Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

A Pitcher Of Lemonade Made With Fresh Lemons

Sometimes life and careers do not go as planned. Many things in our careers are impacted by factors outside of our control. I moved from NJ to DFW in 2013 expecting additional good things to happen in my career journey. Much of the leadership of my employer was relocating to DFW and many of us moved to retain our positions. Associated with the move were numerous re-organizations with new leaders taking on many of the vacant positions.

I found myself in a new organization with a new leader that I had worked well in the past as a peer. We got along well with mutual respect on both sides. Unfortunately, my mid-50ish age became an unexpected factor in my career journey expectations. There were many of my peers in my age bracket and the corporation wanted to focus on developing and promoting younger leaders in the grand succession plan. Editorially I might add that a number of the new leaders were too inexperienced and lacked some of the political skills necessary for the jobs they were slotted but grew into the positions over time. No spilt milk, just statement of fact.

I still planned to continue working for a number of years and remained highly regarded in my organization. My teams performed some major things during this period and were highly regarded and well compensated for their accomplishments.

What I discovered though was this this phase of my career became the most fulfilling of my career. Politically, I could be as outspoken as I desired. There were no downsides to expressing my honest (and respected) opinions. Even if they were contrarian on a matter, my thoughts at least gave others pause to consider another perspective or alternative path.

That was all well and good, but the most fulfilling part of this phase of my journey was the ability to play forward some of my experience and wisdom to more junior employees who were in the initial stages of their careers. There were all sorts of opportunities to play it forward.

-          Some of the business organizations I supported had speed resume sessions where some of the leaders would do a speed dating type session, but instead review someone’s resume and offer advice on how to format the resume, making recommendations on what information to emphasize, and other insights to help the resume owner be seen more favorably in a job interview --- either an internal job post or external position.

-          I volunteered to mentor people within my organization. With the recent college hires on my team, we had introductory sessions when they started and had one-on-one sessions every 3 – 5 weeks afterwards where my job was primarily to listen to their concerns, offer encouragement, make suggestions on how to do their job more effectively, or other activities to participate in to broaden their skills.  I received positive feedback from these team members, so I believe that they found them helpful. The sessions continued long after they had ceased to be “new hires,” so they must have appreciated them. I certainly enjoyed playing it forward for them. My “Building Your Toolbox” blog tells a story about two new hires in one of these sessions.

-          My employer also had opportunities to become a mentor for individuals in other organizations and mentors to small groups of individuals from disparate organizations. These sessions were really fulfilling to me and helpful to these individuals and small groups.

• I was mentoring one individual in the CFO organization who had accepted a new job in a different organization only to find out that the job was not what it was advertised to entail and not a good fit for his skill set. His old organization did not recognize how valuable he had been until he had moved onto the new position. He was able to make a quick return to his old position and was appreciated much more by his old team. He had had a concern about what this quick job about face would look like on his resume going forward. My coaching was that in the short term it would be an aberration and he could tell anyone that asked that he had accepted a position that was not what it was described to be and made a quick change to remain competitive at this level. Most future bosses would respect that. In the long term, the abbreviated period would not need to ever show up on his resume. Things worked out well and he was promoted by his old organization within a year.

  
  

• I mentored a small group of individuals that were from an assortment of organizations. These group sessions were appreciated by each of us. People shared problems they were working through and got support from the other group members. Sometimes another group member was key in solving the problem personally or knew of a resource that could help. It was also valuable for the group to be a sounding board for other members. We only had a couple of ground rules, similar to my “Bagels With Mike” blog. We agreed that you could not trash another person or organization in our discussions. We were professionals and needed to treat this small group and the other organizations we dealt with respectfully. Personal issues needed to be handled one-on-one or if needed, via other company resources that might be available.

We each have setbacks in our lives and career journeys. In some ways, the struggles make us stronger and better leaders. As a leader, we have an awesome responsibility to groom and mentor those junior to us because they will one day be the next generation of leaders. Organizations and companies either succeed or fail based on how they groom each generation of leaders for the challenges of the future. Sometimes we can turn our own disappointments into a play it forward benefit to those that will follow us.

Turning lemons into lemonade can be quite fulfilling and enjoyable. An additional benefit is that you build a network of people that still within your previous employer or have moved onto other responsibilities with other employers expanding your network, benefitting from the wisdom and experience you were able to share.