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Busting Your Corporate Idol

What I Found While Unplugged

March 25, 2012 by 1 Comment

Sky Paradise #1 by Cuatrok77 on Flickr

I participated in the National Day of Unplugging.  As I wrote in an earlier post, my plan was not to unplug completely from the digital world, but to unplug from work.  For me, that meant no blogging, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn as they relate to writing, my current career.  I reserved the right to remain connected to the digital world for “personal use.”  A very illuminating day.

 I became obsessed with my electronics in the early morning. I thought about them all the time as I was getting ready to go out for the day.   Anyone with a psychology degree please feel free to chip in here.  Here is my interpretation: because I was focusing on being unplugged, that is what I thought about.  Digital contributions: Weather.com to tell me it was raining outside, and Google Maps on my iPhone to help me get to …

…my unusual destination.  This Saturday, by coincidence, I had volunteered with a group to attend the morning service at a Jewish retirement community.  I hadn’t been to services in years.  It was surprisingly restful.  Participating in the familiar rituals helped clear my mind.  I stopped thinking about electronics, and more importantly, I stopped wondering what I would write in my post about the day.  For me, I wanted to unplug from work, and the service helped me do that.  Digital contribution: none

I connected with a resident during the service.  I walked into a chapel with rows of wheelchairs, interspersed with single empty seats.  And the woman I sat next to didn’t respond when I said hello.  I must admit it –  I was a bit apprehensive.  A few minutes earlier, I learned that many residents missed their pets so I decided to show her pictures of my cats on my iPhone.  She lit up like a Christmas tree.  Later, I learned that she was born in Russia, and doesn’t speak English.  I was very happy I took a measured approach to unplugging.  Digital contribution: pictures on the iPhone.

The Big Moment came at halftime of the Syracuse  Ohio State game.  At a time when I normally would have been on Facebook, I walked into the kitchen and talked to my wife while she cooked dinner.  I told her the latest news from our friends.  We chatted and it was wonderful.  I think it was special because there was no agenda.  I didn’t need her to do something, and she didn’t need anything from me.  Usually when we talk, it’s about her work, or my work. Or, it’s something that needs to be shared about the kids or the bills or the household.  This was just for fun, and it was wonderful.

It was a completely ordinary but irreplaceable moment that never would have happened had I not unplugged.

Did you unplug?    Tell me about your day, even if you stayed plugged in. Comment below, or confidentially here.  

Filed Under: Community, Values Tagged With: ,

Unplug From Work This Saturday and Share Your Experience

March 22, 2012 by 7 Comments

Unplug From Work and Give Your Mind a Rest

66% of people read email seven days a week and expect to receive a response the same day.*

Ouch. I admit it, I’m one of them too, but I’m better than I used to be.

When I left the corporate world, I was so addicted to checking email that I was on my Hotmail account every hour. Usually, there was nothing new except junk mail for Cialis or a Rolex watch. But I kept checking regularly for two weeks.  At that point I  channeled my addiction into Mafia Wars from Zynga.  Unplugging isn’t easy, and for me I was the only person I knew who was going cold turkey from an intense job.

The National Day of Unplugging offers a chance to unplug from email as part of a nationwide community of people.  To participate, unplug sundown Friday March 23 to sundown Saturday March 24.  The event runs sundown to sundown because it is inspired by the Jewish Sabbath, which begins at sundown.  When it comes to unplugging from work, sundown Friday is a perfect time to start.

The Sabbath is a day of rest. And rest means no work. In the ancient world, most people lived an agrarian existence, and work was physical labor in the fields or tending domestic animals. But for many people today, work is mental labor. And mental labor can and does follow us anywhere.  It may only take ten minutes to check and respond to email, but the mental impact can last an hour or longer.

The National Day of Unplugging is the perfect chance to give the mind a rest. I find it much easier to try something new when I know a lot of other people are doing the same thing.

I see two related ways to unplug. The first is to unplug from everything to allow a time to contemplate life, reflect, and connect with people without the distractions of technology. While I support the general goals, I think unplugging completely may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I use technology to connect with people. My parents live 3,000 miles away, and I regularly email or communicate on Facebook with my friends.

In my opinion, the more important issue is the separation between work and everything else.  Hence, my invitation: Join me as I unplug from work Friday night to Saturday night. For me, that means no checking Google Analytics for blog traffic, no checking email and no answering comments until Sunday. That won’t be easy, because checking every day is a habit. But I will set my out of office message, so people used to hearing back from me will know that I am unavailable until Sunday.

Whether you unplug or not, please send me a sentence or two about your experience. I’ll compile them and write a post early next week. And don’t worry about me – if I go into withdrawal, I still have Castleville. In fact, come visit my kingdom and I’ll visit yours.

Filed Under: Values Tagged With: , , , , ,

Not Ready to Pull a Greg Smith? Three Quiet Ways To Take a Moral Stand.

March 20, 2012 by 1 Comment

Anonymous Employee Review of Goldman Sachs from the website Glassdoor.com

Last week, I wrote Goldman Sachs Is Busted in response to Greg Smith’s public resignation from Goldman Sachs.  Smith declared in a very public way that  he could no longer identify with the company value system.  A reader commented after my post:

“Most people are afraid to speak up even when their lives are not in danger.”

The reader raises an interesting point.  There are over 30,000 employees at Goldman Sachs, but only one Op-Ed resignation.  Assuming Smith is making a legitimate point, why was he the only one to speak up?    Part of it is cultural – Goldman Sachs attracts and promotes people who share the company values.  Smith is at the other end of the spectrum.  And everyone else sits in between, including  the people quietly looking for a new career, and people who are afraid to speak up.

Needless to say, Greg Smith’s solution is not for everyone.  In my opinion, it would be unrealistic to expect that anyone who has doubts about his or her company’s values to immediately resign, and many people don’t speak out as much as they would like too.  In my opinion, one reason for silence is stress. According to the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program, one third of US employees are chronically overworked and 41% say they they feel stressed during the workday.  When life is really overwhelming, taking a public stand against the company culture is a lot to ask.  At the same time, I think there is a price to pay for acting counter to one’s values.  George is in the financial services industry.  He saw practices that went against his values, and  spoke out “enough to be a little disliked but not absolutely fired.”  George shared the following

“I told myself this was a soul killing experience.  It messed with who I was fundamentally.  It did not make me happy.”

There is no substitute for leaving the company, which is what George eventually did.  But for people who aren’t ready or feel they can’t leave…

What to do?

I am a big fan of guerrilla marketing, that uses unconventional means to get a message across.  Speaking out against company culture is a situation where guerilla marketing can have a big impact. A frontal assault, the method chosen by Greg Smith, takes courage and a lot of resources.  It is also dangerous.  The objective here is not dramatic change, but rather a way to ease the conscience, and to nudge change in a slow incremental way.  The following “guerilla morality” tactics also help other people by providing the truth about the company, and the knowledge that they are not alone in their doubts about the company values.

Three Quiet Ways To Take A Moral Stand 

1. Speak Anonymously using social media to help get the truth out. Glassdoor.com describes itself as a career website that provides “an inside look at jobs and companies.”   Glassdoor.com allows its members to rate companies on a scale of 1-5 in 8 different categories, such as compensation, communication, and work/life balance.  In addition, there are open fields where each reviewer gives the pro’s and con’s of working at the company.  For example, there are 684 reviews of Goldman Sachs, one of which is shown above.  Glassdoor.com uses a “give-to-get” model, meaning that users can gain unlimited access to reviews, salaries and interviewing tips only after they share information anonymously about a current or past company.  A member of Glassdoor.com doesn’t need to make a big public statement to get the information about a company into the public view.  In my opinion, companies who treat their employees badly or that practice suspect values will be at a competitive disadvantage.

If you want to be a bit more aggressive, print a summary of the Glassdoor reviews and leave it on the printer.  (I always peaked at documents left on the printer.)  If I worked for Life Technologies, this document would get my attention.  If I worked at Hewlett Packard and felt demoralized, I might get a boost if I found this document and saw that other people felt as I do.

2. Withhold your public support by not attending company meetings.  In many companies, the quarterly company meeting is a “rah rah” event where senior management reviews development milestones and financial performance.  I have worked at companies where it was expected that everyone attend the meeting, and it was noticed is someone was absent. If you are concerned about getting in trouble, find a defensible excuse, like a doctor’s visit, or a call with a customer.

3. Try to influence the company using a Business Case For Good,  which is a financial forecast or other business case to support “the right thing to do.”  Often, a company needs to choose between two courses of action, where one course clearly seems to be the right thing to do according to personal values.  In my experience, advocating a business decision based on “the right thing to do” is an uphill battle and usually loses to an argument based on “the best thing for the company.”

Business Case For Good Template

Business Case For Good Forecast Template

The key to a Business Case For Good is a financial forecast like the example to the right, that compares two alternate scenarios.  In this example,  the right thing to do corresponds to Scenario 1 that brings in $123 million dollars additional revenue over five years.

Here is the secret to effective forecasting – make a picture, with red bad and blue good.  The numbers can tell any story, depending on the assumptions.*   (One more suggestion: never say that Scenario 1 is “the right thing to do.”  It will undermine the financial argument.  If someone brings it up, look confused and move on without comment.)

There are a lot of places to get data to support a Business Case For Good, such as a customer complaints database, performance data from product development, or cost-related data from manufacturing .  Things get changed by coalitions of people, and the data may open a door to win over someone in finance or marketing.

Could this hurt my career?

The short answer is yes, following the tactics above might slow down your career in the short run.  The sad reality is that on average, people who are more closely aligned with the company values (whatever they may be at your company,) will advance more quickly than those who are not.   This is a post with advice on how to quietly take a moral stand, not a post on how to get promoted more quickly. There can only be one top priority, and it is a personal choice whether values or career comes first.

It is impossible to predict the future, and a quiet moral stand might help your career in the short run.  I am convinced that a strong moral compass will help both career and company in the long run.  I think Greg Smith would agree.  His resignation letter ended with the following:

“Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm… People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.”

 

Filed Under: Business Case For Good, Featured, Values Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Goldman Sachs Is Busted

March 16, 2012 by 5 Comments

The Goldman Sachs Idol

On Wednesday, Greg Smith shocked the world with his op-ed piece “Why I resigned from Goldman Sachs.” 

 “I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.”

Smith walked away from a $500,000 a year salary because he could no longer look new recruits in the eye and tell them Goldman Sachs was a good place to work.

While I freely admit my bias towards people named Greg who tell the truth, there is more to this story than name worship on my part.  Greg Smith, for a while, was caught up in company worship, and now is an apostate, someone who in a very real way betrayed the culture he was a part of for twelve years.  It’s not an easy thing to do, even if the culture is toxic.

Greg Smith was caught up in Corporate Idolatry, which means that he was overly devoted to the value system of his company.  To take Smith at his word, he went to Goldman to do “what he thought was in the best interests of his clients, and considered it a noble calling to help protect their money.”  What Smith discovered was a disconnect between the stated values of helping customers – click here to read Goldman’s written code of ethics – and the reality of the day-to-day culture.  True values are revealed by actions, not the words that a company writes in a document.

But the real story is not whether Goldman Sachs has an ethical company culture.  I have seen commentary on both sides.  Smith is an idolbuster because he chose to no longer “worship” his corporate employer Goldman Sachs.  Smith found his people-first values to be in conflict with the company values, and he decided to follow his conscience.

It is a story of courage, someone who reconnected with his core values and decided not only to leave a toxic situation, but also to expose it for the world to see. Greg Smith is very much a traitor in the eyes of Goldman Sachs and has to live with the scorn of his former colleagues.

In know, because in a minor way, I did something similar when I left the corporate world to be a stay-at-home dad.  It wasn’t nearly as dramatic for me.  My former company’s values did not lead to a global financial crisis.  My issue was the mainly the callus way that employees were treated, and  it was costing me too much personally to stay.  But I didn’t burn my bridges like Smith did.  I told everyone I was leaving because of my personal journey, and didn’t make an issue of my concerns about the values.

Some people I hardly knew came up to me and said they admired my courage for walking away.  Other people I thought I was really close with with dropped off the face of the earth.  To be honest, that part was painful.  Greg Smith worked at Goldman Sachs for 12 years, since before he graduated from college.  Anyone who thinks it is easy to walk away from that has never walked in those shoes.

Some in the media have dismissed Smith’s actions, asking why it took him so long to question the values of his company.  To me, that question is irrelevant.   One of the most popular parodies has Darth Vader resigning from the Empire because of a deteriorating culture.  Interesting comparison.  Darth Vader is the incarnation of evil.  Except of course, that for most of the first trilogy, Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, a good guy who gets seduced into evil.  And in Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader’s love for his son overcomes his loyalty to the empire, and he returns to good.

It is never too late to start putting people first.  Good for you Greg Smith.  I am sure the last few days were stressful, but I bet you slept better at night.

 

Filed Under: Corporate Idolatry, Featured, Values Tagged With: , , , , ,

Four Ways To Achieve Wellbeing By Leading From Within

March 12, 2012 by 4 Comments

Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about how to effectively lead an organization. You hear all the leadership buzzwords about being team focused, work/life balance, customer driven, fostering employee engagement, transparent organizations and my personal favorite being data driven.

All of these leadership buzzwords and attitudes are really outward facing facades that timid, overworked and stressed out leaders say or do to get through the day and attempt to make a difference.

It’s a real shame.

Most leaders (which include those at organizations like corporations, governments, non-profits and even your local PTA) struggle to find that inner wellbeing because they have lost their core beliefs and abuse their most important supporter.

           Why Do We Abuse Our Most Important Supporter?

It’s funny how most leaders neglect and even sabotage their most important supporter – themselves.

They work long hours, sacrifice their personal lives, tow the organizational line, get burnt out, are constantly busy and then expect others to follow their lead. They become bitter because their sacrifice seems unappreciated – it’s like an endless treadmill that just keeps getting faster and faster.

           The Courage to Step Off The Treadmill

We all get stuck on the treadmill now and again. It’s an inevitable part of living in a fast paced, winner takes all, nice guys finish last, type of world.

In order to break this cycle, each and every one of us needs to take Lolly Daskal’s advice on Leading From Within:

People Who Lead From Within are leaders who want nothing more than to live their lives according to their own truths and on their own terms – Lolly Daskal

By understanding yourself and what you want out of life, you can break free and focus on what truly and uniquely makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

To start on this new path, consider some of the essential traits of those who lead from within (adopted from Lolly’s list above):

  • Acknowledge the truth and admit when they are wrong
  • Ask relevant questions and give considerate answers
  • Listen before talking and are not afraid of the words “I don’t know”
  • Constantly learning from success and failure
  • Seeks out wisdom and knowledge to make better decisions
  • Are true to their inner self, follow their passions and strive to live a purposeful life

Over time, the application of these behaviors and attitudes will make your life and leadership more rewarding and promote a sense of wellbeing. This wellbeing is achieved in four ways.

                  Way #1: Eliminates Guilt

Hard charging leaders can be riddled with guilt if we don’t achieve or perform like their organizations expects. By redirecting your motivation from the extrinsic to the intrinsic, this guilt slowly fades and you can actually do a better job and achieve what your organization wants.

                  Way #2: Allows the Broader Picture to Develop

Most of us are focused on what others think. We stress about how we might look to others if a certain result is not obtained. This makes our focus narrow.

When a leader is motivated from within, then the shackles of perception are removed and they can focus on seeing what is developing instead of reacting to every little thing.

                  Way #3: Creates Better Plans and Decisions

Most of leadership is planning and making decisions. When you feel that your motives are true and consistent with your values, how you plan and make decisions drastically improves. You become one with the team or organization you are leading.

                  Way #4: Puts Things In Perspective

With inner strength and confidence comes grace and poise. This makes it easier to see things for what they are and not overreact.

By slowing down and putting events into perspective, you will make better decisions. With better decisions comes more confidence, a better organization and improved wellbeing.

           Go Ahead, Lead From Within

Finding that inner wellbeing takes dedication. It’s not easy to lead from within because the demands of work and life get in the way, you get distracted on task after task, you fear losing your job and most of all, you fear that you might make the wrong decision.

Don’t worry – All that’s ok.

Starting today, you need to get off the treadmill, dig deep within yourself and start leading the life you want – not the one that might pay the most, give you the most prestige or what society thinks you should do.

There is no better way to start on the path to leadership wellbeing then to learn to lead your most important supporter – you.

Jarie Bolander is an engineer by training, entrepreneur by nature, and leader by endurance. His site, EnduranceLeader.com combines two of this passions – leadership and endurance athletics. He offers a free e-course on Leading from Within which shows you how to leader your most important supporter – you. Feel free to follow him on Twitter via @EnduranceLeader

Filed Under: Values, Work Life Balance Tagged With: , , , ,

Clothes, Idolatry and Habit

March 10, 2012 by 2 Comments
The Habit Loop

The Habit Loop

In my recent post Clothes, Identity and Idolatry, I discussed the relationship between personal identity, wearing the company logo after-hours, and excess devotion to the company.  I found that if I stopped wearing clothes with the logo after hours, it helped me think about work less.  At the time, I was thinking about work all the time, so any step to help rebalance my life was important.  And later in this post, I will tell you why it worked.

There was lots of feedback.  Many readers disagreed with the premise, and stated that they proudly wear the logo after hours.  Arguments in favor of wearing the logo included: networking, cost savings by having free shirts, and happy memories, especially from former companies.  Others agreed that wearing company clothes after hours did promote a work-first mentality.  One reader summed it up like this “If in fact your company logo clothes make you feel bad, then don’t wear them; but if they make you feel good, then do!”

But for me it’s not that simple.  For a time, I was very happy wearing the company logo.  But I don’t think it was healthy for me in the long run, and now I understand why – thinking about work and checking email was a habit.

I am reading the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, the author of the series in the NY Times about the abhorrent working conditions in the iPad factories  in China. (I also wrote a blog post about that topic).  Duhigg introduced me to the Habit Loop.

In a typical habit, there is some kind of cue that triggers a behavior that has a reward at the end of it.  For example, if someone puts a plate of cookies on the table in front of me, I will take and eat the cookie, even though I am trying to lose weight.  The cue is the cookie, the behavior is eating, and the reward is a burst of pleasure and sugar.  In addition, when my brain sees the cookies, it anticipates the pleasure, and I start craving the cookie, such that it becomes harder and harder over time not to take a cookie.  Just writing this paragraph makes me want a cookie.

Habits are mediated by a primitive part of the brain called the basal ganglia which operates independently of rational, cognitive thought.  In other words, a habit akin to a reflex -it’s something we just do without thinking.  Or in the case of the cookies, something I do in spite of my thinking.  In fact, sometimes the harder I think about not having a cookie, the stronger the craving becomes.  At this point, I am really glad we don’t have any cookies in the house.  Which brings us to the solution for habits.  The best way to deal with them is to disrupt one of the three stages of a habit, which means avoid the cue, change the middle behavior, or change the reward.

Lets go back to my experience wearing the ‘clothes of the idolators’. The cue was the company logo, which for me, set up a craving to check email.  The reward?  Duhigg explains that executives get a reward from the temporary distraction a new email provides.  For me, I got an adrenaline burst from all kinds of work-related issues.

So if you are thinking about work all the time at home, perhaps wearing the company logo is serving as a cue to trigger that habit.

And the cookie craving?  I ate some cashews, and played with the cat.  Neither helped.  The lesson for me:  don’t write about cookies any more.

Filed Under: Corporate Idolatry, Featured, Identity, Work Life Balance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Lorax or The Corporate Idol?

March 6, 2012 by 3 Comments

Lorax-colored business manI was watching The Lorax at my daughter’s birthday party, and there it was, the phrase that changed my life:  “You need to do what is best for the company.”  Hearing it from a character in the movie blew my socks off.  The Once-ler fell into the trap of Corporate Idolatry, just as I did when I was younger.

In the 2012 movie, Once-Ler starts out as a young man who wants to change the world by making a Thneed, an all-purpose soft fuzzy yarn kind of thing.  The tuft of the Tuffula tree is the perfect material for his ultimate widget.

But Once-Ler runs into a classic business problem – his factory cannot make enough Thneeds to meet demand.  Once-Ler has to make a choice.  Does he keep his promise to the Lorax not to cut down trees, or does he do “what is best for the company?”

“You are a business man now,” his employee argues, which catalyzes a change in his personal identity.  As a business person, he feels the need to do what is best for the company.  Had his identity remained “a man who keeps his promises,” he may have chosen differently.

This is a perfect example of Corporate Idolatry, the adoption of a value system that puts the company first – ahead of people, ahead of animals, ahead of anything but the company itself.

Down come the trees, and up go the profits.  The Lorax brilliantly illustrates the rationalizations that justify Corporate Idolatry with a song called “ How Bad Can I Be?” In essence, Once-Ler tells himself that he has every right to do things that help himself, because the strongest survive and by the way he is making a product that people love.  (I don’t remember if he mentions how many jobs he was creating, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.)  And then, the Once-Ler experiences the intoxication of success, illustrated by his frantic playing of a string of ever more elaborate guitars.  I remember that feeling.

The end of the boom times starts with a conversation between Once-Ler and the Lorax, paraphrased here:

Lorax: “Why have you been avoiding me?  Is your conscience bothering you?”

Once-Ler: “I have a right to do what is best for me.  You can’t stop me.  If you could, you would have used your magic powers to do so already.”

Lorax: “I could, but I won’t, because that is not how it works.  I won’t stop you, but this will.  You just cut down the last tree.  There will be no more.”

And with that, the factory stops and Once-Ler’s family packs up and leaves him behind in a devastated landscape.  It reminds me of a lesson from Rabbi Mana in the Talmud “Idolatry is destined in the end to come and spit in the face of those that worship idols, and it will bring them to shame and cause them to be nullified from the world.”   I don’t know if Dr. Seuss or the writers of the screenplay read the Talmud, but the Once-Ler spends decades as a hermit, living with his guilt in a smog filled wasteland.

So if the Thneed company is an Idol, what is The Lorax?  I’ll leave that up for you to decide, but here is something to think about.

The Lorax is a magical creature who won’t use his powers to make the Once-Ler change.  “That’s not how it works,” the Lorax explains.  Sounds like Free Will I thought to myself as I fidgeted in my seat.

The Lorax rises on a beam of light into the sky, leaving behind a pedestal carved with the word “Unless.”  And in the end, when the people of the city have repaired the world, and landscape is dotted with sprouting Truffula trees, The Lorax returns to the earth.  I fidgeted some more.

Who is The Lorax?  I don’t really know.  But The Lorax, reminds me of the following:

“The Lord is not in the wind or the thunder or the earthquake.  God is the gentle whisper of conscience in our ear.” – Thomas Cahill, writing about the prophet Elijah (First Kings 19:11-13) in his book The Gifts of the Jews.

I don’t know if there is a God, and whether God should be called God or Yahweh or Allah or Jesus.  But I do know that when I started listening to that whisper of conscience, my life changed for the better.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Corporate Idolatry, Featured, Identity, Values Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Seven Lessons About Changing Careers From Writers And Entrepreneurs

March 1, 2012 by 2 Comments
career change magic

Career Change - Visualize The Impossible

Recently, I attended the San Francisco Writer’s conference, my first professional meeting in my new career.  I learned a lot from meeting other writers, many of whom had changed careers as I did.  Here are the lessons I learned.

  1. It takes a lot of courage to change careers.  Support from a community of friends and family is critical.  Key quote from author Ransom Stephens: “If your spouse doesn’t support your change, get a divorce.”  While this was delivered off the cuff and is a bit overly blunt, I think it is true.  He went on “Your family loves you, and want you to be happy pursuing your dream.”  I am thankful every day for the love and support I get from my wife.
  2. Writing a book is a one person business.  The author needs to not only write the book, but also do the marketing.  This includes creating the website and building a following well before publication.
  3. A book is a startup company.  Like all startup companies, as its product development passes milestones, the value of the company increases.  Right now, an agent or publisher can buy my book relatively cheaply.  The more progress on the book, the more its value increases.
  4. An author’s title from the previous world doesn’t matter.  A new career means that I need to establish a new network.  It’s exciting to do something completely different, but it can be a drag to have to pay the dues again.  However, I have learned that most people in the new world want to help.  If I act like a beginner, which I am, they are more likely to offer their help.
  5. Skills and experience from the previous career matter a lot.  What I did before helped make me who I am today.  I am writing about corporate culture and the business life.  I know it well.  Those skills that made me successful in the corporate world- communication, networking, planning, problem solving – they all transfer directly.
  6. I need to build two networks. The first is potential readers/customers who get value from my writing.  The second is peers and colleagues in the writing ecosystem who can support the growth of my career.  Peers are particularly important because they also provide moral support.
  7. Resource allocation is critical. How much time do I spend to writing, and how much building my network?  According to Adam Frankl a startup marketing expert,  a very new company should allocate 50% of its resources to R&D, and 50% to customer development.  I will target 25% to 50% of my time to building my network.

Overall, the conference was a fantastic experience for me.  Do these lessons resonate with those of you who have changed careers in other fields?  I’d love to hear what you have learned.  How did your family react, and how did you build your new network?  And if you are thinking of making a change, my advice is to go for it.  To quote my favorite Rabbi, “If not now, when?”

Adam Frankl on LinkedIn

Ransom Stephens is a writer, physicist and speaker.  His lecture on becoming a writer inspired number 1 and 4 on this list.

Filed Under: Community, Featured, Work Life Balance Tagged With: ,