As I approach my 50th birthday, I find myself once again taking that extra-long look at my life, reflecting on what the last decade has brought with it. I seem to look very much the same as I did on my 40th - at least I don’t have that shock to deal with. But the changes in my life in every other way have been absolutely transformative.
(You would think I’d look more different on the outside... but I digress...)
I’m pleased to say that part of my growing up and putting away my childish ways has involved me truly living my life facing forward, not backward. I certainly still find moments to think back, and even allow myself to spend time mourning those whom I’ve lost - they are legion, after all. But I no longer feel myself carrying the terrible weight of regret and melancholy around with me that used to have me dragging. And no more do I rail against the System’s latest attempt to crush my spirit.
Instead, I have learned to embrace my optimistic, creative and innovative spirit - finding the opportunity in every situation and looking forward to where it might take me.
The changes taking place in my body as I age have been less easy to carry with grace, I must confess. Because of my chronic back issues and arthritic feet, I often feel much more than my age. Also unchanged (alas) are my chronically bad eating habits. So I suffer, knowing it’s my own fault. Turning 50 may be just the motivator I need: after all, something symbolic always has to happen around the Turn of the Decade.
This time around, it’s a different kind of celebration. I have resolved all of the major issues which plagued me since leaving home: I’m blissfully married, own my own home, and have a secure job with the income that accompanies it. My “to do” list has a lot more items crossed off. Now, it’s time to start adding some new items: items which will feed my spirit and help me make my health a priority again. After all, everyone tells us that life begins at 50 - so I say, bring it on!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Game
That’s not my label – everyone talks about the process of managing a career in the System as “playing the game”. It’s a skillset all its own, and proficiency is only acquired through first-hand experience over time.
There are tips, of course, which I try to share with those who can (or care to) benefit from the information:
- more is more when submitting your resumé through the online application system – the key is to understand that it’s a database program which will search your submission for key words. The more hits, the better – so give tons of detail on each major project/accomplishment within each of your job descriptions;
- answer all interview questions from the point of view of what you would do – including details on your reasoning for your choices (see tip #1 above!); if you are up for a management position, talk about what your advice would be, and how you would organize your team to do the actual work. There’s a huge difference in vocabulary and focus when you talk from the point of view of the manager – many accomplished project managers (myself included) have sabotaged themselves in management-level interviews by presenting themselves as the doers;
- think about the intention behind the questions – departments are free to write their own interview questions, and sometimes, bless them, they’re not very good at it. Think carefully about what they are trying to reveal about you with the question, and compose your answer accordingly.
I say these things, and I think these things, and then I go out to another interview – or sit on another interview board – and I play the Game. In the fullness of my eight years in the System, I think my Game skills are finally getting pretty good. And I’ve now accumulated myself a fabulous coaching staff, and an entire town full of people who are behind me in my search for a place I can truly stretch myself and make myself at home.
Because for me, the reward for playing the Game well is a place where I can shape the future direction of the organization: bring stakeholders together and rally around a common vision and goal to make a difference in the world. That’s the stuff that makes my heart sing. That’s what I’ve been training for since starting my career back in 1978 as the voluntary manager of a science society based out of the National Research Council.
I’ve got 15 years to go in my career in the System – that’s enough time to really dig in and become a celebrated member of an organizational family tree. Just as my father, Dr. Roland Gagne, will always be remembered as Mr. Modeling and Simulation at NRC, I want to leave my own mark by being an innovative, passionate advocate for an important Canadian institution. A true public servant.
For that, I will play the Game. Besides, there is always something to be learned along the way.
There are tips, of course, which I try to share with those who can (or care to) benefit from the information:
- more is more when submitting your resumé through the online application system – the key is to understand that it’s a database program which will search your submission for key words. The more hits, the better – so give tons of detail on each major project/accomplishment within each of your job descriptions;
- answer all interview questions from the point of view of what you would do – including details on your reasoning for your choices (see tip #1 above!); if you are up for a management position, talk about what your advice would be, and how you would organize your team to do the actual work. There’s a huge difference in vocabulary and focus when you talk from the point of view of the manager – many accomplished project managers (myself included) have sabotaged themselves in management-level interviews by presenting themselves as the doers;
- think about the intention behind the questions – departments are free to write their own interview questions, and sometimes, bless them, they’re not very good at it. Think carefully about what they are trying to reveal about you with the question, and compose your answer accordingly.
I say these things, and I think these things, and then I go out to another interview – or sit on another interview board – and I play the Game. In the fullness of my eight years in the System, I think my Game skills are finally getting pretty good. And I’ve now accumulated myself a fabulous coaching staff, and an entire town full of people who are behind me in my search for a place I can truly stretch myself and make myself at home.
Because for me, the reward for playing the Game well is a place where I can shape the future direction of the organization: bring stakeholders together and rally around a common vision and goal to make a difference in the world. That’s the stuff that makes my heart sing. That’s what I’ve been training for since starting my career back in 1978 as the voluntary manager of a science society based out of the National Research Council.
I’ve got 15 years to go in my career in the System – that’s enough time to really dig in and become a celebrated member of an organizational family tree. Just as my father, Dr. Roland Gagne, will always be remembered as Mr. Modeling and Simulation at NRC, I want to leave my own mark by being an innovative, passionate advocate for an important Canadian institution. A true public servant.
For that, I will play the Game. Besides, there is always something to be learned along the way.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
the other day I received an e-mail from my 88-year-old aunt Lorraine from Edmonton. My beloved aunt is a dauntingly bright woman who, in addition to being a practiced lawyer, is self-taught in a handful of languages and starts every day with University on the Air.
Since e-mail became available to us, we have written regularly, and often on the subject of my chosen profession -- one she, I firmly believe, still does not fully comprehend. I like to believe that it is because she wishes we didn't need PR people in the first place.
In her inimitable perfunctory style, she wrote:
subject: The Public Service
... is being re-tooled.
What is a wiki?
Love,
Y.A.A.
(Your Aged Aunt)
Today, I replied:
Since you asked, the "wiki" is a web-based collaboration tool which is, ostensibly, designed to allow us in the civil service to help with the "retooling".
I, as a matter of fact, am helping to design an employee-focused campaign to get people to "connect with our vision" and all that jazz.
you know, the stuff you hate.
but we are at a critical point where we can predict precipitous levels of retirements from the senior ranks, making it evermore important for us to focus on ensuring people with qualifications and experience like I have don't leave, but stay and tough it out.
Because it's tough.
There is no money or time for training - but we are insisting people be "excellent".
blah blah blah - you've heard me rant about the failings of the System.
What you are hearing in the media lately is the System actually going on record as saying they want to hear from us as they "retool" - by which they mean, figuring out how to do more with less.
A complex and intriguing challenge.
I will be happy to share more about the "collaborative process" if you are interested. You will have to keep in mind that it is a tremendous exercise in public relations - which should pose an interesting challenge for you. Something you likely loath - but it is my bread and butter, after all. I love the challenge involved in rallying a group of people around an idea. The more people, and the more complex the idea, the bigger the challenge. Never a dull moment in over 30 years...
At any rate, I'll look into the wiki more and get back to you with details, if you'd like to hear how it works.
happy Spring!
love
Lea
Since e-mail became available to us, we have written regularly, and often on the subject of my chosen profession -- one she, I firmly believe, still does not fully comprehend. I like to believe that it is because she wishes we didn't need PR people in the first place.
In her inimitable perfunctory style, she wrote:
subject: The Public Service
... is being re-tooled.
What is a wiki?
Love,
Y.A.A.
(Your Aged Aunt)
Today, I replied:
Since you asked, the "wiki" is a web-based collaboration tool which is, ostensibly, designed to allow us in the civil service to help with the "retooling".
I, as a matter of fact, am helping to design an employee-focused campaign to get people to "connect with our vision" and all that jazz.
you know, the stuff you hate.
but we are at a critical point where we can predict precipitous levels of retirements from the senior ranks, making it evermore important for us to focus on ensuring people with qualifications and experience like I have don't leave, but stay and tough it out.
Because it's tough.
There is no money or time for training - but we are insisting people be "excellent".
blah blah blah - you've heard me rant about the failings of the System.
What you are hearing in the media lately is the System actually going on record as saying they want to hear from us as they "retool" - by which they mean, figuring out how to do more with less.
A complex and intriguing challenge.
I will be happy to share more about the "collaborative process" if you are interested. You will have to keep in mind that it is a tremendous exercise in public relations - which should pose an interesting challenge for you. Something you likely loath - but it is my bread and butter, after all. I love the challenge involved in rallying a group of people around an idea. The more people, and the more complex the idea, the bigger the challenge. Never a dull moment in over 30 years...
At any rate, I'll look into the wiki more and get back to you with details, if you'd like to hear how it works.
happy Spring!
love
Lea
Saturday, March 27, 2010
herding cats
Remember the commercial? Rugged cowboys struggling to herd thousands of cats. A very creative commercial – although most people don’t remember the product (Lotus Notes), which makes the spot, technically, a “fail".
I am reminded of that commercial often – not because I ever ended up using Lotus Notes, but because the image was so compelling. Herding cats – each with a mind of its own, clearly – would of course appear to be an impossible task. But I think I can imagine what such a task might feel like. It’s kinda like trying to rally an immense bureaucracy behind a single idea. Take an enormous staff, throw in a little mis-communication, a pinch of dysfunction, and poof, you are herding cats.
This is one of the many reasons I’ve become convinced that people should not join the public service until they have got a little seasoning in them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about La Relève, but being a kitten in a herd of confused cats is not the way to start your career.
For one thing, one needs immense quantities of patience. For another, the ability to keep in perspective the complexity of the System in which we’re working – and that, by its very nature, it cannot turn on a dime. Nothing happens quickly and, more often than not, one spends more time managing the process and the people involved than actually doing the work.
If I were 20 and just starting my career as a PR practitioner, I would be driven mad within about six months. My confidence – and nerves – would be shot, whittled down by the endless hours of docket chasing and quibbling over semicolons. The dozen-deep approval chains alone are enough to send you into shuddering nightmares when you’re staring down the barrel of a looming deadline.
Ah, and that’s truly the crux of it: the deadlines. The silky, slinky, slippery little things that seem to appear and disappear at the whim of an executive’s calendar, are the toughest to wrap your head around when you’ve been taught that the word “dead” rightly belongs in that word – to miss one is to cause irrevocable damage your reputation as a practitioner.
Unless you work for the System. There, all is forgiven. Deadlines move, projects get dropped, priorities shift – and deadlines disappear. Now wrap your brain around that!
No, before we join the Herd, we need time to establish ourselves, build a range of experiences and a portfolio of work which will help to anchor us to who we are. We need the maturity that allows us to stop, breathe, and not take it personally – it is, after all, just the way the System works. What 20-year-old can do that? What 20-year-old should?
No – get out there, work for an NGO, promote your favourite cause, start up a business – do whatever you can, to work as fast and as hard as you can, in a lean mean environment where the buck stops with you. Feel the thrill of personal accountability – and nothing beats that sense of accomplishment when that ribbon is cut and you know you helped make it happen.
Do that: build businesses, launch good works, make great art – then come to the System and bring that energy and those ideas to us. Renew not only our human resources, but our creative ones as well. But most of all, come ready to herd cats.
I am reminded of that commercial often – not because I ever ended up using Lotus Notes, but because the image was so compelling. Herding cats – each with a mind of its own, clearly – would of course appear to be an impossible task. But I think I can imagine what such a task might feel like. It’s kinda like trying to rally an immense bureaucracy behind a single idea. Take an enormous staff, throw in a little mis-communication, a pinch of dysfunction, and poof, you are herding cats.
This is one of the many reasons I’ve become convinced that people should not join the public service until they have got a little seasoning in them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about La Relève, but being a kitten in a herd of confused cats is not the way to start your career.
For one thing, one needs immense quantities of patience. For another, the ability to keep in perspective the complexity of the System in which we’re working – and that, by its very nature, it cannot turn on a dime. Nothing happens quickly and, more often than not, one spends more time managing the process and the people involved than actually doing the work.
If I were 20 and just starting my career as a PR practitioner, I would be driven mad within about six months. My confidence – and nerves – would be shot, whittled down by the endless hours of docket chasing and quibbling over semicolons. The dozen-deep approval chains alone are enough to send you into shuddering nightmares when you’re staring down the barrel of a looming deadline.
Ah, and that’s truly the crux of it: the deadlines. The silky, slinky, slippery little things that seem to appear and disappear at the whim of an executive’s calendar, are the toughest to wrap your head around when you’ve been taught that the word “dead” rightly belongs in that word – to miss one is to cause irrevocable damage your reputation as a practitioner.
Unless you work for the System. There, all is forgiven. Deadlines move, projects get dropped, priorities shift – and deadlines disappear. Now wrap your brain around that!
No, before we join the Herd, we need time to establish ourselves, build a range of experiences and a portfolio of work which will help to anchor us to who we are. We need the maturity that allows us to stop, breathe, and not take it personally – it is, after all, just the way the System works. What 20-year-old can do that? What 20-year-old should?
No – get out there, work for an NGO, promote your favourite cause, start up a business – do whatever you can, to work as fast and as hard as you can, in a lean mean environment where the buck stops with you. Feel the thrill of personal accountability – and nothing beats that sense of accomplishment when that ribbon is cut and you know you helped make it happen.
Do that: build businesses, launch good works, make great art – then come to the System and bring that energy and those ideas to us. Renew not only our human resources, but our creative ones as well. But most of all, come ready to herd cats.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Service
Apart from the fact that “service” is in my name these days (so to speak), I have been a proponent of service excellence since my first retail job. I joined local jean retailer Starship Jeans in 1978, and over the next five years, learned from some ex-Slack Shack pros the prime directives of customer service. Know your product. Understand your client’s needs by asking questions. Propose solutions and work constructively with your client to explore all possible and viable options until they are completely satisfied. That is service excellence to me.
I had long-standing, loyal clients over those years, to whom I sold Cream Jeans from a series of seven stores I helped the owners open across the city. Our success was based on an excellent reputation for personal client service and a very select range of product lines. And anyone who was around then can tell you: everyone’s ass looked awesome in a pair of Cream Jeans.
I never forgot what “service” means: a complete devotion to bringing your client to a happy resolution of whatever problem they have brought to you. From time to time, I sent my customers to a competitor – if I didn’t have what my client needed, I made it my business to know who did – and I sent them there knowing full well that they would return another day. They always did, and they still do. Now that’s what I call a personal brand.
I had long-standing, loyal clients over those years, to whom I sold Cream Jeans from a series of seven stores I helped the owners open across the city. Our success was based on an excellent reputation for personal client service and a very select range of product lines. And anyone who was around then can tell you: everyone’s ass looked awesome in a pair of Cream Jeans.
I never forgot what “service” means: a complete devotion to bringing your client to a happy resolution of whatever problem they have brought to you. From time to time, I sent my customers to a competitor – if I didn’t have what my client needed, I made it my business to know who did – and I sent them there knowing full well that they would return another day. They always did, and they still do. Now that’s what I call a personal brand.
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