Dear SafetyXChange Members,

Last week, we discussed professional motivation. When it comes to drive, no two individuals are exactly the same. Finding what motivates you - your professional anchor - is essential to a successful career; finding what motivates those you oversee is essential to successful management. Let's now talk about a method you can use to identify the motivating factors in yourself and others.

The Schein Approach

Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied the influence of "Career Anchors" on job planning. He presented his findings to the Association of Career Professionals (ACP) International conference I attended at the end of April in Boston.

Schein focuses on eight motivators, and an individual's work life will often reveal one of them as the common thread throughout their careers. Essentially, it is the single item that the individual wouldn't compromise to achieve professional satisfaction--the one thing he or she would not give up if asked to make a career choice.

Finding Your Anchor

Schein outlines a simple test you can use to find your career anchor: a 40-item self-assessment test using a 4-point rating system that individuals can use to evaluate the importance of specific tasks, feelings and outcomes as well their general or technical competence. Examples:

• I dream of having a career that will allow me the freedom to do a job in my own way and on my own schedule.
• I am most fulfilled in my work when I feel that I have complete financial and employment security.
• Working on problems that are difficult to solve is more important to me than achieving a high-level managerial position.
• Using my talents to make the world a better place to live is what drives my career decisions.

Schein says that while a person's career may seem like a random display of roles, responsibilities and industries, the "whys" are likely to be consistent. Assessing one's internal career, says Schein, gives "a subjective sense of where they are going in their work life and their role in it."

Competency Anchors

Schein distinguishes between competency and motivational anchors. The former include:

• Technical/Functional Competence: Individuals who score highest in this category are the ones who prefer a role that offers the most technical functionality. They are often dissatisfied in general management positions. In other words, they'd rather be engineers than owners.
• General Managerial Competence: Those who have expressed high competency in this area are looking for roles allowing them to develop teams, contribute to strategy planning and work toward the overall goals and success of the organization. They're driven by responsibility, accountability and emotional competence and agility.

Motivational Anchors

Motivational anchors include:

• Autonomy/Independence: Individuals who are self-driven have identified this as their highest-scored anchor. They tend to have difficulty working in highly structured or micromanaged environments. They thrive when they can create their own schedules and define their own work habits.
• Security/Stability: Individuals who are anchored by security and stability will likely remain at their jobs longer. Loyal to company, finances or geography, these individuals may cede responsibility and advancement for steadiness.
• Entrepreneurial Creativity: These individuals are drawn to owning their own business even if they currently work for others. Schein says the need for entrepreneurial success is often strong enough to survive one or more failures.
• Service/Dedication to a Cause: These individuals work endlessly to make the world a better place. They flourish in service-oriented environments or they look to imprint a spirit of helpfulness to their role.
• Pure Challenge: While not a direct reflection of values, this anchor takes personality and problem-solving abilities into consideration. Individuals who place high importance on this anchor are motivated by finding the possibility in impossibility, whether in sales, strategy, engineering or any other difficult role.
• Lifestyle: High scoring on this anchor indicates a strong inclination to make choices that will avail more personal or family time, sometimes at the expense of professional advancement and compensation.

Conclusion

Next week, we'll discuss recognition, power and how to manage your employees better by identifying and acknowledging their own motivators.

The Schein Book

When you need to determine what your real values are so you can make new choices for your life, check out:
Career Anchors: Discovering Your Real Values by Edgar H. Schein

Wishing you career success,

Lauryn Franzoni
www.execunet.com

THE INTERNET & YOUR CAREER

Check Your Name for Cyber Dirt

By Glenn Demby

To find jobs in the 21st century, you need to know if there's any dirt about you floating around on the Internet. According to a recent ExecuNet survey, 77 percent of executive recruiters use Internet search engines to check the background of job seekers. Nearly half of them - 35 percent - said they've eliminated a candidate from consideration based on something they unearthed during their search. And if headhunters are doing it, you can bet that prospective employers are too.

Advice

• If you're searching for a new job, start by searching yourself. Go to Google and Yahoo and search your name.
• Even if you're not in an active search mode, stay active and search your name at least once a month.
• Better yet, go to "http://www.google.com" and set up a Google Alert. The service will notify you when your name gets mentioned on the web.
• One hitch: Google Alert doesn't search blogs. To find mentions of your name in blogs, go to "http://www.technorati.com".
• If you find something negative, prepare a good explanation and/or contact the site to see about having it removed.

Source: "http://www.execunet.com"

BY THE NUMBERS

Age Discrimination in America

By Glenn Demby

Yesterday was World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Sadly, abuse and discrimination against the elderly remain entrenched in our society. Here are some figures to give you a sense of the dimensions of the problem:

Source: International Longevity Center, "Ageism in America," www.ilcusa.org

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