Bad employees vs. bad managers

Despite all leadership and management theories, books and materials, in real life there are still many managers who have learned how to lead from one of their bosses, added a bit of their personal touch and just went with the flow. 

How many people, before coordinating a team, read something about it or go to training? How many managers question their leading style and try to improve it?

 In my opinion, all of them should do that. There should be a mandatory course for all of those who want or already coordinate people. Before influencing someone’s career, professional performances and life they should know what the role means, what are the responsibilities that come along with it.

One of them is the responsibility for the performance of the team and of each member of the team. When an employee is not performing, the first who is evaluated should be his manager. Has the manager properly trained that employee? Did the manager offered right induction, clear assignments, feedback and advice on improving his performance or any guidance at all? Has the manager done his job in providing for the employee the right environment to perform?

Only after all these questions have been answered, should be questioned the capability of the employee to perform on his position and in that specific organization.

Often, employees are evaluated and considered weak performers or even fired because of the incompetency of their managers. For the higher management it's most of the times more comfortable to believe what the team managers say rather than questioning how things were done. After all it’s harder to replace a manager than an operational employee.

This is one of the reasons why multinational companies are preferred by employees. There you have a training system put in place, an induction procedure and a performance appraisals process which at least offers the minimum premises for the employees to perform on their positions.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Following my previous article, someone asked me "Where do you see yourself in five years?” This reminded me of my first interviews as a candidate when other recruiters have asked me exactly the same thing. It was one of the questions I hated the most and I have always tried to do my best in giving answers as general as possible.

Later I understood that the intention behind it was to see if I had a career plan and how the job I was applying for would fit in my plan.

Whoever started asking this question didn't realize that mentioning an exact time frame forces candidates either to give answers out of the blue or general answers that were well prepared prior to the interview. Not everybody has a 5 years plan but that doesn't mean that they don’t have a plan at all.

How can this phrase be avoided and still find out what one’s career plans are? There are many other questions that can be asked around this topic. I believe that questions like "What is the next step in your career?" or "How do you see yourself evolving professionally?" are much more efficient. This way the other person has the comfort of not having to think at an exact time frame.
There are lots of people saying that this question makes no sense, that it’s a stupid question to ask and it forces people to say what they think the recruiters want to hear.

However, most interviewers ask this question one way or another. If you find yourself in the situation of answering the famous “Where do you see yourself in five years?” always have in mind that the real question is “What is the next step in your career and how the job you are applying for will help you get there?”. The answer will then be easier. What we should always have in mind is that we must emphasize how the job that we are interviewing for is integrating in our career plan. This is also a good opportunity to ask back the recruiter or the manager about the career potential in the company. It’s always a good idea to show your interest in developing your career in the company.  

How do we know when it’s time for the next step?

How do we decide when it’s time to leave a company? How do we know when it’s the right moment? When things are not going the way we wanted it’s quite easy. We are unhappy, so we know that something must be done.

But what if everything is fine?

For how long should one stay in a company where everything is alright? Until things get bad? Until retirement?

During our employment with a company we go through certain stages that are more or less the same from everyone:

-  The intensive learning period when we get used with the requirements of the job, learn to work in a different environment, maybe learn new technologies, new software, new industries and so on.

-  The period when we apply what we have learned and we perform at our highest potential.

- The stage in which we don't learn new things and we are not confronted with too many new situations.

The length of these stages is different depending on the each individual, company and  position. However, staying for too long in the second stage is dangerous because there is a point starting which time works against us.

This is a period when we are mostly applying what we have learned. It is comfortable, maybe overall everything looks fine but this can mean also that our career is going down.

But why should we keep on learning? Why should we always try to improve ourselves when we could do the one job that we are good at? Why do we have to step out of our comfort zone and find a new challenge?

Because everything is changing: the society, the way business is made, the technology used, everything. Companies die, new companies are created. Jobs disappear, new jobs are in demand. Our environment has a certain dynamic and in order not only to have a job but to improve our chances for a career, we should adapt and be ready to face the changes.

For career oriented people knowing when to make the next step is essential, especially because we don't want to be job hoppers either.

Coming back to the initial question, in order to know when is the right time to move on, we need a plan. Even if we don't know yet where exactly we want to be in the next 10 years, having a 3-4 years plan will definitely help.

Let's say that we are in a new position. We should already think what we would want as next job. Then think what of this current job will help you to get the next one. What we need to learn, what successes we need to have, maybe even for how long we need to stay in this current position. After having all that cleared, we need to focus all our energy in doing the best in the role we are at the present moment.

It will then be obvious for us when it's time to move on, even if everything is fine.

This is where the well-known "Where do you see yourself in five years?" question comes from. The employers want to know whether we want a career or just a job.

Surviving “Watch your back” companies

"Watch your back" companies are the companies in which the main focus of the employees is to protect their positions and built safety nets everywhere, with everyone. In this work environment, there is no such thing as trust, every discussion must be backed up by its written form and generally the main focus of every employee is to look good in front of the managers.

The objectives of the company become secondary and a huge amount of time and energy is wasted in avoiding or feeding conflicts. This is definitely not the ideal company to work for but what can be done if you end up in one?

One possibility would be to move on and try to find a company with a healthier work environment.

The other option is to stay and try to adapt while applying your own work principles.

In order to adapt you will start learning about your colleagues, the interests in the company, who is with who, who can be trusted and in what matter, with whom you need to speak in order to get things done and most importantly you need to position yourself somewhere in this battle camp. With perseverance, diplomacy and very good knowledge of your domain you can perform even in this environment. The general principle of doing your best regardless the situation can work here as well. But, the question is: Is it worth it all the supplementary stress and effort?

Who faces such a situation should first answer this question and then decide accordingly.

In theory, if you don't feel good at your workplace you should change it, but in fact these decisions are not that easy to make. Most of the people have responsibilities, family to provide for, monthly expenses and above all the fear of failure, fear of failing again in finding an environment good for them. So what can be done to survive and perform in a "watch your back company"?

Here are some ideas:

1. Avoid conflicts. Reply neutral and professional to all job related issues. You are paid to focus on your professional duties, not to show your strength.

2. Don’t spread the rumors. This can only bring you trouble. Even if it looks like an innocent chit-chat, sometimes people can try to use you in order to get what they want. Not playing their game will keep you on the safe side.

3. Focus on your professional objectives. This way you can learn and get results that will help you in the future.

4. Take responsibility for your actions. You will be in an environment where only a few do that and those are the people you need to work close with.

5.  Filter the information you receive. Most of the times people give us lots of subjective and unnecessary information that needs to be filtered as much as possible.

6. Watch your back. Be careful with whom you share your personal opinions, ideas, details regarding your projects. Words fly. When working with other for a project, make sure there is a written form of what was verbally agreed. This will save you from a lot of trouble.

I like to believe that companies like the ones I described above are the extreme cases and there are not too many of them. However, what I can tell for sure is that “backstabbing” colleagues are everywhere and they can do pretty much harm if not identified and handled accordingly.  

Random applications – do they work?

         The purpose of job ads is to attract candidates who have certain skills, experience and education. They describe the ideal candidate and because most of the times the companies can’t find such a candidate they make some compromises and interview also the candidates that meet the critical requirements. However, generally the candidates are taken into consideration for a certain position if they meet at least 80% of the requirements.

Regardless of the job requirements, position, company and country I would say, the mailboxes of the recruiters are constantly invaded by random applications.

          The random candidates are those people who apply to every single job ad that they see. People that apply for Sales Manager positions but they have never sold anything in their life, people that apply for technical positions even if they have no experience or studies in that field and so on. For some, the only criteria are regarding the region in which they live. However, most of them consider no criteria.

So there will be no misunderstanding, when I say random applications I don’t mean spontaneous applications. For me, the spontaneous applications are happening when a candidate sends his application expressing his interest in a position that is not open at that moment. This kind of applications is recommended by all HR specialists because this way the candidate shows his initiative and interest in a certain company. 

        If it would be to find an explanation for the behavior of the random applicants, I would say that probably these people think that someone will see their CV, discover the well hidden potential behind their irrational application and call them to offer the job of their life. Some might even think that the recruiters will save their CV and when there will be a position corresponding to their experience they will call them right away. 

WRONG! Recruiters never save random applications. They are annoyed by such candidates that they need to go through in order to find the ones that really match the job profile. This is a waste of time for everyone. I haven’t met yet a person that obtained a job through random applications.

       Just a bit of responsibility when applying for a job would make a great difference for both candidates and recruiters.  According to Holmes and Rahe stress scale, losing a job is one of the 10 most stressful situations in life. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale) Maybe this explains why some people act so irrational when looking for a job.