Bragging rights

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I encourage my clients to keep a brag book for their accomplishments, small as well as noteworthy. This simple effort keeps self esteem up and focus high. No reason not to drink my own cool aid. ?This page is my personal brag book. Come back often to read about new accomplishments.

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March 10 – Philip negotiated the final offer on his new VP job in London. The transition expenses threatened to be a deal killer until he decided to take my advice to allow the hiring company to do the right thing.

We used Google Docs to share a spread sheet on which Phil listed all his current income compared to the projected. [Delighted to learn about this new tool.] We then created columns with all the expenditures and incidental financial issues, including lost opportunity and taxes on monies he’d have to liquidate from savings to pay off the the mortgage after the sale of his home. He finally saw all the details in one place.

Once we established his go/no-go number, (he previously did what most of us do, he just pulled a number out of the air on a best guess basis) we were ready to negotiate. He shared his data with the company and without threats or strong arms, helped them do the right thing.

As Philip often said, my coaching is all about nuance. “How can we get as close to what I need as possible?” instead of “If you can’t do at least this, I can’t take the job.”

Outcome? They exceeded his go/no-go and Philip moves his family from California to London next month. He was such a joy to work with because he not only trusted me, he acknowledged my support, often and with detail. No mystery he is such an accomplished leader.

March 25 – Sarah just called to say she accepted the job as Executive Director of a $100 million organization in Seattle. She was new in town and in three months found four opportunities for which she was taken seriously.

Sarah is 50+ yet ageism played no noticeable part in her efforts. Why? Because she led with examples and outcomes that mapped directly to the needs of prospective employers. She was a wonderful client and thanked me profusely for the networking and interview tips she assures me made the difference in this successful outcome. Her outstanding credentials had a lot to do with it, but this time, she found people listened. I am so proud of Sarah and she is glad she learned new life skills.

He had never been a CEO but had run a business unit which grew from $0-$150MM in three years. He had managed high performing teams with no significant turnover but he still thought like a technology vice president. Our challenge? Convert his thinking and speech to CEO-ness and help employers focus on his accomplishments, not former title. ?Solution? Role playing, special attention to all his emails so they conveyed outcomes that mapped to the employer’s needs and the tipping point, ?a “What I will do in the first 90 days” document. He learned to talk in terms of strategies instead of tactics. The employer was so impressed with his 90 day plan they invited the other three contenders to write one as well. Then he wowed them with introductions to his impressive personal board of directors who closed the sale on his behalf. He was made the job offer and told it was the first time the Board of Directors ever voted unanimously for anything.

Acknowledgement is a form of valuing. Asking their opinion goes a long way towards accomplishing the goal.

What outcome do you anticipate?How do you think this will affect xxxx?Are there other variables to consider?I appreciate the speed with which you accomplished this because xxxxThis works well with our overall plan because….How can we involve other departments to get buy in?

As a newly minted senior executive, Ron knows how?how valued he feels when invited to take on a high visibility task. To encourage his directs, he can delegate something important: Can you pull together xxx and present during our all department status meeting?

I fired a client today. My track record of almost perfect success helping technology executives reach their stated goals proves to me my advice works.

My most recent client rejected all my advice because in his view, nothing would work because he knew what people are thinking, how they will react. In every scenario, he painted a negative outcome. He painted himself powerless.

I had no tools to help him. ?He could not accept he could affect the outcome of any situation. He could not accept that the reason I couldn’t help him was because he would not take charge of his life. ?He actually accepted his company’s demand to move to California simply because he ‘knew’ he had no choice. ?He refused to begin a dialogue with them because he was convinced he’d be fired.

I simply can’t help someone who doesn’t accept they are in control of their lives. They may not like all the outcomes resulting from being assertive, but they don’t have to roll over and accept what is unfavorable for them. In the case above, the client would rather take a huge cut in salary (state taxes and cost of living) and move to a job he didn’t want simply because he feared discussing his needs would result in dismissal. I tried to convey the company felt he was important enough to move to CA so surely they would at least listen to his concerns. His negativism over ruled any common sense.

He packed his bags and I packed mine.

We negotiated to get exactly what he needed. He was offered a lower base and no sign- on bonus. Yet he had to sell his home and owed the bank $100,000. We negotiated a $135,000 sign on bonus to take care of that and raised his base by $25,000 with an additional 15,000 shares of pre-IPO stock. Both sides negotiated in good faith and the client could not be happier. He was willing to eat the mortgage cost but I suggested we give the employer the opportunity to consider helping. We were frank and even offered a spread sheet of all the financial variables compared to his current situation. After three sessions, we won what the client needed to say yes, yes, yes.

Luddite teaches techie how to tweet. There is no rule in life that says just because one is in the world of technology that one learns all new tools by osmosis. Using Twitter for executive branding is important and requires more than just an occasional tweet. ?Today, I helped a client up his game using various Twitter tools and and new habits. The irony is I still don’t text or web search from my phone and in general eschew new technologies that don’t have a clear and immediate impact on my life without excessive ramp up. Though I do own a Kindle and an iPad, thanks to grateful clients.

Help them do the right thing. Career Advice for an angry client. My client was angry. His boss had just done something thoughtless and quite damaging to my client’s future. He had every reason to be angry. I let him vent then asked him to work with ?me on a solution. He felt an email was too submissive. I advised he was too angry and emotional to talk to him and that allowing his boss to do the right thing is the first step.

We crafted a message acknowledging the boss’s intent and mentioned ‘I doubt it was your intention, but the result of that action will greatly impact my situation. It is my hope you will reconsider.’

He did and the problem vanished. Client no longer angry and learned the first step in any potentially inflammatory situation is take the high road and assume the doer was thoughtless, but not malevolent.

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