The Top 10 Commandments Of Work.

I’ve been making a list over the past six months of commandments about work. I get requests all the time to bundle them up into a post. So here they are:

1. Be the go-to person in your area.

Know your industry inside and out, you won't do well if you just know your job. Learn what's happening, who's up, who's down, any new processes and practices, who are the stars, etc.

2. Cultivate and consistently grow your contacts.

You can never have too many friends, colleagues, or connections.Learn how to communicate, both written and verbal. Most people stop once they start a job — this is death for any career. It's not only what you know — it's who you know too.

3. Ensure your superiors and clients ALWAYS look good.

This is not the same as brown-nosing — do the right thing and take care of the people that sign your check. When they move on to bigger and better things they will call, every time.

4. Know your strengths and weaknesses well.

Strengthen your strengths and keep a tab on your weaknesses so they don’t sabotage you.

5. Be totally honest in everything you do.

Even if it hurts in the short run. Solid ethics always trumps sharky snarkiness.

6. Don't ever get trapped into a dead-end position because you're scared of change.

Move. Change is good and will open new doors. Trust me.

7. Treat everyone from the CEO to the janitor with the utmost respect.

Yes, you do have time for everyone — I start conversations with security guards. When my battery is dead, guess who offers a quick jump?

8. Never stop learning.

Stay hungry for knowledge and experience. Not only does it feed itself, it becomes fun.

9. Listen. Don't talk all the time.

People you meet everyday have the most interesting and powerful things to say that can change your life.

10. Mix with other successful people.

To play better tennis you must play tennis with better tennis players. Seek their advice, listen to what they say, and apply it. Go find where they live.

Can you think of any others? Which ones have rung true for you in your career so far?

Who's Got Your Back?

Once again, Keith Ferrazzi's new book flips the idea of a self-help book on its head. Ferrazzi contends that people who build meaningful relationships with others can attain greater personal and professional success. Why you should read this book?

Your Four Mindsets: Intimacy, Generosity, Vulnerability, Candor This follows up on the mindsets Ferrazzi explored in his first book, Never Eat Alone. Building relationships, and repairing relationships, using these mindsets will greatly enhance and fuel all types of relationships, and increase your chances of maintaining strong, successful alliances. These four mindsets are core to building trust.

Build a Dream Team We all have dreams, and we need strong relationships to help us realize those dreams. Once we've accepted that conducting our relationships through the lens of the four mindsets contributes to our success, building a dream team to help us fuel our success is the next logical step. Ferrazzi outlines nine steps to building a dream team. Not sure if the steps work or not, since Ferrazzi doesn't present hardcore evidence that actual, real live individuals have used these steps successfully, but Ferrazzi's nine steps includes many practical and tactical ideas that logically should work, and seem worth trying.

Hold Each Member Accountable Without accountability in the group and among individuals, teams become lazy, complacent, loose focus, and derail. Ferrazzi does a nice job of explaining safe ways to implement accountability measures into your organizational, or dream, teams.

Hands down this will probably be the best book I read this year (Keith does it again!). Run out and get this book ASAP!

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward.

Most people don't realize the power of personal connection on the job. I have many clients today that have lost their jobs and are looking for new employment. Unfortunately, they have worked at their respective companies for a very long time and they find themselves unable to get back that one specific position.

Even though I do coach them to 'reach for the stars', there is a law of diminishing returns. After a certain amount of time (let's say 4-6 months), one needs to be realistic about their search. If you are busting your butt getting interviews and not getting that position, it may be time to click your search down a notch and focus on easier pickings. This happens frequently with C-Level clients that NEED to have another C-Level position. Honestly — they're not many C-Level (or others of that ilk) spots out in business-land today.

My suggestion — instead of beating your head against a wall — take a lower position that will be easier to attract/lock-in. When you get into the invite-only party, show them you're able to do much more than you've been hired to do. Most likely, they will see your capabilities over time and offer you increased responsibility or a better position (with increased pay).

But this scenario only comes with a successful and clear set of personal connections in the new job (I will talk about building personal connections later this week). And you will only get those if you are On The Job.

So don't be so picky and go get that position. Good things sometimes don't come to those who wait.

To Succeed, Sometimes You Need To Change Your Game.

Watching my son's baseball game last night, I saw the coach do something that I didn't like, but I know he had to do. They were down 2 runs and it was the last inning - they had to somehow stack the deck to even the score. What did the coach do? The sides changed, my son was about to be up at bat, and the coach made the decision to move the batting order around (they are allowed to do that) to favor some of the more heavy hitters. What happened? They tied it up and eventually won the game. Now to your career. Sometimes when faced with an immovable obstacle, one needs to change what they are doing. The more hard-headed one is - the bigger the obstacle will become.

Try something new — either go around the obstacle or don't deal with it at all. Some suggestions:

• Job boards and recruiters are not helping your job search - try networking and connecting with influential people.
• Someone on your team keeps complaining about their work — give them one of your projects to work on — they might shut up.
• Feel stuck in your position — build your potential — read books, go to lectures, take a course. Start a blog! Expand your horizons.
• Continuously at meetings all day — stop attending 1 or 2 of them. See what happens. Leave early/show up late.
• Have an open door policy? Nice guy — no time to do anything else. Limit your exposure to the troops. Close that door.
• Current contact list not delivering that job? Time to make a new contact list — get out there and meet some influential friends. Do you know your mayor? Your representative? You should — they are well connected individuals — call them for an appointment today.
• Boss not listening to you? Try another communication method. If email is getting lost in the shuffle, pick up the phone or even better, stop by his door for a quick 2 minute discussion.
• Resume not getting any response? Time to update it with better keywords, action verbs and most of all - Be Concise! Still not working? Try a resume writer (call me for the best ones).

Bottom line - stop hitting your head against the wall. Changing your game — even a little bit — might make all the difference. You might hit a home run.

Out of Work? Here's How To Socially Network & Get That Job!

By Robert "Scobleizer" Scoble at Scobleizer.com. Robert is the KING of Twitter, Facebook, All software, and social marketing in general. This article hits so many personal points I discuss with clients that I just had to post it. So let's all lift our glasses - here's to Robert!

I’m getting a LOT of chats from people who have been laid off. Most of the time I find that they just aren’t presenting a good face to me for me to help them find a new job.

If you are laid off, here’s what you need to do:

1. Your blog is your resume. You need one and it needs to have 100 posts on it about what you want to be known for.
2. Remove all friends from your facebook and twitter accounts that will embarrass you. We do look. If we see photos of people getting drunk with you that is a bad sign. Get rid of them. They will NOT help you get a job.
3. Demonstrate you are “clued in.” This means removing ANYTHING that says you are a “social media expert” from your Twitter account. There is no such thing and even if there were there’s no job in it for you. Chris Brogan already has that job and he’s not giving it up.
4. Demonstrate you have kids and hobbies, but they should be 1% of your public persona, not 99%. Look at my blog here. You’ll see my son’s photo on Flickr once in a while. But mostly I talk about the tech industry, cause that’s the job I want to have: talking to geeks and innovators.
5. Put what job you want into your blog’s header. Visit Joel Spolsky’s blog. He’s “on software.” That’s a major hint that if he were looking for a job that he is totally, 100%, thinking about software. If you want a job as a chef, you better have a blog that looks like you love cooking.
6. Get rid of any 'smart' name/acronym like "LOLCats". Do not argue me on Twitter about this. Google finds Twitters. Do you want your future potential boss noticing that you post LOLCats all day long? Believe me, you do not. It will NOT help you.
7. Post something that teaches me something about what you want to do every day. If you want to drive a cab, you better go out and take pictures of cabs. Think about cabs. Put suggestions for cabbies up. Interview cabbies. You better have a blog that is nothing but cabs. Cabs. Cabs. Cabs all the time.
8. Do not beg for links. If you did the above, you can Twitter me and say “check out my great software blog” though. Include @scobleizer in the tweet so I’ll see it. I’m an egotistical person so I read all Twitter replies that include my @scobleizer name in them. Hint: I haven’t met a blogger yet who is not an egotistical person. Take advantage of it. But no begging.
9. If you want to be a plumber, look for other plumbers to add to Twitter, friendfeed, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Remove all others. Be 100% focused on what you want to do.
10. On Twitter you can tell me what you had for lunch, but only after you posted 20 great items about what you want to do. Look at Tim O’Reilly’s tweet stream. Very little noise. Just great stuff that will make you think (he wants a job as a thinker, so do you get it yet?)
11. IMPORTANT: Invite influentials out to lunch. Getting a job is now your profession. If you were a salesperson, how would you get sales? You would take people out to lunch who can either buy what you’re selling, or influence others who can buy. That means take other bloggers (but only if they cover what you want to do) out to lunch. That means taking lots of industry executives out to lunch.
12. Send out resumes. Make sure yours is up to date and top notch on LinkedIn and other sites where employers look for employees. Craig’s List. Monster. Etc.
13. Go to industry events. I have a list of tech industry events up on Upcoming.org. If you want to be a plumber, go to where contractors go. Etc. Etc. Make sure you have clear business cards. Include your photo. Include your Twitter and LinkedIn addresses. Your cell phone. Your blog address. And the same line that’s at the top of your blog. Joel’s should say “on software.” Yours should say what you love to do. Hand them out, ask for theirs. Make notes on theirs. Email them later with your LinkedIn and blog URLs and say “you’ll find lots of good stuff about xxxxxxxx industry on my blog.”
14. When you meet someone who can hire and who you want to work for - Follow them on Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Their blog. Stalk them without being “creepy.” Learn everything you can about them. Build a friendfeed room with all their stuff. That way when they say on Twitter “I have a job opening” you can be the first one to Tweet back.
15. Tell others where the jobs are. One thing I learned in college is by helping other people get jobs you’ll get remembered. So, retweet jobs messages (if they are relevant to your professional friends and to you). Blog about job openings. Help people get jobs. Hold lunches for people who are jobless. Some of them will get jobs and they’ll remember you and invite you along.
16. Do what you want to do. Let’s assume you’ll be laid off for a year. Are you going to lay around on the couch waiting for a call? No. You will do exactly what you want to do. Want to be an engineer at a great startup? Go and volunteer to work there for free. Make sure you do a blog post about every day you do what you’re doing for free. Say “I could do this for you, call…”
17. Do some work on SEO. Make it possible for people to find you. THINK about how people would search for someone with your expertise and skills. Here’s how, Visit the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Do a search on a word that you think represents best what you want to do. I just did one for “Electrical Engineering” and it brought up a ton of great info about what people are searching for. Include those terms in your blog. And, even better, blog about those things!
18. Remove any hint that you hated your old job from all your online things.

Good luck. It sucks. I know that. I was laid off last time and, who knows, might be laid off again, but if you’re doing all this stuff and you aren’t finding a job, let me know. You know where to find me.

Resume Writing Tips for CEOs.

Baby boomers who’ve enjoyed an uninterrupted string of successes, and have been laid off, are struggling to recapture the magic. By Michael Winerip, a staff reporter at The New York Times.

Greg Sam, 50, has always been a rising corporate star. In his most recent job, as a vice president for Millipore, a company that services the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Mr. Sam built a quality-oversight program from scratch into a staff of 350 working worldwide, from the corporate headquarters in Billerica, Mass., to offices in China, Japan, Ireland and France.

For this, he earned a mid-six-figure income and traveled the globe, making two dozen business trips a year. At Millipore’s 50th anniversary celebration in Puerto Rico, Mr. Sam delivered the keynote speech in Spanish. In France, he sometimes conducted business in French.

In fact, Mr. Sam was so good at what he did, he was fired.

“He came in, built us a global quality assurance program, but now that it’s in place, we don’t need a person of his skills and caliber to continue running it,” said Dr. Martin D. Madaus, the president of Millipore, who fired Mr. Sam during a round of 200 layoffs in December. “Someone with lesser expertise can do the job, because Greg essentially did such a good job.”

As Dr. Madaus explained when he visited Mr. Sam’s office to deliver the bad news, it was nothing personal. But because Mr. Sam was so highly valued until he was fired, Millipore added about $40,000 to his severance package for job placement services.

“The higher up you are,” said Dr. Madaus, whose company employs 6,000, “the longer it takes to find a new job.”

For three months, instead of going to work, Mr. Sam has come to a handsome fifth-floor office in a renovated warehouse overlooking Boston Harbor that is the headquarters of New Directions, a top-of-the-line job-search firm. As its literature says, New Directions specializes in helping unemployed “C.E.O.’s, C.O.O.’s, C.F.O.’s, C.I.O.’s” find their way back up the corporate ladder.

Situated in the heart of Boston with beautiful views; staffed by friendly professionals with advanced degrees; stocked with plenty of fresh-brewed coffee and free lunches; offering glassed-in offices for making calls, New Directions feels like an exclusive corporate retreat — except that the participants have lost their corporations.

Like Mr. Sam, most of the 85 current clients are baby boomers who’ve enjoyed an uninterrupted string of successes that have seemed almost magical, but now, in very bad times, they are struggling to recapture the magic.

Mark Gorham, a Harvard Business School grad and a former Hewlett-Packard vice president, has been unemployed for six months. At first, he said: “I sat around thinking someone will realize how great I am and call me out of the blue. Next, I figured, I’ll throw out my great résumé to search firms and someone will come knocking.”

Now he’s learning networking from Jeffrey Redmond, his personal job coach.

“Mark grew up in an age when being understated about yourself was valued,” said Mr. Redmond, a partner who has been at New Directions since its founding 23 years ago. “At 53, he has to learn to tell his story and, like a marching band, toot his own horn.”

Mr. Gorham is looking for a job using his management skills in the renewable-energy field.

“We try to work on it a little every day,” Mr. Redmond said. “Three contacts today, three tomorrow. At the end of month we have 60 people thinking about this guy who can bring all this knowledge to a growing industry.”

Mr. Gorham dreaded his first networking call in January. For weeks, he and Mr. Redmond rehearsed.

“Like a lot of senior executives, Mark was used to going on and on,” Mr. Redmond said. “He used to give speeches to thousands of people. When there was quiet, he was the one filling in the air.”

They practiced answering questions in 45 seconds.

“Jeff told me I could just talk 40 percent of the time,” Mr. Gorham said.

Mr. Redmond had him write a one-page script.

“We rehearsed to get it shorter,” Mr. Redmond said.

“Before calling,” Mr. Gorham said, “I must have rehearsed five more times at my office at home.”

THAT first call was to a colleague he hadn’t spoken with in eight years.

“I knew he’d be nice,” Mr. Gorham said. “We weren’t supposed to pick the toughest one for our first call. It went a hundred times better than I thought it would. Part of the dread was saying I didn’t have a job. I’ve never not had one. But I realized, I wasn’t calling to say, ‘Hey can you hire me.’ I basically was letting him know what’s going on and getting his advice on my plan. He was very engaged and threw out a bunch of ideas. He said, ‘Let’s get back together.’ Afterward I wondered why was I so worried.”

Mr. Redmond said in its 23 years, New Directions has served 2,400 executives and, typically, they find new positions in seven to nine months, although in a recession that could be a year.

If it is a year, Mr. Sam said his severance will cover him, but after that he would have to dip into savings.

“My frame of mind is realistic, a bit anxious,” he said. “Last night I sat with my wife and we looked at our finances. My philosophy is, be aware of it, manage it, but don’t get obsessed by it — that’s not doing myself or family any good.”

ON a recent Tuesday, Mr. Sam sat in on a seminar about LinkedIn, the online business network. Many of the men attending were dressed as they had for work, in jackets and ties. Though sitting in a room full of such bright, urbane unemployed people could be worrisome, Mr. Sam found it calming.

“When you’re at home,” he said, “you feel you’re the only one.”

He spent six hours at New Directions that day. He had his weekly meeting with his job coach, who gave him tips on cutting his résumé from five pages to three. (Too many bulleted lines like: “Performed due diligence on M & A targets and developed integration plans to extract value and support growth.”)

He met with the New Directions research director, Claire Burday, and asked her to do a search for Food and Drug Administration-regulated companies with sales over $10 million that had offices within 30 miles of places where he would like to live, including his home in Andover, Mass., and his cabin in Vermont.

He spoke with the staff psychologist, Dr. William Winn, who’d given him a battery of tests, and for several hours interviewed him to make sure he was suited for the jobs he’s seeking.

Dr. Winn concluded that it wouldn’t be wise for Mr. Sam to take a position that would focus solely on what’s wrong with a company. Mr. Sam is a builder who needs to be involved in fixing what’s wrong, Dr. Winn noted.

Indeed, asked what he missed about his old job, Mr. Sam said, “There was still plenty of opportunity to improve the company.”

Later, sitting in one of those glassed-in offices, a mob of gulls hovering outside his window, Mr. Sam checked his BlackBerry.

“A call last night from Millipore,” he said softly. “More layoffs. Two directors who worked for me were let go.”

Stay Alive: 10 Career Tips to Win in Bad Times.

I know - things are bad out there and you're worried about your position. Firings are capricious and no one knows where the axe is going to fall next. Based on many of my current client sessions and 20+ years of management and coaching, here are 10 productive actions you can put into practice to solidify your position. 1. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. The news is sensationalized and fear sells. Things are rarely as good as they seem and things are rarely as bad as they seem. If you allow yourself to give in to the news, you will determine your destiny. When people tell me about the bad economy, I tell them “I have chosen not to participate. So let's get to work.”

2. Reach out to your contacts - NOW. Past and present contacts, colleagues and friends are the lifeblood of any career (“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”). The ’robustness’ and recency of your contact list is a great barometer of your career’s health.

• Call your closest contacts & colleagues and ask them how they are. Listen. Don't talk, offer help. Have lunch, drink coffee, and strengthen those contacts!
• Send birthday or ‘just for being you’ cards to keep in touch and make them feel special. No one does this and it makes the recipient feel special.

3. Focus on what you do best. You need to present a extremely positive persona to management - this is the time where they might be looking at cutting the bottom 10%.

• Be a partner to your boss - ask for more work. No one really does it and you will stand out as a “can-do” member of their team.
• Come in early or stay late (or do both!). The perception of a hard worker is a valuable one during bad times. In addition, you might be there when your boss comes back from a grueling exec meeting and needs help with the newly assigned project.
• Be smart and flexible - look at all of your activities and projects - which ones are more important and which are the ones that can be shelved, streamlined or retired?
• The 80/20 rule comes into play - make a list and then review with your boss.

4. Keep your ear to the ground. It is essential in down times to have a clear picture of where your company’s revenues and expenses come from. Companies are retrenching and focusing on the areas that will deliver the highest ROI.

• Stand back and see what projects, departments, or people are slated to be cut.
• Ask questions, read industry journals/blogs, and keep up on the business news.
• Track your company on the web - sometimes you hear something that isn’t currently communicated in your company. But take it with a grain of salt.
• Listen to what your colleagues are saying - but don’t accept it as gospel. Also, don’t add to the gossip or play “what-if” scenarios with them - it will waste time.

5. Look at your “product”. It’s IMAGE, IMAGE, IMAGE. How do you clothes look? How does your hair look? How do YOU look? Hate to say it - it’s perception people. Not only when people first meet you - it’s when they work with you day in and day out. Critically look at yourself and see what you might need to change and how you would go about it.

• Always dress one step above everyone else. No excuses. If everyone is casual, you wear country-club casual. Ensure that your clothes are made of the highest quality and are regularly pressed and clean.
• Spend the money and go to a better barber/stylist. I don’t have much to work with and I still go to one of the most expensive barbers in the area. He makes me look as good as I can.
• Do you need to tone your physique? Hit the gym - watch what you eat. It’s that simple.

6. Connect with new people. The best defense is a good offense. This may be a sports cliche, but right now, it rings true. Now is not the time to go into hiding, based on fear of the recession. It’s the time to ramp up your networking, personal public relations, and marketing to actively remind people of your presence.

• Go to associations, meetings, conventions that are associated with your profession.
• Not only will you meet a lot of engaging people, you will re-energize your batteries AND your might get a lead on a great position!
• Set up coffees and lunches with people that you don’t know, but want to know. We all have people that we admire - reach out to them - take them to lunch. They eat just like you do! And what is the benefit? They are always on the lookout for new talent!

7. Review your resume. Too many people let their resumes grow old gracefully. When they really need them, they have to scramble and cobble together a mish-mash of experience that no one really wants to read. You need to get your resume in order NOW. So some tips:

• Use a professional resume writer. They should run $200-$400, but you will get an incredible document that sells. Call me - I know the best!
• Keep it concise. Unless you have been in the business for 30 years or are a CEO - keep it to 2 pages or less. Again - people are looking for someone who can say less with more impact - your first chance is your resume.

8. Get financially fit. One of the biggest worries people have during downturns is losing their job. They crawl into a hole and hope for the best. Usually, it is financially motivated. How would you feel if you had six months worth of available funds if you suddenly lost your job? A little bit better? A little bit more confident?

• Start now. Having 3-6 months of current income stashed away in a cash account (savings, money market) will allow you to act normally during times like these.
• Worst case scenario? If you do lose your job, you have 3-6 months of full-time looking to find a new one before you begin to really deplete your savings. In addition, you probably will get some type of severance with COBRA - so stop worrying!

9. Talk with your boss. During an economic downturn everyone is skittish and hungry for information. You’re wondering how the company is doing, whether the team is vulnerable to layoffs, or if the strategy for the next few quarters has changed.  Even if the situation is tight, being upfront with your boss about your concerns creates and reinforces an environment of trust.

• Catch them at the end of the day - sit down and just converse with them. During a pause ask (in a very light interrogative tone): “So how are we doing? Is there anything we need to worry about?”. Your boss will probably open up and tell you info that normally they would not tell the team. Try it - it works.
• But if you have a boss that tends to keep information or hide things, watch their body language - if their eyes look downward or away from you when talking - they might be hiding bad news.

10. RE-vision your career. I love downturns in the economy. Why? When executives get scared, they get going and they get SMART. They begin to look at everything they do - how can they use time more effectively? If the company is losing customers, where can they find new and different customers/clients?  Take a step back and RE-vision your career - understand your key interests and strengths and investigate new opportunities in YOUR marketplace.

• Are you still a hot commodity on the market?
• If yes, great - get out there and sell YOU to potential new bidders.
• If no, you need to re-vision your career - measure your capabilities and apply them to the NEW marketplace. I know of a lot of realtors, hedge fund managers and financial planners that are doing this right now.

You need to partner with an expert and co-create your new career vision and direction.  So get going!