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| Features• ISBN13: 9781591399551
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• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
It's the 90 days BEFORE taking the job that really count[Updated February 2008] This book is a partial rewrite of the earlier 90 Days book that applies to commercial ventures. While the initial scenario on page 1 and 2 are right on the mark, the rest of the book basically says: define the role and mission, gather the support and resources, and then go off and achieve. Or, as the initial scenario suggests, you may find yourself marginalized and drifting.
The 90-day approach will probably work if the agency you are joining has a good focus on its mission, a reasonably good management environment, and some things that it thinks need to get done in a bit of a hurry. Sort of like a capable and nimble private sector company. Of course, there are some agencies like that; maybe even a lot. But not all, by any means, and if the agency you are in is not one of the nimble ones then you need to take a completely different approach to the first 90 days. Experience in several real examples of both types of agency over a couple of decades offers the following advice: make sure you know which kind of agency you are in before hitting the after-burners. You may find that you have not properly calculated the back-blast area, and rather than soaring off to a glittering height you will just turn yourself into a crispy critter. You can recover from a slow start; you may not be able to recover from being perceived as a crazy person engaged in suicide missions.
As the book says, to be successful you must know what are the important things, how does my boss operate, and what is the organizational culture? If you haven't figured these things out before taking the job, and government hiring practices often do short-change the interviewing process, then you had better try to do so as soon as you come on board - but it will not be easy. Thanks to the never-ending cycle of meetings, bloody meetings, you may well get less time, and far less direct or sincere conversations, with your boss and peers in your first 90 days on the job than you will during the 2 or 3 hours of interview process. So, if you can, get as much of the STAR process done as possible before taking the job. The upside of the currently overloaded background check process is that once you are selected as the candidate you may have 2 or 3 months - hey! 90 days! - in which to talk more with your future boss and peers.
Unfortunately, having what you might consider to be an "open" or useful discussion may be a bit tricky. First, a sincere discussion of the REAL constraints and objectives may in fact be taboo - if anyone even really knows what they are. Having no bottom line, objectives in government agencies can be pretty vague, and the laws that the Congress writes for agencies to carry out are often deliberately vague and self-contradictory. Second, and you may have a hard time with this coming from the private sector, often failure IS an option; the unspoken strategy may well be to fail on purpose so as to get more money.
Third, you must understand that in many government situations there are few, if any, TRULY pressing deadlines, even if they ARE enshrined in law or Presidential orders. Not too many dates will get anyone fired (it is not like missing a major new product roll-out or failing to turn in a major contract proposal). If there are any real glass balls, your staff and boss will be clear on that, and your staff will know how to meet the need and will be working on it already. The last thing you need to do is disrupt that.
Sometimes your managers are very clear on things that need to happen quickly. Note the plural: make sure there are at least two levels of commitment to the "goal", because even in government, managers and executives come and go, leaving you stranded on the beach with their objectives. "Very clear" and "commitment" means "calls the other stakeholders in to emphasize how important this thing is and they need to cooperate with the new manager in making it happen", and otherwise displaying actual commitment and investment of political capital, rather than platitudes or giving you 1:1 instructions (which nobody else knows about). If you get that clear commitment, by all means go with the 90-days-to-success route in this book.
But if that does not happen, then you are better served to watch and wait. If the agency doesn't seem to share your focus on pressing needs, it may well be that these are not seen as serious goals. If the office does not really want you to go in a direction, regardless of what they may have said to the contrary, you will hurt only yourself trying to achieve progress at private-sector speed. Even if the environment is somewhat supportive, you will still be lucky to do in 90 weeks what you would have thought you could do in 90 days - and the funny thing is, nobody will expect you to do even that much.
So, if the office you are in does not seem to have any pressing goals and deadlines, it is entirely possible that the best thing to do for the first 90 days will seem to you to be VERY LITTLE. Not exactly nothing; just don't press forward relentlessly to accomplish goals that are in fact illusory. Better to spend time meeting with the people you can assume you will have to interact with, and enlist them as your friends for battles you have yet to identify. Over time you will find out what (if anything) is considered important.
So, what about the book? Perhaps this book ought to be entitled "The 90 Days Before Getting Into a Public Sector Job". The STAR system is ideal for structuring your half of the discussion to learn about the styles of the existing executives and what it is exactly that they think you will be expected to do. If you get solid and consistent answers to the STAR questions then you might be dealing with a mission-driven organization (in which case, follow the steps in this book). If you don't seem to get any traction on the STAR process during the interview period, and you cannot seem to get much more clarification in the 90 days before you do come on board, then maybe your new situation will be more political than performance-oriented. By political I do not mean "partisan" but "driven in a direction that is defined only by the current status of shifting internal coalitions". In that case, you might rethink whether this is the way you like to work, and if not, bale out before it is too late. Then you can use this book again while assessing your next interviews.
Assuming you still want the political job - some people thrive on this - you will only drive yourself (and everyone else) crazy trying to define a plan and solid objectives to strive for. In that case, forget the STAR system and focus on the coalition-building activities discussed all-too-briefly in this book. A small investment in a different book ("The Prince" comes to mind) might also be handy.
If it is too late, and you are a just-get-the-job-done person who has wandered into an office-politics environment, then let us hope that by the time you figure it out you haven't annoyed too many people by trying to get impossible things done. Then it is perfectly safe to sit back, take a deep breath, and evaluate. Take all the time you need. 90 days is a blink of an eye to these people. Chat, visit, whatever you have to do to figure out what value people will LET you add and then work out how to do that. If this ends up being more confining than your personal energy or professional ethic can stand, then you might have to consider moving on to an organization that is more in tune with what motivates you. But - hey - didn't you learn anything? Not too fast. Survive your probationary period so you can be a "Status" candidate. Then, when you find another agency, or an office within your agency, that may better suit your style, you'll be eligible to apply, and you can use this book to guide your points of interest in those interviews.
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Similar Products:The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results
Managing Government Employees: How to Motivate Your People, Deal with Difficult Issues, and Achieve Tangible Results
The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
The Effective Public Manager: Achieving Success in a Changing Government
The Politics of the Administrative Process
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| Features• ISBN13: 9780967059877
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
The Well-Fed Writer delivers useful, timely and road-tested advice for would-be and established freelance commercial writersI've been a follower (dare I say disciple) of Peter Bowerman's since the early 2000s. He is one of my go-to gurus in the commercial freelance writing field. I bought and devoured (not literally) both of his previous books, The Well-Fed Writer and Back for Seconds. When I heard about Peter's latest edition, I didn't hesitate. I purchased a hard copy of the book, along with the e-book and three companions: The Well-Fed Toolbox, The Well-Fed Timeline, and the Banquet, a compilation of several years of Peter's fantastic and widely read ezine.
As a stand-alone entity, The Well-Fed Writer is a compendium about making the leap to freelance commercial writing - in its simplest terms, writing professionally for businesses at rates that range from $50-$125 per hour. The book contains a wealth of information about what to expect as a new FLCW, how to get your business started, where and how to prospect for business, expected income levels, types of project work, how to get past your fear of S&M (sales and marketing), things to consider as you develop your website (a must-have), and so much more. The book is full of valuable examples and insights from Peter himself, along with innumerable success stories and advice from others who've "been there, done that."
My copy of The Well-Fed Writer is dog-eared, highlighted and tabbed to the hilt. I refer to it almost daily for inspiration, ideas and new ways of marketing myself. I found Chapter 3: Learning to Love S&M (Sales & Marketing); Chapter 5: Where's the Business?; Chapter 6: Cold Calling: No Cold Sweat, Just Cold Cash; and Chapter 14: What Will We Be Writing? to be especially helpful. However, the entire book is full of gems and pearls designed to help you to transform your business from a diamond in the rough into a shining crown jewel.
The companion pieces are incredible, too. Straightforward and easy-to-understand, The Well-Fed Timeline details, step-by-step, how you can easily and painlessly start your own FLCW business. The Well-Fed Toolbox is a spot-on collection of valuable - in my opinion, priceless - resources you can use to take your business to the next level. The toolbox includes cold-calling scripts, client follow-up letters, video script templates, and Peter's patented Discovery Questionnaire (by itself worth its weight in gold). And the Banquet is a smorgasbord of tasty morsels of advice, success stories, and more from Peter's always-informative and entertaining monthly ezine for well-fed and aspiring FLCWs.
The Well-Fed Writer truly has something for everyone interested in pursuing the FLCW lifestyle. While it's targeted primarily toward novice FLCWs, there are a few take-aways here for seasoned freelance commercial writers as well. I can't praise Peter or his work enough. He is one of the pioneers in the field, and an undeniable success. The Well-Fed Writer is the definitive guide to getting started as a freelance commercial writer, and should be required reading for anyone desiring to break into this lucrative and ever-growing field.
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The Copywriter's Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living
Start & Run a Copywriting Business
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| Features• ISBN13: 9781427798206
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Not for Gen Y readers.Author Dan Schawbel does a great job introducing his (novice) readers to Web 2.0 and its larger implications on traditional marketing, advertising, and getting a job. Schawbel outlines a series of steps to take in order to take advantage of Web 2.0's features in order to build one's personal brand, a self-marketing package including an engaging web presence, a large contact of networks, and self confidence. Schawbel particularly advocates social networking and blogging as key to success and provides many insightful discussions on how to start, maintain, and advertise one's self through these popular Internet vehicles and provides many success stories, quotes from experts and benefactors, and confidence-boosting in between discussions. These points make the book a valuable start point.
The book, however, is not for amateurs or experts in the fields of marketing, advertising, social media, blogging, etc. Most Gen-Y'ers are fully aware of the power of social networking (although perhaps naive to its potential impact on their careers) and blogging since they were born into the Internet Age. I got less than I expected as a Gen-Y'er out of Me 2.0, but did take away some valuable suggestions for bolstering my web presence, which, coupled with the ease of reading, is why I gave this book a 4/5 rating.
I applaude Schawbel's efforts in personal branding -- he clearly is enthusiastic about his field and continues to stay ahead of the curve in terms of how Internet technology can benefit individuals in their career success.
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Similar Products:Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand
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The 10Ks of Personal Branding: Create a Better You
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| Top Marketing News |
| 2010-09-03 22:01 |
powerdirect marketing, the category leader in front-door media & marketing services, today announces that it again has been ranked among the fastest-growing companies in america by inc. magazine. |
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