It was clear the boss thought highly of Kelly and wanted to help her win this coveted new job. But at the end of the interview, Kelly sounded very nice—and very weak. No man would ever be described in those terms, and if she were up against a male candidate whose reference instead praised his “extraordinary competence” and “passion for winning,” I was pretty sure I knew who’d get the job.
So be on the lookout for stereotypes that may crop up. They may or may not be accurate (every woman isn’t warm, every Frenchman isn’t aloof, every gay man isn’t witty), but they’re probably shaping how others view you.
Bring It Together
Finally, synthesize your data. Any high-quality pollster strives to get a representative sample (if you have too many senior citizens or not enough Hispanics in the pool, your result can be dramatically skewed). Similarly, be sure you’re assigning the appropriate weight to each variable; rather than obsessing about something one person mentioned, you’re looking for patterns. It’s easy for something negative to stick in your craw (one friend has quoted a critical review of her work to me so many times that I can recite it verbatim, and it was written a decade ago). But the power of one harsh appraisal can cloud your understanding of how you’re perceived in general. Remember: you’re looking for patterns and trends.
Ask yourself the following questions, and make sure you’re taking into account every category—360 interviews, your focus group, your online presence, and performance reviews and recommendation letters:
What adjectives—both positive and negative—do people use to describe me?
What skills do they say I have—or lack?
What aspects about me or my brand are most frequently talked about?
Are any aspects of me or my brand cited as unique or unusual?
Now, most importantly, you have to determine whether you like what you hear. Begin to think about what words you want people to link you with. Notes Cohn, “Maybe people say, ‘I see you as thoughtful, methodical, and nice.’ Those are lovely professional qualities, but it’s not a leadership brand like ‘decisive.’ It’s not bad, but it’s not going to get you to the C-suite.” Our job in the next chapter is to help you identify where you want to go—whether it’s the C-suite of your current company or into a new field altogether—and begin to reshape your brand to get there.
REMEMBER:
Now that you have a better grasp of your current brand and the strengths and weaknesses that go along with it, it’s time to research your next move. If you already have a working theory (I want to transition from project management to sales), you can test and investigate it before diving in. And if you’re still unsure what’s next, this is your chance to spark ideas and gather new insights so you can better evaluate opportunities down the road.
One caveat is that, at this point in your reinvention, it’s often a good idea to keep a low profile. Later on, once you’ve solidified your brand, you’ll want to shout it from the rooftops (that’s how you can win clients for your new business or get a plum job offer where you can utilize your new skills). But at this early stage, you may not have a fully formed sense of where you’re going, and that uncertainty has the potential to confuse others.
As San Francisco–based executive coach Rebecca Zucker notes, “if you’re not sure what’s next, you still need to come across in a way that inspires confidence and makes other people want to help you. You can’t go out into the world lost, because no one will want to spend social capital on your behalf.” The secret, instead, is to slow down and determine where you really want to invest your energy.
In this chapter, we’ll talk about ways to crystallize your future direction. We’ll cover:
Why you may need to take time off first
How to conduct behind-the-scenes research
How to win friends and not alienate people through informational interviews
Take a Break
If you’ve been suffering through an unsatisfying job or career, you may be eager to get on with the rest of your life. That was certainly the case for one woman who visited Phyllis Stein, the career counselor. “She’d been a solo veterinarian for fourteen years,” recalls Stein, “and she was on call seven days a week for those fourteen years. I literally had never met anyone in my life who had worked like that, not even doctors and lawyers.” The woman was miserable; when Stein asked about her career aspirations, her first words were, “I don’t ever want to see another animal again.” She wanted to start planning her next move, but Stein insisted she wait: “I said, ‘I don’t think you should even try to figure out what you’re going to do next. You should go away for nine months of vacation, to make up for the vacations you didn’t have in fourteen years, and you can come back next September.’ She was in a burned-out condition where creative thinking just wasn’t possible.”
Sure enough, when the woman returned the following year, she was simultaneously more relaxed and more focused. “She very quickly found a new direction for herself that was incredibly creative,” says Stein, becoming an international public health veterinarian, which allowed her to travel the world helping animals.
Your Behind-the-Scenes Research
In the pre-internet dark ages, it was almost impossible to decipher nontraditional career trajectories. How did she get a job like that? What kind of training did he have? Unless you knew them personally or were a reporter and could badger someone for a bio and press kit, you’d never know. Needless to say, some of the most exciting jobs don’t have a clear path.
But things are different these days. In the post-Google era, you can make massive research headway before even talking to a live person. I know one successful executive who’s made a habit of “stalking the biographies” of people he admires. The best way to get where they are, he decided, was to emulate them—exactly. From becoming a White House Fellow to developing a taste