The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur

Keeping in Front of the Curve: What is Your Optimum Change Cycle?

In 1996 Dr. Andrew Grove, Intel's then CEO, published a book called Only the Paranoid Survive, where he wrote at length about the Inflection Point.

In differential calculus an inflection point is a point on a curve at which the curvature changes sign, the curve changes from being concave upwards (positive curvature) to concave downwards (negative curvature), or vice versa.

Dr. Grove defined an Inflection Point as "An event that changes the way we think and act.”

Inflection points have the power to transform business, the organization, and individuals. Of course, the goal is to manage inflection points ahead of the curve.

Personal Inflection Curve™

In 2004 a veteran engineer of 20 years came to me for training and coaching. He figured that someone who had reinvented herself six times before starting a business probably had a well-defined process.

Ironically, I had a process for reinventing business operations and organizations but not a personal one. In fact, for over two decades I had used my instincts to reinvent myself and had never captured my own process.

Thus began my 5-year journey of exploring the process of reinvention, inflection point transformation, and what I refer to as the Optimum Change Cycle (OCC). Along the way, I spoke with hundreds of professionals regarding their personal change cycle. Typically, I only had to ask one question to those who were going through transition or who had experienced recent setbacks: "At what point did you become a risk to yourself, your team, organization or business?"

The Early Sign Posts

I began breaking down the process of reinvention by first asking myself "How did I know when it was time for me to change?" There were always two early sign posts: intuition and peripheral vision--one being an internal feeling of restlessness, boredom, or excitement about a new idea. Then there was the external messaging that either validated my feelings or alerted me to ideas, situations or events swirling about me. 

Connecting the Dots

I spent considerable time capturing my historical (25+ years) timeline in order to get a better understanding of my personal and professional peaks and valleys. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that I was exploring the connections between time and quality. 

What I discovered was that there were two different "change cycles". One that I initiated for myself and one that was in response to my surroundings.  

Historically, my experiences were more interesting and positive whenever I reinvented myself within a two-year timeframe. Problems would occur when I missed my "two-year marker" and passed my Personal Inflection Point (PIC). Boredom would cause me to leap at the first opportunity that presented itself, which sometimes resulted in a lucky leap, but more often it meant a blind leap where I found myself working harder to manage a bad situation.

Optimum Change Cycle

Most professionals seem to instinctively know their Optimum Change Cycle, which typically averages between 9 months to 5 years. But instincts need to be validated, as I had a client who was adamant that her OCC was at six years, when we discovered via her historical timeline that she was a "three-year marker" person. She had a history of ignoring her personal rhythm of change after two 3-year-cycles and then sabotaging her career shortly after the sixth year. 

Now, what happens when your OCC is different from your surrounding environment? This can certainly contribute to workplace stress when people find themselves misaligned with their environment. This is why so many change management models don't work. They don't meet people where they are now and instead try to squeeze them into a one-size-fits-all model. This creates a barrier to deep organizational transformation.

For example, let's say you're a 3-year marker person but your organization reorganizes on a quarterly basis. While you're certainly ready to begin your reinvention process 1.5 years into your PIC, your workplace environment requires that you change more frequently. This gives you a couple of options:

1. You can develop "adaptive strategies" by speeding up aspects of your OCC that allow you to remain flexible even if you never adopt your external change environment. 
2. You can look for other opportunities that more closely align with your Optimum Change Cycle and personal values.

You want to remain in front of your Personal Inflection Curve™ by proactively managing the parts that you can directly control and indirectly influence. Being caught unaware is risky in any economy, but particularly in our current economic meltdown when changes are continuously swirling around you.

If you're interested in discovering your own Optimum Change Cycle and how to leverage it in any economy, we're covering this and more during my live, interactive 8-week R.E.I.N.V.E.N.T You! intensive (as of November 1, we have 20 openings available for small groups that will begin in early January 2010).

 

Expertise in a Jobless Recovery: Portable Assets and Transferable Skills

Whether you're looking for a new job now or prepping for a promotion or new role with an existing employer in the future, your reinvention strategy needs to bring more to the table in a soft recovery--one that some analysts and officials say could last well into 2012.

The 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report based on the annual survey findings of employers and employees by Robert Half International and CareerBuilder® discovered that a full 47 percent of managers surveyed cited "a shortage of qualified applicants" as their top hiring challenge*.

They also reported that 44 percent of the resumes received are "not qualified". The characteristics most valued by these hiring managers were "multitasking", "initiative", and "creative problem solving".

When was the last time you reviewed and updated your "expertise bundle"?

Portable Assets

Portable assets are your key differentiators when you're looking to reinvent yourself. These are your areas of expertise, something defined in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers as mastery of a skill or The 10,000 Hour Rule.  

All too often, professionals discount their skills even when they do hold "mastery status" due to a variety of reasons, but primarily because they haven't used the skill for some time. Even a one-time passion that's been buried for years, or even decades, gets a bit rusty over time.

I've had clients who were genuinely surprised by the quality of their own experience and the mastery of their skills. Unearthing their past like skilled archeologists, it's fun to watch as the layers of experience unfold before their eyes.

Reinventing is often about surfacing what already exists. 

But what if you don't have expertise or "skills that sizzle", a question I posed to Marky Stein, author and career expert, during last week's Big Dreamers show. Marky offered some great tips for college students and those with limited experience by leveraging the power of language ("knowledge of", "competent in" or "proficient in", for example).

Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are "flex" skills because they cross industries and functional areas. You can take them anywhere and begin applying them just as quickly.

These are often referred to as "soft skills" or non-technical skills. Although company searches for technical positions don't always include soft skills, quite often these skills are what recruiters and hiring managers look for during their first interview with you.

Skills such as communication, negotiations, organization, collaboration, leadership, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), relationship management, problem solving, creativity, risktaking, and innovation are valued business skills in any economy, but even more so during a soft recovery that require professionals to innovate in new ways. 

Transferable skills are where you source for areas that "hum your heart", converting them to Portal Assets over time through training and practical application. 

Proactive versus reactive: isn't it time you reviewed and updated your "expertise bundle"?

•

Some other interesting points contained in the EDGE Report:

• 40 percent of employers report that when the economy improves, they expect to use money as their primary method for retaining top performers.
• 45 percent of employees plan to change "jobs, careers, or industries" when the economy recovers.
• 9 out of 10 employees "are satisfied with their current work situations"
• Nearly half of employees surveyed said higher compensation will be the most effective way to retain them after the economy improves.
• Top perks for employees? Technology upgrades (79 percent) and tuition reimbursement or subsidized training (61 percent).

Do You Have (Real) Actionable Career Strategies for 2010?

The official word has it that the recession is over. It's just not over for everyone at the same time. Professionals must continue to be vigilant in preparing their career strategies and executing to their plans. Those most at risk are workers who still have a job (whether they like the job they have or not).

I realize that wearing multiple hats and juggling the work of three or four downsized co-workers doesn't leave you with much energy at the end of the day to focus on your "career strategy".

Good news? You're already living the entrepreneur's la vida loca, so why not take it a step further and develop your 2010 career strategy and prepare your plans for surviving and thriving in a sluggish recovery.

This is why I invited Marky Stein to join me for this week's Big Dreamers! The Reinvent Success Show on BlogTalkRadio leading up to her "get back to work now" strategies at the Career Reboot Camp happening Oct 26-27 in Northern California.

Marky is the bestselling author of several career books including "Fearless Resumes", "Fearless Job Change", and "Fearless Interviewing".

During our hour-long show this Sunday, Oct. 18 @ 6pm (Pacific), Marky will share her 7 Fearless Job Search Strategies with Big Dreamer listeners. 

1. How to capture your reader's emotions in the "seven second" zone of your resume.
2. How to make your job skills sizzle.
3. 10 mistakes to avoid on your resume and how to quickly fix them.
4. How to master the first 15 seconds of the interview.
5. How to create "chemistry" with the interviewer.
6. Questions you should ask the interviewer.
7. Negotiating a higher salary in a recession.

We'll take your call-in questions or you can post them in the chat room. Can't listen to our show live? No worries. You can listen to the recorded show posted on my BlogTalkRadio page at your convenience.

Skirting Around Risktaking: Why Giving Voice to the Word Matters

I read the HBR blog article How Do Innovators Think? with its focus on "inquisitiveness". A great attribute to have, indeed, and one that speaks to someone's curious nature. But as the authors discovered, inquisitiveness on its own doesn't always translate into action.

And without action, curiosity is just another nine-letter word that never moves anyone to innovate. 

The six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives validated Professor Hal Gregersen's work of twenty years where he discovered that the big common denominator among global leaders was inquisitiveness. "It's the "same kind of inquisitiveness you see in small children".

Although the authors found that 15% of executives were deeply innovative (defined as someone who had invented a new product or started an innovative venture), these creative types were often careful about asking questions for fear of looking stupid or because their organizations wouldn't value it.

In fact, the authors report that by the age of 6½ students stop asking the provocative questions and in high school it comes to a full stop. By the time young adults join the workforce they have already had the "curiosity drummed out of them".  

They're fearful of taking personal risks. But risktaking isn't always about taking the big, bold leaps into the unknown. In fact, most of the time it's the every day behaviors, such as asking questions when those around you might judge you for "not getting it" or when you just know that the direction your team, organization or customer plans to take is just plain wrong, and you step up to diplomatically challenge it. 

In today's economic climate, professionals are being punished--directly and indirectly--for listening to their voices. When a company's focus is on short-term survival instead of long range innovation, adults soon realize just as they discovered in grade school that teachers value the right answers more than they value the curious nature.   

Poof! There goes inquisitiveness. Instead, we have these great pools of talent sitting around silent at a time when we need people to speak the loudest.

Innovation is the only thing that will get us moving again in the right direction. But inquisitiveness on its own won't get us there if we don't follow-up with the right actions.

But, first, let's give voice to the word that has the power to change how you think about yourself and the value of your contributions.

It's called risktaking. Now, say it out loud.

Career Transition: Visualize Today, Plan for Tomorrow

During a recent cafe visit, I eavesdropped on a conversation between four men with one telling the others that he had "Just enough money left for this transition."

Remember when career transition was an in-between stage? It was a time when you left one job to go to the next or moved to a new position within the same company and was typically a short-term action.

Career transition, today, is something that you can expect to do for as long as you plan to work. And with 1 in 4 American workers over 50 saying they don’t ever plan to stop working, professionals need to continuously assess their tools and techniques for what will become lifelong transitions.

This is especially true for professionals who have lost their job in this tanked economy. Losing your job, and unemployment, are among life's most traumatic events.

With the average time for finding a new job in the U.S. approaching 25.1 weeks, people are definitely feeling the stress. But did you know that how you react to the loss of a job will make or break your search for new employment?

Forced gaps in employment can have a negative impact on your creativity and slow down your innovation spark--differentiating qualities in any economy.

Job-recovery and visualization expert, Dr. Lynn Joseph, is my guest this week on Coach for Innovation and will share five exercises from her groundbreaking job-loss program and visualization system to get you back to work fast. 

You can catch Dr. Joseph at the Career Reboot Camp conference October 26-27 in San Rafael, CA.

R.E.I.N.V.E.N.T. Readiness: Coming Down off the Fence

Last week I spent a nice evening with Engage Her Silicon Valley Circle members describing what goes into a personal or professional reinvention.

One of the questions I often get asked is when do you know you're ready to reinvent yourself?

Well, it depends on what track you're on when you ask the question.  

Track 1: Professionals who are learning the process for the first time. 

Track 2: Professionals who understand the reinvention process recognize the timing and dynamics associated with their Personal Inflection Curve™, and how to put together a career reinvention strategy and execution plan for a smooth transition. (They know when it's time for their next reinvention.)

The biggest challenge for individuals on the fence about reinventing themselves is to not get in the way of their own success. Yes, self-sabotage. So, let's start with the reasons people use to convince themselves that reinvention is not for them.

Why I Shouldn't Reinvent Myself 

I could be labeled by potential employers as not good at anything.

• Reinventing yourself is not about scattering your talents. The process actually helps you to focus on what you're good at and what you truly care about. Learning how to bridge the past, present and future to create a seamless transition plan is part of your reinvention.
  

I'll be throwing away everything I've learned.

• You include Portable Assets and Transferable skills when re-branding yourself. So, you decide what you want to bring along with you for your next reinvention. There's no tossing out anything unless you decide the experience is not something you want to include this time around (you can always incorporate past experience in future reinventions).

I like my employer and I don't want to leave.

• Reinventing yourself is not about leaving your employer of choice. It could be that you want to position yourself for a new role or new responsibilities within the company. It's not always about leaving. Quite often it's about learning how to do something better or different in your career. 

In a down economy it's a risky thing to do.

• Actually, it becomes risky to not change or challenge yourself in any economy. But, particularly, in a down economy you need to be looking for new ways to differentiate yourself. Reinventing your career is about leveraging your existing talents, strengthening new areas, and identifying gaps that need closing (now or later) in order to keep yourself competitive in the workplace. This isn't risky business, it's a smart move.  

People may not like me any more.

• When we change and 'shed old or outworn skins', there's always the risk that you'll outgrow people, your current role or position, and even your employer. It happens. Why not bring someone you care about along for the ride? Changing in parallel (even if you change in very different ways) is another perspective for you to consider.
  

I'm not good at anything else.

• People typically surprise themselves when they discover that they're actually better at a number of things they enjoy. The glass isn't empty, it's suddenly overflowing.

I'm not confident enough.

• Believe it or not, taking a risk on your own career development and personal success increases your confidence!
  

[ONE MORE SINCE THIS MORNING'S POST]

I'm too old to reinvent myself.

• Growth, change and new beginnings are a way of life. Embracing change begins with acceptance that nothing stays the same. Reinventing yourself is learning how to navigate change for different stages of your life--it's key to lifelong success on your terms.

(My thanks to Engage Her participants for contributing to my original list.)

What Reinventing You (Really) Takes

This is what I'm looking for when I assess someone's readiness to reinvent themselves.

• Focused, mentally prepared
• Prepared to put some "skin in the game"
• Ability to trust

'Tis the Season for Do Overs

Over the last few weeks I've attended a number of Silicon Valley events, sometimes as participant, video blogger, tweeter, and presenter.

From the kick-off of the Green Software Unconference, to the Twitterville book bash for Shel Israel's newest launch, and this week's informal gathering of Engage Her Silicon Valley's Circle, I feel as if I'm on the production set of City Slickers when Billy Crystal's character, Mitch Robbins, reminds his friend whose life has tanked that he can do his life over--his life is a clean slate. A do over. 

There seems to be an awful lot of do-overs these days with lots of professionals in transition (code word these days for unemployment, as if transition is something to be ashamed of instead of embraced.) Some folks in transition have been downsized, rightsized, part of a limited workforce reduction. So, we have the forced transitions.

But I'm also meeting professionals who are embracing the do-over, seeking the opportunities in reinventing themselves during a time of economic upheaval. Some are jumping ship for new opportunities, but at the very least lots of folks are planning something real different in 2010; prepping today for tomorrow's transformation. 

This past July I attended DAC where I met Harry Gries. Part of a heavy-hitter line up of speakers at Synopsys' Conversation Central, Harry shared his tips on the Job Search: How Social Media Can Help Job Seekers & Employers; something he knows first-hand after losing his job of 12 years in 2006.

We clicked and I invited Harry to be my guest for this week's Big Dreamers! The Reinvent Success Show on BlogTalkRadio.

I was curious about how an out-of-work BSEE from MIT and an MSEE from USC decides to blog. Harry...the ASIC Guy covers the niche world of EDA and ASIC design. But it's Harry’s mix of high-tech insight, good old fashioned storytelling, and sarcastic NY wit that keeps me coming back.

Good sport that he is, Harry agreed to let me dig a bit deeper and connect-the-dots of his current reinvention with listeners on Sunday, September 13 at 6pm (PT) for the Accidental Blogger.  

Transition can be a good thing. Billy Crystal's character would be pleased with all the do overs.

The Innovation Challenge - Learning from Darwin's Dilemma

Charles Darwin was successful despite his cautious nature. But the outcome might have been different had not a 22-year-old's correspondence lit a fire under him to take the first step towards publicly sharing his evolutionary theory some twenty years in the writing. 

Yes, fear can be a powerful motivator.

Alfred Russel Wallace received credit, as did a host of others, in Darwin's great work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection published November 22, 1859. 

Darwin's differentiator? He supplied the how of evolution. It was his discipline and painstaking work with barnacles (not sexy, but useful research in the end), which made his ideas on evolution credible during a time when skepticism reigned in England.

[Richard Conniff's Smithsonian article On the Origin of a Theory <<< great read]

Innovation is essential to business and, increasingly, the company you keep will play a critical role in your own career success. But despite its importance, persistent shortcomings exist in creating it in the workplace.

What can we learn from Darwin's dilemma? 

We can't afford to be too cautious and wait for innovation to evolve. The current economic meltdown and global problems have raised the bar for companies to transform their organizations and create innovation at a faster clip.

Innovation is Just Play!

Since innovation and discovery are play behavior, you'll get a chance to see it action during this week's Coach for Innovation show that airs Sunday, August 16 from 6-7pm Pacific on BlogTalkRadio. My guest, Mike Alvarado, social anthropologist, innovator, and president of Going Evergreen will walk us through his five actionable steps for fast tracking you and your teams in creating better and more useful innovation.

We'll be taking your questions on Sunday and I'll have the chat room fired up, so crab your favorite beverage and join us live. (If you do miss our live show, you can always catch the replay).

46th DAC - Endings Bring New Beginnings

Preliminary attendance numbers for 46th DAC have come in 12 percent over last year's conference--good news given the overall state of conference attendance in this economic meltdown.

Although never a shortage of smart people at DAC, even the smartest folks in the room see an uphill battle on innovating their way out of the challenges facing the EDA industry.

Pressure to reduce chip design costs, meet government emissions and energy regulations, and improve overall ROI will drive some of the more established EDA companies to adopt disruptive technologies sooner rather than later. Start-ups altering the landscape, such as Xuropa, look to reinvent software sales processes for the 21st century with its Cloud-Computing application that SaaS-enables existing software applications.

Dealing with technology disruptions and discontinuities is challenging enough, but equally challenging is how EDA companies are transforming their workplace environments and reinventing workforces into nimble innovators capable of meeting these industry challenges head on.[In a future series of blog articles I'll highlight how EDA leaders and teams are tackling these challenges and raising the bar at the same time.]

Seizing an Opportunity

The final day of a conference typically offers one-off opportunities, with exhibitors more relaxed and willing to chat about the event and provide their own industry perspective. 

Which is how I got a chance to sit down with Rich Goldman, Synopsys Vice President Corporate Marketing & Strategic Alliances and CEO Synopsys Armenia.

Moving into the industry leader's position with Cadence dropping to second place, Rich and his team assumed ownership for designing this year's DAC exhibits and interactive events for Synopsys (their first crack at it).   

"I felt that Synopsys needed to step up and support DAC with a strong presence."

Social Media - Synopsys Raises the Bar

The Synopsys challenge was figuring out how to speak with their customers in new ways. One thing Rich knew from the outset was that social media would play a big part for them at DAC. He just didn't know what it would look like.

"Given that our focus is geek-to-geek (G2G) we know that our customers don't respond well to marketing b.s. Building the engineering relationship is about providing them with the right tools and the right answers at the right time to solve their problems - this is what builds our credibility in the tech space. It also makes it easier to build trust and credibility in the marketing space--something that social media is allowing us to do."

Rich challenged team member, Karen Bartleson, a standards guru and Synopsys blogger to own the learning and understanding of how people were using social media. One of her ideas? The popular Twitter Tower at DAC. 

Armenia - A Differentiating Factor for Synopsys

There are those who think that Synopsys took a big risk in establishing a strong presence in Armenia.

"It's definitely not for the faint of heart," Rich laughs as he recounts the country's infrastructure challenges, "it requires a strong commitment."

46th DAC: Navigating a World of Change

The practical aspects of helping companies navigate through disruptive change is a key focus of this year's Design Automation Conference (DAC) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The EDA industry is in the throes of managing through some heavy duty inflection points:

• Complexities, challenges and opportunities associated with the design, process, tools, and resource limitations of chip manufacturing
• Social networking and media tools for getting closer to customers in new ways
• Talent engagement and resource management driven by shifting demographics, disruptive innovation, and cost constraints
  

Yes, change is definitely in the air.

But change and innovation has always been the industry's mantra--in the seventies when I was working in semiconductor manufacturing, playing a part in the early pioneering days of the industry, to experiencing the start-up intensity of manufacturing the world's first 6-inch wafer fab at Intel's New Mexico facility in the early eighties (rebuilding the NM facility for 10-inch wafers now).

And I'm not even an engineer (although I have lots of friends and business clients who are).

So, it was with curiosity that I wandered around the cavernous Moscone exhibit halls on "freebie Monday" where I was able to wear different hats: connector, networker, learner, and observer. 

What Stood Out for Me

1. Telle Whitney's one-on-one conversation with EDA Confidential's Peggy Aycinena. CEO of the Anita Borg Institute and this year's recipient of the 2009 Marie R. Pistilli Award, Whitney provided candid remarks about her own career path and shared key points of the ABI and Stanford University landmark study Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology in respect to the attitudes of technology companies and the women technologists they employ.
   
   Biggest takeaway? The 1800 women interviewed for this study were in various decision stages of whether to exit their field of choice. Why? So that they could start-up their own technology companies? Not according to Whitney, where a greater percentage were looking for the flexibility associated with starting their own micropreneur business and, perhaps, giving up their technology focus (and original passion) altogether.
   
   Technology companies looking for innovation as a key differentiator (and who isn't!) should be concerned about why women technologists are voluntarily silencing themselves, choosing to become invisible in the workplace, and transitioning to the fringes of the workforce. 
   
   Companies doing a good job? Whitney highlighted companies such as IBM and AT&T which have remade their Fellow and distinguished engineer programs (not lowering the bar for women, but overhauling their programs) and now have greater percentages of female representation.
    
   
2. Synopsys' Twitter Tower (#snps, #46DAC) and Conversation Central   
   
   What's not to like about the Twitter Tower? You can tweet and track 'em as you stroll by or stop in to check out the Snopsys demos.
   
   Conversation Central: You gather industry insiders for "unscripted, unrehearsed" 30-minute drop-in sessions and you have the makings for lively, straight-from-the-hip discussions. I caught Harry Gries' (harry...the ASIC guy): "Job Search: How Social Media Can Help Job Seekers & Employers" and EDN Executive Editor Ron Wilson's: "The Changing Media Landscape" (Building community for engineers? It needs to be Safe, Authoritative, and Moderated). Thanks to the moderating efforts and community-building of Karen Bartleson the sessions were fast-paced and informative.   
   
   
3. Connecting with new folks in the industry and reconnecting with people like the talented Michael Brito who continues to reinvent himself since I first met him at Sony almost a decade ago. His Conversation Central session "10 Twitter Best Practices for Brands" was packed. It was also fun meeting up again with Gayane Markosyan from Synopsys Armenia after two years. 

Photos (l to r): Harry Gries, Karen Bartleson & Michael Brito, Ron Wilson, Telle Whitney & Peggy Aycinena, Gayane Markosyan