Maneuvering Your Career: 20 Strategies to Prepare You for Voluntary (or Involuntary) Career Transition

By James K. Lehman

Maneuvering Your Career is a success blueprint for today’s working professionals. With virtually no guarantee of a long tenured career, the office can be a scary place. We want to live our lives and go after our dreams, but too often, we work in a dysfunctional environment, for a crazy boss, and we feel trapped.
James Lehman, after working more than twenty jobs in thirty years, knows how to maintain sanity and gain the freedom and respect an employee deserves. Let him teach you how to have the career you want, despite the economy, industry changes, takeovers and mergers, and without waiting for your crazy boss to get fired or retire.
In Maneuvering Your Career, you will learn how to:
• Overcome the old rules and limiting beliefs holding you back
• Own your power and take control of your employment
• Gain the knowledge you need to be confident in your job and work
• Prepare to take the next step in your career
• Determine the right time to make a career move
• Take care of yourself in a volatile work environment
• Be productive and sane, despite your crazy boss
• Get the company to fund your education to advance your career
• Leave on your own terms without burning your bridges
• Enjoy your work and leave it at the office so you can enjoy your life.
Having the freedom to do what you want, for who you want, when you want is powerful. It’s never too late to take charge of your career and maneuver it into being the rewarding experience you deserve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483543918

Book preview

Workshops

INTRODUCTION

STARTING OVER

Sit by a river. Find peace and meaning in the rhythm of the lifeblood of the Earth.

— Anonymous

You just lost your job. Your boss called you in and said, We have to let you go, or You’re fired! What feelings do you have when you read those words? For some of you, you may be ecstatic to get away from your crazy boss. Especially if your boss is an idiot. But even after the initial relief, reality quickly sets in. You have joined the ranks of the unemployed. In today’s world, by the time you hit the unemployment line, it is too late to be prepared. The river has already left its banks. You are already in crisis mode. It is hard to maneuver anything in flooded waters.

So what’s going on where you work today? Are things all in their place and nothing is changing? (I doubt it.) Or is the place total chaos? Is there clear direction, or is your leadership working on the latest reorganization, or newest business strategy, or merging, or secretly preparing to be acquired? What is happening in your industry? Is it growing, or is it shrinking? What about your function? Are you currently working on what’s hot, or are you being left behind just to keep the old way working until its death? Are you on the cutting edge, or soon to be on the cutting floor? Does your crazy boss keep you under her thumb, and is she so controlling that you have zero confidence and don’t think you can do anything right? I could go on and and on...but you get the idea. Nobody is safe. Are you that long term faithful employee who has been loyal to your company your entire career? Nothing is going to happen to you, right? In these pages, I will tell you a story about a colleague who worked at the same company for twenty-seven years, her entire career, who got laid off. Everyone is at risk, even you!

In my twenty-plus job changes in thirty years, I can honestly say I have been in your shoes. In fact, I have lived in your shoes for thirty years. And it hurts! I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t looking for my next job. I have experienced just about every type of career transition possible. After being fired from my first job out of college at age twenty-two, the rules I grew up with like Get a job; keep it for life, The boss is always right, and Keep your head down and you will be successful were quickly thrown out. Following in my father’s footsteps of working for one company for thirty years and then retiring was not going to happen. As I have had to maneuver my career, I have been fired multiple times, had my position eliminated multiple times, have quit before getting another job more than once, and had my employer be acquired, merged, closed, and go bankrupt. I have worked for the same employer three different times. And I have been self-employed. My shortest job has been eight days (not including the weekend). My longest tenure has been just shy of five years. Along the way, I have collected severance and unemployment. I have filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claim, and I have won an appeal of an unemployment decision. Although not my plan, I even collected severance from two different companies while working for another.

As a Senior Human Resources Professional and Professional Coach, I have seen this sad story be repeated over and over again by many people, from both the inside and the outside. What if there were a set of strategies you could follow so you could always be prepared, not just for those times that fit your company or your boss, but for those times when you are ready to make a change, on your schedule, as part of your plan? In this book, I have created a list of twenty such strategies to put you in charge. These strategies will allow you to take control of your job and help you achieve your dreams. No more living in fear, or being stuck, or being a victim in your life because of the whims of your idiot boss.

The book is divided into three sections:

Section One: Taking Control

Section Two: Owning Your Job

Section Three: Taking Care of Yourself

In this book, you will learn the importance of identifying those limiting beliefs and past demons that are holding you back. You will be given permission to break those old rules, just like I did. I will show you how to focus on what you value and how to live your life in freedom and control. We then will review the strategies to get you prepared: Knowing What’s Hot, Learning for Life, Accepting Feedback, and Becoming an Expert. Finally, we will review strategies to ensure you are taking care of what needs taking care of: You! These strategies are Building Your Network, Getting the Payout, Knowing Your Rights, and Giving Back. I describe the strategies by telling you about the real life lessons I experienced, including my run-ins with crazy bosses....

I can relate to those of you who have been bouncing between jobs. With all of the other demands on our time, it is hard to find time to devote to ourselves. Instead, we continue to be at the mercy of our bosses. What do they say the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Rather than continuing the madness, let’s take some steps to take control.

Let’s do this together. If you use this book as a workbook, my hope is you can make progress step-by-step, and by the time you get to Chapter 20, your life will be different. I want to be your coach, your biggest supporter, and your accountability partner. Are you ready to begin? Are you ready to expand your comfort zone? Let’s get started and make this journey together.

Here’s to putting that crazy boss on notice!

James K. Lehman

SECTION ONE

TAKING CONTROL

"Voyager upon life’s sea,

To yourself be true, And, whatever your lot may be,

Paddle your own canoe."

— Sarah Bolton, Paddle Your Own Canoe

CHAPTER 1

GETTING OUT OF THE WATER

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

— Paulo Coelho

I s this an emergency? It is impossible to get at the cause of the problem if you are still drowning, gasping for air. Before we dig into the twenty strategies of Maneuvering Your Career, we have to get you comfortable, sitting in the back of the boat with your paddle in the water. You need to take control of the boat.

I wanted to write this book so I could share my experiences over the first thirty years of my career. As I mentioned in the introduction, I have been terminated (more than once), had my position eliminated (more than once), and lost my job when the company closed, was acquired, or merged. I have quit my job without having another one, I have appealed the denial of unemployment benefits (and won), and I have even filed an EEOC claim for losing my job in a sexually hostile working environment (I didn’t win, but it felt good to stand up for myself). With twenty different job and career transitions in the last thirty years, I have learned that it will happen. I also learned to be prepared.

Thirty years ago, frequently changing jobs was not as common. The fear of losing your job was not just having to find another one—if it happened too many times, you would be labeled as a job hopper. Times have changed a bit. Now, a few jobs on your resume are looked at as good by recruiters. It shows that you have a varied experience and have not been stuck in one position with one company. There is also a movement for more and more people to become their own agents. With an entrepreneurial attitude, you can work the jobs you want and the projects that interest you. The old corporate ways, the office politics, the crazy bosses, are all dysfunctional. The old attitudes of loyalty to your employer and having your job (and your boss) determine your worth and abilities are limiting beliefs.

I want you to know that you are not a victim. You get to decide your future. You get to determine your next steps. You can prepare for what is going to happen—not once, but most likely, multiple times throughout your career.

Maneuvering

What image do you have of maneuvering? I have always enjoyed being by a rushing river. I grew up near Kansas City, and my family vacations every summer were to the spring-fed crystal clear rivers of south central Missouri. We would float, as it is called in Missouri, or canoe down the river on all day excursions. If I closed my eyes, the sound of the water for me was always calming. I could look up at all of the large sycamore trees hanging over the water, and I could look down through the clear ice cold water at the trout swimming below. It was when I looked forward that I would get tense. Up ahead around the next bend was always the next set of rapids, and boulders, trees, and other obstacles in the water. The fastest water always directed the canoe toward the biggest rock, and I knew we were going to tip.

Then my father, in the back of the canoe, would gently put his paddle in the water and maneuver the canoe with such control. He would steer the boat away from the danger, sometimes just missing the rock by inches, or we had to duck so the low branches would not sweep us out of the boat. Sometimes, we would hit, perhaps get stuck, take on water, or even tip over. The rushing water always had power.

As I got older, I learned how to maneuver the canoe. I sat in the back, and I put my paddle in the water. I learned how to take control of the canoe in the rapids. Later in college, and as a young adult, I accompanied my friends on weekend camping trips to the Missouri Ozarks, and we would go on all day float trips on the river. It became a challenge for me to go all day and not tip over—to tame the river and own the power. Plus, the girls wanted to ride up front in my boat because my boat was safe.

My career, like those of many people I know today, has also been like one of those rushing rivers—with boulders, strainers, low hanging trees, and other obstacles. I have not known what was around the next bend, or what was approaching just beneath the surface that would snag me, or even tip me over, and yet dealing with it when I came to it made me into a survivor.

I recently did a search on Amazon for books about careers. I found over 4,800 books on how to find a job. These titles include How to Get a Job in 30 Days or Less, How to Find a Job: The Ultimate Guide for Finding Work Fast, and The Job Hunter’s Survival Guide in multiple editions. I also found books on how to use social media, such as LinkedIn, Craigslist, and Facebook to find a job. I even found a book titled Parting Company: How to Survive the Loss of a Job and Find Another Successfully.

When I searched for how to manage your career, I found over 350 books, with titles like Manage Your Boss, How to Manage Your Money, Work Diva: How to Climb the Corporate Ladder without Selling Your Soul, and my favorite title, Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant.

When I searched how to maneuver your job or how to maneuver your career, I found two books: Learning to Fly Helicopters, Second Edition, and Don’t Sit on the Baby! The Ultimate Guide to Sane, Skilled, and Safe Babysitting. Now, even though this last book might have been something that some of my former bosses had been reading, I did not find any books on how truly to maneuver your career.

I sit at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, and the beginning of Gen X. What I learned about work and career from my father set me up for a much different struggle in my career. Whereas he had one job for thirty-plus years out of college and then retired with a full pension, I have had more than twenty jobs.

However, I have still been successful. I have still seen my income grow year over year. The difference is that rather than sit in the boat and let my employer be the captain, over time, I learned to sit in the back, with my paddle in the water, and maneuver my career.

Self-Talk

Do you have a little gremlin in the back of your mind that tells you how you should feel? Do you hear your mother or father’s voice in that disapproving tone? Or do you see that look on your pastor, teacher, or boss’s face? I think most of us have tapes in our heads of those messages we learned as kids, or early in our careers, that tell us over and over again what we did wrong or what we can’t do. These inner voices include our conscious thoughts as well as our unconscious assumptions or beliefs—beliefs so deeply ingrained in us that we often can’t distinguish what is true. The question we need to ask ourselves is, Are those statements true?

My birthday is in August, so I had just turned five when I went off to school. I was always among the youngest in my class. The talk I often heard was You’re too small, and Don’t do that; you will get hurt. I remember when I was in the third grade, I was playing outside during recess. The playground had just received a fresh layer of black asphalt. Why a school would put asphalt down in a playground, I do not know. I guess that was before the days of soft mulch, or even recycled rubber tires. My friend and I were playing around, wrestling, and trying to see who was tougher. He flipped me over, and I went down hard. I hit the back of my head on that hard asphalt—and I saw stars. Lots and lots of stars. I didn’t want to get my friend in trouble, so after recess, I went back into class with everybody else. I remember sitting at my desk, but the room was just spinning. My head was throbbing, and those stars were not going away.

I must have finally told the teacher because I eventually ended up in the nurse’s office with a bad headache. She sent me back to class, and at the end of the day, I rode the school bus home like normal. The next morning, I was in excruciating pain, not having slept much the night before. My mom kept me home from school and took me to the doctor’s office. My mom’s instructions were to take me immediately to the hospital. By now, I was really scared, and my mom was really scared. I ended up being admitted, and the testing began. I was hooked up to this machine and that machine. I had to drink funny liquid, and toothpaste-like stuff was put on my head with wires hooked to a machine. The staff took x-rays, and they took blood. I was there for a week. My head never stopped hurting. Finally, I was told I might have a blood clot in my brain, so they were going to put me under and do a final test. If they found a clot, they would go in immediately and do brain surgery. I could see the fear in my mom’s eyes.

When I woke up in recovery, I was sure they had opened up my brain. Luckily, I did not have a clot. The doctors finally decided it was excess fluid on the brain, which would go away on its own. I was sent home, and I was out of school for a month.

All of this just confirmed in my mind that I was small, weak, and vulnerable. Everything I had been told was true. Don’t do that; you will get hurt. It is one thing to believe that when you are eight years old. But when you grow up, the question becomes, Is that really true?

Below are some questions to help you identify the self-talk that is damaging in your life. You may have never considered questions like these before. Take a few minutes to write out the answers to the questions below. These exercises are your opportunity to make this book your personal journal as you study and apply its strategies to your own life.

Exercise

1) What self-talk do you have that is keeping you back? What do you tell yourself that keeps you from taking the next step forward?

2) While the event or events that started that conversation may have been very powerful, is that message still true today?

I Am a Failure

Do you think you are a failure? Most of us, especially men, define ourselves by our careers, by what we do. Have you had set-backs in your career that pushed your head underwater, and are you still trying to catch your breath?

I was the one they hated. Several upper classmen in my dorm were on their second or third time taking the sophomore Financial Accounting class. But I barely studied and got 100 percent on the exams. I had just transferred over to the business school from the agriculture school. In high school, I knew I did not want to be an accountant. But there I was, in the business school, doing well in accounting. At the end of my sophomore year, I had to declare a major. I swallowed my high school words and said out loud that I was going to be an accountant when I grew up. There was one small detail I didn’t pay attention to at the time, or I was too naive to think it would not be a big deal: the CPA Exam.

As seniors in the accounting program, we were lucky to participate in on-campus recruiting beginning in September of our senior year. Well, actually, it began that summer before school started. The Big 8 accounting firms (at the time) received a list of top students to talk with during our junior year from the faculty, and we had the opportunity to meet with them several times at various accounting club picnics and events. The summer had included BBQs, ball games, and office tours. By the time the on-campus interviews were scheduled in September and October, they were just a formality. I was invited for office visits to all of the Big 8 firms. The recruiting was intense, with phone calls, letters, (no cell phones, texting, or even email back then—How did we survive?), lunches, dinners, campus visits—you