Recruiting Indivduals and Forming Them Into a Team

Last week we talked about how your Goal determines the types of people you would want on your team. Your players will look much different if your goal is to build a mountainside resort than if your goal is to block the development of that mountainside.

Now that you have your goal, you must break it down into tasks and get people to fill those slots. Your team might need an engineer, an accountant, a publicist, and a writer along with ten other things. Spend some time and write down the structure of your ideal team.

When management first brings you a project, make sure you have the resources to complete your mission. Spend a few hours or even a couple of days before you start recruiting Team Members. Even with the best team in the world, if you have no resources, your project won’t come to pass. Remember, you have more influence with your boss than you know.

Negotiate hard for enough budget and number and types of people you need. Management chose you for a reason, so don’t hesitate to go back to them and ask for the resources you need whether it is money or personnel. Get your bet in early, because you will look incompetent if you go to management halfway through and say, “I need more funds and people to finish.”

Even if senior management has assigned you a group, you still have to form them into a team. Research the personnel assigned to you and visit each one. If they are distant, phone if you must, but never start your team relationship with an email or memo.

Recruitment

Even if management has assigned certain people to your team, you must recruit them. Too many team leaders think recruitment means convincing someone to join the team. But for our discussion, recruitment is about catching “The Vision.”

By the way, if you, the team builder, don’t have “The Vision,” you will never be able to truly recruit a team. You will get a group going through the motions to get their paycheck. But there will be no magic and none of the synergism that brings forth dynamic results.

People are motivated by many things. Companies make a huge mistake by ruling over employees using only the reward of pay and the threat of firing. Managers dull these tools by overuse. Your best performers seek fulfillment in their work. They want to make the world a better place, or grow in their field, or gain respect. And for the most part, your best employees don’t fear being fired because they have other offers in their pocket.

Instead, appeal to your prospective team members with the romance and excitement of “The Vision.” Each member has a button you can push to light up their life, to appeal to their desire to accomplish something greater than themselves. Let them see your enthusiasm. If your project is mundane, then you might inspire your players with the thought that the team will surprise everyone with the quality and usefulness of the new product or procedure.

First Team Meeting

After you have met individually with each of your key team members, it is time for the First Meeting. Pick a location having to do with the goal of the project. For me, in the aviation business, the hangar floor where we were going to convert the aircraft became the perfect place for our first meeting. We placed chairs in a circle under the right wing of the aircraft. Use your imagination. Don’t use the conference room just because it’s convenient.

More important than the location is the structure of this first meeting. If you, as the team builder, plan and execute this meeting well, you bring your team to life. If you flub it, there is still room to recover, but you have put yourself behind.

The central purpose of this meeting is to make introductions and preliminary assignments.

If you are not going to be the team leader, anointing the “honcho” will be your priority. Introduce the leader. Tell the team why you picked this person. Praise their abilities and accomplishments, focusing on how these characteristics will propel the team toward “The Vision.” Of course, you should have worked on this intro with the new leader. Together, you also should have crafted his speech (no more than five minutes).

This Leader’s Speech must infect the group with “The Vision.” Don’t expect your private meetings to do this. Group dynamics are an art, but don’t dismiss them. The infection starts with the group.

Then introduce each key member. If you have a large team, you won’t have time to introduce each member. Your group will be subdivided along technical or functional lines. You will then be able to introduce the chief accountant, the chief of engineering, and the maintenance director, for example.

Praise your players. Tell short stories that place them in the best light. Explain why each member was selected.

End this first meeting by communicating your expectations of excellence. Good people rise to the leader’s expectations. Communicate how high you are placing the bar. Don’t make it a comfortable level. Give your team a lofty goal. Inspire and motivate. Close the meeting. Total time should not be more than 30 minutes.

Give Your Team a Token of Membership

Within the next week, name your team. Make this a contest for your members. See if one of your team members can put together a patch/logo. Don’t get a slick patch put together by a professional. Even if it is a little crude, a drawing by a team member has so much more power. Put that logo on your emails and memos. Don’t underestimate the power of these physical proofs of team membership.

Remember Lockheed’s Skunkworks. This team came up with the revolutionary designs of the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes in record time, under budget, and even today nothing can replace them. This is their logo today.

 

   At first, it was just a drawing, then a patch some engineers wore. Most folks in the company didn’t even know what it stood for. It represented everything a team needs: Identification, exclusivity, and fun.

Depending on your budget, give out some form of identification showing that these individuals now belong to your team. The military has used this method for centuries. A soldier will go to the ends of the earth before he muddies the reputation of his unit, represented by a two dollar patch on his shoulder.

Give each team member something that designates him as special. A leather jacket with a patch you’ve had designed is probably the top end. A nice shirt embroidered with your team designation is next. A special hat is probably the least effective.

Team dynamics begin with you as the team builder. After you have a goal and identify the players you want, meet with them individually to bring them on board. At the first meeting, infect them with “The Vision” and develop mutual respect through introductions.

Lastly, name your team and encourage them to come up with a fun logo to show membership. You still have the project to work on, but you have started the bonding process.

This blog has been about building a team in a corporate setting. Next time we’ll talk about building your team if you are a one person company. The difference is that this team will probably never meet together and see all the other players. Being on your team may not even make them any money. But you can still build an effective team that no one will ever see. I call this a Ghost Team.

Who Should I Add to My Team?

Last time we discussed that if you want to accomplish anything, you must build your team. Today we will look at who you should add and why you should seek out certain people.

What Result Do You Want?

The beginning of this process is always the goal. The people you should attract to your team will be determined by your desired outcome. For example, if your goal is to sell 100,000 gallons of house paint, your team will look very different than if you are installing robots in a paint factory.

I can’t stress enough that you must have a clear goal, a defined target, before you begin to build your team. Too often folks get this backwards. They say to their group of friends, “We should start a business or something.” These partnerships too often end in the loss of the friendships and the partners’ money.

Sometimes finding your target is easy; your boss assigns a task complete with a budget and a deadline. Other times you must choose your path. Entrepreneurs, job seekers, recent graduates, and CEO’s all have the freedom to decide. But decisions come hard for some people. There are so many options open to us today that if you consider them all, your mind can actually shut down. It is called “overchoice.”

How can you break through this mental block? Some advocate that you should just start on your journey, learning from your mistakes. “Make mistakes faster,” says Robert Kiyosaki in his books. Then after you fail, you learn and try again. However, it seems this path can get expensive in both money and time. And it might even cost you a marriage or two. However, it is hard to argue with his success.

But I have found that using pen and paper I can list activities and options. Under each option I make columns of advantages and disadvantages. The last two pages I fill out are the projected outcomes. I plot the best case scenario and estimate the chances for great success. Then I fill in the worst case and write in how it would affect my family, health, finances, and reputation.

I talk it over with my wife and trusted friends, I sleep on it, and in just a few days, I’ll know if this is a good target for me.

Leadership

With your goal in hand, you can now focus on the type of people you need. The first question is often overlooked. Are you the best person to lead your team? Often the answer is yes. But sometimes it is better to have a professional leader in place if your technical or leadership skills are not up to the task or you are saturated with other work in your business.

For example, I was the design team leader on a conversion of a 19 passenger commuter airliner into a surveillance platform. The president of the company had better leadership skills, but he didn’t have enough technical background. Besides, he knew that he would be more profitable to the company if he concentrated on sales and marketing. Yet he built the team, kept it motivated and rewarded.

The team leader must understand a little bit about each member’s job and see how the whole fits together. Pick your team leader for their loyalty to you above all, then their leadership skills, and finally for their understanding of the project’ technical challenges. Too often, the best technician is promoted to team leader. However, they almost never have the people skills to motivate and manage the team.

The team leader must keep several factors in mind. In the example of the surveillance plane, there was only so much space, a limited amount of electrical power, and a weight limit. Not to mention, a budget. No matter how much the electrical engineer tried to sell me on a certain system, I knew we couldn’t install it. A surveillance plane is not useful if the weight is so high that you must take off with a partial fuel load and so limit you mission time.

It is the same in any team. The leader must understand the goal, and not get distracted or let any team member sidetrack the project to embrace their pet project.

Team Members

Do not be mislead into choosing only the best qualified or best educated. Soft skills such as perseverance, loyalty, humor, hard work, and the ability to follow instructions rank at least equal to technical abilities. A genius who sows discord in the rest of the team must never be allowed to remain. Find someone else.

While you must choose individuals who share your vision, don’t get clones. If you are an outgoing “people” person, find those who are detail oriented. If you lack organization, find an organizer. Open your eyes to your own weaknesses, and fill those holes with good people.

You will almost always need various experts, workers, a counselor, an accountant, idea people, and someone to handle the bureaucracy.

So now you have decided on your goal and your team leader. But here’s the problem: Most of us don’t get to pick the team members. Our company has assigned a group to this task, and it is up to us to mold them into a team.

That is the subject of the next blog: Recruitment. Just because a person has been assigned does not mean they are on board your team. You will need to recruit each member even if they have been chosen for this team by top management. We’ll also talk about negotiating with your bosses for additional people, converting and inspiring your team, and team discipline.

Building Teams

Perhaps the greatest predictor of success in business and life is a person’s ability to build a team.Nothing good happens without a team. Perhaps you can be evil alone, but to build or accomplish anything worthwhile, you must have a group of individuals pulling toward the same goal, even if it is just for a short time.

Yet we stress individual achievement in our education system, and for the most part punish anyone who collaborates or builds a team to hit an objective. Even worse, we encourage our kids to go into sports such as golf and tennis, and then let them play video games at home instead of interacting with peers.

Several social observers have written that a person’s future level of success is easier seen on the playground than in their Grade Point Average. Organizations such as football, baseball, band, and choir teach better and more intense life lessons than academics. (Don’t misunderstand me. I am a big fan of academics, and I know the value of Literature, Math, History, etc. But one cannot pour an excellent foundation and then proclaim the building to be finished!)

In school, sports teams and music/drama groups teach preparation, devotion to the team, the value of each player, rules, and, most importantly, performance in real time, usually in front of an audience. We see Teams stressed especially in the military.

The ability to function on a team will get you a job. Leadership skills guarantee a career. Building and motivating a team from scratch puts you into the company of people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Oprah, Warren Buffet, and Ted Turner.

For the job seeker, the importance of building a Team cannot be overstressed. We call this Team our Network. This group can tell us about jobs before anyone else, get us introductions and recommendations to the CEO, and give us foreknowledge to sell ourselves in the interview.

But if Team Building is so important, then why is this skill almost never mentioned, much less taught? We have courses for job hunters on:

• writing resumes
• creating catchy cover letters
• interviewing
• dressing for success, and
• social networking.

But we never teach the job hunter how to interact with other humans!

What is Team Building? One writer calls it “Creating your Tribe.” In other words, drawing other people to you, bonding with those individuals, and developing a common goal. Once your create your team, you must continue to build it. Your team is a living organism, it must be led, fed, taught, and encouraged.

For the next several posts we will take apart the process of Building Your Team.

• How to Determine the best Mixture/Make up of Personnel
• How to Recruit
• Payment and Motivation
• How Deep is the Pool Where You Fish?
• Getting a Mentor/Being a Mentor
• Resources

Write and let me know your comments.

Every Business Needs an Intelligence Unit

Back in business school we learned that every successful business must master three disciplines:

•             Discipline One:           Operations

•             Discipline Two:           Finance

•             Discipline Three:        Marketing

“Operations” means doing what your business does. Do you make cars? You’d better make good cars. If you serve meals, deliver good food and a good time. Walmart sells the same items as other stores, but their mastery of operations, especially distribution, allows them to profit at prices unmatched by their competitors.

Meanwhile, a business must be able to finance those operations. This means being able to pay one’s employees and suppliers until the cashflow in exceeds the cashflow out. But like water management, cashflow management is never over. Accounting, tax laws, investments, loans, installment plans, and stock offerings are all money problems or blessings to help a company grow. Amazon survived for several years until they grew big enough to become profitable due to the financing genius of Jeff Bezos.

As if handling operations and finance simultaneously weren’t enough, a business must market itself or it will die. Marketing can’t be left until operations and finances are in place. Business is an ‘all or none’ activity. So the entrepreneur must also know advertizing, marketing, and branding to launch and run his business. Coca-Cola is surely the world champion of marketing. Having dominated the USA several years ago, Coke moved on to Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. I have walked into a bar in the desert in Burkina Faso and there was a giant Coca-Cola sign in French, Arabic, and English on the wall.

The ability to juggle these three knives used to be enough to put one’s business on the road to success. However, the world is changing and business is changing right along with it.

And so we see great businesses that have great operations, the best marketing programs, and almost unlimited financing shrink and fail as their smaller and weaker competitors gobble up their customers. An astute observer will ask:

 

Why does one business grow and the other one fail?

 

Because there is now a Fourth Discipline: Intelligence

 

In the new economy the businesses that grow and remain are the ones with superior intelligence. Yes, some have just the right product at the right time; chance plays a role in every part of life. But, if they were just lucky, they will soon be swallowed up or trampled down by other enterprises that understand this fourth discipline.

This fourth discipline, competitive intelligence, is hardly ever talked about. Business schools are just starting to include courses on intelligence. But the concept is not new.

In the fifteenth century, the House of Fugger Bank started an intelligence department and published an intelligence newsletter for its salesmen.

In 1898, John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil was the first businessman to publicly use a coordinated, organized business intelligence unit. His clerks and analysts reportedly possessed a giant card file on competitors, customers, politicians, investors, bankers, and personnel, along with sensitive info on friends and enemies. ExxonMobil, the descendent of Standard Oil, keeps that tradition alive today with an intelligence unit larger than those of some European governments.

However, we have evidence to prove the existence of informal business intelligence activities since before the time of Christ.

• The Babylonians wrote about agents (spies) sent out with the caravans.
• In the first century BC, the Corinthians used informers to find out what the rich Roman collectors sought so that they could manufacture and “age” some of the finest antiques in the empire.

 

It would take several volumes to study the Venetian traders, the Spanish, and the English. They were all masters at gathering business intelligence from kings, pirates, merchants, and foreigners.

But perhaps the best example from history is the Japanese. When they exploded onto the world stage in the 1880’s, the Japanese knew from their long history of rice and silk trading how important it was to have relevant and timely intelligence about their competitors, suppliers, and consumers. They continue to lead the world in business intelligence today.

Having worked as a contractor for three successful corporate intelligence departments, I will walk you through the steps to set up an economical intel unit in your company. In the following series we’ll look at the difference between information and intelligence, and how the business owner can use Open Source Intelligence, Human Intelligence, Imagery, and the US Government to legally get an edge on your competitors.

With a competitive intel capability any small business can use that intelligence capability to launch specific strategies and tactics to gain customers, gobble up the best executives, protect one’s own company from espionage, and, most importantly, gain An Early Warning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confidence: From Whence Does It Come?

When I talk with my 50+ coaching clients, we always seem to end up talking about confidence. And there is a reason. You can’t convince someone to hire you until you can inject into them a massive amount of confidence. You must persuade the hiring manager or hiring committee that:

• You are a good fit with the Company Culture.
• You are trainable.
• You are reliable.
• You won’t suck up their training and then leave for a better position.
• You are a hard worker.
• You have the skill set to do the job.

One must possess deep wells of confidence to give away such a big dose.

We all know this is key. Confidence is foundational. But so many of us job seekers have been pounded down by life that we’ve lost our confidence.

1. We’ve lost our primary job of many years. No matter if the layoff came because of lack of government funding or the mistakes of senior management, we still feel shame that we no longer are employed.
2. We are getting older and see kids younger than our sons and daughters in management positions.
3. Technology and society seems to be whizzing by us. We can barely work our iPhone, and then we find out we need a LinkedIn profile and a page on Google+.
4. Family Stress. Our twenty-something kid needs a job and wants to move back home. Our parents’ health is failing and we feel guilty if we can’t visit every week.

So, instead of the being our best earning years, the 50’s seem to grind us into an oddity. Like a special tool once used on an obsolete airliner, we are revered by the young for what we once could do, but they see no place in the toolbox for us today.

To all of the above, I have to say, “So what?” Do you think we are the first group of humans to face a setback? Our forefathers lived extraordinary lives, battling disease, famine, shipwreck, war, and wild animals. In comparison, we look like wimps to be complaining while we sit in our air conditioned houses sipping hot coffee and watching TV.

Now, are we finished whining yet? I think so.

Life is like a train traveling up the coast. You look out one side and you see the ocean, but cross the isle and look out the other window and you see the hills. Both views are factual, but one will lead you to waves and another to snow. When we look at the bad side of our lives, we sink deeper into our depression. But there is another view. I want to lead you across the isle, and show you the view from the other side of the train. That view will lead you toward confidence.

Who Are You?

The first step to gaining confidence is remembering who you are. Those men and women who lived on the frontier and struggled with bandits, blizzards, and drought, their blood flows through our veins. We did not lose that winning DNA just because we lost our jobs. We are humans, and humans, by nature, are fighters. We raise our fist against the storm and continue on until we conquer.

Remember a time in your life when you accomplished a great thing. Maybe it had nothing to do with work. It might have been in sports or music, or perhaps it was that perfect speech you gave your teenager one night when she doubted her worth. You are that same person. Think about who you are.

Move

The next step toward confidence is to get up and move. Physical movement brings a sense of accomplishment, not to mention all the health benefits. Our bodies were designed to move. Walking aids in digestion, helps regulate weight, and it releases all kinds of good hormones to upgrade our mood.

We need exercise. Start slowly, consult a physician if you have some issues. But move. Walk around the block, do some mild calisthenics, lift some weights. You will feel alive again. You will stand taller. Keep it up and your clothes will be a little loser. You will realize you have many good years ahead of you.

Work

There is plenty of work to do. You might not get paid for it, but there is plenty of work. Work helps us get out of the worry trap, and stop thinking so much about ourselves. When we stay at home waiting for a call to go back to work, we slip into the vortex of anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. Each day we get sucked in deeper. Get out!

Get on the phone and call the folks in your network. Go out of your way to help them. If you can provide a referral, a bit of  valuable knowledge, or some guidance, you will be rewarded immediately by a surge in your confidence and you will start feeling useful again. Meet someone for lunch. But whatever you do, do some work outside your house. Interact with others.

Find an out-of-the-way place and pick up the trash. I used to live by a creek when I was 21. We lived on the edge of Ft. Bragg, NC. Deep in the woods, hardly anyone saw that creek but me. Still it brought me so much pleasure to bring home some the bottles and paper I found there.

Higher level work involves working for those who can never repay you. Visit a nursing home or a hospice. Read poetry or the Scriptures and comfort those in their final days. I was lassoed into this work by a friend, and I went against my will. But what a great blessing to me! I am the one who is paid each time I go.

Create

Mankind is a complex creature. Even when faced with life threatening crises, he is still a creator of all types of tools, art, poetry, music, and writings. Find your favorite medium and create something with it. One 70 year old man I admire forms hot steel with his hammer, then grinds and polishes it into gorgeous knives. A pilot I know uses a spreadsheet program as his canvass, creating time saving tools for businesses and his friends.

Of course, I think you would be best served by channeling your creativity into something job-related so you get a two-for-one benefit. However, you will be so much farther ahead toward developing your confidence even if you create outside of your career field.

I love to sing old Gospel music. (I’m a baritone.) It has nothing to do with my career, yet it’s so much fun. And performing in front of people makes me much more confident in an interview. And that is what we are looking for!

You are a human, which means you have an amazing heritage. Get out of your cocoon and interact with other humans. Move, work, create, and see your confidence level soar.

I want to hear your success stories.

 

Why Unemployment is High and Will Remain High

Change has exploded the work environment we once knew. In 2002 a book called The Tipping Point rocketed up to #1 on the best seller lists. It explained how small social trends build up to a point where huge changes plop into our culture in what seems to be an epidemic or a storm of insanity.

Several of these social termites have been eating away at the traditional employment structure in the United States for the past 25 years. Now some of the support timbers have given way, and we are surprised. “This happened so suddenly.”

No, social commentators have been warning of this for many years, yet “workers rights” triumphed in every debate. Now we have employers who either do without employees or work around the rules.

Taxes, technology, torts, and teaching have all conspired into this storm we have called “High Unemployment.”

 

Taxes

One of the foundational rules of economics is:

• Tax an activity and you get less of that activity.

The inverse is also true:

• Subsidize an activity and you get more of that activity.

As we look at our tax structure, we see the employer taxed heavily each time he hires another person. That tax can be money such as the employer share of Social Security and the Unemployment Taxes and it can be regulatory such as employer Health Insurance and Maternity Leave, personal days, sick days, etc.

When budgeting for a new employee, a company must account for these taxes. When an executive sees that it will cost him the employee’s salary plus another 20 to 35%, he will think of some other way to do business.

Since many of these regulations don’t take effect until an employee works more than 20 hours a week, many businesses hire lots of part-timers and only schedule them for 10-15 hours a week. This has the perverse effect of the worker having to shuttle between three different jobs to get 40 hours of work each week. Wasted time, wasted gas, and still no benefits.

On the other hand, the government lavishly spends to reward unemployment. Nearly two years of benefits await the worker laid off from his job. Plus, there are Food Stamps, re-education grants, and who knows what else one can dig up from the federal and state treasuries. Once a worker gets caught up in this largess, it is so difficult to get out.

“I can make more money on unemployment than on an entry level job.” I hear this ALL the time from folks looking for a job. So, they sit at home waiting for the checks. And in the meantime they lose touch with their networks, skills grow obsolete, and the worker’s confidence goes into the toilet.

 

Technology

Modern offices no longer need so many folks. Typists, secretaries, administrative assistants, office managers, and book keepers have all been replaced by computers and easy to use software. Factory workers are being replaced by robots. The invention of ocean going container and inter-modal transportation  threw thousands of dockworkers and rail works out on the streets.

And this wave is only growing stronger. Mid-level managers of powerplants and harbors, programers, and schedulers are being replaced by expert systems software.

 

Torts

Discrimination, wrongful discharge, and sexual harassment lawsuits. Just say these words and watch the color drain from a business owner’s face. We are arguably the most litigious nation in the world. (We have more lawyers in the southern half of Texas than in ALL of Japan!)

Employers no longer have time or money to train or coach an employee toward management. They have to pay for and keep records of the seminars given on sensitivity training. A company can’t fire a slacker. Too much risk of getting sued and spending hundreds of thousands on a defense.

Now the employer sees each employee as an enemy instead of a team member, a liability instead of an asset. Is there any wonder that an employer would try to farm out the work to India instead of hiring someone?

 

Teaching

Our schools spit out diplomas in greater numbers than any other country. We have more universities than any two countries combined. Yet these schools turn out folks without the needed  business skills, and worse, without critical people skills.

We have young people with communication degrees who cannot write a decent report, are unable to craft and deliver a speech in public, or speak a foreign language. We turn out graduates who understand the place of women’s rights, but who have no idea of the rights of the customer. These new graduates are able to tell me all the reasons why capitalism is a failed format for society, yet they can’t dress themselves in appropriate attire for an interview.

And we haven’t even touched the subject of the lack of engineers, mathematicians, and computer programmers…

 

These four trends are not new. However, they’ve grown to the point of changing the hiring attitudes of American companies. These enterprises know they need people, but the risks of hiring are HUGE. So, they do without hiring, using temporary and contract workers. They hire consultants instead of increasing staff, and offshore as much work as possible, not just for the cost but to escape the risk and regulations.

I have seen this attitude change in myself. In past businesses, I have had employees. What a huge hassle! I have vowed never to have employees again. If I need some help, I’ll farm it out. I’ll hire a company to do it. I’ll never have another book keeper, office manager, shop foreman, or janitor. It is just too hard. Our system is stacked against getting hired.

So, my prediction is that high unemployment will last for many, many years. What is a job seeker to do?

If you are determined to seek a conventional job, you must:

•  Be able to instill confidence in the hirer that you can make them money above your cost.
• Show by your attitude that you will never be a potential for a future lawsuit.
• Keep trying. It will be a long slog.

 

The quickest path to employment is to become flexible and conform yourself to the new work reality:

• Start your own business as a consultant or contractor in your area of expertise.
• Joint venture with other one-person businesses.
• Learn to sell yourself and your services.

Welcome to the New Business Model.

 

 

 

 

The Future Will Come

Thousands of unrelated thoughts fly through my brain everyday. Maybe you don’t have this problem. Some of these ideas are worth communicating, some are just “decorative, not functional.” My challenge is to filter out the worthies and write about them. So I jot down the best ideas or points on 3 x 5 cards. Stacks of cards litter my desk, the dresser in my bedroom and the side table by my favorite recliner. Every so often, I go through and catalog these cards into stacks. One stack might become a blog post, a bigger stack, an article.  Now that I am working on a book, one card might become a chapter.

My new book deals with transferring the attitudes and skills of government intelligence operatives into the civilian world. While I’ve never been an operative myself, I’ve worked with several, gotten to know them, picked their brains and read their reports.

These men and women have “graduated” to civilian life and all have achieved success. Why? What do these intel pros have that makes them excel? Of course, they have great training. Most have a foreign language and are skilled writers. Even in their sixties they maintain a high degree of physical fitness. But I don’t think these assets alone account for their success in civilian life.

I’ve wrestled with this for three weeks. Like some type of phantom, my question comes to me when I’m unoccupied, haunting my down time. But three days ago, I picked up 3 x 5 card and wrote: “Plan for the Future.” I placed the card in a prominent place on my desk, knowing it was important, but not yet understanding why. This morning I woke up knowing how to write about this card: “Plan for the Future.”

This idea is the foundation of successful people, understanding that the future will come. But it is hardly a new concept. In 950 BC Solomon talked about the future in Proverbs, his book of wisdom. He uses the example of the ant that stores food in the summer to have enough to eat for the coming winter.

Ancient stone masons understood that today’s work brings  benefits in the future. They knew that if they continued to strike a huge block of stone, they would eventually break it. The first blow showed no progress. After the hundredth blow, the rock sat showing only a small crack. They might beat on that rock for days. But following one of those blows, the mason knew not which, the giant block would crack. And now he had a piece useful for building a great monument.

Our lives are no different. Let’s say two women set their goal to get in shape. The first day they exercise, they see no difference. The fifth day they see no difference. The foolish woman gives up. It’s too much hassle, she says, and these sore muscles… But the other perseveres for two weeks. And one morning, as she gets dressed for work, she notices that her outfit is no longer tight. Even though she’s lost no weight, she has changed and toned her body into something different.

The banker wanting to become a Subject Matter Expert on international letters of credit checks out three books from the Bank Library. That night he studies a chapter. After a week, he’s more confused than when he started. But he sticks with his program. After studying for a solid month, things begin to click and make sense. One day a problem loan is discussed in committee, and the banker remembers the section on factoring letters of credit. He suggests a novel way the customer can sell a foreign letter of credit they possess for a job in progress overseas, and then use the proceeds to pay off the master note at his bank. Suddenly, he is the Subject Matter Expert and problem solver in the eyes of his boss.

Today, contrast the unsuccessful with the successful, and you will see in the unsuccessful a lack of understanding of the speed and ferocity of the future. One person I spoke with is spending more than she is making. She charges the difference on her credit cards, rolling over the balance to new cards every few months. I told her the future was coming. Not in those words, but I forced her to look ahead to see the tidal wave of debt out on the horizon.

Another unsuccessful person I know spends his time playing video games. Nothing wrong with games. I enjoy games too. But first we must do our work, then we should spend some time reading and/or upgrading our skills. Only then can we take a break and waste a bit of time on games.

Everyone talks about setting goals, and that is vitally important. But even before that, we must understand and teach that the future is coming. And that our actions today will influence the future of tomorrow. “You will reap what you sow.” Too many of us never think about how our small repeated actions will impact the rest of our lives. We only think about today.

Be one of the successful ones. Remember, the future is coming. There are few surprises in life. If you overeat and smoke, you will suffer health problems. Financial reversals will come, and if you have no savings and are deep in debt, you could lose your house and have to live with your brother-in-law.

But if you turn off the TV and read something work related for an hour every evening, in a few weeks you’ll have management and fellow workers turning to you for answers. Skip the desert and walk for two miles every evening, and in a couple of months you will have friends and co-workers telling you how good you look and asking you how you lost the weight.

The future will come.

Can Anyone Over 50 Get Hired Anymore?

I just heard an interview with a recruiter. She contends that the job market in New York City is all but closed to anyone over 30. Can this be correct? Are there hoards of middle-aged folks wandering the streets without a job? Of course not.

So why would she say something like that. She recruits for law firms and web based health care. Translated: She is trying to find slave labor for the big law firms and cheap content producers for the web based health care. Of course that job market is closed to anyone over 30.

That is like saying the job market for pro boxers is closed to anyone over 35. Of course.

When we go looking for work, if we are wise, we go to a market that values what we have to offer. The young person willing to work long hours for low pay in return for a shot at the top might look at entry level law jobs or junior airline pilot positions.

But we who’ve got a little experience should know enough to gravitate to areas that value our experience, people skills, and leadership.We must take inventory of our strengths, not fight our weaknesses. For example, I am terrified of heights. Should I try for a job as a transmission tower repair technician to strengthen that “soft part of your resume”? Of course not.

I am all for growth, but some of us are hard wired to want more variety than stability or to get more love than significance.  Or the reverse. Know your strengths and play to them. Most older workers have the following strengths:

• They understand relationships better.
• They have the “shop skills” to handle customers.
• They can understand both sides of a conflict.
• They are dependable.
• They take care of the business as if it were their own.
• They know the history of their industry. What has worked and what has not.

For us over 50, the job market is truly hidden. Successful older workers have a life’s worth of friends and colleagues who have moved into powerful positions. We use this network to get our next job. Jobs come open and are filled, and those jobs will never be advertised unless it is required by law. And then it is posted and other candidates are interviewed just to “fill the squares” in the government forms. But the hiring decision has already been made. Sometimes months before the job is posted.

People call me nowadays asking if I want to work for them. Is that because I’m so good? No, it is because I have worked on and with my network for 35 years.

So what should us old guys do when we find ourselves out on the street without a paycheck?

Get reacquainted with your network. Call old classmates. Reconnect with colleagues and cousins. But don’t ask for any favors until you give some out. (See previous post on networking.) There are jobs out there. But you’ll not get hired in the same way as the youngsters

Is That All There Is?

Is that all there is? Many folks in my generation are asking that question. After 25 or 30 years in the same job or the same field, many, many workers, especially men, think there has to be more than just a good job with great benefits and a solid retirement program.

While coaching I come across this question much more than I ever dreamed I would. It took me a while to recognize the trend because my clients often stated this question in different words.

“Whatever happened to my idealism?”

“I want to help people.”

“I want to make a difference.”

But when you boil it down, there is a deep emptiness in people in their 50’s who are dissatisfied toiling away in their cubicle or corner office instituting a new marketing plan, or a new billing plan, or a new waste reduction program.

And why shouldn’t I recognize this groundswell? Didn’t the same process happen to me? After being a pilot for 30 years and a private military contractor for much of that time, I got to the top of my game. My company was happy with me, and they were willing to pay me a lot of money to continue to be a cog in their machine. All I had to do was show up for work and fly their airplane around Colombia. Then I asked myself, am I going to do this for the next ten years? The same thing everyday?

To stop growing is to die. I didn’t want to rust away, even if my company was willing to pay me a lot of money to do so. Where did my emptiness originate?

• I stopped growing as a professional. I already possessed the skills I needed. I could fly my missions almost blindfolded.
• Able to see the end of my career, I asked myself, “Where will I leave my mark on the next generation?”
• I no longer felt like I was part of the solution. Our war in Colombia did not seem so important anymore.
• I missed my family.

I see so many of these same themes in my clients and friends. I hear it in their conversations: “I’m just marking time.”

From my clients who’ve been downsized, I hear a component of relief in their voices. Now, they can do what they have really wanted to. I’ve seen men leave the cubicle for a sales position, accountants get into law enforcement, and preachers move over to run a hospice.

Do these moves mean more income? Not usually. Folks are looking for meaning as well as money. Fulfillment as much as finances.

Factors such as time off, proximity to grandchildren, and personal realization all come to be non-negotiable. To all you Boomers out there, all I can say is: “Go for it.”

I did, and I am loving it.

Envy: Why Many Folks Will Never Get Hired

I’ve never understood the hatred of the rich. “The rich just get richer” we’re told, in the same tone of voice as if they were saying, “They just killed my mother.” But so what if the rich get richer. It doesn’t affect my life if Warren Buffet gets another half billion this year.

Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Michael Dell, and Bill Gates have all made our lives better. Not to mention H. Ross Perot, Wayne Huizenga (Blockbuster, AutoNation, and Waste Management), and I forgot the folks at Google. They earned their money by serving us better products and services. Where would our lives be without these rich men?

“The rich use their riches to influence politics!” cries the left. Well, duh. What do you expect them to do? The left uses every dollar it can muster from unions and donors to do the same thing. That is called political freedom of speech.

I still have my home and my income. I am still free. No rich person enslaved me to get his riches. (If they did enslave someone, then they are not rich people, they are rich criminals.) Still, a large portion of the population equates riches with evil.Yet these same people tell you that they would like to be rich! They buy lottery tickets (a tax on the mathematically challenged), subscribe to investment newsletters, and buy courses on how to get rich in real estate, currency markets, and foreclosures.

So why the hatred and name calling? I think it is envy. It is the belief that there is only so much success available in the world and the rich have taken more than their fair share. It is the belief that if we can bring someone down, we elevate ourselves. Not so. Envy brings down the envious.

Envy is an acid that eats away at one’s soul. Instead of worrying about how much the rich own, we should be thankful for what we have.  If you are reading this blog on your own computer with internet access in your air conditioned home, most of the world considers you quite rich. Running water? Refrigerator? Now you are very rich.

But since this blog is about employment issues, let’s look at how envy factors into an applicant’s job hunt. After attending some “job club” meetings, I can tell you the envy level is high. Job clubs are where unemployed gather to exchange information and best practices about gaining employment. Instead they often degenerate into gripe and whine sessions. Questions put to the speaker are often, “Why won’t the rich pay more taxes so we can continue our unemployment?” These same people tell me they hate capitalism, yet they are trying to find a “good job” in a capitalistic society.

In interviews, we try to put our best foot forward. We put on a psychological mask, as it were. However, a good job interviewer is skilled in getting a real glimpse behind that mask. With probing questions learned from experience or training, the interviewing panel will keep the job hunter off balance. And when someone is off balance, he seeks to center himself in his real identity. So, those attitudes peek out.

And when they peek out, that applicant is silently marked off the list. I’ve talked with several anti-capitalist job hunters who moan that they are never chosen even though their qualifications match exactly what the company put out in the want ad. There is more to a good employee than a set of skills.

No senior manager wants to hire negative people. Envious people are no fun to be around. And no boss wants someone working for them who thinks the bosses and owners are evil because they make more money and believe in making a profit.

So unless the envious people can hide their attitudes (unlikely) they are destined to be underemployed in corporate and small business America. Perhaps that is why so many go into education and journalism.