Review: Escape from Corporate America

When Alex sent me his wife's first book, I took a lot of time to get down to reading it. It was the early proof and the cover wasn't what you see on the left side.

Then I wished I hadn't kept it off for so long.

Escape from Corporate America written by Pam Skillings is ,first and foremost, a joy to read. More often than not, business related books are absolutely boring to read, even if the content is quite interesting.

Pam however is a writer who knows her mettle. And she knows what she's talking about. As someone who wanted to be a journalist and ended up working in corporate America to earn her paycheck her book's message is a simple one : "If you are doing something that you are hating just because you think there is no other option, you need to treat yourself better"

Doing so she looks at the people who have left corporate roles behind and started alternate careers, from people like Dilbert creator Scott Adams and Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton.

Skillings is right when she says that most people on most days don't find meaning and engagement in what they do. They spend majority of their waking hours and they don't know how they are getting through it. Most employers are not known for being generous employers and except for a handful it translates that a majority of employers are 'bad places' to work.

She tells the story of an investment banker who became a chef, for example. And she addresses the doubts and risks that all of us have before going so.

This book is not for the entrepreneur to be, or how to make up business plans for venture capital and PE firms. It is a steady nudge showing a mirror on us asking us are you truly happy at your work?

Of course, there are lucky few who get, well, lucky. The learning for us HR types is how we can make that a reality for others too. Pam has a questionnaire that Bob Sutton blogged about here.

Of course as a HR professional I wish Pam had included concepts like Career Anchors and Job Sculpting but I'm not complaining. With these numbers of disillusioned or disengaged employees why are HR groups not doing something to change that statistic.

The chapter that resonated with me most was solopreneurship. Probably because I had done it. I just wish I had this book to read before I took the plunge, maybe things might have been a lot smoother. Pam offers a lot of very practical advice on how to get solopreneurship to work for you.

But as Seth Godin says, sometimes not taking a risk is the biggest risk of all.

Am not sure if the book is available in India (it just launched on 13th May) but you should read it. Even if you are very happy in a corporate job. It makes you look clearly and with humor on what you are giving up on. And that's always good to know :-)

P.S. You might want to read the excepts at Forbes.com

If children or other family members rely on you financially, it's important to make sure that they will be taken care of during the transition. Making an educated financial plan will be a top priority, and you will have to put more money aside to ensure that all essential costs are covered.

Still, while such preparations may take longer, the benefits can more than compensate. You may have more time to spend with your family as a result of your career change. You will definitely be more fun to hang around with once you're working in a career that energizes you.

Many of the successful corporate escapees I interviewed had families to support, and quite a few were the primary breadwinners. They approached their career changes a bit more cautiously than others, but they didn't settle for career drudgery just because they had responsibilities.

HR certifications not any great help says reader

apeksha left a comment on "Talent shortage in HR in India?":

We have a whole lot of graduates being churned out each year..unfortunately most of them though talented, are not from a "recognized" college, or lack the right 'attitude'.

as for having a body like CIPD, i dont know. I just became a graduate member of CIPD, will get my degree from the university of Edinburgh..and i still cant find anyone who wants to hire me becuz i do not have "adequate" experience

Last Friday I attended a meet of SHRM India at the Satyam School of Leadership in Hyderabad. Nina Woodard head of SHRM in India, was talking about the PHR, SPHR and GPHR certifications that SHRM's HRCI body offers. While PHR and SPHR are very US specific certifications, GPHR certification seems to be the only one for non-US professionals to take. However the eligibility for that seems limited to HR leaders who are already delivering global HR processes.

Of course, there exists the other route to develop HR professionals, which is by building their skills like CII, National NHRD Network and XLRI are trying to do together. However, in my view that is a much slower model and might not take newer competencies that are becoming essential to HR professionals into account.

Subverting Monsterindia.com's usage policies

I got this very interesting email from someone recently:

Hi,

We have Monsterindia.com if u

Wanted to share my account at low cost (See below). And if u are interested pls contact us immediate.

Hours - Total( 1 year) - Installment

6pm - 9am(eve) - 24000/RS - 2000/RS (Month)
9am - 6pm - 48000/RS - 4000/RS (Month)
24 hours - 60000/RS - 5000/RS (Month)


Note: Give us ur full contact details..

Thanks,

So is this a new idea for recruiters or smaller organizations on how to make additional revenue? If so, then I am sure it violates some of Monsterindia.com's terms and conditions of usage. Guess it's this one:

Users are also prohibited from violating or attempting to violate the security of any Monster Site, including, without limitation the following activities: (a) accessing data not intended for such user or logging into a server or account which the user is not authorized to access;

Am not sure if this is a rampant scheme or some chap just came up with this idea and was unfortunate enough to mail me.

I guess the feedback for Monster is that their services are probably overpriced for some of their clients and they should have some other schemes particularly for small and medium enterprises.

I wonder if these practices are also happening to the other jobsites like Naukri and Timesjobs?

Can't the webmasters scan for different IP addresses using the same employer id? Those would be very suspicious cases for such usage.

The Case for Shallow relationships

Ford Harding, consultant and expert on Professional Services Marketing, posts on his blog:

The characteristics of a good, though not-deep relationship include mutual respect as people and as professionals and commitment to help each other, if in limited ways. They do not need to include shared interests beyond the narrow field in which the two people network together.

At this level the born-again Christian and the atheist give to each other and get back. The sports nut and the ballet buff work to make each others’ lives better. People whose countrymen are at each others’ throats look out for each others’ welfare.

This is not a utopian vision. It exists in many heavily networked markets. It is not a formula for world peace, but can make our lives more interesting and rewarding.

Remember one more thing about these less than profound relationships: Anyone who has been out of work or had a personal crisis learns that it is not always the people you expected to who help you the most. Sometimes the deep relationships are not as deep as we had thought and some of the shallow ones aren’t so shallow.

I often see in networking groups that my friend Vincent Wright manages that unknown people volunteer to help with nary a thought about getting 'returns'. Such people understand the actual meaning of networking.

I'll be at the SHRM India meet at Hyderabad today

If you are going to be there too, then let's meet.

SHRM India is the Indian chapter of the Society of Human Resources Management.

Details here. Call Shrividhya to get more info.

Setting Up a Competency Center

An email a reader sent me:

Let me introduce myself. I head the competency management center at xyz, inc.

I request you to share your knowledge on, setting up a Competency Center. I would want to work on the following this year

1. Setting up the state of art infrastructure.
2. Come out with a robust model for training of all employees in soft skills.

Pl do guide me on coming out with a good working plan.


for point 1. Setting up the state of art infrastructure: I would ask you to take the following into account:

Growth of the business
Kind of Competency Development needed
Budgets

For point 2. [Come out with a robust model for training of all employees in soft skills.] I would suggest you to:

1. have a discussion with the heads of the business
2. come up with gaps between current competency and future needs of business
3. Analyse if it makes sense to build the competency or acquire it. For example if the organization is going for a strategic change in direction it might need to hire different kinds of people than trying to make the current people develop different skills/mindsets. Skills are easier to build. Mindsets are not
4. Decide on your delivery plan - classroom, e-learning, blended learning depending on how your people are distributed.
5. Link these development initiatives to actual work, by way of projects and give people's managers accountability for the success.

Hope that helps!

The role of trainer

On a training e-group there was a discussion whether it is correct or proper for trainers to use the group as a resource bank to ask for presentations on various soft-skill topics.

This got me to think about the role of a trainer and I posted this email to the group:

This dependence on "slides" still means that we trainers are on a "Teaching" mode.... the sage on the stage

To really achieve learning amongst adult learners I would suggest using the different aspects of adult learning like active experimentation, reflective observation, concrete experience and abstract conceptualisation (ref: Kolb's learning theory)

Only then can we move from a "teaching mode" to a "facilitator of learning", being the "guide by the side"

People in a training room have collectively more wisdom and learning than the trainer, and the true role of a trainer is to get them to express it and share it with each other and crystallise it. A trainer is a catalyst.

When you try to teach adults, they will never learn

Plaxo taking on Linkedin

Stealthily contact management site Plaxo has been adding functionalities to take on business networking site Linkedin as well as trying to become a platform for people to integrate their disparate online personas (like Friendfeed for example)

So when I logged in today to Plaxo (I am still a Linkedin regular :-) I noticed that Plaxo has added people search abilities.
Then there's the option to add your professional profile, which you might agree does not link very clearly to its stated position of being a "address book for the web"
But Plaxo's most interesting feature is Plaxo Pulse which tells you what your connections have been twittering, blogging or connecting with others.

In fact, one can now setup a public profile that can been seen by others with a easy to remember URL like mine is http://gautam.myplaxo.com/

Should Linkedin be worried? Maybe not in the short term, since Plaxo is still limited to the early adopters and its earlier privacy concerns haven't really gone way. However, if Linkedin does not iron out its performance issues, people might start using Plaxo increasingly more.

Getting Free and Getting High

I recently completed an online survey on Career Anchors that my Organizational Behavior professor from XLRI, Dr. R.K. Premarajan asked his former students to do.

According to his conclusion my top two career anchors are:

Getting High - High career anchor indicates a passion for solving the unsolvable –a constant drive to take on challenge.
Getting Free – People with autonomy as career anchors cannot stand to be bounded by rules. They tend to do it in their own way, their own time and their own standards. They prefer work where the goals are defined but the means of accomplishment are left to the person.

Hmm, explains quite a lot about why my career has gone the way it has until now :-)

Which are your primary career anchors amongst the following?

• Getting Ahead – People having an overriding interest to influence, manage and lead others. They value positions and power and prestige and possess a range of competence required for general managerial roles.
• Getting Secure – People have an overriding need to feel safe and secure and have a predictable future. They may prefer stable predictable work with low risk.
• Getting Free – People with autonomy as career anchors cannot stand to be bounded by rules. They tend to do it in their own way, their own time and their own standards. They prefer work where the goals are defined but the means of accomplishment are left to the person.
• Getting Balanced – These people believe in integrating the professional life with the total lifestyle. They enjoy working for organizations that recognize personal and family concerns.
• Getting High - High career anchor indicates a passion for solving the unsolvable –a constant drive to take on challenge.

Edgar Schein did a lot of work with career anchors. Here is what he came up with:

1. Autonomy/independence - wanting to be self reliant - useful with today's contracting out.
2. Security/stability - wanting to remain with one employer for life - not so likely any more.
3. Technical/functional competence - to identify with a professional discipline.
4. General management - having a broad, overview, facilitating role, not a specialist.
5. Entrepreneurial creativity - a premium wherever innovation drives competitiveness.
6. Service - dedication to worthwhile causes ranging from the environment to poverty.
7. Pure challenge - just solving difficult problems - no pattern necessary.
8. Life style - disinclination to sacrifice life style solely for career advancement.

Also take a look at Life Interests and Job Sculpting.

Insights You Can Get from Exit Management

Exit Insights By Tvarita Consulting

From: gautam, 24 minutes ago

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How can you manage your exit process better? Some thoughts and approaches by Tvarita Consulting


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