CompassPoints
September 2003	Compliments of: Janine Moon, MA, Career & Business Coach
Challenged by the current employment market? Looking to get an edge in finding your best work, in defining your career? CompassPoint Coaching is offering a pilot program this Fall: "Boot Camp for Career Transitioners: Not for Wimps!" This 12-session, 6-week program is an intense, one-of-a-kind series that picks up where traditional career counseling and placement leaves off! Interested? Email me! Columbus Senior Roundtable Thurs, Sep 18/03 7:30 to 9:30 am Trillium Place Register by Sep 15^th: Link to Register Execunet Meeting Thurs, Sep 25/03 7:30 to 9:30 am Bank One Corporate Register by Sep 22^nd: Link to Register Get-It Columbus! Check out the newest program in the Columbus area… a combination of learning, networking, mentoring, discussion boards, and more! “Networking: everybody’s doing it, but do they really know how to get positive results/” – a seminar presented by Mary Morris Hutchison, Thurs, Sep 4/03 7:30 to 10:30 am Sparkspace in the Arena District. Link for info. Janine Moon CompassPoint Coaching LLC 2015 Arlington Ave Columbus, Ohio 43212 U.S.A. Tel: 614.488-6876 Fax: 614.488-1458 Email Janine We’re on the Web! Link to CPCoaching CompassPoints To sign-up for our monthly newsletter: Subscribe If you’d rather not receive CompassPoints: UnSubscribe Copyright (c) 2003 Janine Moon CompassPoint Coaching ~Please pass this newsletter along to someone else who can benefit from reading it.	New economy redefines ‘jobs’ Recent news reports say the economy is on the upswing. Last month, the National Bureau of Economic Research (the official word on economic cycles) declared that the 2001 recession lasted just 8 months, one of the smallest slumps since World War II. And, in mid-August, our Commerce Secretary, Labor Secretary and Treasury Secretary told Midwest workers and business owners that the set of economic conditions we are experiencing right now are the best we've had in decades. Unfortunately, from an employment view, this just isn’t so. Take a look at the numbers: - the US economy lost nearly 1 million jobs since the ‘recovery’ began in November 2001; - this is in addition to the 1.6 million lost during the brief recession; - the unemployment rate remains steady at, or above, six percent; - employers continue to shed jobs. An additional 44,000 jobs vanished in July, the sixth straight month of losses. The traditional cycle will not, in fact, bring these jobs back as it continues on its ‘upswing’. That's because jobs are going away, and won't be back. Jobs are like ‘square holes’ that companies defined to increase productivity in the mechanical age and the industrial economy. Each worker took a piece of the process and repeated that piece again and again. By doing so, in factories and hierarchies where the products and services were well-defined, productivity and efficiencies peaked. (Why wouldn’t they? Staying inside the lines is a ‘no brainer’!) Even if one wasn’t a good ‘square peg’, job descriptions, territorial cultures and a rigid reporting hierarchy melted any creativity to ensure a fit with the ‘square hole’ job requirements. Becoming a ‘square peg’ wasn’t always easy (especially for thinking types), but the rewards that accompanied the adapting were enticing: promotions; pay increases; and an economy and society that supported the ‘no brainer’ structure. But, as the knowledge economy prospered, those ‘square peg’ job descriptions didn’t fit its requirements. Using and manipulating information requires thought and creativity (‘out of the square box’ thinking), with boundaries impossible to define in a ‘job’. The work of this new economy requires: thought-full analysis and synergy, interacting with other people, combining knowledge, discussing, reshaping, and the creation of new and better methods of doing things. In the intensely competitive global market place, this is the work that will keep businesses successful. The traditional cycle will not bring ‘jobs’ along with its upswing. It will bring work that needs doing. Po Bronson- “It’s a real disconnect to assume that the way to a better life is something that happens only in good times.” The business of finding ‘work’ While many employers may still frame work as ‘job’, the most valuable and secure workers are those who approach the workplace like a consultant. Consultants work by shaping their strengths, experience, talents and skills (SETS) to the client’s work. The busiest and most successful consultants are those who frame and use their SETS to ensure that client needs are filled. While they are working, these consultants are also paying attention to ‘other’ work that (the client may or may not have already defined) their SETS can accomplish to move the client further toward business goals. The most secure consultants are always problem-solving and partnering with their clients to make the client’s business easier. Employees who shift to a consultant mindset will find and keep the employment security that may be missing for them in today’s workplace. While the mindset may be a challenging one, it is the only guarantee for meeting the changes we are living. Work is the crux of the market changes we're seeing... work is prevalent, jobs are not. Art of Conversation: Grade point average has little impact on future success, says a professor of business at Stanford University. Dr. Thomas Harrell studied the most successful traits of graduates ten years after they left school, and found that the one trait leading business people had in common was… verbal fluency. Be an action hero… How can you get where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going? Top performers set goals and make plans of action. Without written goals and plans to help you accomplish your objectives, you’ll vacillate. You’ll have a tendency to get off track and run your operations via “crisis management.” But writing down your goals isn’t enough. All the plans in the world are useless unless you do something – you must take action! As a coach, I help you move into and stay in action. -JM If you have thought about coaching, but just aren’t sure how to begin, call or e-mail me, I’ll introduce you to coaching and you can “try it on” with no commitment, only learning! - JM Until next month... “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” ~ David Campbell