Category: Leadership

Old Dog, New Tricks: What Can You Change Before Year End?

Happy businesswoman jumps in the airport

Most of us, thankfully, do not need to learn a new form of martial arts to effectuate the change we want to see in our lives. It could always help, yes, but it’s not the natural next step.

Yet we do have something eluding us. A piece of the puzzle we have not yet fit, and we cannot reach the next goal (even one we have been desperately seeking) without finding and placing that piece.

But human beings are stubborn. I know I am. And yes, I’ll say it, some of my clients are stubborn too.

Too often, we know what will serve us – what we need to do, so we can do what we want to do – but we make excuses. We are like old dogs who refuse to learn new tricks.

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So here’s what you do to change that:

(1) Take some time to chill. (Relax, settle in and create some emotional space.)

(2) Review what you wish to bring into your life, and articulate your top goal between now and year end. If your goal may not (or cannot) be completed by year end, choose a manageable goal that is a piece of a larger goal, and repeat these steps in the New Year. For example, rather than “get a new job,” your goal may be to take certain concrete steps toward that end. Focus on what you can change, without attachment to outcomes.

(3) Embrace the vulnerability that you need to move out of your comfort zone. Be prepared to fail, but also be prepared to succeed. In fact, redefine success as a series of steps, not only as an end point.

(4) Embrace the power that you can call forth, from the depths of your being, to reach your goal.

(5) Envision all of the ways you (yes, you) and your family, friends, team, community and/or others. will be better off when you have reached your goal.

(6) Build a support network for your change, even if it’s only one person. Ask them to hold you accountable at each step.

(7) Be curious about what you need to reach your goal, and take the time to explore the most efficient path for you to get there. 

(8) Focus on the present. Not what you could have done last summer, last year or five years ago. What can you do now to achieve your goal? Keeping yourself in the present keeps your emotional energy available for solutions rather than stressing.

(9) Create a realistic action plan and work your plan. Reverse engineer your possible investments and divisions of time and energy to prioritize this goal among other obligations.

(10) Be your own best fan. Cheer yourself on, and celebrate your wins in a way that is meaningful to you.

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Focus on what you can change, without attachment to outcomes.

In the career context, your goal may be to build something, such as:

  • Resilience
  • A Calmer Demeanor
  • Relevant Skills or Expertise
  • A Stronger Professional Network
  • Gravitas and/or Greater Recognition in Your Field

Choose the goal that’s most pressing for you, and stop giving yourself excuses! Feel free to drop me a line telling me what you have been able to achieve.

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, resume writer and author of two well-received books on interviewing and career development. She served as a corporate attorney for 15 years, including roles at White & Case LLP and a prominent hedge and private equity fund manager, before launching her coaching practice. Based in Connecticut not far from New York City, Anne Marie partners with clients internationally on executive presence, impactful communications, graceful transitions and other aspects of professional and personal development. She also offers online instruction at www.segal247.com.

Image credits: Adobe Stock.

Optimizing Your Transition Into a New Role: The 30/60/90-Day Plan

As you start a new job or take on a significant promotion, implementing a 30/60/90-day transition plan will help organize and optimize your first 90 days in the role.

You have likely spent weeks, months or even years seeking out and securing the next step in your career. Once settled, it might be tempting to celebrate, give notice to your current employer, hunker down (or enjoy a brief vacation) and then jump right into the mix. But what if you could create a more deliberate entry point for greater success and to ease your transition?

Through my work as an executive coach, I have witnessed time and again that the final step in a successful job transition is not accepting the offer. Candidates who make the greatest and most lasting impact consistently prepare themselves ahead of time for those critical first few months in their new role.

Herein lies the genius of a well-devised plan.

Recognizing Why You Need A Plan

When I work with coaching clients to develop 30/60/90-day plans, I invariably start by sharing this article by David Gee, which he wrote about his first 90 days as the chief investment officer of Credit Union Australia Limited.

As Gee attested, and as many of us have experienced over our own careers, either we set an agenda and priorities for a new role or our days are quickly overrun by the sheer volume of activity. Gee wrote, “I learnt very quickly that events and meetings would consume me unless I was clear where I wanted to focus my time and energy.”

While you may enter a role with the expectation of a fresh start and ample ramp-up time, work often takes on a life of its own as early as the first day or week on the job. Communicating an actionable 30/60/90-day plan to your team goes a long way in ensuring you are doing the right things among the busyness of business.

Structuring Your Plan

If you are not familiar with 30/60/90-day transition plans, Gee’s article offers an excellent overview. He structured his plan as a chart with “People,” “Process” and “Technology” as headers. Within each, he defined high-level departure points to guide his execution of top priorities, such as:

What does success look like?

What are the CEO’s expectations?

Who are the key players (outlined in a stakeholder analysis and influence map)?

Gee’s chart features both a high-level structure and sufficient detail to keep him on track. As you review it, reflect on the relevant questions and guiding principles for your own plan and how to best structure what you want and need to make your greatest sustainable impact in the first 90 days.

Individualizing Your Plan

One of my C-level clients, let’s call her Jordan, structured her own 30/60/90-day plan as follows:

In successive rows of her header column, Jordan listed her main constituents (board of directors, CEO, other C-suite leaders, regional managers and her team) followed by top anticipated projects and other areas to address. In the remaining columns across her chart, she mapped her goals for each over 30, 60 and 90 days.

While Jordan would have valued time to settle into her role before leaping into action, she was hired by her new CEO on the assumption she would swiftly shore up certain trouble spots in the organization (and be compensated accordingly).

On her plate was to help realign a splintered board of directors, merge diverse geographical regions under a smaller subset of managers and replace two key employees (which she labeled as Projects A, B and C), all while meeting the overarching goals of increasing revenue and raising the organization’s reputation in the marketplace.

People – Impact

30 Days 60 Days 90 Days
Board of Directors
CEO
Team
Project A
Project B
Project C

By breaking up each of Projects A, B and C into achievable goals over manageable periods, Jordan could better predict the steps, time investment and travel schedule she would need to tackle each one. She also could clearly map out how her efforts across these projects would support larger organizational goals.

Tempted to triage and move to execute on each of these projects as soon as possible, Jordan nonetheless recognized that she first needed to set the tone and goals for her own team. She devoted the mornings of her first week at her new office to meeting with team members individually and spent afternoons on conference calls discussing each project in turn. In this way, she gained clarity, demonstrated authority and made initial progress on all key areas, as well as with her team.

Jordan then devised a tight yet manageable travel schedule for the following three weeks. She planned flights to five cities over two trips—making creative use of layovers—with a short break in-between. This put her face to face with individuals (scattered across the country) who were critical to her understanding of long-standing issues and generation of practical, optimal solutions.

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Setting and Achieving Your Priorities

As you reflect on Gee’s and Jordan’s plans and devise your own, you may wish to include some agenda items from Gee’s chart:

  • Building relationships, coalitions and your team.
  • Branding yourself.
  • Setting the time to reflect.
  • Establishing and monitoring key personal metrics.
  • Ensuring accountability.
  • Executing quick wins that can foreshadow more substantial improvements.

Gee took pains to meet as many people in the organization as possible in his early days in the role. Speaking from a position of leadership, he also told his team what he stood for, how he liked to work and what he expected from them. Finally, he made sure that his progress, as measured against his 30/60/90-day plan and more generally, was “very visible” to his manager and team.

While a 30/60/90-day plan cannot guarantee success in a new role, outlining high-level goals and priorities with an accompanying action plan will facilitate the right mindset and allow for more seamless execution. Seek feedback from others as appropriate – either prior to your new role or in the first days at the office – and make sure to consider and include enterprise, team and individual goals.

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, resume writer and author of two well-received books on interviewing and career development. She served as a corporate attorney for 15 years before launching her coaching practice. The above article, other than the chart (added here), was originally published as a Forbes Coaches Council post and available here.

Image above: Adobe Stock.

Four Leadership Traits of High-Performing General Counsel (Women GC’s Speak)

This week I attended “Women GC’s Speak,” a New York City Bar Association panel moderated by Debbie Epstein Henry. Among the four General Counsel panelists, the leadership message was exceedingly clear:

Take on challenges,

find opportunities,

push yourself to be a little uncomfortable,

fill leadership gaps, and

figure it out.

 

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Panelists and moderator, from left to right: Ayssa Harvey Dawson, Cari Robinson, Debbie Epstein Henry (moderator), Romy Horn and Sonia Low. Photograph copyright 2019 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.

Here are four specific insights the panelists shared that echo and underscore the coaching work I do with my General Counsel clients:

Romy Horn, General Counsel of the W2O Group, suggested that among the business aspects a law firm attorney (for example) needs to learn to transition into a GC role, there is one key aspect that many would-be General Counsel fail to grasp:

“Finance. [To be a trusted advisor and excel in a GC role], lawyers in companies need to understand the financial aspects of what they are doing.”

Sonia Low, VP, General Counsel and Secretary of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, reminded the audience that GCs are valued not for reciting the law but for helping senior leaders and others meet their business goals. To be a problem solver and transcend the legal function, don’t be afraid to ask:

“Can I come with you to these conventions? I’d like to meet more CEOs and CFOs, so I can better understand what drives them.”

Ayssa Harvey Dawson, General Counsel, Head of Legal, Privacy and Data Governance of Sidewalk Labs, shared that too many attorneys are caught in the “qualifications” trap and talk themselves out of opportunities as a result.

“Qualifications are subjective. When my last company was bought, I thought to myself, what do I want to do next? What I have learned from that is to never be afraid to embrace change.”

Cari Robinson, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Revlon, echoed that advice, adding that you are never going to know everything about a business, especially if you change industries, so:

“You can’t be bashful about asking people to slow down and explain things to you.”

Robinson also shared two essential factors that have helped her succeed as a GC:

first, her global litigation background, which showed her “a little piece of a lot of things” that collectively taught her “how to think about business” and made her a very nimble attorney, ready to face any opportunity, challenge or crisis situation; and

second, her evolution from a focus on building her own career to supporting and building out her team.

For more information about this panel and the sponsoring committees, click here.

Anne Marie Segal is a career and leadership coach, writer and resume writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. In her practice serving lawyers, she coaches General Counsels, law firm partners, counsel and associates, as well as government, academic and non-profit attorneys.

 

Executive Interview Preparation: The Checklist

If you are a typical executive, it’s a challenge to find time on your calendar to prepare for interviews. When you do carve out that space, here’s a checklist of what you should cover.

Businesswoman working in the office

Due diligence – know as much as you can about the target organization and management beforehand, including what they do, why and who else is in the game

If you are extra short on time and not familiar with the market, management team, products or other other important data points, check if there are videos online that you can watch or hear while going about your other activities. 

Common ground – find out what you have in common with your interviewers and who else you might know (or can get to know) at the company; use LinkedIn® and other resources; reach out to colleagues and their networks where appropriate

Posture / Energy – plan how you can gear up on interview day with a power pose; watch your body language in the room (eat well the night before and that morning!)

Confidence – “I can handle it. Here’s what I’ve done that’s analogous….”

Concise, targeted value proposition – why should they hire you? what do you offer?

For phone interviews, you can have this in front of you, with a page for each of your three to five most important points and examples that support each.

Edge – what’s unique about you that others won’t bring to the role?

Curiosity – ask light, open-ended questions to get better answers

Story / Narrative – who are you as a candidate and a person? why is this organization a fit?

Accomplishments – have accomplishments ready to discuss that fit what you will be asked to do in the role; give examples (without revealing proprietary information)

Behavioral or hypothetical questions – be ready for “what would you do if…?” e.g., if the organization is expanding into new markets or lines of business and they hit a snag (legally, reputation-related or otherwise), if an employee came to you with a certain problem or opportunity, how you would handle a poor judgment call by the Board or another senior leader, etc. 

About you – be ready for “tell me about a time when…” e.g., work style, challenges, successes, etc.; have a short list of versatile examples prepared for these questions

Reason for leaving current role – have a positive way to tell the story; negativity doesn’t sell; give a concise answer and move to why current role excites you

Organizational vision – if you will be leading a company or team, share your vision

Resume – know your experience cold, be open to discuss anything on your resume

Gaps – if you have any that are key to the job, be ready to address them head on

Weaknesses – prepare for the ubiquitous “strengths and weaknesses” type questions

Follow-up – ask intelligent questions to determine if it’s a fit, tailored by interviewer

If you falter, do it gracefully – have a plan to recover from surprises

Interview them back – it’s a conversation, not an interrogation

Compensation – be ready to “talk comp” if they ask; know how you’ll approach this conversation and deflect tough questions

Red flags – save the toughest questions for when you have the offer letter in hand, but note them so you don’t forget

Re-read the job description (if any): prepare for any point that might come up; research terms you don’t know, so you can sound intelligent on what you might be asked

Concise answers – answer the questions asked; avoid tangents; speak to your value

Close well – find out next steps on their end; know yours; if you want the job, make it known

If you need help formulating a personal value proposition, check out my worksheets here.

Congratulations on your interview! Best of luck!

Anne Marie Segal - Web Image (Credit Alejandro Barragan IV)

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, resume writer, Forbes Coaches Council member and author of two well-received books on interviewing and career development. She was a corporate attorney for 15 years before launching her coaching practice.

Image above: Adobe Stock.

General Counsel and Other Lawyers as Business Partners – Building Vision, Capacity, Judgment and Leadership

To succeed as General Counsel, you need not only to build relationships and move outside of what may be your comfort zone – a lawyer with excellent substantive legal skills – but also position yourself as a strategic member of the leadership team. Enclosed is a list of articles to help you explore and master the expanded General Counsel relationship.

Eight Core Qualities of General Counsel and How to Achieve Them is my most-read article on this blog, receiving many hits per day and more than 2,500 views since it was published in the late summer of 2016. (Click here to access the article.)

As a coach, I often receive requests from General Counsel, Assistant General Counsel and other in-house attorneys – as well as law firm partners and others who wish to obtain those roles – to coach them on building their capacity and visibility as a business partner within an organization.  Both of these aspects are important – exercising the right proactivity, judgment and skills and being recognized and rewarded by the Board and senior management for such contributions. This involves not only building relationships and moving outside of what is commonly called one’s comfort zone – a lawyer with excellent substantive legal skills – but also learning how to position oneself as a strategic member of the leadership team.

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To succeed as General Counsel, you need not only to build relationships and move outside of what may be your comfort zone – a lawyer with excellent substantive legal skills – but also position yourself as a strategic member of the leadership team.

I intend further explore the expanded General Counsel role in the coming months, so please subscribe to my blog or sign up for my mailing list if this is a topic that moves you. In the meantime, I have started to compile a list of articles around the web from recent years that have addressed the evolving General Counsel role, which I am posting below to help you explore and master the expanded General Counsel relationship.

If you hold a CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, CTO, General Counsel, law firm or other role and would like to post another resource in the comments or join the conversation, I appreciate your input.

I may update this list from time to time. Thanks in advance!

Attorneys – General Counsel and In-House
Vision, Judgment, Capacity Building and Leadership

“Eight Core Qualities of Successful General Counsel and How to Achieve Them,” Segal Coaching Blog, Anne Marie Segal.

“So You Want to Be General Counsel? How to Maximize Your Chances,” ACC Docket, David M. Love III, Mark Roellig.

“Do Lawyers Make Better CEO’s than MBAs?,” Harvard Business Review, by M. Todd Henderson. 

“The General Counsel as Senior Leader: More than “Just a Lawyer,” Korn Ferry Institute, John Amer.

“What GCs and CCOs Can Learn from Each Other,” Thomson Reuters, Thomas Kim.

“An Open Letter to GCs and Law Firms,” ACC Docket, Daniel Desjardins.

“General Counsel: Guardian and Conscience of the Company,” Forbes, Mark A. Cohen.

“The Rise of the General Counsel,” Harvard Business Review, Ben W. Heineman, Jr.

“General Counsel’s New Role: Business Strategist,” Forbes, Brian Jones.

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, writer, resume strategist and former practicing attorney (including as a law firm partner and Deputy General Counsel of a private equity and hedge fund). The majority of her clients are senior attorneys, and she has coached hundreds of professionals across law, finance, engineering, technology, marketing, non-profits, government and other fields.

Anne Marie is also author of Master the Interview and the newly published Know Yourself, Grow Your Career: The Personal Value Proposition Workbook, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers. 

Click on a sharing option below to share this post on LinkedIn, Twitter or other social media sites. Please leave a comment if you want to join the conversation or share an article, video or other resource for the list.

Image credit: Adobe Stock.

Four Steps to Creating Emails that Get Results

With everyone pressed for time and email inboxes overflowing, one of the worst things you can do is fire off an email that is unread, left lingering or summarily deleted. Not only do poor emails waste time on both ends – minutes and hours that could be used more productively – but they also may create negative impressions about your ability to think, solve problems and communicate.

If you want to be known as someone who acts strategically, demonstrates leadership and otherwise has a positive professional outlook, writing better emails is a crucial place to start.

 ✔︎ Prepare

 ✔︎ Write

 ✔︎ Review

 ✔︎ Follow-Up

Click here or on the icon below to read my results-driven system to writing effective emails on Forbes.com. Click here to request my 12-point checklist “Write Emails that Get Results.”

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Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, author, resume strategist and member of Forbes Coaches Council. She is founder of Segal Coaching, author of Master the Interview: A Guide for Working Professionals (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and through local booksellers) and a frequent public speaker in New York, Connecticut and beyond.

Image credit: Adobe Images.

A Career Coach on a Snow Day: Grit

As a snow day gives you time to reflect on what you want for your life and career and (for many of us) what you want to pass on to the next generation, I was thankful for the snow.

Red plastic shovel with black handle stuck in fluffy snow.

Here’s a quick thought about snow days from a career coach and mom, as the East Coast is being pummeled by Blizzard 2017, the snowmaggedon or whatever we are calling it today.

As a snow day gives you time to reflect on what you want for your life and career and (for many of us) what you want to pass on to the next generation, I was thankful for the snow.

My son took the snow blower and cleared the driveway this afternoon, which shows grit. He doesn’t always have grit. In fact, as a talented yet distractable boy, it is a key skill that we know he will need to build over time, as it does not come naturally to him. So we try to create situations that require grit but will not overwhelm him, so he will be motivated to push forward.

Grit is as old as time and has become the new power skill, as it is needed in just about every life situation. Here’s some more about instilling grit in children and educating students about grit:

The Carnegie Foundation

The Atlantic

NPR

I think often about how we build grit as a world and within our own families. In particular, what can we do to help children appreciate the skills they need to serve as leaders in the future and “show up” the right way to succeed? Today, the answer fell from the sky.

Snow Day Grit - Snow Blower

Anne Marie Segal is a career and leadership development coach, author, resume strategist and member of Forbes Coaches Council. She is founder of Segal Coaching, author of Master the Interview: A Guide for Working Professionals (available on Amazon.com) and a frequent public speaker in New York, Connecticut and beyond.

First image above: Adobe Images.
Second image copyright 2017 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.