So when your manager comes by and asks you to bend some rules or company standards out there to expedite whatever your manager needs done, you just go ahead and do it. Right?

Right?

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And what do the pundits ask us when we want to change? This one: “What will make you happy?” Or worse: “What goals do you want to set for yourself?”

It is the wrong question.

When we’re in a position that isn’t satisfying, we can have many different emotions. There is a “bunker” mentality that is prevalent in companies with persistent layoffs. This prevents us from moving on even though we know it is the right action to take.

There is the feeling of paranoia, where we believe management (or our teammates) are out to get us.

There is anxiety — about most everything from being laid off to wondering about the performance review.

But, the big one for me is boredom. The work is boring. Boring, boring, boring.

And with boring work, it is tough to answer the question “What will make you happy?” Because the easy answer is “just to get out of here into a different job.” Which will, of course, become boring soon enough.

The right question

If boring is bad, it isn’t happiness we seek. No, as the title of this article says, the right question is “What excites you?”

It is excitement we should seek and happiness will follow. Whatever excites us engages us in our work. Whatever excites us translates to passion. Whatever excites us is visibly seen by others we work with during our day.

It is excitement that gets us up in the morning. It is excitement that helps us work through the problems. It is excitement when we want to learn new skills.

What excites you?

Implementing a Membership option, creating the on-line Brilliant Career Basics course, and getting newsletters going on this site is exciting to me (call me crazy!). What excites me is helping others learn how to navigate their career. How to make choices about their work. How to deal with poor bosses and overcome unrelenting corporations driven to profit when we have to work for the very same corporations. Figuring out the best way to help the readers of this site and the students who want to get their career in gear.

All of it is hard work and long hours. But when you are excited, the engagement — the flow — is incredible.

So when you are looking to reboot your career, ask yourself what excites you. Not what makes you happy.

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Yes, it is easy to see that all of the foundations we are used to having in our work are just falling apart. There is no job security, tough to get any credit, and more work to be done.

When all that is around you is falling apart, where do you focus?

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There’s a reason this site is for “Cubicle Warriors.” It is because people who work in cubes for Corporations need to fight to keep their jobs and successfully navigate their careers. The need to fight comes from the consistent frustration, indignation and feeling of powerlessness that comes from working for companies that manage to profit and consider their customers and employees as transactions to that profit.

While it is understandable that business needs to make a profit, along the way executives of corporations focused on shareholder wealth at the expense of their employees and customers.

Carryover to politics

In a well-written critique of top management in American Corporations in Business Week, Shoshana Zuboff lays down the gauntlet in “Obama’s Victory: A Consumer-Citizen Revolt:”

This column is dedicated to the top managers of American business whose policies and practices helped ensure Barack Obama’s victory. The mandate for change that sounded across this country is not limited to our new President and Congress. That bell also tolls for you. Obama’s triumph was ignited in part by your failure to understand and respect your own consumers, customers, employees, and end users. The despair that fueled America’s yearning for change and hope grew to maturity in your garden.

Millions of Americans heard President-elect Obama painfully recall his sense of frustration, powerlessness, and outrage when his mother’s health insurer refused to cover her cancer treatments. Worse still, every one of them knew exactly how he felt. That long-simmering indignation is by now the defining experience of every consumer of health care, mortgages, insurance, travel, and financial services—the list goes on.

Obama was elected not only because many Americans feel betrayed and abandoned by their government but because those feelings finally converged with their sense of betrayal at the hands of Corporate America. Their experiences as consumers and as citizens joined to create a wave of revolt against the status quo—as occurred in the American Revolution. Be wary of those who counsel business as usual. This post-election period is a turning point for the business community. It demands an attitude of sober reappraisal and a disposition toward fundamental reinvention. If you don’t do it, someone else will.

The article goes on to outline how business came to this point, from being accepted in the social fabric of America to the loss of trust by anyone who deals with the company. When the mission is profits and keeping executive perks, customers, suppliers, and employees are reduced to transactions that serve to fill the coffers.

AIG is a prime example

A perfect example of this out-of-touch management is AIG, the insurance company that took on insuring every credit default swap on the planet to increase profits — only to have them all come crashing down.

A mere $150 billion of taxpayer bailout money later, top executives at AIG just don’t get it. After being saved by billions of taxpayer dollars, AIG paid a pittance of “$47 million severance package to former Chief Executive Martin J. Sullivan, whose resignation took effect on Tuesday.”

Plus, “Sullivan also will hold on to outstanding equity and long-term cash awards valued at about $28 million, the filing said.”

And while some education of those that sell their products makes sense, the lavishness of the events — my part of the bailout pays for spa treatments??? — does not:

American International Group Inc. said Thursday that it would cancel most of its planned events after lawmakers castigated the insurer for hosting a $440,000 function at a resort while benefiting from an $85-billion government bailout.

The cancellations include an event that was scheduled for next week at the Ritz-Carlton in Northern California’s Half Moon Bay. The gathering that drew the rebukes was held last month at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point. About 100 independent insurance agents who sell coverage for New York-based AIG attended, spending $23,000 on spa services, among other things.

One would call this “tone deaf” to the needs of taxpayers. And employees.

The trust is gone

Yes, the trust is gone. As much as I would love to get on board with a company mission run by executives, I come back to my senses quickly knowing that I could just as easily be laid off in a cold-blooded minute. All the while the corporate executives pilfer the company for salaries and benefits that are far beyond the hopes of people who work in cubicles.

And if they screw up? Those nice $47 million “severance” contracts will certainly help tide them over while people who work in cubes are lucky to get a month’s pay.

The Cubicle Warrior

So we end with the need to face the reality of corporations today. Yes, we want to have satisfying work. Yes, we want the opportunity to build our skills and show off our performance.Yes, we would love to give ourselves to something bigger; something that working for our company could make a difference in the world past merely making a buck.

But underneath all of those aspirations is this low-level anxiety about our jobs. A low-level indignation at how employees are treated. A low-level frustration that even though we know how to make things better, we have no voice. And we have long lost the outrage of corporate executives and the pilfering of their companies to support a lifestyle that no longer connects them to their employees and customers.

We wonder why management hasn’t figured out how to understand their business well enough to see disasters in the making. Why they have one answer to downturns: laying off their employees while keeping their bonuses. Why there isn’t a sense of decency and respect to the lives they are impacting with their simple sounding “reduction in force” statements — so they could be prevented.

And management wonders why there isn’t “employee engagement.” Why employees don’t just support what management is saying. Why the spin isn’t accepted as truth. Why the water cooler gossip is “must hear’ news. It is, after all, for our protection.

And that’s unfortunate.

So we hope for the best — and prepare for the worst. This is why we are Cubicle Warriors.Similar Posts:

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• None Found

Let’s be clear: there isn’t a lot of great news out there in the job market. If you look at some of the previous definitions of unemployment, the total is higher than the current 6.5%.

October’s layoffs continued the 15-month-long decline in the Employment Trends Index and it is now down 11.8% from a year ago.

And with quotes like this one, it will undoubtedly be getting worse before it gets better:

“The economic developments of the last two months made it clear to businesses that demand for goods and services in the U.S. is declining, and businesses are responding by aggressively slashing their payrolls,” said Gad Levanon, economist at the Conference Board, in a report.

“Unfortunately, it seems this environment will persist for several more quarters and business leaders will continue reducing their workforce,” he added.

For knowledge workers, no surprise, we’re in an adverse environment. Companies haven’t planned well for a downturn and will now over-react to payrolls. You’d think after 20-years of this the management teams out there would have had a better way of controlling expenses now, wouldn’t you?

Understand your reality

But reality is reality and that’s what we deal with here on Cube Rules. And in any environment, there are opportunities.

In an adverse environment, the first work that is done is understanding your situation. Without understanding your situation, you won’t be able to plan accordingly.

Here’s what you need to get written down to get an understanding of your situation:

• Is your department on track to meet your budget?
• Is your company currently laying off people?
• Is your industry currently laying off people?
• What is your current probability of being laid off?
• How much work is getting done compared to the amount of talk about how bad things are?
• What is your current financial situation (do you have a year’s worth of take-home pay in the bank?)
• What is your spouse’s job situation using the questions above?
• What is your health insurance situation?

How you answer those questions will tell you a lot about your current situation. It is human nature to ignore the early warning signs of trouble and asking these questions should help you uncover some of these signs.

Get your game plan together

Once you understand your current situation, you should be able to tell the risk of staying or leaving.

If you stay, it is critical that your performance on the job continues to exceed expectations. This is the only way you can preserve salary and bonus amounts of the past since most of both will be going down. Exceeding expectations in your current job differentiates you from others who are wandering around hallways wondering if the world will come to an end. You can control your job performance; you can’t control the world coming to an end. Knowing the difference will make a big difference in your job security.

If you plan on leaving, know that it will take quite a while with the current economic environment. So start doing the work of finding a new job right now. There is a lot to do to find a new position, especially considering that you cannot slack off of your current work to do so.

Adversity builds skills

I had a CIO once that described the interviews for the CIO position and it was enlightening. Gone are the stupid questions of “Tell me about yourself.” Instead, there are the tough questions about your judgment and decision-making in tough times. After all, the good times are easy. Tough times require making serious choices after coming up with a plan that fits the environment. Following through on those choices tells the hiring manager not only your decisions, but your values and character as a person on the team.

Now, I’m not going to go all happy on you and tell you that all is well and adversity is a cool thing. It’s not; no one likes going through adversity.

But knowing your situation and having a game plan to address it through these tough times will build your skills. Without being battle tested, you really aren’t a Cubicle Warrior. This adverse environment is a time to choose to build your career despite the tough times.Similar Posts:

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If you break an interview down to its essence, each party is attempting to learn if each can work together to achieve mutual goals. The hiring manager is determining if the potential candidate (you) can best meet the job criteria for skills and fitting in with the team. The candidate (you) is deciding if the work supports your career and the manager is a person who will help in your career.

So how, as a candidate, do you ask for the sale?

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We want you for another position — later

Preparing for a new position in business is important as well. Yet, there is little out there that has a solid preparation plan for Cubicle Warriors to plan for a new position.

“The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan” is a book that outlines the plan for an executive transition to a new role. Think at the CEO or Senior Vice President titles in a larger corporate organization and you have where the book focuses. I’ve used these types of books for my own personal management before and I wanted to try this one as a guide for knowledge workers in preparing for a new position. The book offers up the right stuff:

• A seven-step process to use for managing the 100-day transition to a new role
• Downloadable forms to use as a way to document the 100-day transition
• Focus on relationship building and not just organization charts
• Understanding the politics of the organization and ensuring a good communications plan
• Excellent techniques to determine information about the company and the role being taken

The book even addresses the importance of SMART goals and how to use them in a performance review, a personally important point as I include it in the Brilliant Career Basics course in Warrior Boot Camp.

Alas, when the authors state their case for the new leader, they really do mean CEO’s and other corporate executives. The information in the book was tough to translate for the leaders of where business meets the cubicle.

Cube Rules Rating: Two Cubes of Five where I didn’t see much value; you might

The book basically outlines the types of consulting services a corporate executive would use (isn’t it great that they can use consultants to plan their job?) in transitioning to a new position. Some of the techniques and steps could be of use to a new manager going into a new position, but would be tough for knowledge workers to use.Similar Posts:

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Here’s four ways to market your career through blogging:

Build subject matter expertise through blogging

Let’s face it: when you start writing on your site, you start learning more about your subject area. Over the course of 600+ articles in about three years, I’ve learned much more about career management than I would have without the writing discipline of Cube Rules. You naturally learn more about your subject as you search for more ideas to write on your site.

The learning is never-ending – and transparent. I’ve read and written enough about Gen-Y and their careers that when my manager in a team meeting asked “what’s the big deal about Gen-Y and managing them? They are just like all employees, aren’t they?” I listed five reasons they are different right off the top of my head. Given the team and manager reaction, you would have thought I was from Mars. It even surprised me. We don’t fully understand that our subject expertise is a differentiator in the market.

This is not an isolated instance. Through writing about your subject, you will automatically become more of an expert in your subject area.

Build career authority through blogging

As your expertise builds, so does your authority. Authority is different from expertise. Expertise is knowledge of a subject. Authority is where you have distinguished yourself enough that people come to you looking for your opinion on your subject.

Authority builds through blogging as you interact with others on-line, develop articles showing thought leadership on your subject and as others link to your articles.

You strengthen this authority when traditional media sources – the press, television, and other news sites – come to you through your writing on your blog.

If you work more in professional services, such as law, accounting or health care, building authority through your blog can easily prove your expertise and authority in your subject area. This authority draws clients, customers and work that interest you most – in areas where you do your best work.

Blogging builds your Personal Brand

A Personal Brand is what skills, values and expertise you bring to the table for your team, customers and market. Everyone has a Personal Brand, whether you write on-line or not. You traditionally build your Personal Brand through working with your colleagues and customers. This limits the exposure to your Personal Brand without more marketing.

Blogging, on the other hand, shows your Personal Brand to the planet. Blogging also improves your brand perception to others. As you write on your subject matter on your site, search engines such as Google record the subjects and give you higher and higher rankings. When potential clients, customers and hiring managers want to know about you, searching your name or company on Google is often the first place they go. Blogging gives you a better opportunity to show your Personal Brand to others interested in your work.

If you Google Scot Herrick, you will see ten pages of subject matter – almost half of it on content that I have created. And the rest on those other Scott Herrick’s out there that happen to spell their name with two “t’s” on Scott. That subject matter will tell you about my Personal Brand.

Blogging helps you market yourself

Let’s be clear: in a global economy, it is harder to market your skills and services to the people you want to attract. If you are an attorney specializing in technology start-up issues, you won’t find that in the Yellow Pages. If you are an accountant specializing in “small business” – or even a more narrow line of business such as “technology small business” – your marketing effort becomes more difficult.

Even if you are a knowledge worker in a corporation, your skills and performance need marketing.

When you build expertise, authority and promote your personal brand through the writing on your site, your marketing effort becomes simpler. You will naturally attract the people you want to interact with through your site. Becoming an authority on a subject, even a narrow one, will bring like-minded people to your site.

And having your services offered on your site will be the logical next step to see for readers coming to find out about your content.

Conclusion

Blogging to market your career takes effort, no doubt. Only you can evaluate if that commitment is right for you. But if you want to become an expert in a subject, have others search you out for your authoritative opinion, show your best self to the world and market your services, blogging is a great tool.

Blogging can be your career marketing platform. What’s your career marketing platform now?

[Note: This is part of a 4-post initiative to help you get started blogging. Read also "Finding Your Blogging Voice" by Marcelo Calbucci, "How to Set Up a Basic WordPress Blog" by Carolynn Duncan, "15-Rules for Business Blogging" by Ian Lurie and "Marketing Your Career Through Blogging" by Scot Herrick]Similar Posts:

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