Dutra Associates

Unleash Your Peak Potential

Career Reflection in Times of Crisis

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Since the pandemic began, I am finding that many professionals and business owners are stepping back and taking a hard look at their careers. The questions and concerns they are raising range from deeply questioning “Is this really what I want to be doing?” to a vague sense of “I’m feeling bored and restless.”  Perhaps you have been having some of the same or similar thoughts.

Reevaluating one’s life during times of unprecedented change and upheaval is quite natural. When you get shaken to the core, any vague or significant discomfort you have been feeling in your career suddenly smacks you in the face. You recognize that life is short and you may choose to stop tolerating or settling for the current situation. During such pivotal moments that jar you out of your comfort zone into foreign territory, you are called to check in, reflect, take a pause, and explore what creates a sense of satisfaction and engagement for you. Being truly engaged in any aspect of your life is fundamentally based on how satisfied you feel. When you’re feeling satisfied, you’re happier, more fulfilled and more productive. What if you had the key to unlock the secret to your personal success? What might be possible for you?

Identifying and creating strategies to meet your core needs is the secret to your personal success. What are core needs? They are the types of energies that you need to have in your life. When your needs are met, engagement occurs.  When core needs are not met, you become disengaged, drained, unhappy, perhaps even stuck. Unfortunately, you usually have no idea why you feel this way and, as a result, you are at a loss about what to do next.

Examples of core needs include accomplishment, creativity, teamwork, recognition, fun, contribution, and autonomy, to name just a few. In working with clients, I’ve found that the number of core needs that an individual might have can vary widely. Some have 8, others have 20. How few or many you have doesn’t matter. There is no perfect number. Rather, what is important is working through the process of identifying those that are the “must haves” for you, the ones that give you energy.

So how does someone identify their core needs?  It’s not as simple as looking at a list and choosing what stands out. When there are many options, it can be hard to hone-in on the most important. Instead, we look to your actual behavior in practice as a better signal for identifying your core needs. To do this, we explore top experiences in your life and what made them so great for you. To facilitate this process, I use a tool called the Core Needs Navigator™ that gives you the resources and knowledge to allow you to feel fulfilled, productive, effective and satisfied in your work. You uncover your core needs and explore how they are working in your present work life and how they may best be attained moving forward.

The beauty of this process is that it allows you to step back and look more objectively at your needs. This broader view allows you to see more and gain greater insight into your core needs and what specifically is necessary for you to feel that need is being met. Armed with this information, you can develop strategies that will help you improve the match between what you really need and what you are getting.

Keep in mind, you may discover that all that’s necessary is a small shift. It may not mean a career change or a move to a new company. Once you are in touch with your needs, you realize, perhaps for the first time, what is truly creating dissatisfaction and now know what to ask for that can make a huge difference. In other circumstances, you may realize that, in fact, a bigger change is in order. Yet, with your core needs as the compass, you have clarity and a decision-making tool to guide your next career steps.

The Core Needs Navigator™ can be conducted virtually for individuals as well as for groups. If you’d like to learn more about how you can create a fulfilling career that meets your needs and identify the next steps to get there or help your employees become more engaged and satisfied, please contact me for a complimentary coaching consultation.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business outcomes and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

Networking – It’s Not a Dirty Word

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When you hear the word “networking”, what immediately comes to mind for you?  Do you cringe and want to retreat into the safety of your home?  Do you feel as though it’s about pitching your wares, trading business cards and manipulating people?  If so, it’s no wonder that you resist doing it.  Who wants to feel like they are using others and being viewed as insincere?

A Key Success Factor for Life
Often a key factor of my clients’ success strategy includes networking of some sort.  Whether they are:

  • exploring a new career path,
  • seeking a new job,
  • looking to expand their leadership capabilities
  • starting or building a small business or
  • considering a transition to retirement,

connecting with and learning from others helps them to reach their goals. However, when networking is brought up, it is often met with resistance and a very undesirable view.

Points to Ponder
Yet, it doesn’t have to be that way.  If you come from a perspective of networking that is based on building relationships and seeking opportunities to add value, you can change your entire experience of connecting with others.  How might you feel differently about networking if you considered the following questions prior to your next networking opportunity?

  • What can I share and offer that is valuable to others?
  • What can I do to help someone else feel comfortable?
  • How can I contribute to another’s success?
  • How can I truly listen to what another is saying so I can identify ways to help them?
  • Who do I know who would be a great connection for this person?
  • How can I simply engage in a relaxing conversation with someone?
  • What am I curious about regarding this person?
  • How can I be my true self and make genuine connections with people?

Call to Action
What does networking mean to you now? Hopefully, you are beginning to see networking in a more positive light.  One in which you build relationships based on true connection, integrity and mutual support.  I invite you to create an opportunity to network with someone over the next week and focus on building a new relationship or deepen an existing one. Feel free to share how shifting your mindset around networking impacted your experience.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business outcomes and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

“Why Can’t We Get Things Done?”: Exploring the Link Between Execution and Individual Perceptions

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A common frustration that leaders and managers share is that their organization has difficulty with execution. While they may do well in accomplishing daily activities and tasks, they consistently struggle with effectively executing on time, within budget, and with high quality on the strategic issues that impact the long-term success of the organization. Over time, this can lead to losing market share, decreasing revenues, and even the demise of the organization itself.

There are many factors that impact an organization’s ability to execute. In this blog, we’ll focus on 4 perceptions that noticeably make a difference in a person’s ability to execute effectively.

4 Perceptions that Get in the Way

  1. Relationships: Some individuals refrain from initiating and nurturing professional relationships. They don’t step back and take the time to think strategically about building a strong network within their organization. As a result, when they need to make a high priority request, they may not have the necessary political capital to get what they need.
  2. Influence: Others are unsure of how to sell an idea within the organization. They may not recognize that different approaches are needed for different people or situations and continue to use the same approach every time. Consequently, they struggle to know how to get buy-in for their ideas from key stakeholders such as their boss, peers, team, and cross-functional colleagues.
  3. Time: Ah, the illusive time. We all have the same 24 hours in the day yet we’re not all as effective as some at using them wisely. Some procrastinate. Some say “yes” to everything and need to set boundaries. Some fail to establish and stay focused on their top priorities. Some let email, text messages and chatty colleagues distract them.
  4. Results: Finally, some leaders focus on the wrong results. Rather than keeping an eye toward the long-term success of the organization, they may focus on being right, looking good in front of others, or perhaps as the person with all the answers. While short-term success may be achieved, this view of results often has a negative impact on their career in the long-term, their team and/or their organization.

An added factor to keep in mind is that leaders can often have limiting beliefs that get in the way of their ability to execute and can often link to the perceptions outlined above. For example, a manager who has a belief that everything must be perfect will have issues with time management and difficulty building relationships because of their unrealistic expectations.

Call to Action

Do you find yourself having a difficult time getting things done? If so, do any of the perceptions outlined above sound like you? What step are you willing to take to begin to make noticeable improvements in your execution performance?

Adapted with permission by Center for Executive Coaching

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business outcomes and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

Building Your Personal Brand – Part Three

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In this final segment on Personal Branding, we’ll cover steps 9 – 12 which are focused on messaging, image, consistency and visibility.

As a quick review, in Part One we looked at the importance of a personal brand and the initial steps to defining how you choose to be known in the world. In Part Two, we built on your initial foundation by exploring what makes you valuable, unique and impactful.

So, bring out the work you’ve done so far and let’s put on the finishing touches.

  1. What is your compelling message?
  • There are several key messages that you’ll want to create. If you look to the work you’ve completed up to this point, you’ll find that you already have a head start on this.
    • First, create a simple statement that quickly identifies who you are. The formula we used in step 5 serves this purpose, “I help X get Y.”
    • Second, if you own your own business, it’s important to have a tagline that, in one clear phrase or sentence, defines who you are. One way to come up with this is to reflect on why you do what you do. What is it that gets you up every day? Michael Port, the author of several books including, Book Yourself Solid (https://www.bookyourselfsolid.com/), has become known as “the guy to call when you’re tired of thinking small.” This tagline clearly demonstrates his desire to “help people think bigger about who they are and what they offer the world.” What’s your tagline?
    • A third component is to craft a brief story – no more than 30 seconds – that describes your greatest achievement. Start with a short description of the problem, then move on to the actions you took and finally speak to the results that were achieved. This demonstrates the value that you offer.
    • Finally, it’s important to craft an overall marketing message that allows you to talk about what you do in an interesting and compelling way. Keep in mind that, if you completed steps 1 – 8, you already have most of the components for this. Michael Port offers a 5-part formula for creating this message.
      1. Summarize your target market in one sentence. Who do you help?
      2. Summarize the three biggest and most critical problems that your target market faces.
      3. List how you solve these problems.
      4. Demonstrate the #1 most relevant result you help others achieve.
      5. Reveal the deeper core benefits that they experience (e.g., financial, emotional, physical, spiritual.
        Put this all together to develop your message. For a firm that provides tax services, it might sound something like this: “I’m a tax advisor. I help small to mid-size business owners protect their wealth. You know how business owners are looking to maximize their profit while minimizing their tax liability but often complain about how complicated the tax code has become? What I do is get to know my client and their financial goals and work closely with them to create a strategy to achieve those goals in a cost-efficient way that, at the same time, helps them to sleep at night knowing their tax return is submitted correctly.”

10. What image aligns with your message?

    • How do you actually embody the brand? Consider everything from how you personally present yourself to your logo and marketing collateral to the types of groups and associations that you will align yourself with.  How well do these various components align with who you are and what you do?
  1. Be consistent.
  • If you’ve ensured that you’ve created an authentic message throughout this process, then consistency should be easy. Be yourself, in alignment with your brand, wherever you go and with whomever you encounter. Be clear about how you want each person you interact with to experience you. What behaviors do you need to modify or adopt to create this consistency?
  1. Be visible.
  • You might have the best brand in the world yet, if it’s also a best kept secret, it won’t have its intended result. Determine how you want to gain that visibility.
    • Networking is a key strategy for building and expanding your connections.
    • Social media is another important strategy to keep in mind. Pay attention to the platforms where the people you want to meet hang out. For example, LinkedIn is critical for anyone in the business community. A strong profile along with being an active member through posting, participating in LinkedIn groups, etc. is a must.
    • Look for ways to participate. This could include a leadership or committee position in the community or with a professional association that allows you to meet those in decision-making roles.

Call to Action

So, as this series opened, I ask again. Who needs a personal brand?  Essentially everyone who has a career. Whether you own a business, serve others as an independent consultant, or work inside a company, personal branding is a powerful tool to help you further your career goals. I encourage you to set aside some time and work your way through this personal branding process. It’s your opportunity to establish how you want to be known in the world.

Adapted with permission by Center for Executive Coaching.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business growth and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

Building Your Personal Brand – Part Two

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In Part One of this three-part series, we reviewed the importance of a personal brand and the first four steps to crafting your own. In this month’s segment, we’ll build on what you have done so far and work on steps 5 – 8. The steps we are covering in this segment are focused on honing in on your unique value and gifts and how you choose to express those meaningfully in the world.

To recap, steps 1 – 4 asked you to start with assessing your current brand. Then, you identified your talents and core values. And, lastly, you created your mission statement which focused on the contribution you want to make to the world.

It’s time to flesh out your personal brand a bit further. Let’s get started.

  1. Why are you valuable to others?
  • A good value statement can be as simple as, “I help X get Y.” Fill in X with a specific group of people that you serve. This could be a particular demographic (e.g. Baby Boomers), an industry (e.g. technology), a size of business, etc. Fill in Y with what you help your employer or your client to achieve.  Being as specific as possible is important. The more that your employer or client can identify with who you serve and how you serve them, the more likely they are to be interested. Here are some examples:
    • I help analytical leaders to become people leaders.
    • I help small to mid-size companies improve employee engagement, decrease attrition and improve productivity.
    • I help companies use marketing automation software to grow their businesses.
    • I help solo entrepreneurs in service-based industries build a six-figure business in 18 months or less.
  1. Identify what is unique about the value that you bring and what drives you.
  • If you have been in the working world for a while, bring to mind what stands out about you. If you are relatively new to the workforce and are still building your skills, what do you need to do to become unique? Some refer to this as the Unique Selling Proposition or USP. I prefer a term coined within the Transformational Presence community – Unique Soul Position. This refers to articulating how you are equipped to serve different people in your company, your business or your leadership that is in alignment with who you are at your core. What is unique about who you are and what inspires you to do what you do? To get in touch with that, consider the following questions:
    • What have you been good at your whole life?
    • What are the top three things that you get compliments on?
    • What are three things that others find memorable about you?
    • What do you simply love to talk about in regards to your personal life?
    • What do you simply love to talk about in regards to your work life?
  • If you’re having a little trouble with this step in the process, it can be helpful to gather a group of supportive friends, who know you well, and ask for their input. Because our unique talents come so naturally to us, they often don’t stand out to us as being special. Others can help to illuminate them.
  1. Your brand must have impact.
  • Without impact, no one will remember you. In this step, you want to consider what you’d like people to say about you after they’ve met or experienced working with you. What positive characteristics and attributes do you already demonstrate that you can leverage to make you more memorable? What characteristics and attributes might be important for you to develop in order to have greater impact?  Keep in mind to maintain alignment between the impact that you want to make and your personal values and mission. Below are a few examples of impact to get you started.
    • Compassionate / Collaborative / Energetic / Knowledgeable / Bold / Passionate / Meticulous / Risk-Taker / Innovative / Trustworthy / Assertive
  1. Be prepared with proof to back up your promise.
  • There are many ways in which to quickly improve your credibility such as volunteering on the board for a relevant professional association or non-profit; serving in a leadership capacity where your ideal clients tend to gather; or speaking at a professional association. Examples of proof include:
    • Case studies that document outcomes with previous clients
    • Credentials and on-going development
    • Testimonials or recommendations from past employers or clients
    • Published books or articles
    • Articles in which you’ve been interviewed and quoted

Call to Action

Set aside some time in the coming weeks to build on what you completed last month and take action on these next four steps. Please stay tuned for Part Three next month where I’ll discuss the final four steps in building your personal brand.

Adapted with permission by Center for Executive Coaching.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business growth and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

Building Your Personal Brand – Part One

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Who needs a personal brand?  Essentially everyone who has a career. Whether you own a business, serve others as an independent consultant, or work inside a company, personal branding is a powerful tool to help you further your career goals.

In an increasingly complex world, we must develop our own personal brand where we clearly and consistently define, express and communicate who we are and what we uniquely offer the world. Gone are the days where we join a company after high school or college and stay there throughout our careers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has indicated that the average worker holds 10 jobs by the time they are forty and this number is expected to grow for younger generations in the workforce. Developing a personal brand allows you to stand out and increase your chances for success.

What makes these well-known people masters of personal brand?

  • What comes to mind when you think of Beyoncé, Lada Gaga, or Elton John?
  • How is it that Michael Jordan still gets amazing endorsement and business opportunities long after his basketball career has ended?
  • What makes comedians like Jim Carrey and Whoopi Goldberg stand out?
  • Why did Richard Branson, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, and Arianna Huffington become such business icons?
  • What makes Tiger Woods still so popular after more than one major misstep?

All of them have developed a personal brand containing key characteristics:

  • They are unique. They march to the beat of their own drum and are instantly recognizable.
  • They stay true to who they are. The experience we have of them is consistent.
  • They are memorable. Their personal brand creates a vivid picture of them that stays with us.
  • They have something valuable to offer. A truly powerful brand is built on a foundation of competence, value, and substance.
  • They are trustworthy. When you break trust, your personal brand will be damaged. In some cases, like Tiger Woods, you can rebuild that trust but it can take a long time. It’s better to ensure that you don’t break trust in the first place.

In order to have a successful brand, it’s critical to embrace the characteristics above. To help you begin the process, I’ll be sharing twelve steps to creating your personal brand. In Part One of this series, I will share the first four with some tips for each to get you started.

  1. What is my current brand?
    • Identify 10 – 15 people you work with who interact with you on a regular basis and ask questions that help you to understand how you are currently perceived. Make sure that you answer the questions for yourself first and see how much alignment there is or there isn’t in the responses. This can be eye-opening as we often don’t see ourselves in the same way that we are perceived. Some suggestions you might consider include:
      • What is most unique about me?
      • What are three strengths that stand out?
      • What is one thing I can do to have a stronger personal brand?
  1. What are my talents?
    • We talked earlier about having something valuable to offer. What are the things that you already do exceptionally well that you can leverage and continue to develop to mastery?
  2. What are my most important values?
    • A strong personal brand is established on a foundation of core values that you’re willing to stand up for. What are those values that are most meaningful to you?
  3. Create a mission.
    • This is focused on what brings meaning and purpose to your life. What is the contribution that you want to make to the world with your unique talents and gifts?

Call to Action

Set aside some time in the coming weeks to take action on these first four steps. This is your opportunity to begin defining how you choose to be known in the world. Why leave it up to chance?  Please stay tuned for Part Two next month where I’ll discuss steps 5 – 8 in building your personal brand.

Adapted with permission by Center for Executive Coaching.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business growth and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

Choosing Your Path to Career Fulfillment

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Award winning American poet, Mary Oliver, once wrote, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I love this line from her poem, “The Summer Day”, as it invites introspection and calls us to live our lives on purpose. If we apply this to our work lives, this can be a daunting question and one that leaves us overwhelmed with selecting the “right” career. As children, we begin to demonstrate areas of strength as we grow. Well-intentioned parents, teachers, friends and others may encourage us to become a nurse or teacher if we excel at helping others, an engineer or accountant if we have strong math skills, or an artist or musician if we display a creative streak. You can see the pattern and may have experienced it yourself. Yet, this linear path can sometimes lead us astray. Simply because we are good at something doesn’t necessarily mean that it will bring us the career fulfillment we desire. There is something deeper we must explore to be fully engaged in our work.

Employee Engagement Survey Data

The 2018 Gallup Study indicated that, while employee engagement has risen slightly in the U.S., we still have 66% of the workforce in a state of disengagement. 53% of those studied are not engaged, which means that they don’t have much of a connection to the work that they are doing and are likely to do the bare minimum in their roles. 16% of those studied are actively disengaged which means that they resent their jobs and have a tendency to complain to those around them and impact the morale of co-workers. Do you find yourself among the 66% who are disengaged? While there are multiple factors that impact employee engagement, there is something that you can do to begin to shift the tide and help you get on track.

A Key Question

A key question to ask that will guide you toward your career fulfillment is “Why?”

  • What is the “why” behind everything you do – your purpose?

I truly believe that each of us has a purpose in life. Finding that purpose allows us to stay aligned, doing what we love while accomplishing things that are meaningful to us. Your level of happiness will always tell you when you are aligned with your purpose and when you’re not.

To help you get started, here is a resource that will help you to explore your passion and purpose. Click here to read Jack Canfield’s 10 Life Purpose Tips. As a Canfield Certified Trainer in the Success Principles, I have seen the positive impact on clients when they are able to tap into their purpose and express it in the world, both through their work and in their lives in general.

Next Steps

If you are feeling less than fulfilled by your work, I invite you to follow the 10 tips and take responsibility for creating a career that you love.  You might find creative ways to express your purpose in your current role or you may find that your purpose exploration starts you down an entirely new path. Whatever your path forward, remember that it’s up to you to take the first step. No one cares more about your career than you. As Mary Oliver wrote, “You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who believes we each have far more potential than we typically tap in to. She helps you learn how to step into your full potential so you can create consistent, optimal performance for yourself and your team with less stress and more enjoyment. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.