Your Communication Skills Stink.

If you pare down your job or business — and take away all the extraneous stuff you do — the most important part is COMMUNICATION. Simple, two-way and CLEAR communication. I give you information and I get your response. You tell me to do something and I tell you when I can get it done. I explain the merits of my products and services and you buy. And on and on and on.

Here's the simple fact — it's not as easy as it looks. In fact, some people tend to screw it up most of the time and wonder why they are being listened to or why their people or clients are not doing what they've been told. Do you find yourself saying:

• "They just aren't listening!"
• "Why are my clients checking out?"
• "Why do I tell my team one thing and they do another?"

If you catch yourself saying these and other choice phrases — you might need to tighten up your communication style.

Communication is a very complex process. When you communicate, you need to keep a sharp eye on the person you are communicating to. Why? There are so many signals where you need to modulate your communication to ensure they are understanding what you're saying.

Communication is made up of two competing spheres:

1. Facts & Information (F&I) - this is the 'what' of the conversation. And usually where you do a good job of transmitting.
2. Emotions & Feelings (E&F) - this is the 'why' of the conversation. And usually where you do a bad job of transmitting.

To communicate effectively, you need to better balance the two. Most of the time, we spend 80-90% of our efforts in F&I and 10-20% in E&F. Unfortunately, in certain situations, you need to increase your E&F — but you don't — and this is where communication breaks down.

Why does this happen? Because communicating facts and information are easy — you just blabber away. Emotions and feelings take a certain amount of restrain — you have to ask questions, listen, and react to the other person's feelings and emotions. And that's hard for most people. It's the EQ (emotional quotient) of the conversation.

The bottom line — if you take the E&F into account and speak to it — your communication success will increase exponentially.

But how do you bridge that gap? Three steps:

1. Bring Them In.

Bring them into the conversation. If you find you are doing all or most of the talking, STOP. Start asking them questions, get their side of the conversation, issue, or situation. Then paraphrase what they said to ensure you are listening correctly, and then ask more questions. We tend to blabber on without a care about the person we are speaking with. One of my favorite phrases to use is "Tell Me More". If that fails . . .

2. Ask Them A Permission Question.

Pause and then ask one of these permission questions:

• May I offer a suggestion . . . ?
• Can we further explore . . . ?
• Would it be alright if . . . ?
• With your permission, can we . . . ?

These permission questions immediately stop the conversation, reverse it, and allow you to better understand what's going on in the head of the person you're speaking with. If that fails . . .

3. Tell Them A Story.

One of the best ways to bridge the gap between Facts & Information and Emotions & Feelings is to tell a related story, example or scenario. It adds weight to the conversation and allows the person to visualize and mentally illustrate what you're talking about.

Each of these steps allows the speaker — YOU — to better communicate, bring the client or team member into the conversation, and hopefully deliver better, faster and more clear communication to whatever you do.

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How Successful Leaders Stay Successful.

It's simple. This prescription is easy to understand and execute — but for some reason, for most people, it's really difficult and complex. So here it is — 

Launch. Declare Victory. Move On. 

Work is made up of a bunch of tasks, activities, projects, initiatives, and deliverables. We work and manage them day in and day out. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget that many of these things we do have a critical half-life. We need to complete them and get them out the door ASAP.

But we don't do that. We keep working on them, we can make them better. We can push them to do a little bit more. In addition, we are sometimes afraid of releasing our deliverables out into the world for fear of failure. So we procrastinate.

So here's my prescription for success (taught to me years ago by a valued boss):

Launch.

Get it out. Set a deadline and stick to it. Put plans in place to make sure nothing can stand in the way of launching, releasing, or completing your deliverable. It could be as big as a new product or as small as a simple presentation. Your job is to get it out and DONE.

Declare Victory.

This one is critical. Build into your plan the ability to put a positive spin on everything you accomplish. Why? Because the typical human being tends to do the exact opposite — they criticize, condemn, and complain about what they deliver. How it's not ready, how you could've done better, how you missed the delivery date by a few seconds.

We all do it. So to be successful, do the exact opposite. Declare victory — let everyone know it's out, it's a success, build up enthusiasm, get people excited. Let them know about all the great things it will do and how it will change their lives.

Move On.

This is the most important part — once you declare victory, move on to something else. Don't rest on your laurels — your last deliverable will start to smell after awhile. So many people launch something or complete a huge project and for the next 3-6 months, bask in the glory and slowly move from delivery to on-going maintenance.

Once you declare victory, move on to something new ASAP. Too many people fall into the trap of sticking around too long at the party and they suddenly become the 'guest that wouldn't leave'. So move on as soon as you can (if you have a hard time doing this, elect someone to push you out the door, hand you your car keys, and drive home).

Why is this a prescription for success? Because it clearly positions you to deliver quickly, market your success, and move on to another great project. Too many times we let nostalgia, inertia, and pure laziness to keep us back when we need to move forward.

Your Communication Skills Stink – Part Two.

Last week, I covered why communication is so important to business. Speaking with your clients, team, peers and boss are all critical to your success and are usually the nexus of problems when things go awry. See Part One here. If you break down the structure of communication, it really is the transmission of information. You say something, I respond. I say something, you respond.

It's a 'Give & Take' relationship, but sometimes the signal lines can be bad. The wires are compromised. Emotions get in the way.

And this can happen in a millisecond. It's probably happened to you — you are speaking with someone and suddenly — they shut down, they get an angry look on their face, or they bite back with venom. It's all happened to all of us — we chose the wrong word, or focused on the wrong example — and BAM! We get hit right in the nose. And it hurts.

Especially when communicating information. When selling to a prospect, instructing a team member, or speaking with a superior, one needs to be SO careful — here is the architecture of the conversation.

On one end is IDU — I Don't Understand. On the other is YDU — You Don't Understand.

IDU is the state where the person begins to shut down because you are speaking about a subject they don't know or understand. You are talking OVER their head. When it happens, the person starts to feel inferior or incompetent and they shut down.

YDU is the state where the person begins to get angry because YOU don't know or understand their situation. You are talking PAST them. When it happens, the person starts to feel angry or contempt for you — they begin to interrupt or sit and stew with anger.

IDU is on one end of the spectrum and YDU is on the other end. Your job is to remain in the middle with your communication, giving them info while ensuring you don't venture in IDU or YDU territory.

And the way to ensure this doesn't happen is to:

1. Watch for physical signals. They might start looking away or looking angry or impatient. They might not respond immediately or come back with a response that sounds frustrated or angry. On the phone, listen for typing or clicking — they are not listening, they are multi-tasking.
2. Ask questions along the way. Like: "Are you with me so far?" or "Am I speaking too quickly?" or " Do you want me to review any aspect of what I just covered?" or "Do you know this already?" This gives the receiver a chance to better understand the information and will quickly take you out of the IDU/YDU area.
3. Paraphrase their response. When they do respond, paraphrase what you just heard. This will quickly take you out of the YDU end of the spectrum.

Communication is so critical for your success — make sure it is TWO-WAY!

CMO to CEO: Insights & Advice From CEOs Who Have Made The Transition.

Little is written about the options available to CMOs to progress beyond their role as marketers and become key players at the executive committee level. At the Rich Gee Group, we frequently run into many C-Level executives who want to progress to the top rung and help them develop a strategy on what they should be doing to make themselves credible contenders for the CEO berth.

Spencer Stuart has a great report (click here for the PDF) that outlines each of the 10 ways to prepare for a role as a CEO:

1. Take on a general management role in an emerging market
2. Broaden your skill set at every opportunity
3. Gain experience in at least one non-marketing role
4. Get involved in as many mission-critical, non-marketing projects as you can
5. Demonstrate your credibility and track record as a commercial leader
6. Develop close working relationships with other functions
7. Work with the CFO to value the company’s brand assets
8. Hone your communication skills
9. Learn to make the tough decisions
10. Find a mentor who is already a CEO or in a general management position

It's a great read. Enjoy! - Rich

Watch Out Boomers - The Millennials Are Coming For Your Jobs.

Watch out, baby boomers. The Millennials are coming for your jobs. By Nancy Johnston at The Baltimore Sun

This generational warfare is the story developing in the media, and as with most trend stories, it does have a kernel of truth. The baby boomer generation - born between 1946 and 1964 - has had a stranglehold on nearly every arena in American life, including politics, economics and the culture wars, since I was born. Even President Barack Obama, who campaigned on a promise to leave behind the boomers' old campus feuds, is, technically, one of them.

But with the rising technological wave changing the way we live, the way we work, and the way we think about the world around us, today's younger work force, born 1980 and after, is threatening the status quo. Even now, a coalition called 80 Million Strong is planning a D.C. summit in July to highlight this younger bloc, demanding that American leaders better serve this country's youth, both politically and economically.

"Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.

Sure, it's no surprise that with college tuition rising and job opportunities plummeting, the future isn't looking too bright for the youth of America. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, after factoring for inflation, the average young white man in 2005 earned $35,100 a year, compared to $43,416 in 1976. While tuition at public universities has doubled since the 1980s, income has declined by 19 percent.

Those who can't afford college in the first place, or can't find employment after earning their degrees, have also helped raise the unemployment rate for Americans in the 16-24 age range 9 percentage points higher than the general population. Insurance and pension benefits are steadily shrinking, and no one my age labors under the belief that the dollars we send to the Social Security Administration over in Woodlawn will be waiting for us when we retire.

This recession isn't good for anybody. But blaming baby boomers for staying at the workplace at the expense of Millennials, or insisting that the youth are stealing jobs from their more experienced counterparts, are arguments far too simplistic to explain the destruction of the American dream.

If there's anything I've learned from the no-limits nature of the world that the Internet has wrought, it's that we do not live in a zero-sum society. We must foster an economy that provides jobs for everyone. From the traditional manufacturing and service jobs that have built the American middle class since after World War II, to the new "green" jobs and cyber-focused industries the Obama administration has declared a priority, there can and should be opportunities for everyone.

Yes, we need to make hard decisions now to address the problems the young and those not yet even born will inherit - climate change, Social Security and Medicare, the national debt. But setting them up as flash points in an ageist conflict between the me-generation boomers and the supposedly altruism-minded Millennials isn't going to accomplish that. The only way to solve those problems is to create an economic and social order that is fair to all - and the only way to agree on those hard choices is to embrace a political order in which all ages have a seat at the table.

Negotiate Salary Without Tipping Your Hand.

You’ve gotten pretty far in a job discussion. You like them. They like you. And it's getting down to the nitty gritty. by Marci Alboher at Yahoo.

Then your prospective employer pops the question you’ve been dreading: “So what are you making now?” (or some variation like, “What were you making in your last position?”) You freeze. You know that answering the question can only hurt you. It might peg you at a salary you feel you’ve outgrown or that you improperly negotiated. And you know that you’re always supposed to let the other person name a price first in any negotiation.

So what do you do?

Avoid revealing your salary. Never reveal your prior salary, says Ramit Sethi, creator of the blog, IWillTeachYouToBeRich, and author of the recently published book of the same title. He is clear and unequivocal. “It’s just none of their business,” he told me. “You’re focusing on a new job and if you reveal what you made previously, two things happen. First, you’ve laid out all your cards. Second, you’re admitting that you are inexperienced in interviewing and negotiating.” (That last bit was particularly painful for me to hear since I’ve made the mistake of revealing a prior salary and I’m in the business of advising people about how to manage their careers.)

Focus on your value. If the employer persists, Sethi suggests steering the conversation to the value you’ll be bringing to the position. If you can focus, say, on the hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue you’ll help the company generate, it becomes harder for them to focus on the thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars you might be haggling over. If your position doesn’t have a clear connection to the bottom line, Sethi says to emphasize how your job will allow your manager to do his or her job more effectively. In the end, it’s all about how you’re going to help the organization achieve its goals.

Discuss salary ranges. If you get the prior salary question, steer the negotation to why you should be at a certain number or range, says Carol Frohlinger, managing director of Negotiating Women and author of the book, “Her Place at the Table."

One instance where it's fine to reveal your salary is when you feel like your current salary is in a reasonable range and you are only seeking a slight bump--say around 10 percent--according to Susan Cain, president of The Negotiation Company.  "If you're not there, which is often the case, then you'll want to deflect at least until they love you and don't want to lose you," says Cain. "At that point, you can say that you don't think your current employer would be comfortable with your disclosing what you earn." If you ultimately feel you have to disclose, Cain says you should just explain, in a non-defensive way, why you think it's low and why you should be in a higher range. She recommends saying something like: "I've had various training and experience and am now looking for a position that will reflect my acquired expertise."

Know your worth. When you do sit down to talk numbers, make sure that you do your homework so that you know what the range should be for the position. “It’s not just what the job pays, but what does it pay in your geographic area, in a company of the size of the one you’re looking at, in the same industry,” says Frohlinger. “And also think about what there is other than salary, what other things people have gotten for a total compensation package.”

Do your homework. In order to build a picture of what a job is worth, canvas your entire network, looking especially for people who have left a company you’re talking to. In addition, check out sites that offer comparative salary details, like Vault, PayScale, Salary.com and Glassdoor. If you work as an independent contractor or freelancer, ask your peers what they charge. “Talk to at least five people,” says Sethi, “since not everyone charges properly for their work and you might get a range of anywhere from $30-$200 an hour.”

What if you reveal too much? So what if you’ve messed up and revealed more than you wanted to? The best way to recover, says Sethi, is to start collecting evidence of your success on the job and immediately plan for an opportunity to sit down with your manager about how you’re doing. You’ll have to let some time pass--Sethi suggests about six months--but it’s important to let your manager know far in advance that you are preparing for a conversation that will include revisiting your compensation as part of it. In fact, Sethi says that by the time you have that conversation, your manager should fully know that you’re seeking a raise since you will have been laying the groundwork and showing off your accomplishments along the way.

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.

Stretch Your New People.

I hear it all the time from my clients when hiring — "I can't find someone that is "just right" for the position." Or "They don't meet all the qualifications for the job." Well - they're wrong. It's a big mistake to expect that the possible candidates have to own ALL the qualifications for the said position. Why?

1. It's unrealistic. Even in times like these, where there are a lot of people on the street, the system of finding the right person with the perfect qualifications is slim to none, and slims out of town. What happens is that the recruiter or HR associate puts unrealistic demands on every candidate at the start and rarely lets anyone with real potential in. They focus on capabilities and not on personality.

2. It's not long-range thinking. Think about hiring for a bank manager. If you hire a previous bank manager with all the qualifications for the position, they're going to be pretty bored within six months doing the same thing that they did at their last location. Once you learn how the company 'works' and all the people's personalities - the job gets pretty basic after awhile. Then they get bored, sloppy, or start bothering you for a promotion.

You need to STRETCH your new people. The basic rule is to hire at least one grade below the stated position to ensure that you are challenging that person. What will happen? For at least the first year while they step out of their comfort zone they will push themselves and build new potential. In addition, when you stretch your pick, you might find that they do things differently from the previous manager — who might find innovative ways to attack their position and motivate their troops.

For those that are in the market looking for that position, use this info as a retort to the interviewer's response that you might not have the requisite experience for the position (by the way - a frequent excuse used ALL the time). Tell them that it's better to hire someone where it is a stretch - they will have more content employees that are consistently challenging themselves and doing things differently.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this - feel free to leave your feedback in the comments section below. Thanks!

Losing Your Job & Breaking Shovels.

I broke two shovels today. This weekend, my family and I spent the day digging forsythia bush roots out of the ground. If you've ever done this before — it's not easy. There is a lot of effort with shovels, pick-axes, crowbars, pitchforks, saws and just about every other tool I own. In combination, you try to dig under the main mass of roots and slowly cut/sever each main root from the root ball so it will eventually come out. But enough of removing roots. What did happen during this process is that I broke two shovel handles trying to pry the root ball out of the ground. The first one was a surprise to all of us — honestly, we're pretty lucky that no one got hurt. The shovel gave way when it broke and part of the handle flipped into the air, giving everyone a quick jolt of adrenalin. We then stepped back, took a quick breather, and then attacked it again with another shovel.

And then the second one broke. The funny thing is that we were not as surprised — and frankly — we all started laughing. I probably had too many Wheaties for breakfast this morning. We then didn't give up — we just attacked the root ball with even more vigor (and more robust tools) and eventually got all four root balls out.

It's a lot like losing your job. The first time it happens, people are pretty shell-shocked. They do a lot of soul searching (why me?), denial, hatred of their company, boss, etc. — you know the drill. Ultimately, when the adrenaline dissipates, they get down to business and look for a new job. The second time someone loses a job (and this happens more often that you realize in this economy), they tend to almost laugh about it, pick themselves up quickly, and go after that next job.

Moral of the story — losing your job is not a life or career ending experience. In fact, the faster that you move forward, the faster you will find that next position. The more that you sit and question yourself (and procrastinate) - the less likely you will climb back on that horse and ride into the sunset.

So pick up that shovel and start digging that root ball out!

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.”