Part 10 (1/2)

The Seven Steps Start by firing your boss and hiring yourself. Write your own job description, give yourself a performance review, define alternate courses for your work life, and put your plan into writing. This will let you take charge of your work life. On the outside you'll seem as loyal and subservient as ever, but on the inside you'll be charting your own course. You'll be able to figure out how much you're worth and what skills you need to add to your repertoire, and to choose short- and long-term goals.

Remember Wendy Rosenfeld, the woman who had allowed her boss, a politician, to a.s.sume control over her work life? Wendy fired that controlling boss and hired herself. She took some college courses to expand her graphic and computer skills, and began fis.h.i.+ng for work in corporate communications and not - for - profit development. After nine months of looking, during which she continued to efficiently manage her boss's campaign headquarters, Wendy landed a position as director of communications for an old-line social service agency in Manhattan. She felt secure enough to buy herself an apartment and start creating the kind of social life she never had when her former boss, in effect, dictated where she'd live and for how long. She's never been happier.

Next, kill your career and get a job instead. a.n.a.lyze why you work. Determine ways to get what you want through areas of your life other than work. Then start pursuing those routes to fulfillment outside of work. Soon you'll achieve the satisfaction you crave and will have more time to enjoy it. Rather than trying to find work that fulfills all your wants and answers all your needs, divide your life into a work portion and a personal portion. Work will become less frustrating and life will become more satisfying.

That's what Sean Shanahan discovered. Having spent most of his working life as a designer, trying to combine art and commerce, Sean finally decided to kill his career and get a job instead. He turned what had been a home office into a studio to do his own art. By not placing the burden of providing psychological satisfaction on his work for the design firm, Sean found he didn't feel the need to spend so much time at the office, or bring work home. He started feeling better about work and about his personal life too. Sean entered some of his work in a juried show for the first time since college and received an honorable mention. Encouraged, he's now working on a new set of collages, hoping to build up sufficient work to interest a local gallery. He's now achieving the artistic fulfillment he always tried to get through work, through his personal life instead.

Then, realize there's no I in job. Focus on meeting your boss's needs rather than your own. That will let you secure your job even while spending less time in the office. It will enable you to earn raises and praise even though you're actively looking for another job. Determine what your boss needs and wants, by figuring out what type of boss he is and observing him carefully. Prioritize his needs and decide which to tackle first, and how. Then make him feel as if his success and happiness are your number one goal.

That's exactly what schoolteacher Janet Crosetti did. An ossified department chairperson was causing Janet many problems upon her return to teaching. A cowardly boss, Janet's chairperson threatened to make her teaching job a potential minefield. But Janet realized that the best way to make her own job safe was to make her frightened boss feel safe. By playing to her chairperson's ego, offering to accept responsibility for risks, and warning about possible problems and offering solutions ahead of time, Janet built a coc.o.o.n around her boss. After nine months on the job Janet had moved from troublemaker to the apple of her boss's eye. At the start of her second year the chairperson was actively promoting Janet to the school administrators as a star in the making.

Your next step is to ”go fish.” That means learning how to go job fis.h.i.+ng rather than job hunting. Rather than reactively looking for work when something happens at your current job, become a proactive job seeker who's constantly looking for another position. And instead of focusing on finding a job you want, concentrate on attracting job offers whose merits you can judge after receiving them. Alternatively, offers can be used as bargaining chips to get more at your current job, or to create compet.i.tion between two suitors.

Jared Edwards's sales career had been long and varied, but always reactive, until he started job fis.h.i.+ng. Having gone through a long and difficult time finding his current job, Jared became proactive, actively seeking offers even though his job was going well. He had received two offers in his first year of job fis.h.i.+ng but turned them both down because they didn't pay enough. Jared then developed a connection with an inventor-entrepreneur by using his fis.h.i.+ng techniques. He slowly cultivated a relations.h.i.+p with the individual. While this was going on, Jared picked up some preliminary signs of instability at work. Jared reeled his new contact in, and won an offer of a job that paid the same as his current position but offered the possibility of earning far more. He grabbed it after his current boss wasn't able to match some of the new opportunities. Three months after taking his new job Jared learned of wholesale layoffs at his former employer.

The fifth step is to realize that no one hires a stranger today. The age of networking and informational interviews is over. Draw on your personal relations.h.i.+ps to find job offers. Make friends, not contacts. Socialize, don't network. Expand your personal life and you expand the universe from which you can draw connections, broadening your reach into fields and industries you'd never otherwise touch. Pursue those things you most enjoy in your personal life and you'll also benefit your work life.

Fred Peters, director of publications for an Ivy League university, was faced with an unsettled situation where he worked. In an effort to get away from the threatening departmental politics, Fred decided to start job hunting. But when he tried to use traditional job-search and networking techniques, he came up short. Fred learned that no one hires a stranger today. As a result he began expanding his personal life instead. Fred began playing more golf, joined the board of his son's youth hockey league, and even got active in local theater. Fred struck up a friends.h.i.+p on the golf course with the general manager of a printing company, which led to his being offered a new job as a.s.sistant general manager of the company's local facility. Six months since landing that job, Fred is sill working on expanding his personal life. He's joined a gym and a reading group, and is planning on taking an art history cla.s.s in the spring. He's leading a richer personal life than ever before, and simultaneously expanding his job prospects for the future.

Next, accept that it's the money that counts when choosing which job offers you should take. Isolate the twenty factors that characterize every job. Prioritize them based on your current situation and future needs. Give maximum weight to those that provide you with more money or more time. Trade amenities, a comfortable environment, and a supportive culture for paid time off. Exchange status, t.i.tle, and opportunities to advance for a higher income. Swap autos, retirement plans, and perceived stability for a shorter commute.

When Debbie O'Leary came to New York she had a hard time finding a radio job like those she'd held previously. In fact, she had a hard time finding any job. It took more than eighteen months, but Debbie eventually received two offers: one a part - time deejay position at a rock station, and the other a jazz-programming job for a satellite radio network. Debbie's instinct was to take the deejay job, since it offered status and opportunities for advancement as well as a comfortable environment. But after weighing the factors involved in both offers, she realized that the satellite radio job offered more opportunities for learning; a better retirement plan; and most important of all, considerably more money. A year after making her choice, Debbie feels even better about it. The satellite network is making inroads in the marketplace, and Debbie has gotten two bonuses. The radio station where she would have worked has gone through a format change, from rock to sports talk, meaning she would have lost her job.

Finally, you need to enter your job with a plan for leaving - an att.i.tude I call ”h.e.l.lo, I must be going.” Accept that no job is permanent. Resolve to leave on your schedule rather than your boss's. Turn leaving a job into a positive step rather than a defensive one. Determine what additional compensation will improve your situation, and then take jobs that provide it. Make a quick move to a new job if it's a major improvement. But after a couple of years make a move for any improvement to keep your forward momentum.

Bill Kaplan was excited to land a job as a.s.sistant manager of a bookstore after graduating college. Having had a nomadic academic and work life up until then, he found stability inviting. Yet, he soon realized he had to plan for leaving. Bill a.n.a.lyzed his current job and prepared a checklist against which to compare job offers. He began job fis.h.i.+ng and expanding his personal network. Through his work for adult literacy, Bill met the owner of a special-interest bookstore who offered him a job as manager of his store. Since it represented a 20-percent salary increase, Bill took the job. After six months at the store the owner and Bill worked out a plan allowing Bill to purchase the store over a period of five years. With three years still to go on his buyout plan, Bill is as thrilled with the possibility as ever. At our most recent meeting he and I worked up a business plan for the store, including projections for when it should be sold. Bill is convinced of the need to always have an exit strategy.

You can turn your work life around and create the life of your dreams. I've been helping my clients do just that for the past three years. They've used the same process I've outlined in this book. It has worked for them and it can work for you.

Breaking Free from the Doldrums I know it may be hard to believe. Even after reading this far you may still feel that you've no hope. I know how hard it can be to overcome malaise and break free from the doldrums of the current work environment. I know how bad it is out there.

While all the Wall Street economists and Was.h.i.+ngton pundits talk about a recovery, it still feels like a recession on the sales floor, at the office, and in the factory. Both the clerk earning $12,000 and the executive earning $112,000 rightly feel their jobs are hanging by threads. In the face of this insecurity most of us are working longer hours than ever before. When people are laid off they face a lack of new job opportunities.

The average employee sees his income shrinking and his hours increasing. He's getting no satisfaction from his career. He feels his job is in jeopardy, and he has no control over his work life. The future seems bleak.

Then, in the midst of all this bad news, I come along and write that you can actually create the job of your dreams and lead the life of your dreams. I offer up examples of my clients and say you can do what they did. I suggest seven steps to follow that fly in the face of conventional wisdom, and make it all sound so simple.

That's because it is.

A Change in Att.i.tude Turning your work life around isn't easy, but it is simple. The seven steps require considerable time and effort on your part. But when push comes to shove, the whole process really just comes down to a change in att.i.tude. If I can get you to accept and implement just one thing from this whole book, it's this: you are not your work.

For decades we have all been trying to integrate our work lives and personal lives in an effort to create a wonderful holistic life. We've pursued careers we thought would make us wealthy materially and spiritually. In the process we've done immeasurable damage to our lives. We've been making presentations rather than baking cookies with our kids. We've spent time at sales conferences instead of soccer games. We've been staring at our computers rather than sunsets. We've gathered around conference tables rather than dinner tables.

Separating your self from your work doesn't mean giving up the search for material wealth. In fact, it makes it easier to achieve wealth. Stop looking to satisfy your own needs and start satisfying your boss's needs instead. You'll earn more and be more secure. Stop trying to climb a hierarchy and start looking for new jobs instead. You'll be in control and will find work more quickly.

Separating your self from your work doesn't mean giving up the search for fulfillment. In fact, it makes it easier to achieve fulfillment. Stop looking for joy at work and start looking for it at home or in church. Stop trying to make your work creative, or make creativity your work, and instead work at your job and create in your life. You'll find emotional, psychological, and spiritual satisfaction.

Some people have told me they think my Fire Your Boss philosophy is cynical. I couldn't disagree more. I think it's idealistic. It places the greatest priority on helping you achieve your dreams. Fire your boss and you'll finally be able to take charge of your work life. Fire your boss and you'll finally be able to find the fulfillment in life you've always wanted.

All it takes is a change in att.i.tude. I'm asking you to take a leap of faith. To step away from the conventional and embrace the radical. I've led you to the brink of happiness. But you have to take the next step.

Part II

Firing Your Boss in Three Common Situations The remaining three chapters show how the Fire Your Boss philosophy is applied in three work situations. I've always felt it important not just to write about what someone should do, but to show how to do it. These chapters are intended as supplements, not subst.i.tutes, for the previous chapters. They're written with the a.s.sumption that you've read the rest of the book and are coming to these chapters for help in applying ideas you've already absorbed.

Chapter 10.

Firing Your Boss When You're Unemployed

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.- HARRY S. T S. TRUMAN IF YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED you probably wish you still had a boss you could fire. And I'm sure some of you can think of a lot of other things you'd like to do to your ex-boss besides terminating him. But the first thing you need to do is to get over your anger. you probably wish you still had a boss you could fire. And I'm sure some of you can think of a lot of other things you'd like to do to your ex-boss besides terminating him. But the first thing you need to do is to get over your anger.

Many people who are unemployed have every right to be bitter. Since you were open-minded and proactive enough to pick up this book, and intelligent and determined enough to get this far into it, odds are you lost your job through no fault of your own. I know that's of little comfort. Neither is knowing that you're not alone. There are millions of other good, honest, hardworking, skilled people out there who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Misery may love company, but it's an affection that provides little solace and less empowerment.

The rage felt by some of those who are unemployed is understandable. But it's not very helpful. Anger is an impotent emotion: it doesn't do anything for you. In this case it's probably born of impotence as well: people are angry that others, not they, had control over their work life. It could also come from a sense of outrage. They held up their end of the bargain, but their boss didn't. They showed up on time, they did their job, perhaps they even excelled. Yet they got fired. Where's the justice in that?

Well, there is none. As I wrote earlier in this book, there is no justice in the workplace today. Believing otherwise often leads to disappointment. I hate to say it, but many of these people are right in feeling impotent. They had no control over their work life. They were nothing more than a budget line to be cut so someone higher up the ladder could keep his job for another couple of months.

Instead of getting angry, get even. How? There's an old adage that says living well is the best revenge. I couldn't agree more. Payback will come by your taking charge of your own work life, making sure you're never put in this position again, and getting to lead the life of your dreams. That's what I told Jason Hope when he came to my office.

A tall, thin man who looks a bit like Tom Hanks, Jason came to see me on the advice of a mutual friend. Jason was fifty-one, and had been vice president of sales and marketing for the U.S. subsidiary of a j.a.panese electronics firm for six years. He had spent his entire working life in the consumer electronics industry, starting out as a sales-clerk in a retail store after college. From there, Jason became a salesman for an American company that made high-end audio speakers. After a half dozen years with that firm he became a regional sales manager for a larger American firm that made ma.s.s-market electronics products. Nine years later he became national sales manager of the j.a.panese firm, eventually being promoted into the position from which he was fired after more than a decade with the company.

Jason was able to negotiate a severance package that included six months' salary. That slowed, but didn't stop, his family's economic problems. Jason's wife, Beth, works as a dental hygienist at an office not far from their home in suburban New Jersey. They have two sons, Steve, a senior in college, and Tim, a junior in high school. Jason and Beth were astute enough to make some very quick adjustments in their financial lives. Beth was able to add Jason and their sons to her health insurance plan at work. They helped Steve obtain loans for his last two semesters in college that, while not subsidized, deferred repayment of princ.i.p.al until after graduation. They took out a home-equity line of credit, gave up one of their cars, and cut back on all their discretionary spending. Jason believed all this belt - tightening and his severance would help carry the family for the year he thought it would take for him to find another job. The plan would have worked, except after a year he still had no job in sight. Another six months pa.s.sed before he came to see me.

Still seething over having been fired eighteen months earlier, and increasingly angry at himself for not having found a job sooner, Jason was right on the cusp of despair when he came to see me. I spent about fifteen minutes ”talking him off the ledge.” I explained that if he let himself sink into despair he'd signal that to the world and would have an even harder time getting another job. The antidote, I suggested, was to fire his ex-boss.

Firing Your Ex-Boss The first homework a.s.signment I give to clients who are still employed is designed to get them to realize the degree to which they actually lack control over their working life. If you're unemployed you don't need my help in realizing that. However, you still need to break the hold your former boss and job have on your psyche and your self-image.

How are you determining your value in the workplace? I'll bet you're looking at what you were earning at your job before you were fired. I'll bet the same is true of what kind of benefits you think you deserve. Even though you've been fired, you're allowing your ex-boss to continue to define who and what you are. Use your termination as an opportunity to shatter those chains. Just because you were earning $90,000 a year at your former company in your former industry doesn't mean that's your value in the overall job market. Someone like you may well be worth $150,000. Or it could be your real value is actually only $75,000 today. Obviously it's preferable to find out you are undervaluing rather than overvaluing yourself, based on your previous job. But it's still better to find out your actual value is lower, and then land a job, than to continue to have an unrealistic view, and remain unemployed.

The same goes for the rest of your work image. Are you a.s.suming a certain work path based solely on the path you would have followed if you'd stayed at your former employer? Are you stressing certain achievements in your past based on what your ex-boss valued? Are you viewing yourself, and describing yourself to others, based on the job description of a job you no longer hold? You are not your job. And you certainly are not your ex-job.

G.o.d knows there are a lot of bad things that happen when you lose your job. But just as every cloud has a silver lining, and the Chinese use the same character for ”crisis” and ”opportunity,” so too can being fired have a positive element to it...at least if you're willing to get past your bitterness and embrace that chance. Being fired is an opportunity for you to break completely with your past. It's a chance to start over and carve out a new ident.i.ty for yourself. It's a time when you can become who you want to be rather than continue being who your boss said you were. Don't let him continue his hold over you even after firing you.

My suggestion is to write a job description of the job you want, not the job you lost. What is it you are best at? Where do you feel you excel? What are your strengths? You know the answers to these questions far better than your ex-boss ever did.

After crafting your own job description, investigate its value in the marketplace. How? First, by consulting cla.s.sified ads, reading professional journals, meeting with employment agencies, and chatting with headhunters. Then, simply by testing the waters. You are worth what the market will pay for you. Use your self-definition as the bait in your job fis.h.i.+ng and you will soon learn what you're worth in today's market.

Jason Hope Fires His Ex-Boss Jason, despite his lingering anger with his former company, admitted to me he was continuing to define himself based on its perspective, rather than his own. At first the admission made him even angrier than he was. But after a few minutes discussing how he could now develop his own job description, Jason's anger abated and eventually morphed into excitement. His homework a.s.signment after our initial consultation was to come up with that self-definition. Before he left he told me this was the first time he'd been excited about work in more than a year.