Tag: engagement

I’m a peacock!!! (what to do when your boss won’t let you flap your wings and fly)

Development.  Growth.  Character building.  Resume expansion.  Skillz.

As employees, we are looking for more than a paycheck when we come to work.  We  hope the job is some sort of means to an end, whether it’s fulfilling our lifelong dream of being a CEO, or simply a chance to “pay our dues” or “learn something new” on the way to that mythical “perfect” job out there.

So when our manager keeps us from growing on the job, it gets us miffed.  Some might even say snippy. Or, in extreme cases, terribly vexed.

There’s data that support the general annoyance felt by employees whose growth has been stymied.  Engagement studies continue to indicate that career development is a key engagement factor for most employees.  In fact, less than half of all employees believe they have career opportunities with their current employer.  Interestingly enough, another key engagement factor is trust in leadership…so if you have a manager who lied about the development opportunities your position offers, you’re probably not terribly engaged at the moment.   And now we’re backed to being terribly vexed.

The good news is that you don’t need 100% buy-in from your manager in order to grow.  I happen to subscribe to the belief that employees should own their own development, and as such, it is up to us to find ways to demand a chance to flap our wings and fly.  (It’s a reference to The Other Guys.  You’re welcome.)

See? He's not flying. And he's sad.
See? He’s not flying. And he’s sad.

Without further ado, here are some suggestions on how you can “encourage” an uncooperative boss into helping you grow and develop:

  • Be specific about your requests: This is slightly more than just “ask for it” (which is still good advice, but may not work with this type of boss).  You need to know what it is you want to accomplish with your development.  If you say to me, “I want to develop.  Develop me.”, I wouldn’t want to help you either.  It’s too vague!  Get some specificity.  If you are looking for more budgeting experience, ask your boss if you can sit in on a financial review meeting.  If you want eventually to be a manager, volunteer to lead a few projects.  Just mapping out some specific development goals for yourself will help move you in the right direction.
  • Help your coworkers on projects outside of your skill set: This is an awesome way to grow…and to get brownie points for “teamwork”.  Yes, you’ll have to figure out the best way to prioritize your time so you still get your work done if your boss isn’t fully on board, but you’ll be amazed at how much you can learn from your teammates.  Each of us brings unique skills and experience to the table, and there is no cost to learning from each other.
  • Seek out a mentor in another department: Let’s face it – sometimes you take a job that isn’t the greatest because of the opportunity to work for a certain company.  But now you’re stuck in that department because your boss doesn’t care about your career development.  Unless you are physically chained to the desk, you can move about the office, building relationships in different departments and asking for advice and guidance from others.  (If you ARE physically chained to a desk, you may want to call HR.)  Seek out the people who already are what you want to be when you grow up and learn from them.
  • Volunteer with a local industry-specialized membership chapter: An excellent way to build your network within your industry is to belong to and volunteer with a local chapter of that industry’s organization (e.g., SHRM).  This will allow you to stay current in the latest and greatest within your chosen profession, you’ll meet lots of amazing people, make some great friends, and build your brand.  And you get to brag about the fact you volunteered.
  • Read: And that means more than just browsing the headlines on Yahoo! or glancing at your Twitter feed.  Pick a topic you’re interested in, that’s relevant to your development goals, and hunt down some great books…and commit to reading them!  (Here’s a list to get you started.)  I LOVE to read, so this one seems like a no brainer to me…but I know some folks would rather gouge their eyes out then sit still and read a book.  I get that.  So try an audio book (you can get them from libraries, iTunes, whatever).  If they make a movie from it, watch that (worked for Freakonomics).  Subscribe to some industry magazines.  Just find a way to stay up to date in a meaningful way that makes you think.

This is just a short list of things you can do to keep you growing and learning even if your boss seems determined to keep you stagnant.   Hopefully you see that it doesn’t take much to overcome the perceived obstacle of an uncooperative manager – each of us makes a choice about our own engagement.  Don’t settle for whining about your lack of growth – flap your own damn wings and fly!

Have a suggestion on how to harness your inner peacock?  Share in the comments!

Are You Engaged? (special guest post!!)

Fret not.  I’ll be posting an article of my own shortly.  I thought this (engagement and finding your happy place) was a good topic for those of you out there trying to survive leadership in one way or another.

Today’s post is brought to you by Dr. Daniel Crosby (@suitedjobs), creator of SuitedJobs.com.  Suited is an easy-to-use online tool that provides “fit scores” for folks who are curious about their company culture and/or job, and it provides suggestions for work that might better suit them. Give it a try!  (And if you don’t know Dr. Daniel Crosby, you really should.  He’s smart and stuff.)

Take it away, Dr. Crosby!

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Those who came to this post expecting to see pictures of cakes, gowns, and tuxedos, keep surfing. For the rest of you…get back to work!

Sadly, if you do not find work to be engaging, involving, and satisfying, you are among the majority. According to the Gallup Organization, less than 30 percent of working Americans are fully engaged at work. As it turns out, your employer isn’t the only one who loses. In this case, being a part of the majority isn’t such a great thing. Employees who are not engaged not only perform worse, but are less satisfied in their work.

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Effectively managing your level of engagement on the job starts before you even receive a job offer.

Setting aside your own self-interest is easy when work is interesting and rewarding. Far too many of us justify our investment to a job with the “It pays the bills” attitude. Determining whether your own values and interests align with those of an organization is an integral step in ensuring your own capacity for engagement.

1.       Know your own values.
If the ghost of your job history’s past kidnapped you in the middle of the night, what would you see? Try it out! Imagine yourself at every job you’ve ever had. Yes, every job – even the ones you deleted from your resume years ago. Which job made you feel the most meaningful? Involved? Satisfied? Energized? Counted on? Brainstorm what it was about the job which made you feel a particular way when you worked.

Keep in mind that the job market today is not always conducive to helping job seekers get in touch with their own values. How many times have you squeezed buzz words into your resume or cover letter to try to catch the eye of a prospective employer? Don’t get me wrong: strategically couching your experience can be very important to help a company see the value you could add. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of your sense of self.

2.       Know the company of interest.
Do your homework on a prospective employer to get a feel for the culture. Browsing a company’s website is not enough to learn what you need to know. A website may help you know about the image the company is trying to portray, but it may tell you little about what it would be like to be a part of the organization.

Identify individuals who currently work for the company of interest. If possible, find employees in a similar role and in the office that you would potentially be working in. Then ask away! If you have already done your homework, employment interviews offer you a chance to supplement what you already know. Capitalize on opportunities to ask questions in interviews to learn more about the organizational culture.

As you can see, setting yourself up to be engaged in your work takes a lot of work itself.

Speaking of work…break’s over!  Get back to it!

 

Got some thoughts on Dr. Crosby’s point of view?  Think he’s on to something?  Do you believe he stole my writing style?  Leave a comment, give him a shout-out on Twitter (@suitedjobs), or shoot me a note and I’ll pass it along!

If you don’t like the culture, it’s probably your fault

Once upon a time, I had a chance to work with a vendor with a really cool product that enabled you to measure the culture of your organization (they’re called RoundPegg – look them up, as they are awesome). At one point in the process, we had an option to decide to test the entire company and get a true measure of our culture, or handpick people we felt “represented” our culture. This was kind of a big deal, especially given where I was working at the time.

There was an unspoken concern that the results would tell us nasty things about the culture…things some of us acknowledged and wanted to fix. These were the same things that others chose to view as our “uniqueness”. Basically, we had to decide what reality we were willing to confront. Ultimately the decision was made to pick those who exemplified the aspirational culture and assess them.

I think this was a cop out, and I hope you do, too.

I will always remember the gist of what Natalie (one of the RoundPeggers) said about culture. In essence, she said that culture is made up of everyone and every interaction in the company. If it’s happening at your business, it’s a part of your culture. No amount of stacking the deck, wishing, words, or banners can change this. You have to accept the good, the bad, and the ugly of what you’ll find because only then will you know what you’re dealing with. And only then can you make the choice to change it.

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Like water eroding sand, every action we take reinforces the path we have chosen. It’s simple neuroscience – the more we reinforce neural pathways, the stronger those connections become and the easier it is to perform those activities we regularly engage in. What paths have been reinforced in your world?

Because culture is made up of the people in the company, each of us has a responsibility to create the culture we want to work in. As employees, we can choose what behaviors we exhibit, being mindful of the impact we’re making. As leaders, we have an obligation to model the behaviors of the culture we want to build.

If the culture where you are isn’t what you want it to be, think about how you’re impacting that culture. Are you reinforcing the positive, or strengthening the negative? Every choice you make contributes your culture. So if you don’t like it, do something about it. Be proactive. Refuse to engage in gossip. Build relationships across functions. Tell a good joke. Host a two-minute dance party.

For goodness’ sake, do something.

But don’t blame anyone else. We’re all in this together.

A company’s culture is often buried so deeply inside rituals, assumptions, attitudes, and values that it becomes transparent to an organization’s members only when, for some reason, it changes.

Rob Goffee (1952–), US writer, consultant, and academic