Some of my best work happens when I am not working. 

In preparing to launch this blog, at the end of the summer, I wrote some very rough drafts of possible posts.  I’ve learned to trust the process of getting ideas on paper first, however incomplete or awkwardly expressed, and editing later if the ideas still hold.

The extraordinary essayist Anne Lamott uses a technical term for this: the “shitty first draft.”  

But something big was missing for me with these drafts.   I didn’t have a sense of the whole blog.  I wasn’t sure who exactly was writing – my private self?  my coach self?  I couldn’t possibly massage the drafts into posts without knowing the larger gestalt.  I was stalled.

Then I had the immense luxury of a day with no appointments and no pressing deadlines.  The only item on my calendar was “blog.”  I spent the whole day reading blogs, thinking about blogs, conceiving of my blog.

I thought about blogs while I went to the farmers’ market and bought wonderful fruits and veggies.  I thought about blogging while I drove home, unpacked it all, and then cooked up a storm.  I roasted yellow peppers. I poached chicken breast (I know it’s not a vegetable). 

I made a chicken salad with the chicken breast, the roasted peppers, calamata olives, the sweetest little yellow cherry tomatoes you could ever meet up with, gently sauteed zucchini, and maybe another veggie  or two.  I tossed it with a Dijon vinaigrette I quickly made and refrigerated the whole thing, to be served later on a bed of greens. 

I also made a pureed zucchini-leek soup with lemon, coriander, and a small hit of red pepper, and chilled it.  And I cooked 8 ears of fresh sweetcorn (still at the season’s peak), 3 of would be used at dinner-for-two and the rest would be used over the next 2 days, one way or another. 
 
While my hands were busy with all this good chop-wood-carry-water kind of work that I truly enjoy when I enjoy it, my mind was in deep background, thinking about blogging.  I don’t think I said anything out loud for 6 hours.  The dinner, at least, was going to be good, I thought, whether or not I ever launch this blog. 

But what started to emerge, by the end of the day, was a concept for my blog, a location from which to speak.  I couldn’t have said at the start of the day that that was the missing piece, but as it began to emerge, I recognized it as something I had been lacking. 

When I returned the next morning to my “shitty first draft” of random, roughed-out ideas for blog posts, it no longer looked disjointed (though it still read like a sfd). 

The behind-the-scenes conceptual work I had done while chopping and cooking veggies now provided a framework for containing most of the ideas in the drafts.  I knew which ones to throw out and which ones to keep. I understood where I woud be coming from, to write this blog.  I was no longer stalled. 

Trusting the process is sometimes, in E.L. Doctorow’s words, “like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

If you wait until you can visualize the whole journey, you’ll never get there because you’ll never take the first step

If I had made myself spend the day at the office, I would still be stalled. 

Tapping into your deepest wisdom and creativity most often happens indirectly.  You can’t access those parts of yourself with your mind in cognitive, task-list mode.  When you engage in activity that leaves your mind free, you open up the possibility of hearing from those deeper parts of yourself.  “Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next,”    Jonas Salk wrote.

So give your inner task master a day off now and then.  And trust your own process.

Something very curious is happening in my business.  I am being contacted more frequently these days to consult or present to a variety of organizations regarding flexible scheduling:

• how individuals can most successfully propose it to their managers
• how managers can have effective conversations about it
• the degree to which flexible scheduling helps retain talented individuals
• how an individual can figure out whether/how his job can be flexed
• how an individual can know whether flex is “the answer” for her/him.

I come to this topic from the perspective of the individual; most of my work since 1995 has been coaching individual professionals on work-life and career-related dynamics.  Since many of my clients are managers, I also know the perspective of the individual manager regarding her own work-life balance and flex options as well as those of her direct reports. 

Why am I seeing a sudden uptick in inquiries about the policy side of things?  Have we reached some tipping point and now organizations in many more industries have to offer flexible scheduling policies in order to attract and retain the talent they need?  As distinct from just a few years ago, when only the most progressive industries and companies had such policies?  Is this only happening in companies experiencing growth?  In fact, all of the organizations I’ve heard from are doing well.

But I know some companies are scaling back on flex policies, siting the recession as the cause.  And I know that some individuals who would love to flex their jobs are not even thinking about bringing it up right now, they are so afraid of making waves, so afraid of losing their jobs.

What’s happening in your industry and in your organization?  Are policies for flexible scheduling part of your landscape?  Who uses them? 

In some organizations, they’re only available to the most senior and talented people with the best track records, and only then because these people make it clear they won’t stay at the company without them. 

In other companies, flex policies are used mostly by people who are not ambitious and not on the leadership track; working a reduced or non-standard schedule can be both an indicator and cause of being off the leadership track at places where this is the culture.

Still other companies have flex policies that are used by their executive leadership, who not only support it, they also model it.  These tend to be the companies where flexing thrives, and so does the business.   

I suspect that the increase I am seeing in work-life policy work indicates that a tipping point has been reached and many more organizations are scrambling to institute these policies.  Just the way I imagine at some point many years ago, another tipping point was reached and organizations realized they needed to offer health insurance. 

Either that or some recent change to the SEO strategy on my website  has just made me findable in a new way.  Or both.   

I attended an excellent panel presentation on 10/15/09  at a meeting of the Career Counselors’ Consortium Northeast.   The panelists represented three industries: Life Sciences, the Green Sector, and Human Services, and they discussed the emerging trends in their fields, particularly related to employment and career opportunities.

The panelists were articulate, informed, and quick.  Here are the trends they reported.

Life Sciences and the Green Sector are growth industries in MA and in the US generally.   These industries are seeing a great shortage down the road of professionals with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) training and experience.   If you have a STEM background and wish to move into one of these fields, start your engines, and start talking to people.

And, not all the growth opportunities in these fields require STEM background.  Many of the opportunites in these industries are similar to what’s needed in any industry:  expertise in marketing communications, finance, HR, accounting, training and development, and so on. 

If you are interested in moving into either of these growth fields (Life Sciences or the Green Sector) and you have skills and experience outside of STEM, the way to start is to first identify your particular interest — is it the environment?  cancer research?  medical devices?  renewable energy? 

Once you know that, find out who the players are in that field, in your part of the country.  Find out everything you can about these organizations.  Use your network to talk to people who work there, and find out what you can about how they staff the the kind of work that you do.  

Essentially you want to find out what it would take for you to make a move into that organization.  Are you marketable to them as you are?  Is there particular experience you could obtain that would make you a more compelling hire?  And so on, as you would with any other job campaign.

Regarding Human Services . . . I’ve been reading for the last few years that the human services field is also growing.   I always found this very puzzling, since it appears that funding for these kinds of services is always getting cut.   During the Q & A with the presenters, I got an answer to this seeming contradiction.  Yes, there is a growing NEED for human services providers and practitioners, but no, there are no corresponding policy changes to support more jobs in the field.  The trend reports seem to ignore this critical detail. 

Certainly the news about emerging job trends in Life Sciences and the Green Sector is good.  These fields offer opportunities to technical and non-technical people alike, as well as to professional and non-professional contributors.

My adult daughters have been on my case to learn to text.   Since they text daily as a matter of course, they say it would just be another easy way to be in touch with them.  A compelling argument.  Eventually, compelling enough to convince this recovering systems analyst and technophobe to learn to text.

I was writing my first text to them when somehow the unfinished text got sent off before I finished.   Emily, CEO of a clean tech company, was driving with a potential investor to a meeting when she got my text, which she read immediately.   She told her driving companion that her mother had just sent her first text.  “What did it say?” he asked.  She answered, “5.”

A gifted manager/leader had a conversation with a direct report who, though recognized as being highly talented, was passed over for a particular project.   The manager asked her report three fabulous questions, which I want to share with you in this post.   They are:

1.  What was it you wanted to learn in that project?  How else or where else might you learn that, and how what can I support that?  Let’s watch for other opportunities that will get you exposed to this content.

2.  Who did you want to get to know through that project?  I will keep that in mind and watch for other opportunities for you to work with that person or others with the salient characteristics (the level, position, skillset, discipline, etc that was of interest to you). 

3.  What did you want that project to lead you to?  To the extent that you saw it as a stepping stone to something else, what was that “something else”?  I want to understand that so I can watch for other opportunities for you to do that.

From where I sit, these questions are powerful because they acknowledge and validate the direct report’s ambition, drive, and professional agenda.  They also let her know that this manager wants to support that professional agenda. 

This is in stark contrast to other managers in other environments, who see an individual’s interest in other projects and other people in the organization as “disloyal,” suspicious, and to be nipped in the bud.  Not a great way to retain talented people!

Another way these questions reveal strong leadership skill is that they are likely to inspire strong strategic thinking on the part of the direct report, if she is not already thinking that way.  These questions ask her to take her own interests, ambition, and curiosity seriously.   They ask her to think about projects and people within the organization that can forward her own development. 

Further, these questions gave rise to a conversation that let the direct report know (accurately) that her manager sees her development as part of her managerial role.    While many managers understand that developing their team is part of their job,  not all are comfortable facilitating a conversation at this fine a grain. 

Some professionals have an innate understanding of how to navigate their own professional trajectory.  They very naturally seek out the relationships and experiences that take them where they want to go.  But most people are not such naturals when it comes to navigating their work life. 

Most people have to learn to do this.  In my experience, this learning typically happens during people’s mid-career years, but of course it can happen at any time.   There is no underestimating how much positive impact a great manager can have on someone in this learning curve. 

That said . . . it is also the case that professionals and entrepreneurs at any level can and should learn to ask themselves powerful questions like these.

Hands down, one of the most powerful things time-starved, crazy-busy people can do for themselves is to strengthen their boundary-setting skills.  Big bang for the buck, in my experience. 

Here are a few boundary-strengthening ideas that have made a difference for my clients and for me.  

1. Don’t be an Automatic Helper.  Before jumping in or committing to help, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have the necessary resources available (time, money, focus, attention) to help in this situation?
• What other commitments of mine will take a hit (be postponed or taken off the list entirely) if I take on this new one? 
• What will I have to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to helping out here?

Based on your answers to these questions, make a conscious decision.

2. Practice saying this line out loud: “Let me think about this and get back to you.” 

3. Feeling guilty doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything wrong.  Sometimes it means you’re doing something different and that feels uncomfortable.

If you’d like to hear more ideas about how and when to set appropriate boundaries, consider coming to a 1-hour teleconference I’m leading on Thursday, October 22, at 1:00 Eastern.  Can’t make it to this one, but want to be notified the next time it’s offered?  Email me with ”boundaries teleconference” in the subject line, and I’ll send you an email announcing the next time this teleconference runs.   

There’s been a lively conversation going on in the press and work-life blogosphere about the happiness level of contemporary U.S. women.  The best summary of it is in Morra Aarons-Mele’s BlogHer post, which  references a Huffington Post piece she co-authored with Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute. All of this (and much more) was sparked by the recent release of research results indicating that women’s overall happiness level has diminished over the last 40 years, and that for individuals, it diminishes as they get older. 

Even Michele Obama weighed in on the topic of her own happiness, according to an AP piece  last week.  In it, she’s quoted as saying, “I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband and my physical health.”

Michele’s comment is right on the mark, imho.   But I am in the happier woman business, so my view is hopelessly skewed.  As a life coach, I work with professional women who are dissatisfied (unhappy) with some aspect of their lives and who seek help in identifying and implementing appropriate changes. They take their own happiness and well-being seriously, and they know they it’s no one else’s job to do this for them.  It’s a mindset and a skillset.  I continuously learn from them. 

My clients are a self-selecting group.  Their very act of getting help identifies them as a subset that see themselves as agents of change.  They believe in their own power and effectiveness to make an impact on their own situation.   

These women are also coachable.  They are willing to consider another way to look at things.  They are willing to try out new behaviors.  They are willing to learn and to risk.   

Granted, not all sources of unhappiness can be “addressed.”  Learning the implications of your son’s disability can be heartbreaking.  The grief of losing a loved one can’t be “fixed.”  

But all the more reason to be proactive on your own behalf when and where you can have an impact. 

From where I sit, I see more and more people getting unstuck from unhappiness by taking advantage of the kinds of resources that have become more available and accessible in the last two decades: seminars, therapy, EAP programs, self-help books, career offices, coaches, professional trainings.  How does it look from where you sit?