Don’t Change Your Job – Change Your Mind

My friend – let’s call him Frank – was looking pretty despondent when I met him for coffee late last week. Slouched in his chair and completely absorbed by his BlackBerry, he was a shadow of the shit hot Business Consultant I knew him to be.

He’d told me that he didn’t have long, so I cut to the chase and asked him what was up. He minced around it for a few minutes and then shared that he wasn’t enjoying his job. As someone who has worked freelance for several years, he’d been asked by his current client to go on the payroll, something that he’d felt, nine months or so ago, would offer him security in the current economic doldrums.

Instead, as an employee, he was frustrated by the company’s cumbersome operating processes, and exhausted by its internal politics.

So much so that he was thinking of quitting. But strangely for him, because he’d got so caught up with the company machine, he’d lapsed a lot of his professional networking. This meant he had no other irons in the fire; no possible next assignments to go to or business opportunities pending.

And he couldn’t just leave. A wife who doesn’t work and two kids at school make sure that his earnings are well spent.

He felt trapped.

“So unusual for you,” I said. He smiled.

That began an interesting free flowing discussion about what really was causing his stuckness and how he could get his usual power back. We hit on four key ideas that I have his permission to share with you.

It’s an assignment

Frank told me that, in taking on an employment contract, he felt that he’d lost some of his freedom to operate.

“Was that the price you paid for taking a sense of security from them?” I asked him. He thought about it and then said that, yes, it was. He realised that, in particular, he’d felt obliged to buy into their 24/7 culture.

“Hence the BlackBerry?” I said. He nodded. He’d previously sworn he’d never use one.

“So, if you can’t change your job right now,” I asked him, “what can you change?”

He sat back in his chair. “I need to start seeing the job as an assignment. The company wanted me on the payroll because they conceptualised the engagement as needing to look like a permanent job. I had to be one of them. They needed to feel that I was tied in in some way. But I don’t have to think of it like that.

“Giving over to them my need for security was a mistake on my part. I need to take that back and start looking at myself as a freelancer again.”

Boss as client

“What would making that mindset shift enable you to do?” I asked him.

“Well, a key thing is that I’d start seeing my boss as my client again, and I’d engage with him in that way.”

“Hmmmmm.”

“Yes, I can see that I’ve become too concerned about what he thinks of me. I’m not as direct with him as I could be. I guess I’m frightened that it’ll jeopardise my longevity in this role.

“If I conceptualise him as my client, my relationship with him will change considerably. I’ll focus much more on my deliverables with him; I’ll contract with him around those and negotiate with him around budget numbers, timescales etc. I’ll be less concerned about his games.”

“Games?”

“Yeah, he delights in saying no to my recommendations and watching me get angry about that. Or in tinkering with what I’m doing. I need to run my show like I’m a consultant. I need to state my opinion and my advice really powerfully. I need to call his games. Crucially, I don’t need him to agree with me or like me. That’s his choice. Meanwhile, I do what I’ve contracted to do in an engaged way and keep moving.”

“And not attach yourself to the outcome?” I said.

“Correct,” he said.

WIIFM

As Frank spoke about focusing on the deliverables of the role, I offered him another thought. As well as thinking about what he needed to achieve for the job, he ought to consider what the job needed to deliver for him.

The What’s In It For Me factor.

“You’re saying I need personal goals that are broader than the job?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “For example, you’re adding global business development experience to your skills portfolio here. You’re learning some stuff around how big companies use social media. What else do you need to walk away with at the end of this next period of time in order for it to have been of full value to you?”

He was thinking about this when I added, “And these need to be, not just work and business things but personal things too.”

“I need to get my networking back into action,” he said finally. “And I need to spend more time with my family. This damned CrackBerry has just taken over.”

With that, he took it and put it in his inside pocket, even with the LED flashing red.

Set an end date

“What else would help?” I asked him.

“I think I need to set an end date to what I’m doing now.”

“You mean you’ll leave then?” I said.

“No, not necessarily,” he said. “I may choose to do another ‘assignment’ with the same firm, depending on how things are looking. What I’d like to do, however, is to give myself a feeling of choice again. As I get back to me networking, things will open up for me. I may stay here, but I’ll do it from a stronger platform of opportunity.”

“Powerful,” I said.

“Indeed,” he said. He was smiling again and looking much more bouyant. I told him so and he nodded in agreement.

“Another coffee?” he asked.

“I thought you didn’t have much time,” I said.

“The job can wait,” he said.

These were four ideas, then, that helped Frank gets his groove back for work, without quitting his job or even feeling that he had to. Do you relate with any of Frank’s experience here? What ways have you helped yourself change your mind so you didn’t have to change your immediate work?

Related posts:

1. Unhappy at work? An alternative look at this week’s job satisfaction statistics
2. The Opportunity In The Silence
3. “I’ve Landed My Dream Job–Now What???”