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By Luciell Potestas Fernan

No matter how skilled and savvy you are in your career, no matter how  fascinating and cutting edge your work now is, it will someday happen: You will  roll out of bed, wonder what you’re doing with your life, and think about making  a change.

Few things are as certain as middle-aged angst, that dreaded feeling that  somehow life has passed you by or you’ve simply missed it somehow.

You question your choices, bemoan your current circumstances, and agonize  over the future. You start thinking about hair plugs and working out more. You  have a sudden urge to trade in the old car for a racy new model or the old wife  for a racy new supermodel.

When you are closer to the end of your career than the beginning

But more often than not, your agonizing centers around your job. You’ve  always hated it, or you once loved it but there’s no challenge anymore. You’ve  plateaued, you’re bored, you hate the boss or the wunderkind who just zipped by  you on the organizational chart. You want to dump that vice presidency to run a  bar in Mazatlan.

After all, life is short and getting shorter by the day, and  you realize you are closer to the end of your career than the beginning.

Here’s where some of the career advisers out there go a little hay-wire,  pushing people into radical career shifts, urging them to find their “bliss.” I  remember watching as the leader of a group career guidance session, sponsored by  a service that shall go unnamed, cajoled one attendee-a man who seemed quite  happy working as a manager for a computer retailing company and who, in fact,  seemed justifiably proud of the coveted promotion he had just earned-to scrap it  all because she saw his face light up when he talked about playing the guitar as  a kid.

Whoa, Nelly. For all she knew, the guy may have been a lousy guitarist.  And not every fanciful dream of youth is worth pursuing, despite the malarkey  pushed by TV movies of the week. For a thirtyish guy with a family, the  suggestion was, in my mind, outrageous.

You’ve spent your whole life building up skills and expertise

The idea of a radical career shift holds a powerful appeal to those in the  throes of a middle-aged crisis, and certainly these seismic shifts do work for  some. But let’s face it: You’ve spent your whole life building up skills and  expertise; that’s your career currency, and it’s usually far more valuable in  the industry you’re already in.

Now, I recognize that some gung-ho Boy Scouts out there are shaking their  heads, certain they won’t fall prey to this dire condition. They’re too  enthusiastic, and their work is too vital. If they even smell some angst in the

For the other 99 percent of  us, here are some tales from the midst of the morass to help shake us from our  doldrums and get us moving again.

What to do after residing so long at one address?

For twenty-seven years, Richard Dahlberg toiled for Massachusetts Financial  Services. Then, when the company wouldn’t assign him more staff so that he could  aggressively push for growth in the mutual funds he managed, he decided he  needed a change of scenery.

But what to do after residing so long at one address? Mr. Dahlberg decided to  stay within his sphere of knowledge, the financial services industry. After  looking at posts in two banks and a mutual fund, Mr. Dahlberg got an offer to be  chief investment officer in the equity asset management group at Salomon Bros.  It wasn’t a sure bet.

Equity management had always been a poor stepchild at  Salomon, representing at that time just $1 billion of the firm’s $13 billion  under management. Mr. Dahlberg wondered how committed Salomon would be to the  relatively new business. He also worried about the fact that Salomon was just  coming off a run of trading scandals and financial setbacks.

And at fifty-five  years of age, he would be giving up a secure position where he had been quite  successful. In the previous ten years, he had built Massachusetts Financial’s  balanced fund assets to $4.5 billion from $215 million. “I could have stayed  where I was for another ten years and enjoyed the annuity,” he says.

You don’t always know where you are going to end up

Don Crosbie, by contrast, simply walked away from his job as chief financial  officer of Dallas-based InterVoice, because he needed a rest after ten intense  years of helping to build the telecommunications start-up. “I did some  consulting, some sailing, tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life,”  he says.

He spent a year flirting with investing in some companies and going on a few  job interviews before he decided to form Com Vest Partners, an investment  research boutique. The idle time didn’t worry him, he insists. He has an  explorer’s mentality, requiring new and exhilarating experiences. “You don’t  always know where you’re going to end up,” he says. “There’s always some  uncertainty, but in my mind, if you have the confidence, a door will open for  you.”

In contrast with Mr. Dahlberg, he believes that trying to forge a new career  while immersed in the old one usually doesn’t work. “You end up getting  trapped,” he says.

Take your time and evaluate a number of situations

While Mr. Crosbie would appear to have made a radical break, closer scrutiny  reveals that his new job trades on his well-developed financial analysis skills.  “It wasn’t as if I were going to be an astronaut,” he says.

Many midlifers, fearful that opportunities will dwindle with age, grab the  first job that seems to offer change. Take your time and “evaluate a number of  situations,” Mr. Dahlberg advises. “You have to find the right fit for you.”

If you want a more dramatic change, you have to do something drastic.

“I didn’t want to wake up at fifty one morning with someone in Seattle deciding our unit made no sense”

After sixteen years in the building materials business, Hoyt Gier was uneasy.  The senior sales executive was paid well, enjoyed his job, and figured he had a  reasonable shot at the CEO post. But, “I went to work for a Canadian firm, which  was bought by Belgians, which was bought by Germans,” he says. “I didn’t want to  wake up at fifty with someone in Brussels or Heidelberg or Seattle deciding our  unit made no sense; that petrified me.”

But he wondered how marketable he would be. “I worked for different  companies, but to someone outside the industry, it would look as if I’d been  doing the same thing my whole career,” he explains. So, at age forty, he quit  his six-figure job in Seattle and schlepped his wife and three young children to  Hanover, New Hampshire, and Dart-mouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business for an  MBA. It cost him about $250,000 in tuition and lost income, which he paid for by  selling his Redmond, Washington, home. The move puzzled his bosses, he says.  Even his parents questioned his judgment.

Is an MBA a panacea for middle-aged managers floundering in a sea of uncertainty?

In industries such as investment banking and consulting, the MBA is  practically a required entry card for those with management ambitions  -especially for those coming from completely different backgrounds. As Mr. Gier  notes, “You simply can’t get from where I started to where I am going without  coming through here.” Or someplace like it. He adds: “To break into something  completely different, you have to do something to catch someone’s  attention.”

Is an MBA a panacea for middle-aged managers floundering in a sea of  uncertainty? Is this the way for them to overcome the reluctance of companies to  invest in managers with gray hair who command six-figure incomes?

Of course not.

Some lack the inclination to return to an intense school program at such an  advanced age. In some industries, also, the degree would provide only a marginal  benefit. Before making such a precipitous and expensive leap, study the  backgrounds of the people who are successful in your company or industry of  choice. Are they MBA holders? What gaps exist between their experiences and  skills and yours, and are there simpler and less expensive ways to fill those  gaps?

MBA’s mean exposure to a wider range of possibilities and a widely accepted credential

Still, for managers seeking a midcourse correction, MBAs mean exposure to a  wider range of possibilities and a widely accepted credential. With high demand  for MBA holders, companies start recruiting early. In his second week of  classes, Mr. Gier recalls presentations by Ford, Microsoft, Dell, and Morgan  Stanley. He soon discovered the world of private client services.

It was just the kind of relationship-driven business he wanted. Following a  summer internship with Goldman, Sachs, he accepted the firm’s offer of full-time  employment after graduation. He couldn’t be happier about it. “Tuck exposed me  to many business possibilities new to me or previously thought to be out of  reach,” he says. “The business world looks a lot bigger to me now than it did  just a couple of years ago.”

Throughout his transition, Mr. Gier’s age wasn’t as much of an issue as he  feared. Interviewers never mentioned it directly, choosing instead to ask how he  would feel working with or reporting to a twenty-seven-year-old. “My response  was, ‘If I didn’t think I could run with these people in the workforce, I  wouldn’t have come here,’” Mr. Gier says.

“MBA’s from a top school opens doors, others do not”

Still, he acknowledges that his path isn’t for everybody. The tough,  competitive environment of the school-he worked late most nights on group  projects-is exhausting. And if you can’t land in one of the better schools, he  advises, forget it. “An MBA from a top school opens doors other MBAs do not,” he  says.

Further, he says, don’t go if you’re satisfied with your job, your career  path, your company’s prospects, and your opportunities to advance and find  challenging assignments. Don’t go if you’re convinced other companies, inside  your industry and out, will gladly pay for your skills and experience. Finally,  he says, don’t go if you don’t have the total support of your spouse. This kind  of change isn’t for the risk averse.

Start your career at http://www.jobsciti.com

By Tinker Barnett

In 2005, nearly 60% of human resource professionals in large companies  reported conflict between younger and older workers. This has  not changed much today. Some business owners and managers in my community are so  frustrated with young workers that they have decided not to hire them ever  again.

I am always sorry to hear this because not hiring young people is not a  solution. Rather, it is a lose-lose situation for companies that want to remain  successful in the long-term and for Generation Y (Gen Y) who are increasingly  unemployed and lack work experience.

There is a better way.

If you are a business owner or manager age 45 to 70, it is possible that Gen  Y will not begin to think and act the way you do at work, not soon enough  anyway. Openness and willingness to look at new ways of getting-work-done is a  faster, longer-lasting way out of frustration at work.

At first, it may feel like you are giving-in to your least-experienced  workers and as though you’ve relinquished power and control. It is important to  know that frustration with employees is less about Generation Y and more about  the “waves of change” they ride. Change causes all of us to feel a lack of  confidence until we accept it and take responsibility to work with it.

Gen Yers to set the norm in the future

Recent research projects that Gen Yers will set the new norm for the  workplace in 2014 when they become 50% of the workforce. They will be put into  key leadership positions faster and have less time to get ready than Boomers  did. If this is true, it is good to start listening now to how Generation Y  employees intend to make the workplace better. Maybe you will want to get a head  start on them.

Here are 4 Clues for how Generation Y will change the workplace once they are  in charge:

Clue #1. Meetings will be productive and most will last only 30 minutes.  Everyone will come prepared and know exactly what the team is doing. Gen Y hates  to waste time and this is causing some of the greatest conflict among  generations.

Clue #2. Gen Y will promote people who are clear about who are competent,  trustworthy, and relate to employees in ways that inspire them to be their best,  not because they are senior and have “put in more time”.

Clue #3. Gen Y will find mentors to get their careers jump-started, throwing  out the “sink-or-swim” style of management. They will be terrific mentors  themselves, bringing “mentoring-up” to the workplace and teaching values of  collaboration, innovation, and social connection to the next generation of  workers.

Clue #4. Gen Y will re-invent retirement as many retreats – not one, spread  out over time. The economy is too uncertain and they will live too long to  regularly sacrifice family and fun in hopes of an extended period for doing what  they really want to do (like their parents expected). For Gen Y, living is for  today, not to be put-off.

And, if you can take time to get to know Gen Y employees, they will want to  learn from you and you will have less frustration at work.

Workplace frustration can be minimized

Bottom line, workplace frustration can be minimized when people of different  generations are understood and validated for characteristics they are pretty  much stuck with.

Want to know more? I invite you to claim your free instant access to my white  paper, “Workplace Frustration: How to Reduce It and Manage Generation Y For An  Increase in Company Profits”. For a limited time you’ll find it at my slide-up  when you visit http://GenerationalDivideCoaching.com.

From Tinker Barnett, Bridges LLC

“Connecting Generations in the Workplace”

Are you scratching your head yet wondering what I am talking about? You’d  really think top salespeople would make the best sales managers, would you not?  I can hear you all now, “Come on Rich I want my best guys running the whole  squad.” They understand the sales personality; they understand the sales job  requirements; and if they come to the position of sales manager by promotion  they understand the company they work for.

So why don’t they make great sales  managers?

 A salesperson has to be on the hunt constantly

Well this is certainly not an absolute. Some sales people have made great  sales managers, but by and large the best sales managers are not the best sales  people and vice-versa. The reason for this can be found in the shark. Sharks  have to swim to live.

They must keep moving constantly just to be alive.

A great  sales person is the same in many ways: they must prospect and develop business  and be on the hunt constantly; and their competitive spirit and drive to  constantly win must fuel them every minute on the job.

A sales manager has to think like a chess player

A great sales manager on the other hand must have a steady hand on the  tiller. They have to think like a chess player, always many moves ahead. They  don’t get to experience the hunt, let alone the thrill of the kill (if you  will….too much right?).

In other words they have to possess a much more even  keeled personality, less like a shark and more like a tiger, effective at steady  leadership and able to handle any situation from a customer turn-over, to a team  member’s personal troubles.

Yes they understand the sales personality, but typically only their own. And  usually top sales people have trouble with empathy, a necessary trait in any  good sales manager. Yes they understand the job requirements but every  salesperson is different and they may not understand what motivates someone  other than themselves, or how to get the best from someone struggling to get to  the middle of the pack.

Finally that point about understanding the company,  aside form understanding the market in which they compete, it’s much more  important for a quality sales manager to understand the dynamics of his or her  team. What makes them tick? What keeps those sharks swimming?

Look at the personality and character make-up first

To sum up, if you’re hiring a sales manager look at personality and character  make-up first and sales results second…you’ll thank yourself later.

Richard Garvey is the owner of Sales Results Fast, a Minneapolis, MN based  sales training and consulting firm. He has been featured in articles of the  Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal and works with companies from a hundred  thousand dollars to a hundred million dollars in annual revenue. Sales Results  Fast offer engaging and interactive classroom training, sales team consulting  and building, and individual coaching.

Set more appointments, close more sales and make more money. You can start  today with our classroom training. Read what our raving fans have to say about  us at http://www.salesresultsfast.com/raves or for information on  classes and event schedules please visit us at:
http://www.SalesResultsFast.com

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Men in the cosmetics industry are savvier with online networking than women,  but would you believe the reverse is true in the fields of ranching and  tobacco?

Although those statements may seem counterintuitive, that’s exactly what the  surprised data researchers discovered recently after analyzing the activities  and networking ratios of LinkedIn’s 100 million members worldwide. These same  members are 97 times more likely to have a college degree and 80% more likely to  influence business decisions at their company. Does that sound like the kind of  people you’d like to connect with?

LinkedIn: the way to stay connected with people in your professional life

Since ancient times people have used networking as a way to move ahead in  their business and personal lives. Launched in May 2003, LinkedIn is the 21st  century’s way to stay connected and connect with people in your professional  life whether you are looking for a job, doing research on people or companies or  just want to have a safety net of contacts should you need to make changes in  your career.

If you Google LinkedIn you’ll find hundreds of articles on how to join, why  it’s a good tool along with the features and benefits. In this brief article I  will assume you are already a member and touch on the do’s and don’ts of using  it.

What to do

• To look as professional as possible, complete your profile 100%. As you  fill in the information it will tell you how complete your profile is and taking  the time to fill out all the areas will give you the best results.

• Add a professional looking picture so people can see what you look like.  Make it a recent picture and although not required, this will make you more  personable and looks better than the blank space that will automatically  populate if you don’t have one.

• The Summary is where you can highlight what makes you unique from the 100  million other members. Take some time and think of it as your:30 second elevator  speech. This will be one of the first things people see and needs to stand out  and help them remember who you are and why they should care.

• Be accurate in all of the information you post. This is your online resume  and it’s important your work experience, job titles and employment dates are all  correct.

• To stand out, fill in those sections that most don’t: what books you are  reading, a link to your blog if you write one, a link to you or your company’s  website (if applicable) and recommendations you may get from colleagues and  friends.

What Not To Do

• Don’t put a picture of you with friends or with a drink in hand, alcoholic  or not. If you show up for an interview and you look drastically different then  the picture it can create doubt about the rest of your profile.

• Don’t lie. As with any of the social media venues you never know who is  looking at your profile and misinformation of any kind will eventually be  discovered and it could lead to consequences that won’t play out well.

• Don’t list any sort of personal information on your profile. Home  addresses, social security numbers and year of birth could open you up to  identity theft and there is no business reason to add them.

• Don’t spam your contacts with business offers or MLM schemes. Don’t ask to  connect with others unless you have a valid business reason and don’t share your  thoughts moment by moment. This isn’t Twitter or Facebook and your connections  most likely don’t care that you are going to bed or attending a birthday party  for your best friend.

Keep your business and personal lives separate

Remember, LinkedIn is a network for people to connect professionally. Keep  your business and personal lives separate and remember the people on LinkedIn  are typically more affluent, better educated with higher household incomes. Your  profile is out there for the world to see, literally, so make sure what others  see is a true reflection of your career and professional interests.

I work with my customers to evaluate their promotional marketing needs and  develop creative and measurable solutions based on those needs. I build  long-term relationships to become a trusted advisor my clients turn to for their  brand extension, promotional product, incentive and other branding needs.  Contact me at stephen.woodburn@staplespromoproducts.com

By Adam Kay

In his landmark bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins lays out the  results of a five-year empirical study on exactly what it is that differentiates  ‘good’ companies from ‘great’ ones. Of his various findings, perhaps none is as  significant as this: above all else, truly great companies place their people at  the very top of their priorities – not marketing, not finance, not strategy -  people.

This means that truly great companies take recruitment and hiring very  seriously, and go to enormous lengths to make sure they attract and keep the  right people.

First Who, Then What

As Collins puts it, all truly great companies abide by a common principle,  which he sums up in one short phrase: ‘first who, then what’. Collins draws upon  the metaphor of a bus to describe this principle. He says that what great  companies do before all else is make sure that they get “the right people on the  bus.”

Once they have the right people aboard, great companies then make sure  they put “the right people in the right seats on the bus”. And finally, once  they have the right people in the right seats, great companies then figure out  where to actually drive the bus.

Collins explains that there are three main reasons why the “first who, then  what” principle is so crucial. First, by placing the emphasis on people before  strategy, it allows companies to adapt more easily to change. In a time when  change has never been as lightning fast, this has never been as important as it  is today.

With the right people in the right place, there is less need to worry

Second, if you make sure you have the right people on the bus in the  first place, many human resource problems simply fade away. With the right  people in the right places, there’s less need to worry about such common  concerns as sick leave, office politics, turnover, motivation and the like.  Instead, focus, passion and synergy naturally emerge as the dominant operating  principles.

Third, if you have the wrong people on the bus, it really doesn’t  matter what direction you drive in, you still won’t achieve greatness. As  Collins succinctly puts it “great vision without great people is  irrelevant.”

Hire for Talent, Train for Skill

But how do you put the “first who, then what” principle into practice? The  answer can be boiled down in the axiomatic phrase: “hire for talent, train for  skill”. Collins places special emphasis on this key point:

In determining ‘the right people’, the good-to-great companies  placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational  background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work  experience.

While this may be easy enough to say, the question arises: how do you know  who has the right character attributes? After all, people’s core attributes are  not easily identifiable in a resume, or discoverable in a job interview. Collins  offers no answer to this important question.

Use of Hartman Value Profile provides in-depth, scientifically reliable and legally defensive process

Yet he can be easily forgiven for  this, not only because it didn’t fall within the ambit of his research, but also  because since the time he wrote Good to Great, fantastic new  technologies have emerged to help. Now, with the use of technologies based on  the Hartman Value Profile and the science of formal axiology, employers can  assess prospective and current employees in in-depth, scientifically reliable,  and legally defensible ways.

Indeed, all great companies today are now doing so. Not only does this easily  and affordably allow them to determine how well-suited a job candidate is for  employment with their company, but it also allows them to accurately determine  what their natural talents are so they know exactly where on the bus to place  them. Never before has it been so easy to effectively implement a “hire for  talent, train for skill” policy.

Never before has it been so straightforward to  put the basic building blocks of a truly great company in place.

Great Company, Great Life

Not only is the principle of “first who, then what” fundamental to building a  truly great company; it’s also critical to enjoying a truly great life. When you  have all the right people in the right seats on the bus, the bus will be much  easier to drive. This is because people will naturally enjoy their work,  identify with the company and its objectives, and thrive in the cohesive culture  that emerges.

‘First who’ might be the closest link between a great company and a great life

These are all hallmarks of a great work environment. And given how  much time the average person spends at work these days, a great work environment  is essential to a great life. Jim Collins describes this very well when he  says:

Adherence to the idea of ‘first who’ might be the closest link  between a great company and a great life. For no matter what we achieve, if we  don’t spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we  cannot possibly have a great life.

But if we spend the vast majority of our time  with people we love and respect – people we really enjoy being on the bus with  and who will never disappoint us – then we will almost certainly have a great  life, no matter where the bus goes.

In the end, ‘first who, then what’ is not just a key principle for a truly  great business – it’s an abiding standard for a truly great life. Anybody who is  really committed to building a great business and living a great life, should  take note.

Adam A. Kay, Esq. is a Business & Professional Development Consultant & Coach with J.D. Strategist. To find out more, visit http://www.jdstrategist.com

David Tighe has been helping his clients create fully engaged employee teams  and more effective leadership skills among executives and middle managers since  1987. He authored Bovo-Tighe’s highly effective Foundation of Excellence  approach to employee development that has been generating measurable ROI for  clients by focusing relentlessly on upfront problem diagnosis and long-term  sustainability with every client engagement. Bovo-Tighe also offers a  performance guarantee to back up their performance claims, a rarity in the  employee development industry.
Find out more about Bovo-Tighe, its  Foundation of Excellence approach and its performance guarantee at http://www.bovo-tighe.com.

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