“Bob, I’m a little shocked!” This is how my executive coaching client, Danny, the Vice-President-Production Operations with a large energy firm in the oil patch responded at the beginning of our conversation when asked, “How are things back at the ranch?” He went on to explain that when he had been nudged by their Human Resource function to get a sense of forecasted turnover over the next few years through retirements, attrition, etc., his people had collectively come to the conclusion that 70% of the staff in Danny’s division would turn over in the next 3 years. “Well, what are you planning to do to prevent the potential adverse consequences?”, I asked.

In response, Danny stated, “We clearly have to start identifying successors to the key Production Operations leadership positions, and in parallel with this identify and accelerate the development of High Potentials.” “What are your other glimpses of the obvious?” I asked him. “That’s a darn good question. I guess we’ve got to review other critical roles and specifically any flight risk staff!” 

“What generally would be the outcomes you and your leadership team would likely look for by doing this?” I asked again. He quickly responded with increased energy, “Well for one, identify key talent at the senior levels of our division, get a solid sense of our bench strength, get those we identify to be clear on their needed development activities, and agree with our senior team as to what exactly the key succession management metrics should  be!”. Danny had quickly created excellent strategic direction around this challenge that’s common to most private and public sector organizations.

When asked, “What’s really driving all of this?”, Danny said “That’s another great question. We’re anticipating continued strong growth once the economy gets back on its feet and obviously anticipating turnover of our key people. The increased challenge of filling these key roles along with our questionable current bench strength and readiness to backfill are clearly wanting, as well as our lack of being able to identify HiPo’s right now and having them ready to step into senior leadership roles when we need them to surface. I think these are the real concerns here.”

“How do you feel about all of this?” I asked. “Quite frankly, I’m disappointed, mad as hell for allowing ourselves to get into this position, and I’m damned anxious about what might happen if we don’t get on top of it . . . and yesterday! It’s now one of our top priorities!”

“So, what do you want to do about it?” I asked him. “Well, it’s clear that we’re engineering experts and not Human Resource experts so we’ll need to get together with HR and soon. I’ll put this at the top of the list at our next Production Ops executive leadership team meeting this coming Tuesday.”

“If you thought you knew what needed to be done in terms of the overall process for moving this forward quickly, what might that be?” Being the quick thinker he naturally is, Danny stated, “OK, do you just make these questions up? Well first, I would think that we need to scope out what actually needs to be identified through our succession management initiative. Second, we would no doubt have to assess and review our current engineering talent for levels of performance and potential. Third, we’d obviously have to start figuring out what key leadership and individual-contributor engineering roles need to be replaced and when. Last, I’m thinking it’s about making sure we have a top notch development action planning process in place that can be quickly designed and implemented. Does that make sense?”. “More importantly, does it make sense to you?” I responded. “You know, it does. Thanks.”, said Danny.

“So what’ll your next steps be given what you’ve said so far?” I asked him. “Again, the questions Uncle Bob!”, Danny said jokingly. “Well let me see. I’m thinking we start right away by initiating a succession planning meeting between us and HR early next month to agree on role expectations, determine critical roles in the Production Operations division, identify high impact engineer flight risks and begin a talent review to develop a list of HiPo’s.” “Then what?”, I asked. “OK”, Danny said, “Later in the month, we’ll make sure we have a talent replacement plan in place. In the following month we can shoot for having a development plan nailed down, and the month after that have our succession metrics in place with a solid progress plan established. Yeah, that’s sounds like it would do it.” 

Lastly I asked Danny, “So how will we know you’ve done what you’ve said?” “Again, with the questions!” he responded tongue in cheek. “I’ll send you a one page copy of our general plan for making this happen with target dates. I’ll send you an email once I believe each of the key milestones have been achieved. We can also carve out a small portion of some of our future executive coaching calls for us to discuss what’s happening. Will that work?” “It’s sounds like a plan my friend.” said I.

What insights in the foregoing were there for you? What one word captures your reaction? How do you feel about the subject of talent management and succession planning. What do you want to do with it? I would love to receive any gems this may have conjured up for you. For those interested, a wonderful book on this subject is ‘The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company’, by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel. Take care and have a great day!

“Given the current market and the organization’s poor revenues over the past year, I wasn’t surprised when they gave me notice of termination.” Tony, a senior marketing executive with a large petrochemical firm had just been let go after 15 years with the organization. “So how are you feeling in this moment?”, I asked. “Well, even though I had guessed my number was coming up, it still came as a complete shock. Not only to me, but to my family as well! It’s been a long time since I’ve looked for a job and I’m not sure where to start.” “Well based on what I know about you so far, I’m confident you will do well in promoting yourself, and strongly believe that you’ll succeed in your campaign to find a new job!” I continued, “Let’s really drill down and build a solid foundation for you to move forward confidently and powerfully.”

“What is it you believe you need to do to succeed?” I asked him. Tony is a very outgoing individual with a naturally positive outlook that he would have to lean on as he moved forward with his career transition. “Well, there is no doubt that the way I will look at this whole situation will form the foundation of my job search campaign and probably be the reason why I’ll succeed at it. Plus, I’d like to make solid progress toward landing on my feet in another position as soon as practical and bank as much of my severance as possible!” he said with conviction.

“How do you plan to navigate through the forthcoming job search challenges and implement a powerful campaign for yourself?” I inquired. “I probably need to start at the beginning!” he said facetiously. “Say that again?”, I responded. “Seriously, I sense that I need to begin taking some kind of inventory of my strengths and get clear on the work I truly love to do, getting some clarity around what it is I want to really achieve, and preparing to package and market myself.” Tony stated.

“It appears that you already have good clarity and a great jump start on how you plan to market yourself and build a strong network of contacts”, I commented, and went on, “What else do you need to focus on?”. “For sure, I’ll need to also take a hard look at my interview and negotiating skills. I just know, there’ll be no room for laying back and taking it easy, not until I’ve nailed down a good opportunity”.” So, how do you need to be as you move forward?”, I asked. Tony, quickly responded with a resounding, “I need to be thoughtful, thorough and persistent in everything I do from here on in. I also need to be physically, psychologically and spiritually at my best!”

With this, Tony and I coached and collaborated around key steps in his career transition plan that would be needed to assure his success. The following capture what we coached around and Tony made happen. 

1. Completed A Full Inventory of Himself: Identified his past successes, current strengths, over-all work and leadership styles, and personal preferences and became expert in the product – himself.
2. Clarified His Career Direction: got great clarity, became focused and realistic all based firmly on his key strengths.
3. Professionally Packaged & Presented Himself: developed powerful résumés (professional brochures) that showcased him professionally.
4. Developed a Laser-Focused Marketing Campaign: created a clear strategy for going after those industries, organizations, roles and key decision makers in a way that took full advantage of his limited time, available resources and assured a successful outcome of his market campaign. 
5. Created A Powerful Strategic Network: engaged in a highly planful and results producing Business relationships building campaign that was vital to his job search success. 
6. Designed Highly Influential Campaign Correspondence: designed and developed a range of professional search campaign letters from introducing himself to following up on key opportunities. 
7. Partnering with His Coach, Practiced His Interviewing and Negotiating Skills: deepened his emotional intelligence that included his self-regulation, communication (particularly asking and listening) skills, and his empathy accuracy and compassion abilities that proved essential to converting opportunities into ready job offers. 
8. Assured His Success In The New Job: We worked together to assure successful leadership transition into the new role by taking steps that would accelerate his transition from being an initial net consumer of the new organization’s resources to a net contributor in as short a time as practical.

Tony was amazingly thorough and persistent in managing his job search campaign. He worked as hard for Tony Inc., 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, as he had for his previous employer. This dramatically contributed to his achieving, and even exceeding, what he truly wanted. In his case it took him five and a half months. He was eventually offered and accepted a position more senior and at a higher total compensation level than where he had been previously working. Nothing to sneeze at! I loved partnering with him as his career transition coach during that part of his life’s journey.

What were the blinding glimpses of the obvious for you in Tony’s experience? What would you add to the foregoing? What part causes you personal trepidation? What would you do differently if you were to do this?

“Listen, I feel confident about most things, but terminating some of my staffs’ employment isn’t really one of them. I don’t want to be one of those managers that simply say, ‘nice tie, you’re fired’!” said Frank, a senior operations vice-president I’ve been coaching. “Given the white-water economy we’re faced with, some serious people decisions have to be made around here, that will probably include cutting some people loose. Again, I really don’t want to do this. However, I’d like to make sure I don’t make any major errors when the rubber hits the ground.” Frank and I agreed that letting people go is more common than not these days and this action needs to be managed competently and with compassion for both the organization and those folks who will be departing.

“So, what would be some key payoffs of your handling these employment terminations well?” I asked Frank. Being a relatively quiet individual by nature, he took some time to think about it before he responded. The following benefits surfaced during our coaching discussion: 

• reduced trauma and the adverse impact of the event to the individuals affected
• avoid some serious downsides when thoughtfully providing the difficult news and hopefully maintain healthy relationships following the event
• minimized potential problems for the organization itself in terms of a well handled meeting, sending a positive message to those remaining, and avoiding unintended comments
• Being in service of the departing employees getting a positive jump start toward landing on their feet as quickly as practical with their job search campaigns

Based on the foregoing, Frank and I further coached around what some of the logical key steps might be when engaging in the process. These included:

DECOMPRESSION: choose an appropriate time and a neutral setting for the termination meeting (not in his office)

SET THE CONTEXT: authentically and briefly express genuine concern for the organization’s current situation and future prospects 

GET TO THE POINT: state the departure very quickly, clearly and succinctly.

TERMINATION PACKAGE AND SUPPORT: explain the termination package, including benefits coverage and any career transition coaching support being made available, and offering to support the individual wherever practical.

DOCUMENTATION: ensuring a letter outlining the specifics of the termination package, including a release document, be given to the individual so that they can study the letter and package later when the dust starts to settle. “ LASER LISTEN: Allow time for the individual to react and raise questions of clarification, yet being clear the decision has been made and is final

COMPASSION AND SUPPORT: offer moral support, but not in terms of reversing the decision that has been made.

TERMINATION TRANSITION: following thorough pre-planning, discuss the specific details concerning the individual’s transition out of the organization.

CAREER TRANSITION COACH: introduce the separating individual to the assigned R. W. BENWICK ASSOCIATES career transition coach or internal Human Resource Management specialist. Meeting Length: total meeting time to be kept to 10 to 15 minutes max! A longer meeting could very well deteriorate, and end up creating unnecessary concerns.

AFTER THE MEETING: once the departed individual has worked with their R. W. BENWICK ASSOCIATES coach and prepared for their employment search they may want to meet with Frank for some information, advice or suggestions relative to their job search campaign, or they may want to approach him to provide a reference. Here, the R. W. BENWICK ASSOCIATES coach can help to smoothly facilitate the terminated employee to move forward quickly and reduce any related discomfort experienced by Frank.

Frank felt quite confidant at the end of our coaching meeting on the topic and now knew where he needed to spend more time deepening his understanding, planning, organizing and preparing to handle this difficult task thoughtfully and compassionately. 

What else do you think Frank needs to consider? Other potential problems? What else might he do to prevent these or to minimize any adverse consequences should they arise? Your thoughts and feelings around the foregoing would be most appreciated.

 ”For some reason when I tell them what I want accomplished, I simply don’t appear to be getting the results!” stated Barbara, my executive coaching client. “So how do you feel about that?”, I asked. “Frustrated as hell, impotent, and powerless to make things happen!”, she replied. She went on, “I thought I understood this leadership and power stuff, but I think I’ve missed the boat somehow.” We engaged in some solid discussion and coaching around what power is and is not for her. From this Barbara mined some great insights and confidently identified what she needed to start, stop and continue doing as a leader to improve her ability to enhance her relationships and dramatically increase her group’s strategic contribution to both her Division’s and the organization’s success.

As we coached, she quickly became more aware that she can’t just power someone, she can only influence them. However, she also realized that she needs power in order to effectively influence others to do want she needed done. She noted in our coaching discussion that power for her was in fact an essential leadership resource. She also quickly ascertained from our exchange that there are basically two sources of power that are available for her to tap into: organizational position power that came with her role, and her own personal power.

As we explored sources of position power, Barbara concluded that this came from her access to the formal power essentially her right to command. She also noted that with her role came the ability to use rewards, be they financial or non-financial rewards. She quickly added to the foregoing her ability to use coercion to get want she wanted from others, be they threats, denial of rewards or even the use of punishment. Although she tried not to use these, she felt some folks may have seen it more often than not. After further discussion, she concluded that other sources of her position power might also include her control of her function’s business processes, access and control of key information, and the power to represent her strategic business unit. Although, all legitimate, she was very clear that these should be used with considerable forethought, sparingly and by exception. Unfortunately, in hindsight she confided that she was concerned about her inappropriate use of some of the foregoing and wanted to modify related behaviors.

We continued with our discussion around those sources of power. She emphasized a desire to increase her ability to get results through others, whether they reported directly to her or not, and assure that they would also be highly satisfied with their working relationship with her. She felt if she could achieve this the result would probably be higher motivation on their part, resulting in generally increased effort to make things happen and thus support successful achievement of her and their overall performance  targets.

This then lead to more coaching around Barbara’s sources of personal power. These tended to include her expert power such as her specialized knowledge, experience and judgment that the others needed access to because they didn’t have it themselves. Another source was her ability to rationally persuade others that the goals she wanted achieved were desirable and the way to achieve them reasonable. And last, but not least, was what we both agreed was absolutely one of her greatest sources of potential power and that was her ability to influence others because they genuinely like her and want to identify with her. Barbara knew that would be possible only if she takes the time to invest in relationships with key others and allows herself to withdraw when needed to get critical results accomplished.

It became obvious that for her to achieve important results through not only her people, but also through her peers, boss and key others, personal power was the most critical area for her to continue to develop and enhance. She felt the focus would now be on developing her likeability—referent power. This is one smart lady and I know she will become even more powerful and influential in advancing her organization’s strategic advantage.

Based on the foregoing, what would you have added that could enable her to be a more powerful leader? What was the gold nugget for you in Barbara’s situation? Oh, the places she’ll go when she gets on top of this one!

“Treat your résumé as your professional brochure!” was a response I recently gave a client during one of our telephone coaching calls. He wanted coaching around marketing himself in this phenomenally difficult economy. His objective was to powerfully promote himself as a senior leader. This more often than not comes forward as a request from many of my clients who are either doing well within their current role and wish to move higher in their organization, anticipating eventually leaving on their own volition, anxious about their organization engaging in future downsizing or have recently departed their organization.

Similar to when one is contemplating a product purchase, most decision makers want to quickly access a concise summary of the key benefits, qualilities and potential added value of the product or service being considered. The key decision making information is typically available in hardcopy or electronic brochure formats. “This is no different for you” I shared with my client. “You’re the product! Just like other high end products or services that are presented to potential buyers in a powerful and impactful way, so it is that you need to market and present yourself. Would it be beneficial for you to create just such a powerful brochure to market and present yourself? Do you want to substantively increase your chances of having your ‘professional brochure’ put on to the ‘yes pile’ as opposed to the ‘maybe’ or ‘no’ applicant piles?” The answer was a quick and unreserved yes.

As my client and I coached in real-time over the phone, I asked him a series of specific questions to advance his foregoing agenda. From these we quickly developed a draft version of his chronological résumé. My contribution focused on being a ‘process expert and coach’ in service of his developing this critically important professional marketing document. My client’s focus was clearly being the ‘content expert’. Within about two hours he had a substantive document that he could quickly move forward with. What remained was his applying final content touches and being prepared to come back with his finished document so that we could then quickly create a ‘Functional’ version at our following coaching session should he consider exploring opportunities in other industries.

Recalling our conversation, the following are few of the key points shared with him as we went through the process. Some folks spend weeks or months attempting to do just this.

• Keep the Document Short: Keep the résumé short and to the point. No more than 3 pages for senior professionals and executives.
• Maximize White Space: Don’t fool with the margins! Make it an absolute breeze for the reader to go through and see the key points . . . bingo, bango, bongo and over to the ‘yes’ pile.
• Create An Overarching Statement: After inserting the name and contact information, tell them exactly who you are professionally, what key areas of expertise you bring with you, where these came from and how you will add value to the organization once on board. This is the most critical part of your résumé!
• Apply Bob’s Rule of Two: Other than your overarching statement at the top, never ever go beyond two lines in any other part of your résumé . . . keep it simple, powerful and very very easy read!
• Keep It Results Oriented: Your résumé should scream results and high contribution to potential employers! Otherwise, why hire you? Use the CAR approach to describe each of your key achievements (Challenge/Action/Results).
• Finish With A Bang!: Now that you’ve told them that you not only can and will do the job, don’t hesitate to now share with them that you also fit in nicely with the way they do business by describing your personal qualities and core personal competencies. This is the icing on the cake that nudges the decision maker in the right direction.
• Judiciously Use Color: Thoughtfully apply the use of color, particularly in key headings, that can be highly effective in making your résumé stick out from others and increase its chances of ending up in the ‘yes’ applicant pile.
• Create A Range of Alternative Résumés: Be prepared to develop a range of alternative résumés for you to pick and choose from depending on each presenting opportunity. Never use the same one for every opportunity that arises!

These are some of the key considerations when developing your professional brochure.  Hopefully, you will find the foregoing both intriguing and in service of your future success and fulfillment.

Let me leave a question with you. “What do you now have to say no to in the development of your personal brochure in order for a potential employer to say ‘yes’?”

Other related concerns you may have to contend with might involve your supporting marketing correspondence, focused market research, powerful strategic networking, highly competent interviewing, nimbly handling negotiations, and assuring successful value-added leadership transition into the next role. But foregive me for I digress . . . those are possible future blogs. Are they of potential interest?