Aware Consulting Services

How Would Taking an Assessment and Engaging the Services of a Coach Help you?

If you have had ANY one of the following thoughts – or any like them – in the past 30 days, you just might benefit from having a coach and getting some feedback from a validated assessment… Check it out below

• So what if I’m a college graduate – I still can’t find a job!

• I’ve applied for 8 positions in the last six months and haven’t been called back for one of them – could something be wrong with my resume or is it just me?

• Wow – I am really fed up and dissatisfied with my job; but what can I DO about it?

• I think I’d be good at some things, but what if I hate doing them? How can I find out BEFORE I take the job?

•  I never seem to get the promotions I know I deserve – and I haven’t a clue why!

• You know, I have been in “final” rounds of interviews 3 times in the past 5 months, but I’m still without a job – what’s with that?

•  Over 40 years old with 15 years at the same job – and I am the one they lay off! Now what? I have no idea what else I could do… or even if I can get hired.

•  Linked in – Face Book? What’s that? I’ve heard about it but wouldn’t know where to begin.

• How far back should my resume go and how many pages are the “right” length?

• What kind of salary “offer” should I expect to take or should I just be grateful to have a job?

Nine times out of ten, there actually ARE things you can do or ways you do things that you can change – and that could make THE difference in your experience of your current career or job situation. There really are things – perspectives – that may be missing or that are hidden from your view (blind spots) that, if you could see them, would accelerate the velocity of your career search or help you get that job you know would be the perfect one for you.

Sometimes just assessing your current or past behaviors and exploring your motivating factors can make a big difference in understanding your own preferences for work environment. In working with someone else who can take an objective view of how you handle circumstances, business decisions and personal interactions can give you the feedback you need to make the right changes in your behavior; changes that can change your career trajectory and alter your currently unsatisfactory career.

If you are on the cusp of a career change and either want to take a different route – or have been laid off and are looking for what’s next, it may be worth your while to get some support from a mentor, a coach or a consultant who is familiar with career change and behavior management.

Knowing what you want in a career or job is only one part of the equation. Understanding what you are good at, what motivates your behaviors and how you react – whether consciously or unconsciously – to your surroundings, can make a huge difference in your future.

Take some time to take our behavioral and motivational assessment; In it, you will define your strengths, uncover your weaknesses and finally get the job that is the perfect fit.

If you are interested in more information about assessments and what they can do, check it out here. Having this kind of information, together with engaging a coach who is committed to your success can make all the difference in the world to your experience of “being alone” in YOUR career transition. Using assessments and master coaching – to support you in keeping and finding the best positions possible, could be the smartest move you ever make!
Article provided by Lee Follender at AWARE Consulting Services, LLC.

From Article published in Austin Business Journal by  Gary Hoover, Contributing Writer- Austin Business Journal

The recent publication of “The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators” — by Harvard Business School innovator Clayton Christensen and fellow authors Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen – reminded me of two key thinking habits that I have been talking about and teaching for years: observing and associating.

These habits — or skills, which you can get good through practice — are critical to the process of entrepreneurial thinking.  But they are not often taught in schools.

Start with observation, which the authors noted earlier cite as one of five key attributes of those who develop breakthrough ideas. Many people go through their lives with their ears shut and their eyes closed. Or they are so caught up in their iPods and smartphones that they pay no attention to the world or the people around them. And yet this is where many good ideas come from. I have about 220 ideas for new businesses in little pocket tablets I carry with me. Perhaps a third to a half of these ideas would not be there had I not listened in on conversations in restaurants.

Much of the information you need to know is right in front of you, waiting to be observed. If you go into any reasonably well-run grocery store — of which Austin has plenty — you should be able to spend 20 to 30 minutes and tell me the average age, income, family size and ethnicity of the people who shop there and live in the neighborhood. You can tell this from the merchandise on the shelf, regardless of whether customers are there.

In my course in entrepreneurial thinking, we always spend an evening at Barton Creek Square Mall observing things. How much revenue does each tenant in the food court do in 30 minutes? How many customers are in Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, J.C. Penney, Sears and Dillard’s at any given time? What types of cars are Penney’s customers driving? How are they different from Nordstrom’s customers? What types of shoes and watches are people wearing?

My students — ranging from 12 to 70, with a huge range of life experiences and educational backgrounds — almost always come away amazed at how much they learn from this exercise. Many tell me years later that this exercise and other elements of the course changed how they see everything.

Other friends and students have travelled with me through Mexico, Costa Rica, Russia and Thailand, seeing the world in this inquisitive way. They, too, say it changed everything for them. Opportunities and ideas flow more readily.

The other idea, perhaps even more critical to innovative thinking, is the power of association.

Most great ideas are merely the result of combining two things that everyone sees all the time but that no one had thought of together. This might sound simple, and it is. But it is oh-so-powerful.

For example, my first major start up was Bookstop, the first chain of book superstores. While the execution of the idea was difficult and complex, the core idea was not. We simply took the retail business model of Toys R Us –  giant single-category stores with large product selections and low prices — and applied it to books.  Charles Lazarus of Toys R Us had a whole new idea; the rest of us, from Bookstop to Staples to Home Depot, just applied his idea to new categories of merchandise.

I find the associating skill a little harder to teach, or at least to demonstrate, than observation.

 Here are some tips:

•  Be relaxed. Be ready for ideas to hit you, but don’t strain. Thinking too hard rarely gets you anywhere

•  Give things time to percolate. Marinate in everything you see and hear, collecting input from every source, including observation, conversation and even reading books and articles. Let new ideas sink in. Play with them in your head. Draw diagrams, fill whiteboards or tablets, or whatever works for you.

•  Start making lists of cool things you see, such as business innovations you read about inFortune and The Economist, new ads you see on TV or online, or products and services your friends tell you about. Take lessons from the great entrepreneurs of the past. Then gradually begin to combine those lists. Is there anything about Las Vegas and about the iPad that might make for an interesting intersection? Or UPS’s world-class service and your bank’s world-bottom service? Don’t dismiss any possible intersection at first; give it a chance to blossom. Take at least a few minutes thinking hard about what opportunities might come from the intersection.

•  Those leaders and thinkers who are truly open to new ideas, who take into account inputs from a multitude of sources — including observation — and then work to combine all that information in creative new ways are much more likely to come up with something that will benefit society, or at least better serve their own customers or constituencies.

Gary Hoover, founder of  Bookstop and Hoovers Inc. and a former entrepreneur in residence at the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas is also author of “The Art of Enterprise.”

(ARA) – Planning for retirement is crucial for everyone, and it is especially critical for small business owners, the business leaders many cite as the life blood of the American economy.

Indeed, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small business owners employ half of all private sector employees, pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll, and have generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years. […]

(ARA) – When 60-plus-hour weeks, expensive professional suits and excessive stress become too much, many high-powered professionals trade in their high-paying careers for a more fulfilling life. Called “downshifting,” the move allows former CEOs and company presidents to find more balance between work and life.

The phenomenon of downshifting is due in part to generational differences between baby boomers and older generations, says Catherine Mallozzi, director of career services for Everest University in Melbourne, Fla. While older generations saw work as something mandatory – yet not necessarily enjoyable – baby boomers have always believed they deserve fulfilling lives and careers. […]

Come on, admit it; You have thought of it… of being an Entrepreneur?

From time to time, nearly all of us have toyed with the idea.  Working for yourself – no one to  tell you what to do – lots of freedom to “run the show” – Right?

People become entrepreneurs for many different reasons.  Some of us do it because we want to  do what we love; others take it on to serve or help other people.  Still others, either because they are out of work or hate what they are currently doing, just do it because they need to pay their bills. […]

Just as Julia in the movie, Julie and Julia, many of us are looking for what we want to do – “When we grow up.” Regardless of our current age, this is a dilemma that strikes many of us at a certain age.

We have spent so many years “working” to survive, progressing along our “given” career path, and now, when we have a little breathing room and actually WANT to create the job or career we always thought we wanted, we come to a barrier we didn’t even know was there…

What DO I actually WANT to do? What AM I passionate about?

[…]