor: their leader. A leader’s ability to understand their emotional intelligence and act rationally – not impulsively – becomes a major factor in the overall performance of the business.

Resources to develop a positive work environment

The HR and EI Collection

Leading with Emotional Intelligence [online course]

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters

High Performance Leadership

 

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The New and Improved HR and EI Collection

HR and EI Collection
The HR and EI Collection is designed to fill the gaps in your learning and development library. Address common performance issues including:

  • Conflict resolution
  • Distraction
  • Motivation
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The Competency Builder

HR and EI Collection

Learn techniques for relaxation, how to work mindfully, decrease stress, and improve effectiveness.

Includes:

Working with Mindfulness: Research and Practice of Mindful Techniques in Organizations (print)

Working with Mindfulness (guided audio exercises)

Cultivating Focus: Techniques for Excellence (guided audio exercises)

Relax: 6 Techniques to Lower Your Stress (guided audio exercises)

$49.95 – a $70 value

Order your collection here.

The EI Overview

HR and EI Collection

 

This collection provides easy-to-understand techniques on how readers can maximize group flow to foster innovation and drive.

Includes:

The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights (print)

Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence – Selected Writings (print)

Relax: 6 Techniques to Lower Your Stress (guided audio exercises)

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence (3-disc set)

$59.95 – an $80 value

Order your collection here.

The C-Suite Toolkit

HR and EI Collection

Extensive reference collection for highest level executives and senior management.

Includes:

Leadership: A Master Class (8-DVD set)

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters (print)

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence (3-disc set)

$189.95 – a $200 value

Order your collection here.

The Coaching Program

HR and EI Collection

This online learning series highlights methods for enhancing leaders’ effectiveness, creativity, and ability to connect with their teams.

Includes:

High Performance Leadership with Daniel Goleman and George Kohlrieser (streaming video)

Authentic Leadership with Daniel Goleman and Bill George (streaming video)

Create to Innovate with Daniel Goleman and Teresa Amabile (streaming video)

Today’s Leadership Imperative with Daniel Goleman and Howard Gardner (streaming video)

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence (audio download)

$169.95 – a $200 value

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Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide

HR and EI Collection

In response to your request for supplemental training materials, we created a comprehensive, customizable guide to cultivate superior management skills.

Each module offers:

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B-Corporation Profile: The Pour of a Candle is a Living Wage

prosperity candle
Burmese women refugees at Prosperity Candle’s studio in Easthampton, MA (credit: Prosperity Candle)

Too many of today’s news stories feature ruthless businessmen crumbling to greed and selfishness. Is there any hope out there for goodwill to survive? Luckily, there might be. A B-Corporation is a business with an explicit mission to benefit the greater good for humanity or the environment, as well as make a profit.

In Easthampton, Massachusetts, Prosperity Candle is a pristine example of a small B-Corp doing everything it can to change the world. Under the leadership of Ted Barber, Prosperity Candle trains women in candle-making and employs them at living wages after they have been relocated to the U.S. from overseas refugee camps.

Prosperity Candle has also helped train more than 100 Iraqi women – mostly war widows – in candle-making and entrepreneurship, giving them the ability to start their own thriving businesses. Their sister non-profit, Prosperity Catalyst, received funding from the U.S. State Department to expand the program to include 600 Iraqi widows. Prosperity Candle’s reach has found its way to Haiti, as well. They have given 12 women from domestic violence shelters in Northern Haiti the skills to start their own cooperative.

Sealing the Cracks

Refugee women are typically given a year of support from federal and state programs, during which time they are expected to find work and pay all of their own expenses. They often find themselves in minimum wage, temporary positions, made explicitly harder with language barriers. Facing many obstacles with a minimal a safety net, it’s very easy for these women to fall through the cracks.

Back in 2010, Prosperity Candle asked a group of refugee women what they truly need in terms of support. They were simple and clear: living wages, a steady income, opportunities to take ESL classes, flexible hours, a harassment-free workplace, and resources to understand the laws of their new home. Ted did not find these needs out of reach, and vowed to provide them double the minimum wage, transportation, and flexible schedules – among other supports. He wants his employees to be safe and treated with respect, and to help them get back on their feet not only so that they can survive, but also thrive.

“We’re very explicit,” Ted says. “We’re here to help women thrive. Minimum wage doesn’t even cover the bare necessities.”

Prosperity Candle women
Iraqi women learning candle-making in Baghdad (credit: Heber Vega)

B-Smart About the Bottom Line

Prosperity Candle was recently added to the top ten percent of B-Corps in the world for their size. Ted’s long-term goal is rather simple: to make a difference. He wants investors to see they are providing amazing opportunities not only to women who desperately need it, but for a healthy financial environment. He wants the organization to scale gradually and sustainably so that more lives can be impacted without growing so rapidly they fizzle out.

“I want to grow this business in a very specific way,” he says. “It’s not just employing women refugees here in the Pioneer Valley, but actually making them profit-sharing partners. I’m always exploring how Prosperity Candle can be a vehicle for greater impact.”

Personally, Ted’s goal is to merge his past experience in international trade and economic development with his present life dedicated to a creating a sustainable social enterprise that helps women and families lift themselves out of poverty.

B-Corps embody the philosophy of positive capitalism, which is when a business moves forward, but also makes it possible for others to move forward, too. The Dalai Lama says your goal should be to get on your feet, and then help others get on their feet. Like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond, the act of goodwill started by positive capitalism can start a chain reaction.

Ted admires any organization that has gone through the rigorous requirements to become a B-Corp, and considers it to be one of the best measures available for assessing an organization’s commitment to social and environmental sustainability. Even though there’s only about 1,500 B-Corps in the world, it’s an extremely active community.

“I support businesses that take on the challenges of doing things the right way, that care as much about the common good as their own personal success. That is what the B-Corp movement is all about,” he says.

Prosperity Candle women 2
Haitian women learning candle-making in Cap-Hatien (credit: Prosperity Candle)

Help Yourself To Help Others

In Daniel Goleman’s new book, A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World, he quotes some advice the Dalai Lama gave a crowd of college students:

“The global economy is like a roof over all of us. But it depends on individual pillars for support. First take care of yourself financially. Then, step-by-step, stand on your own feet in order to help others.”

When asked if he could give any advice to his younger self, or to an entrepreneur looking to make the same sort of lifestyle transition into B-Corps like he did, Ted laughed and said, “I feel like there’s a talk in me that wants to come out… with any start up – whether it’s nonprofit, for-profit, social enterprise or tech – you’re going to have more people tell you why it won’t work than why it can. You have to filter out an onslaught of nay-sayers because they’re there in spades. Well-meaning and genuinely intending to help, but more inclined to punch holes than be supportive. This is my third venture, and I’m beginning to see a pattern. My advice is to seek out people who love your passion, regardless of whether they think your idea is crazy.”

Prosperity Candle truly embodies the words of the Dalai Lama. Ted Barber got on his feet, and now is spending the rest of his life helping others join him. And who knows? Maybe we’ll see him on a TED Talk in the future. Until then, Prosperity Candle will continue to be a model for other entrepreneurs and businesses interested in making a difference and joining the B-Corp movement.

Learn more about Prosperity Candle’s mission and initiatives at prosperitycandle.com.

The audiobook for A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World is available for pre-order. The 6-disc set and digital download will be available on June 23, 2015. Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook here.

Pre-order the print book here.

Join the Force for Good initiative here.

A Force for Good audiobook

 

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What Are Business Schools Missing?

business school
Image: Amy C. Edmondson

The following is an excerpt of Elad Levinson’s interview with Leadership Development News.

It’s no secret that I’m not thrilled with the environment of today’s business schools and management training. The business world wants leaders, but the education only gives their students the skills to be workers. A recent Bloomberg study about the skills gap that executives are finding in corporations says the four areas that are really missing in business education are:

  1. Problem Solving
  2. Decision Making
  3. Leadership Skills
  4. Communication Skills

These four skills are missing pieces that have been sighted since 2001 when I first started reading Josh Bersin and Company’s annual report to the Learning Development world. Some companies are highly engaged with the personal development of their employees and actually provide them with formal training to make up for the slack in their education. They put them in situations that cause them to cultivate their problem solving and decision making skills, and have a mentor/coach follow up with them. This open stream of communication helps organizations view their new employees not as workers, but as their leaders of tomorrow.

A company I worked with, ICANN, was a 13 year-old start up with a very small staff responsible for the resilience, safety, and security of the internet. The staff was filled with very bright and skilled personnel, but never had any formal training. I wanted them to be well-rounded, adaptable individuals, but to get there these four skills have to be a required part of the performance management process. If employees are responsible for problem solving and decision making but it isn’t part of their performance management process, they’re (understandably) just going to ignore it or find a way around it.

From my own experience, I have found the case study method to be the most effective. My online course, Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader’s Toolkit, uses three pillars – mindful awareness, focused attention and intentional relaxation, and cultivating goodwill – as major skills areas that are required for employees to develop a foundation that they can grow from. These skills allow them to be better equipped to handle any challenges and tough judgments that arise.

Thriving On Change teaches you to not only listen to other people, direct reports, or peers, but to really hear what they’re saying. Your coworkers’ views and words are just as relevant to a collaborative environment as yours. But to hear them properly you have to be able to put aside your views, opinions, and biases first. You have to be able to bring a kind of neutrality and objectivity to the decision making process.

A lot of conflict arises due to the lack of communication, leadership, and decisive skills, which is where mindfulness and goodwill comes in. If you’re going to generate goodwill in your workplace and life, you have to be skilled at conflict resolution. Mindfulness is one thing, but you have to be able to stand the heat when people have differences of opinion and strong negative emotions. Mindfulness goes out the door if you don’t also have the confidence to be able to skillfully have that conversation.

thriving on change

Preview the free Introductory Module from Thriving on Change here.

Learn more about the course here.

Download Elad’s free ebook, Learn to Dance on Jello here.

Elad Levinson, head lecturer for the Praxis You course Thriving on Change, has over 45 years of experience as a leadership coach and organizational consultant. He’s currently the Senior Organization Effectiveness Consultant at 4128Associates

Elad has been a senior organization development and learning and development professional at Agilent, Stanford University, ICANN and several start-ups. He was the first to apply the stress theory to business and leadership at many of these organizations.