Navigating Corporate Life

By Stanley Tyo

Being the boss is tough work. Whether you oversee a small company or a large, publicly-held corporation, you have to learn quickly how to master a wide range of skills, from strategic thinking to communication to crisis management. Keeping so many plates spinning simultaneously can be invigorating and financially rewarding, but it can also lead to stress, breakdown and sudden career change. There are many books that deliver management theory, but Navigating Corporate Life tells you how one CEO did it. Using straightforward language and examples, Stan Tyo shares his corporate life story, allowing you to make up your own mind about how to best navigate yours. He even provides case-study-style challenges at the end of each chapter, to fire up your leadership potential and move you in the right direction under your own power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312001909

Book preview

Navigating Corporate Life

NAVIGATING CORPORATE LIFE

By Stan Tyo

ISBN: 978-1-312-00190-9

Printed in Canada

Copyright 2014 All rights reserved

To my father, one of my greatest mentors.

Introduction

Did you ever wonder how you got to this exact place at this point in time? Did you end up with the dream job that you always felt you deserved or did you settle in to a routine job that just paid the bills? You might be surprised to learn that many people never achieve the status they seek, nor do they attain the dream job that they always wanted. There are many reasons why this happens to people; there can be a health issue that disrupts career development, there can be family situations that command attention, there can be colleagues who are better at recognizing opportunities more quickly, and there can be bosses who stifle your growth. However, the biggest detriment to not achieving your goals is usually you. If you have ever attended a session hosted by a big-name motivational speaker, you will often hear that person exclaim that you can make the change and you can make the difference, by taking control of your life and by believing in yourself. Whether or not you buy into the promises generally made by these types of speakers, they are correct in one key component at least, and that is, you as an individual can take charge of your own life and career, and make a difference in their outcome. Surprisingly, many people do not believe they have this capability, and over the years that I have spent as a hiring manager and coach, this self-doubt remains a common theme.

Most people don’t believe that one individual can singularly influence the outcome of an event or influence people’s behavior, but as anyone who has ever spent time camping knows, it only takes one single mosquito inside a tent to change a person from a mild-mannered individual to a raging, swatting, flailing lunatic.

A single mosquito can effect change and so can you. Although you, hopefully, will be able to do it in a less annoying fashion. You can focus on changing people’s behavior or their opinions in a more positive manner, and have them enjoy the process along the way.

In this book I hope to share with you some helpful tips that can make your journey toward greater control, greater influence and greater achievement a little easier.

From my very first full-time job on the order desk of a health and beauty aid company, to the CEO’s office at a software development firm, my career has spanned multiple industries and varying sizes of companies, from start-ups to Fortune 100 corporations. I discovered many common threads which helped me to build a career. I also discovered something about myself that was common throughout all of the positions and companies: I wanted more. More money, more responsibility, more status, more perks, more recognition and more rewards. I am not sure this makes me any different than anyone else in the early stages of their career but in retrospect I am reminded of an old statement:

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

In the early stages of one’s career, it is easy to misunderstand what this phrase means. We remain convinced that things are always a little better in that next position higher up the corporate ladder. Of course anyone can research the meaning of this expression on-line and find various interpretations, but I am not sure that will help, since most people must actually experience something before understanding all of its implications. What I personally discovered is that, along with all of the things that I wished for – along with the great perks and interesting challenges – there came some definite downsides. Anyone who holds a management position, for example, can attest to the fact that getting promoted into management means taking on the problems of everyone in the department in addition your own. Moreover, upon receiving that promotion, the people who had been your allies the previous day now view you as no longer one of us.

Another old adage that is worth keeping in the back of your mind – while not actually dampening your ambition – is this:

The closer you get to the top, the closer you get to the door.

Newspapers and websites are filled with examples of this in both the business and sports sections. When a team does not perform up to expectations, it is usually the coach or manager who gets fired, and regardless if it is a sports team or a business team, the consequences can be the same. So be sure you understand what you are getting yourself into when you are striving to advance yourself in an organization.

I never had the illusion when I joined a company that I would stay for twenty five or thirty years in order to qualify for a pension, especially not in my very first job. For many people, not just me, such a period of time seemed – and still seems – like a permanent and limiting thing. When I started my first job I viewed it as something that paid the bills and which allowed me to go out on the weekends to socialize. However, as each day and year passed, I always felt there was something more that I could learn, and something more that I could do.

This was strange for me, since I never felt such ambition while I was in school. I attributed my newfound drive to a thirst for making more money. It wasn’t until later in my career that I realized that I was actually chasing the wrong goal. Granted, money does remove some of the stress from our lives, but I realized later that the real goal I had was something my father had once taught me, but which I had ignored for many years. His simple philosophy was this:

When you get to the end of your life and you are knocking on the Pearly Gates, they won’t judge your success by the thickness of your wallet; it will be based on the lives you have touched positively.

I had always felt that such a statement could only have been made by someone who had no money; but that proved to be one of my more naïve perceptions on life. The truth behind my father’s quote really started to sink in when I attended his funeral and it seemed like the whole town had come out to say farewell. I was struck by the number of people who approached me to tell me that my father had helped them without ever looking for something in return, and that he would be missed by a lot of people. At the time of his passing, I was working for a large financial institution and I was very unhappy with my role. I made good money, I had the golden handcuffs (meaning great perks intended to keep me from looking for work elsewhere), and great relationships with my peers and my employees. But my boss at that time drained the joy out of the job, and that made all the difference. In hindsight, this individual simply demonstrated to me a management style that was not one I wanted to emulate. It is amazing how the death of a parent forces a person to start thinking about one’s own mortality and perhaps the legacy that will be left behind. And the timing of my father’s passing, being coincident with my having that particular boss at that particular moment, allowed me a clear perspective. So I set about to engineer a shift in my career and to develop a management style of which I could be proud, and which would help develop other aspiring managers.

The main reason for creating this book is to share some insights and some of my own personal experiences on how to navigate corporate life; stories that I hope will help you put yourself on the path of personal satisfaction and success – terms defined by you, not me or anyone else. Not everyone wants to be a manager, but most individuals aspire to achieve the peak of their abilities regardless of the role. I have shared many of these ideas and thoughts at conferences, corporate functions and as part of guest lectures at a local university, and one concept has remained abundantly clear: that which is common knowledge to one person can be a revelation to another. I sincerely hope that as you read this book, you will be able to take from it a few key pieces of wisdom from someone who has been there and done that. So the following chapters represent some of my experiences and ideas, intended to help you on your journey.

At the end of each chapter you will find a case study based on a real life occurrence. I have placed these here to challenge your thought process and stimulate you to find ways of dealing with all kinds of situations, regardless whether you are a manager or an employee who aspires to be a manager. At the end of the book you will find an Appendix titled What I did, but this does not mean these are all of the right answers; they merely represent what I did in those situations.

Don’t peek until you have given yourself a chance to think it through. There are no absolute right answers, so go ahead and exercise that gray matter.

PART ONE - GETTING ESTABLISHED

Chapter 1. The Jump from School to Work

I hate to admit it, but I was never a big fan of school, at least not until later in my life when I could pick courses and programs that had a direct influence on my job or personal life. I felt that learning about ancient history, geography, English literature, trigonometry, etc. was meaningless, since I couldn’t foresee a moment when I would ever use any of what was being taught. Little did I know that such a curriculum was actually creating a well-rounded knowledge base for my later use. In particular, the ability to put together a coherent sentence, learned from my English literature and grammar courses, went a long way in providing me with the ability to create readable reports, letters and memos in the business world.

One of the most important aspects of this skill was on display whenever an introductory letter and my résumé were required in order to promote myself for a prospective role. In my various roles I received thousands of résumés from people looking for work that were filled with spelling mistakes and statements about their work that made little or no sense. They obviously didn’t have the strict teachers that were prevalent in my school tenure and as such their résumés did not receive much attention from me or any other manager.

When I was in school, professors were always telling me what to do and what to think, and so, naturally, I couldn’t wait to leave such a structured, dusty and out-of-date institution, and join the workforce, where I could start to define my own destiny. I soon discovered, however, that in place of professors, I now had managers telling me what to do and what to think. Sounds pretty much the same, wouldn’t you say? In truth, the answer is no they are not. At school you can actually choose to either listen and follow or go your own way. The worst thing that can happen to you is that you fail the program and possibly have to repeat it. As long as you have money to continue to pay for your education, and perhaps as long as your parents remained tolerant, most schools and professors weren’t too concerned whether you passed or not. In fact, later in my career, while I was teaching Management Skills at a local Community College, the Dean told me straight up that students had a right to fail if they didn’t wish to put in the effort or follow the curriculum. Up until that point, as a Community College teacher, I had taken it very personally when a student didn’t make the grade. But through the Dean’s guidance I learned that professors actually have to distance themselves from their students’ performance, to avoid the insurmountable stresses of trying to personally shepherd a large number of students.

When you, as a graduate (or a drop-out) reach the business world, you soon discover that generally, managers care a great deal about your success or failure, in part because your success has a direct impact on their own success. You can advance in the organization or you can be unceremoniously shown the door. In the case of the latter, though, there is no chance to reapply or to get a do-over; it is simply goodbye and good luck in finding your next employment. If this happens frequently to you, then you will find yourself carrying a great deal of unattractive baggage as you apply for other positions.

Most new grads are driven by one major goal: to make money! After years of living under their parents’ roof, or in the relative squalor of student accommodations, and after sitting for hundreds of hours in classrooms, lecture halls and libraries, the desire is strong to earn the money that makes it possible to gain independence. Thus providing the ability to pay off student loans and to finally accumulate those long lusted-after possessions that appear necessary for a successful life. But joining the workforce fresh out of school can either traumatize a person or it can energize them, depending upon the company doing the hiring.

I was a typical grad. I wanted to make money, and I was fortunate enough to be hired on at a leading health and beauty aid company as a member of the order desk team. When I look back on this now, it wasn’t the best paying job around, but it was close to my apartment and I didn’t own a car so I felt it was a good trade-off. My first boss was not much older than me but he had a hands on approach to teaching new employees the ropes and he wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves. I didn’t know it at the time but he was my starting point for building managerial skills, as he easily demonstrated his strengths as well as his weaknesses and he let it be known that he hired individuals that mitigated his weaknesses as a manager. This was very unusual behavior for a manager, since most bosses generally do their best to hide what they view as vulnerabilities or weaknesses.

An order desk is basically an inside sales role where orders from customers, distributors and the company’s own external sales people are received and processed. Like any role that interacts with other departments or the public, there are some characteristics that can be highly enjoyable and some that can be frustrating and challenging.

I really enjoyed interacting with people outside of the company, but I was less than enamored with the paperwork required, and this fact did not escape the view of my boss, whose desk was beside mine. I also soon recognized that others in my organization viewed my role as only slightly higher on the corporate ladder than the maintenance crew, which is to say, not very high at all. Although I would soon learn how short-sighted these people were, it influenced my own views on the role I was playing at this company and I am sure it directly influenced my performance. After a few constructive feedback sessions with my boss, we came to the conclusion that I was not really cut out for this position, but instead of showing me the door, he actively helped me to find another position in the company. Again, such pro-action is not a trait I have seen as predominant in the corporate world.

About six months into the job, I noticed an internal posting for an assistant to the Vice President of Business Development, a position that involved field work, trend analysis and tracking of our competitors. The job description required the ability to track trends and develop reports for senior management that would assist them in determining product introduction and timing, product sunsetting (discontinuation of a product), marketing promotions and counter ploys when a competitor entered a space that we valued. Back in those days we didn’t have Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word at hand, which meant relying on skills that had been taught to me in high school. Yes, those very same skills whose value I had had trouble appreciating just a few years earlier. So here, then, a small thank you to all of those teachers whom I may have slighted with my attitude towards their educational efforts:

Thank you.

I applied for the job with the blessing of my boss and since there was only one other candidate I felt I had a good chance at success. Foolishly, though, I did very little preparation and