Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

 I am not any stranger to looking for a new job.  When I was in big firm management consulting, I used to say, "The one thing about this job is that you are always looking for the next one."  Whether you are on the bench or on an engagement, you should always be spending time out of your day planting seeds for the next engagement or job opportunity.  Unfortunately, I have not followed my own advice in over a decade.  Now, I'm  trying to resurrect relationships and break through AI job site filters -- and all the job search horror stories that happen on LinkedIn are happening to me. Whether you haven't looked for a job in a few weeks or since before COVID, here's what I've learned:  There are people that genuinely want to help. Cherish those people and reciprocate accordingly.  There are people that you thought you knew, that will disappear on you. (I think the kids call it ghosting). I'll be honest in that I'm no angel. I'm sure I've done it to...

When is the right decision to tap out? If I meant this literally, you would do it before you either passed out, or were seriously / critically injured in a MMA fight.  Since I'm writing metaphorically, this refers to coming to the conclusion that enough is enough and it's time to take massive action and exit your current situation.  I'm not talking about disengaging from your job or work (i.e., just show up, take orders and collect a paycheck.) I'm talking about actively searching to get the f*ck out of your current role or responsibility.  If you are like me, the struggle in situations like these is wondering if your next situation is going to be any better. Also, if you genuinely want to make a positive impact, you really want to believe that you can solve every problem and fix anything.  Before you get too far into a situation, stay present enough when you first start to notice signs of danger.  There isn't a need to list what th...

"When tha sh*t goes down ya better be ready (When tha sh*t goes down)... -  Cypress Hill, When the Sh*t Goes Down Are you prepared to be successful at the next level?  If you are a consultant, have you done the right thing by working yourself out of multiple jobs while moving up the consulting hierarchy? If you are in management, have you improved and grown out of your position allowing for younger managers to come and fill in? If you are an executive, are you thinking about who will succeed you? The bottom line is that you need to be prepared to have someone competent and capable at the next level when you are about to move on. (See The Peter Principle for the antithesis of that statement.) Unfortunately, that preparation rarely happens.  It's like saying every pro basketball player would make a great head coach, general manager, or commentator.  We all know that this is not the case.  So make sure your plan to move to the next level includ...

"We don't need it do we? It's fake that's what it be to 'ya, dig me? Don't believe the hype... -- Public Enemy, Don't Believe The Hype When you are looking for new opportunities, it's natural to get drawn to all of the marketing and propaganda that's out there.  You'll see things like "The Best and the Brightest,"" Top 25 Places to Work,""Top 100 Up and Coming Companies," etc...  In order to get what you believe is a full picture of the company that you are interested in, you go to sites like Glassdoor where you'll see two extremes: people that are super stoked that they work at said company or people that are one step away from walking into the office and spraying everyone.  If you are really good at due diligence, you talk to a friend, or friends of friends that work for your target organization and listen to all of the things that confirm the bias that you already have planted in your mind.  ...

There was one of those motivational picture things on Linkedin that said,  A bad job with a good boss is better than a good job with a bad boss.  Then there's another one that says,  People don't leave companies, they leave bad leaders (or managers ).    Which one is it?  I agree with the Marcus Buckingham point of view that people have to like what they do.  When people like what they do, then who they work with becomes far more tolerable. For example, when I left a big Firm, I loved who I worked with and I liked what I did.  I developed many friendships and have seen many people that I have worked with become successful in their own right.  Along the ride, I had many leaders and managers that weren't very fun to work with. But the reason I stayed is that for the most part, I genuinely liked the people that I worked with.  For the majority of us, we are not exactly in a good job- we are in a job that is acceptable or t...

Unfortunately, to make sense of a messy, volatile world, leaders often shoehorn people into tidy categories that don’t reflect their full range of wisdom. - HBR - The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice If you join an organization that puts you in a box is it your fault or the organization's fault?  If your manager or leader doesn't understand all that you are capable of, is it your responsibility to inform him or her?  The answer is an emphatic "yes." The big BUT is that you have to put a limit on the number of times you tell your boss or manager what your capabilities are. The reality is that the reason that you've been put in a box is not because you haven't demonstrated your capabilities, it's because people naturally categorize things into the simplest form possible that they can understand.  If you are not being recognized for your capabilities and potential it may initially be for lack of communicating what those capabilities are.  But a...

If you are a conspiracy theorist like I am, you believe that your company is either for you or against you. It's a ridiculous thought because a company is not a living, breathing, biological organism with intelligence. But how many times have we referred to our organizations as "the man." (For those of you that can remember that term.)  Because companies are made up of people and run by people. And because people naturally judge others and label them, it's only natural, by the transitive property, to say that companies judge and label their people.  Whether it's under the guise of the performance review or just blatant nepotism, all of us in an organization of measurable size - say greater than 100 people - see and are a part of factions, cliques, and social groups.  From an employer perspective, employees are probably on one list that's associated with one thing - cost.  But from an employee perspective, you probably see yourselves on one of these t...

Consultants are everywhere.  There is no shortage of people wanting to give you his or her opinion.  Even the CEO of Deloitte Consulting, Jim Moffatt, says that there are too many consultants .  But as we all know, if there wasn't demand for such services, there wouldn't be the supply.  Just as there are enough people wanting to give advice, there are enough out there asking for an opinion or two.  Whether the advice is heeded or not is a topic for a separate discussion. What separates the good consultants from the so-so ones is that they think about these three questions as they work with clients.  Am I providing value for what I am charging (daily/weekly)? For example, if your bill rate is $100/hour and you work 40 hours a week, what did you provide for $4,000? I would say that a lot of us may struggle with that question which makes it even more important for you to prove your worth day in and day out.   How many productive hours did ...

When someone tells you that the organization is flat, be cautious -- actually don't be cautious, run away. People want structure. People want titles. People want hierarchy. It sets a natural order to things.  When everyone has the same title, it actually can cause more confusion -- especially if you fill those titles with people of varying experience and tenure.  Confusion can cause speculation. Speculation can cause disgruntlement. Disgruntlement can cause toxicity.  That's speaking from experience and not observation.  What they don't tell you about the flat organization is there is a clear delineation between the top and the bottom. We'll call it "The Great Wall."  You are better off being hired directly into the top layer of a "flat" organization rather than trying to barge through that great wall.  So before someone sells you on the perks of working for a flat organization, look past the sales pitch and ask the hard qu...

A question that I get asked a lot is, "What do you want to do?"  And every time I answer it, I have to stall and say, "Well, that's a very good question."  When you are a generalist and are used to providing answers that you think the other person wants to hear, it's an  impossible question to answer authentically. After all, a generalist has made a career by figuring out how to do anything.  I mean, if you are asking me what I really want to do-  it's win the lottery, travel the world, and have experiences that I can talk about that are once in a lifetime. Oh, and I'd like to finish  my DJ lessons too.  And then there's reality.  How do you find the place where work doesn't feel like work?  Where is that place where you know you belong and aren't wasting valuable energy trying to fit in?  The self-help answer is that it's all a state of mind.  My answer is that the self-help answer is not helpful at all. Life is ...

In the management consultant profession, consultants are paid for 1 of 2 things: to solve problems; or do something that clients don't have the resources or capabilities of doing themselves.  If you stay in the profession long enough, you begin to develop a false sense of confidence -- something along the lines of, "whatever your problem is, I'm sure that I'll find a way to solve it -- I'm THAT smart."  After all, who wants to go the consultant that says, "I don't know."  Sometimes, as consultants, it's actually in our best interest to say, "I don't know." The alternative is that we provide our clients with a half-baked answer that that ends up making a client's situation the same or worse, rather than better.  It's like asking your family doctor to solve an eye problem when the best recommendation would have been to send you to an ophthalmologist.  As you progress though the consulting profession (or probably ...

The worst thing that can happen in a job is being asked to leave without knowing why.  In the past I've written about being rolled off of a project and describing it as one of those life failure moments.  In the world of management consulting where failure is not an option, being asked to leave before it's your time is the kiss of death from a career standpoint.  But we all know that that's not the case.  At least from a"being rolled off" standpoint, the Partner was good enough to sit face-to-face with me and tell me that I wasn't meeting his expectations. It didn't really feel good at the time and I still look back upon that moment as one that completely sucked, but at least I got honest feedback.  But what do you do if a client fires you and does not give you any reason whatsoever?  Is that and should that be acceptable?  In my opinion, as a grown adult, there should be reasons as to why someone is fired or rolled off. How likely is it ...

If you stay in professional services long enough, at some point your salary is going to cap out.  For those of us that continue to trade time for money, at some point you are going to run out of time and the market is going to stop paying for you at a certain rate per hour.  It's at that point that companies make up for the cap by offering equity, incentive based variable compensation, or some other benefit that compensates for the fact that you can go no higher in your salary without the company making some margin off of you.  For some that have a "number," they may never reach that cap.  But for the ones that know that the only reason to work this hard is because there is a brass ring or a carrot that could feed Bugs Bunny for his lifetime-- realizing that you've been capped out is a frustrating circumstance.  There is no reason to make professional services a career unless a.) you really love what you are doing and feel what you are getting for your...

About this time last year, I wrote that clients were not paying me for my advice .  I have a point of view that as a consultant within certain bill rate spectrums, clients are paying you to "do" and not to "advise."  It's the difference between what you pay a guy to put up sheet rock versus what you pay the person doing your interior decorating.  One relationship is very commoditized and transactional in nature. The other relationship is specialized and somewhat personal.  In the local consulting market, companies are offering commoditized service offerings. There are very few cities out there that have enough demand by a specific industry where you can hang up a shingle and make big firm money.  Therefore, you have to provide a series of offerings, generic in nature, that apply ubiquitously across multiple companies and multiple industries.  Unfortunately, because you are now a commodity, whatever expertise you may have is now ...

Sooner or later, we leave our jobs for bigger, better, and other things. Very few of us stay at the same job until we retire.  Very few of us are actually doing things that we were formally trained for.  I would say that from my business school class, I can count on one hand the number of people I know that are still with the same company. But even they have rotated into a job that is in an entirely different function than what they studied in school.  Even though I'm in the same profession, I've observed that people leave 3 types of companies or organizations. I'll give them nicknames so that they stick.  The Phantom Zone : Like the place that Superman sends villains to that is caught between time and space, this is the place that you hardly remember once you leave. The only way you remember it is when a former cellmate brings up something that triggers a memory of how miserable it was.  The Machine: This is a place that is too big to...

If you are like many Type A individuals, promotion and title represents your status in the world. You are racing to make CXO, Partner, Director, or VP to either keep up with or outpace your peers. Titles are the easiest way to compare yourself to others. And with LinkedIn, you are fully aware of how far ahead or (behind) you are. Let's be honest. "Sr. Manager" sounds better than "Consultant" any day of the week. (Consultant only sounds goods if you have "Author" and "Entrepreneur" after it.) If you are in your late 30's to mid 40's, and you are a Consultant, companies are going to think that you stayed in the same place in your career -- speaking in generalities of course.  The thing about titles is that your status is within the perception of the person reading your resume or looking at your profile.  In consulting, there are traditional titles that the entire world is aware of. And because industry is now filled with...