Yes, it happens, and at VIM Executive Coaching we have encountered many executives who have awakened, in one way or the other, to the inevitability that their organization is failing. They come to us, feeling defeated and apprehensive. They say that they have tried their best, sacrificed, lost a lot of sleep and feel as though they are abject failures.
Take Stock, but Don’t Take Aim
This blog will not be a primer on how to find a new job, so much as how to find yourself. If you have had the talent to become an executive at any level, I assume you are intelligent enough to summon the resources you need and to find a new career path.
My first piece of advice is not normally seen in business related blog posts, but I will say it anyway and that is, “Forgive yourself.” Unless your business is a hot dog stand and you insisted on a location in a city populated with vegans, you cannot be held responsible for every aspect if a corporate failure. Organizations fail, and even if one or two individuals in that organization accelerated its failure, then I grow suspicious of the environment that had no oversite or checks and balances that permitted the failure to happen. It loops around to you. Taking aim at yourself accomplishes nothing.
I would ask you to take stock instead of taking aim. VIM Executive Coaching specializes in helping executives take stock, and we’d be happy to be of service in that regard, but the intention here is not to advertise. The intention is for you to take the time to really re-evaluate yourself and your career when it is inevitable that the “pink slip” is about to get issued.
In taking stock, it is neither the time to “clam up,” and keep everything inside, nor is it the time to book that trip to Jakarta or Bordeaux or Kyoto or wherever it is that you believe you will find yourself. I well remember an old movie where one character, trying to kick an addiction, told a friend he was going to head to Paris to get a new start. His friend said “You know who meet you at the gate, don’t you? You.”
The point is, an executive cannot out-travel her or his situation. It is a time for focus and centering.
Another Journey
We are big proponents of executives taking an inner journey through unique personal assessment and mindfulness meditation. The journey to being mindful, though you are calmly sitting in a room in your home or in the local park or even office, takes you much farther than many a trip to far-away lands.
The goal of this “other journey,” especially during the period where your current situation is failing and you are assessing other opportunities, is to reach greater authenticity. It is impossible for VIM Executive Coaching to advise you on the right career path or the very best opportunity, but we can help you to approach those prospects in the most authentic way possible. Is who you are in that decision-making moment, the most authentic person you can be?
Often (sadly) executives will grab at something not because they desperately need the money or the change of location but because they think that “something is better than nothing,” or it may give them an open door to another opportunity in the same geographic region. Neither line of reasoning may be valid “15 minutes” after it is made. In brief, you need to respond to new situations, not react to them. What is best for your authentic self?
To reach authenticity should be the goal of every executive who seeks business coaching especially during the period where you feel as though you have done everything that can be done.