Was it worth it?

Getting nowhere

I've got loads to do, but I really cannot get going. I have no interest whatsoever in my job anymore. There's loads I think I can contribute to the company, but not in my current role.
I don't even think I 'm very good at it. I can do it, but not with the same confidence and aplomb that the rest of the guys do. Maybe they just hide their weaknesses the same as I do.

But it could all just be the Zyban talking.

Progress after 30

After a brief hiatus of busy, busy, busy, I'm back again.
I've been doing a lot of objective  and personal development setting with my team recently and one thing that's really come out is the number of people in the 30-ish age group that feel it's time to really start pushing on with their careers.
The same sort of thing has been occuring to me recently as well. At 32 I'm at the age where it's becoming more and more likely to have a boss that is younger than me. This is something that's always bothered me as I've seen it as a sign that my career has stalled and I'm going to start getting left behind.
OK, so there's probably only so far up the ladder I want to go/can go, but I know I'm at the point where I really need to start getting clear on my goals and direction; and being the lowest level of manager is not where I want to stay.

Is this the mid-working life crisis? The point when you realise you're no longer the newcomer and that new blood is moving in all the time, hungry and ready to knock you from the niche you've steadily carved out for yourself. You no longer get invited to the same meetings, people don't come to ask your opinion as much as they used to. You're getting left behind...

Sometimes this is simply because you've been in the same job with the same company too long. It's time to get out there and be the new blood again. Good move, Phil :-)

Leadership

Now this at Fast Company is what I was talking about in my last post (albeit in a rather convoluted way). Getting to the position of leader where you can spend your time coaching and developing rather than delivering directly. Someone like Jack Welch has that level of experience and expertise to really bring out the strengths and passions of others.

The question is: When do you actually become a leader? Have far up the chain of command do you have to go such that delivery really isn't your thing anymore? Do your real hands-on skills decrease to such an extent that you can no longer do what you were originally skilled in? And does that really matter once you've become a leader?

Is the whole upper hierarchy of the corporate world made up of people who can no longer do and can only direct? When does your level of delegation result in making you nothing more than a mouth-piece and secretary?

Too many questions and no answers. Have to think about them for another day.

Passion and those who sell it

I keep thinking a lot just lately about what really does it for me at work and what I actually want from my career. Something that has really come through is my big interest in helping other people move forward with their careers and discovering THEIR passion.
This leads to a bit of a dilemma... By developing my career in that direction I start to move away from being someone who is part of the real "doing something productive" world and into fluffy, "you get paid for what???" territory. Do I really want to join the ranks of talking about things rather than doing them? Though given my current role as a manager, I don't think the leap would be too great...

It would have its upside of course. The phrase that springs to mind is "better than working for a living".

There are masses of consultants, life coaches, motivators and inspirational writers out there and I often wonder if they could live by their own preaching if in a normal day job like the rest of us. It's a bit like a multi-millionaire rock star singing about being a rebel and living their life the way they want. You're loaded, you make money being in a band, you can pretty much get away with whatever you want. Piercings, tattoos, hairstyles, clothing, politics; do it how you want when you're not selling insurance everyday to feed your family.

There's an old adage about those that can't do, teach (an addition to that I've heard is "those that can't teach, manage", but I won't go there today). I wouldn't say that is true as a blanket statement as I see teaching (in a school/university setting) as a vocation usually performed by people with a passion for imparting knowledge on a subject they love and shaping future generations.
My questioning comes in with people who make a living coaching other people to be successful and get passion from their work. Their own success comes from telling other people how to be successful, but sometimes this is the only experience of real success they have.
Is this a problem? I don't honestly know. I suppose it's not really any different from many other areas of life. Sports coaching in particular springs to mind. How many world class sports coaches are/were world class athletes? Does an individual need to be capable of doing something themselves to advise someone else on the best way to do it?
Just to avoid tarring everyone with the same brush here, there are many people in this industry that have carved out extremely successful careers for themselves and now want to pass that passion and knowledge on. All power to them.

I don't know really where I'm going with this other than considering whether this is something I want to become a part of. Anyway, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to go about making the move and my own life is hardly the model of passion, drive and goals that I'd be trying to instill in others.

So, back to a bit of playing it safe for a while and keeping my eye out for an opportunity. They are there if you look hard enough.

Things we should be taught at school: Part 1

This post over at the always interesting Worthwhile really does highlight how pathetic so many people are (myself included) when it comes to really discovering what we want from our working lives. We sit idle waiting for the next big thing that 99% of the time never comes. Richard Branson isn't going to ring you any time soon offering you the chance to head up his next big venture.

But we're never told/taught this when we're young. We just head off down the path of becoming good employees. It's never considered that we can be the employer, the artist, the politican, the catalyst for the next big change in society. We are programmed as workers.

A few manage escape later in life (usually when the mortgage is paid off and the kids have left home) and some have that spark from day one. The rest of us sit, hope and squander.

I wonder if this sort of thing never really makes it into schools due to a fear of setting expectations too high (a bit like sports day where everyone gets a "taking part" certificate and no medals for the winners). Are we afraid that little Timmy may not get to live his dreams and so it's easier not to encourage those dreams in the first place? As parents, do we encourage those dreams and opportunities or do we just think "I never got mine, so they won't get theirs"?

Are we all just taking part but afraid (or too lazy) to try and win?

Winning means different things to different people. Maybe it is the money, the fame, the big house. Maybe it's sitting on the street busking. It all comes back to the same though: it's about doing YOUR thing. The day I win is the day that my time is for doing what I want.
That's not as selfish as it sounds. Doing what I want is not the same thing as only doing things for myself. It simply means that I do what is important to me and doing things for other people has always played a large part in that. Going to work for a wage in an uninspiring job that's the same month-in/month-out doesn't.

So, time start encouraging a bit more creativity, innovation and aspriration in the young methinks.

Not WOW!

I always keep myself up-to-date with feeds from the likes of Fast Company , Worthwhile and Tom Peters . They're great for:

• Inspiring articles about the way both life and work can be (and how to balance the two)
• How entrepreneurs are challenging established industries
• New CEOs and VPs bringing a radical approach to the tired and staid
• The wonderful world of marketing, branding and all good things about making you, your company and/or your projects WOW!

I've read the books (The Pursuit of Wow! was really  inspiring) until my brain wants to explode, but still...

Bottom line is I have a job, maybe a career, but I don't have the passion for it that is so much the buzz at the moment. I'm  one level above the coal face, so wouldn't even stretch as far as calling myself middle management and recently had another level of management inserted above me.

Question is, why can't I get passionate about it? Simple answer is that it's dull. I'm hard pressed to think of banking as anything other than shareholders making money on people's desire to spend more than they have in an attempt to propel themselves up the status ladder.

I don't really feel like I can make a difference; that anything I do is really worthwhile in the grand scheme of things. Midlife-crisis at 32 maybe?

The usual things spring to mind from all this; sabbatical with the an aid agency in a third world country (I'm sure there's a massive need for IT project manager types in Somalia...); quit my job and go self-employed (owe lots of money and don't fancy risking losing my house). I just end up feeling stuck.

This is where the whole self-motivation bit comes in. How do I manage to motivate myself to really try and have an impact where I am? Am I somebody who has good enough ideas to be allowed to make an impact? Do I care enough to want to make that impact?

Which goes back to the original point (sort of). For all we see and hear about revolutionary companies and radical ideas, how much of this translates down to the person on the floor? Does the Chief Exec think their doing really cool stuff, but Joe in Data Services picks up the crappy end of the stick and hasn't been involved in anything innovative since 1987?
That's the stuff we don't get to hear about. Talking to the press is a good way of putting yourself out of a job, so are the only people we hear from the ones who are "with the programme" and "on message"? Blogs are a nice way of getting some views, but it can be difficult to track down ones that talk about these things. They're usually anonymous like this one.

Time to start digging around Work at Technorati and find the folks who do the real work (rather than just write books and tell management how we should be working) and check that I'm not alone...

Measuring soft skills

We're going through a whole new process at work at the moment regarding how people can progress in their careers. Compared to what we had before it's the Holy Grail of self-improvement.

OK, so it's not perfect, but have you ever tried to come up with a level playing field with objective measures for determing somebody's soft skills?

Writing code? Set them a problem and analyse and discuss the results. Compare with solutions provided by others and your expected answers.
Does someone display a level of Emotional Intelligence that allows them to communicate with people at all levels within the organisation through adapting their tone and language (both body and verbal)? Well I can say yes or no, but can I compare them to anyone else to ensure it's all fair and above board? Possibly not.

For me, the key to knowing where your people are with soft skills is to take real notice of how they behave and react. Yes, I may know that Mr. X is great with technology Y, but can he  evangelise it to the wider community? Can he  explain why it can't solve a problem to the customer without getting frustrated that they don't have a clue what a DMZ is?

To know these things we need to be truly involved with the people we are responsible for. Appraisals and reviews should not be about someone justifying and providing evidence that they have done something. We should already know and have been keeping notes. Just meeting up with them every 3 months and saying "tell me why you deserve a bonus" is not helping anyone but the accountants.

In all honesty, I'm not doing all of this at the moment, but I'm working on getting it right. These people are my responsibility and it's up to me to support them, defend them and do everything I can to help them be the best they can be.

I've wandered off the topic a bit here, but it's important to me. I don't want to drift through my career not knowing what I do well and what I do badly and how I can make the changes to improve simply because somebody can't be arsed to take the time to let me know. It's the least I can do for my people.

Give it a try.

Dress for Success?

Worthwhile  raises the old chestnut again of how you dress for work.
Does it matter? Depends on what you do really.

If I go into a shop, then yes, I want to be able to tell who works there and who's a customer without looking for a name tag.

If you're in the office and don't need to identify myself to anybody other than my colleagues, then who cares what you wear? As long as your hygiene is good and I don't have to see the sweat stains under your armpits and have au de perspiration wafting into my nostrils everytime there's a light breeze then wear whatever the hell you want.

Wear something different! Let me see something of your personality  beyond the Simpsons tie that your kids got you for Christmas that you think is a little bit risque.
The t-shirt from a gig or a charity you support. A pair of trainers that Michael Jordan would think is pushing it a bit much. A hairstyle that says "Yep, I'm a hippy".

How can you possibly hope to bring creativity, inspiration and FUN to work if you checked YOU in at the employees entrance?