Nicholas W. Weiler, in collaboration
with Stephen C. Schoonover, M.D.
"Filled with practical,
researched advice that is simultaneously both spiritual
and profoundly down to earth." -M. Scott Peck, M.D.,
author of The Road Less Traveled
Surviving downsizing
If you have been recently "downsized," you're certainly
not alone. With the frequent shifting of corporate structures
and strategies, downsizing has become a common experience.
Most of us are prone to cruising along with the status quo
and only become introspective and purposeful when our lives
are disrupted. Perhaps you have found this web site because
of an interruption in your career.
In our work, we've learned that there are clear strategies
for surviving downsizing. We summarize the strategies
here, and you'll find more in the free excerpts, but to get
the real value, you'll need to buy
Your Soul at Work and use the workbook with its
proven step-by-step exercises.
1) Don't panic
Being downsized can be a real opportunity to step
off the treadmill and take an organized look at who and what
you want to be in both your career and life. Many have found
that being downsized ended up being a very good thing. It
forced them to reevaluate their life priorities and helped
them move into careers that were much more rewarding than
the ones they were forced to leave.
2) Establish clear future career and life priorities
These include:
Your Life Value Priorities
Most of us want everything and we get bogged down because
some of our values
conflict. The book outlines a process that helps people
identify the contradictions,
decide which values are most important, get off the dime
and move forward.
The type of work you want to do
The techniques we present help people identify what specific
skills they want to
exercise and grow on the job (technical, interpersonal etc.).
If your energy flows
naturally into your work you will perform better, be happier,
be more valuable to
your organization, and be less likely to face a future downsizing.
3) Identify what type of work or career best meet your personal
criteria
The book provides a process for identifying potential career
paths that can best meet your criteria (i.e. personal life
value and skill priorities). Then we present specific techniques
for securing investigative interviews with successful people
on the career path(s) you identify. We also give you a detailed
interview format designed to help you learn most from the
interviews, make the best impression on the interviewees,
and evaluate data you get in the interviews to determine which
career path(s) will best meet your needs.
4) Identify the specific skills required for success on the
career path you choose
and assess your strengths and weakness (i.e. gaps to be filled)
Our research shows that technical skill isn't enough to truly
succeed. We've interviewed some 5000 people in over organizations
and discovered that, in addition to technical skills, there
are some core on-the-job behaviors that distinguish successful
from less successful people in most every career specialty.
Good examples include how well you communicate and sell your
ideas.
We've synthesized these into some easy-to-use self-evaluation
tools that help people identify what they're currently doing,
what they're not doing that may be causing problems, and how
to improve. These behaviors can be very helpful in avoiding
future downsizing.
5) Market yourself effectively for jobs on the career path
you've chosen and in
your preferred geographic location(s)
Your Soul at Work presents specific research on how
managers hire. This includes
what criteria they use, what the single most important criterion
typically is, and the
process they use to assess and select candidates. Based on
that and our own long
experience helping organizations hire, we outline a proven
step-by-step process for
marketing yourself on the career path you choose.
If you are ready to not just survive downsizing, but to truly
take charge of your work life and align it with your inner
self, you need this book.
