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Tactics to Help You in Periods of Professional Transitions

Do you find yourself answering “YES” to any of the questions below?

  • Are you making or thinking about a career transition this year?
  • Are you in the process of turning your business, department, or team around?
  • Have you recently been promoted and struggling to determine what to focus on first?
  • Are you considering a move into a different area of the business or a geographical move in your job?
  • Are you in the position where you now lead some of your former peers?

Your professional life is made up of one transition after another. All professional transitions provides you with the ability to shine, falter or fail. Shine, and you will advance. Falter, and you may lose the credibility and trust of your colleagues. Fail, and you may not recover if you don’t have the right attitude or outlook to learn from your mistakes and move forward.

‘What got you here won’t get you there.’
~ Marshall Goldsmith

 Steps to Help During Professional Transitions

  1. Determine what you need to learn – fast. How does the company, unit or team operate? Who has influence and why? What internal and external alliances can help support you in your role?
  2. Identify your ‘A’ priorities. Along with A priorities, integrate changes that need to be made in the structure and processes to increase efficiency, productivity and the triple bottom line.
  3. Outline your vision, goals and strategic intent in the position. Be communicative and transparent.
  4. Build your team. If you are taking over leading a team, evaluate your people. Determine if they are in the right seat, need development or are not a good fit.
  5. Focus on early wins. Identify the most pressing weaknesses and make the necessary changes to turn those around. This will help you build credibility in your position.

‘ You only know what you know.’
~ Loretta Swit

If you have any questions about professional transitions or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your success, please contact us or reach out directly to jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session.

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PROJECT SUCCESS AND FAILURE POST-MORTEM

Institute a systematic project success and failure post-mortem after every project. The post-mortem is a critical component of a project life cycle. The review should stimulate discussion around six recommended questions:

  1. What was the project’s objective, and what did we set out to do?
  2. What actually happened during the project?
  3. Why did the project go the way it did?
  4. What are the top three things we would do again in the same situation?
  5. What are the top three things that did not work in the project that we would not do again?
  6. What lessons can we take from this experience to the next project?

 

‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.’
– Albert Einstein

 

FAIL FAST AND LEARN

Failure is derived from a Latin word that can be interpreted as ‘to stumble’ or ‘to trip.’ An essential capacity for individuals and companies to develop is the ability to learn from failures.

For many of us, COVID forced us to look at different ways to provide our services, manufacture our products, connect with our clients, conduct business remotely and operate under challenging restrictions.

We had to experiment and do things differently, some options worked, and some failed. Inevitably failures are a consequence of doing something new, and critical lessons can provide a complete picture of the costs and benefits related to assets, liabilities and the bottom line.

COSTS

  • What were the labor, material, and production costs?
  • What were the internal costs to the failure, the effect on morale or any fallout?
  • What were the external costs reputationally with our customers or on the market?

CUSTOMERS

  • What assumptions did we make around our customer’s needs?
  • What assumptions need to be updated?

TEAM

  • How effective were we working together?
  • What processes, structures or cultural items need our attention?
  • What skills do we need to focus on improving or gaining?

TRENDS

  • What did we learn about trends that directly affect our business?
  • What forecasts need adjusting?

BOTTOM LINE

What were the critical business insights learned?

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT OVER THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 2022 regarding your:

  • Business culture
  • Current organizational direction and strategies
  • Customers dynamics
  • Future trends
  • Processes, and
  • The changing market

 

‘ All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting. If we want different results, we must change the way we do things.’
– Tom Northup

 

BUSINESS BOOK OF THE MONTH

CEO Excellence

 

 

 

CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest
By Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra
Senior partners at McKinsey & Company

 

 

 

 

If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year. For any questions regarding conducting a project success and failure post-mortem, please feel free to reach out. Connect with me. 

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Core Connections | Expand Your Network

Over the years, you would have developed a circle of individuals around you, your trusted friends, advisors and colleagues. It is vital to continue to build on this group adding additional people who may be able to help you attain your goals more efficiently and faster. Expanding your circle is not all that difficult; the first step is to ask your current connections if they have any suggestions on who you need to know that would help you in your current role or attain your goals moving forward. Secondly, I encourage you to reach out to individuals on LinkedIn who you would like to get to know. When sending them an invite, add a brief note explaining your ‘why.’

I try to have conversations with at least ten new people weekly, and I walk my talk – I reach out to individuals recommended and connect through LinkedIn. LinkedIn had it right when they broke down their connections into 1st, 2nd and 3rd-degree levels. I am sure you have heard of the infamous six degrees of separation. It is a theory based on the premise that even though we live in a world of 7.6 billion people, in all likely hood we are only six degrees (or less) away from someone that we want to connect to. The idea is that we are all connected in some way, through personal or professional acquaintances, and if you want to communicate with a specific person, then you start by telling all you know of your request, and it goes on from there.

The thought of ‘networking’ often gives individuals a level of anxiety. I want to help you develop a different outlook on ‘networking,’ and during this time of COVID, I have felt it to be easier than it ever has been (yes, I really do mean that!)

The majority of my clients do not come from my social media feed, advertising or marketing but through referrals. The referrals primarily come from my circle of connectors (or circle of influence around me); they have gotten to know me well and readily refer people to me when they see a fit.

Core Connections | Expand Your Network - Challenge - Jenny Reilly Consulting

Jenny Reilly Consulting – June Challenge

June Challenge

Set a simple goal of initiating a meeting with two new people weekly (phone call, zoom or depending on where you live, an in-person connection). If you fail one week, don’t stop or lose your momentum; reach out to two more people and start again.

Be curious – ask questions rather than talk about yourself

Be generous – share your contacts or resources that may help the individual in their role

Be teachable – if the individual has a new or different opinion than yours, listen and learn

We can help you with your professional development or provide tailored executive coaching that can help support your leadership or your leadership team, please reach out to askme@jennyreilly.com to schedule a convenient time for a complimentary strategy session.

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