How to Troubleshoot Career Problems

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast! I hope you are having a great summer.

Today we are going to talk about how to troubleshoot career problems and some of the mistakes I see people make.

But first I need to let you know that Beyond the Ceiling is open for enrollment now! It is finally here.

Beyond the Ceiling is my 4 month group coaching program that is exclusively for women in Pharma or Biotech. What we do inside Beyond the Ceiling is we design your unique career path – we get you crystal clear on what you want out of your career and your best role to fit your potential. Whether you’re happy in your role now or not, this tells you what direction to drive your career. This is also for those of you that want a new job or to get promoted. I support you every step of the way and leverage everything I know, insider strategies, connections, and proven tools and strategies to get you into the role you want. 

This is also for you if you want to stay in your role but want to upgrade it. When I say upgrade, I’m saying you want to improve your communication, influencing and self-advocacy skills, know how to handle stressful career problems and people, improve your work/life balance, know how to maximize your productivity without overworking and be seen as a thought leader in your area of expertise.

It is career development like you’ve never experienced before.

Here’s why: it’s Pharma/Biotech specific, meaning you’re led by someone who knows the industry and has worked in it. You’re also building community with other women in the industry in a safe space.  Unlike a work program, everything in the program is customized and personalized to you and your unique goals. Plus, you have unbiased coaching and support. No HR involvement. No one in your company is going to influence your decisions. This is 100% in service to you. 

You get organizational psychology backed tools and resources adapted for Pharma and Biotech. You get coaching, which if you haven’t experienced coaching, you haven’t experienced true development.

Coaching is different from teaching or mentorship or taking a course or reading a book. Mentorship is a partnership where someone is giving you advice based on their experience but it is flawed because they can only guide you based on what they know and it’s filled with their bias of what is possible. So many women tell me they have mentors that tell them things that limit their career because that was the experience of their mentor. Things like they can’t be successful as a mom and a leader, they have to choose, or that they have to sacrifice what they want in their career.  Mentors are fantastic, I’m a big advocate but it is different from coaching. Reading a book or taking a course is passive and enables all of your blind spots and self-sabotage efforts to prevent you from getting results.

You consume but there isn’t an accountability to take action. There is no one making sure that you are implementing correctly. There is no way for you to know if you’re misunderstanding the instruction. Plus, it’s often generic and overwhelming so it doesn’t really get put into practice.

I say your brain can’t solve your brain’s problems and what I mean by that is that all of the advice and information we consume is being filtered by our own brain and our brain deletes and distorts information all the time in order to cater to our biases and beliefs.

So if you have a fear you can’t really get the job you want, if you are afraid of confrontation, if you don’t think you’re good enough…..then when it comes to taking action toward your goals, your brain is going to present you with very logical reasons why you can’t have what you want, why it’s not possible for you or the terrible things that will happen if you speak up for yourself or put in too much effort on something.

But Coaching bypasses all of this.

Coaching is a skill you learn and get trained in. A Certified Coach like myself had to go through rigorous training on how to Coach, how to observe behavior and thinking, how to find blind spots and how to help my clients make the best decisions for them. How to get to the root cause of their issue, without telling them what to do, but instead showing them where they have a blind spot or are doing things that are not aligned with their goals. I had to be observed for dozens of hours by a master certified coach with the international coaching federation to demonstrate my skill in being able to Coach others.

In Beyond the Ceiling, you have me as your Coach but also your Mentor and Advisor, why? Because I worked in industry for more than a decade. My area of expertise is career development. I’ve been developing others for more than 20 years.

So I have an area of expertise I can leverage in strategies and tools that will help you get results and develop and grow in your career. But I also am a skilled professional Coach. So yes, I teach and guide you but I help you make the best decisions for you through Coaching.

I am not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to help you execute what you want to do. When you don’t know what you want, then I help you figure that out.

So there isn’t a company agenda here. There isn’t me fitting you into a cookie cutter mold. This is about elevating you as a woman and giving you the opportunity to expand your potential and create the career experience you really want for yourself.

If you’re thinking yes, this is what I need, I encourage you to apply to join our next cohort. This is the last cohort to get support from me this year. To join, all you have to do is complete an application that confirms you’re a good fit. Like I said this is only for women in Pharma or Biotech. I will only accept those that identify as a woman in industry and whose goals are aligned with the program so you can be assured, if you’re accepted, it’s because I know I can help you and you can achieve your goals.

Applications are accepted through August 6th. If you’re not sure if you want to join but are seriously considering it, still submit your application. You have an option on the application to select you wan’t a no-obligation consultation call with me to ask any questions you have and confirm it’s a good fit for you. You’ll get a link to schedule that call with me when you choose that option on your application.

Again enrollment is open right now through August 6th.  And one more thing, when you submit your application by the end of the day July 25th, so for those of you listening to this right away when it is released, you will get a bonus 1-1 call with me to troubleshoot any career problem you have. You will be able to use that call before we start or anytime through the rest of the year once you join us.

I will put a link in the shownotes for you so you can submit your application. You can even pause this episode and do it right now!

Alright let’s dig more into troubleshooting your career problems.

You might have heard me talk before about Career CAPAs. Just like at work, you know there are good CAPAs and bad CAPAs.

The good CAPAs address the root cause of the problem so when you decide on your solution, it is the right solution for the real problem. It isn’t just a temporary fix. You don’t have the problem come up again a few months later.

A bad CAPA is where you don’t actually know what the real problem is. You waste your time on solutions that don’t address the root cause. You don’t actually make progress.

One example of this is when you’re unhappy in your job but you don’t know what you really want, you just know what you don’t want so you change companies or worse – do nothing.

Identifying the root cause would be to figure out exactly what you want and then get it so you know whatever change you make is going to address the root cause.

Another example is if you have a difficult coworker or boss and you don’t like the way they work, or maybe think they don’t work at all. So you might try to avoid them, roll your eyes when they are in a meeting, feel frustrated and helpless. Maybe you try to talk to them about the issue and they don’t change so you just stay frustrated and avoid as much as possible.

How you would address the root cause would be to build the communication, influencing, and self-advocacy skills to handle the problematic person or situation head on and resolve it for good.

Every pain point, grievance, frustration, or feeling of defeat or helplessness in your career is just a problem to solve.

There is literally nothing you have to settle for. There is nothing you have to just do nothing with.

You always have an option. Even if you can’t change the other person or the facts of the matter, you can change how you approach it, react to it, you can change how you feel about it.

You don’t have to feel stressed everyday. You don’t have to always feel like you don’t have enough time.

You don’t have to wait for the next promotion when you’re ready now. 

One of the biggest lessons I learned for myself, and what I help my clients do is to see that they always have a choice, they always have an option, they always have an action they can take.

It’s so empowering right?

When you choose to do nothing, that is your choice.

When you choose to be frustrated or distracted at home or unhappy and settle and wait, that is a choice your making.

It sucks to hear it. I know but if you think about it, really get honest with yourself, who can decide to build a new skill? Who can decide to not settle? Who decides if you wait for a promotion?

You. Your deciding to give your power away to a situation or a person.

Your deciding your goals aren’t worth fighting for.

And there is a lot of reasons why that can happen.

A big one my clients have (and that I used to have too) is that your goals just aren’t possible.

You don’t believe you can have anything different.

You don’t believe you can build the skills and if you do it will make a difference.

You don’t believe that you can figure out your ideal job. 

You don’t believe that if you do, you can get it.

Because guess what?

If you believed you could have what you wanted right now and that it was possible for you, I would bet you would make it happen.

If I said, all you have to do is xyz strategy and you believed you could get it and it would work, you’d do it right? 

If I said all you have to do is build this skill and here’s how to do it and you knew if you did that you could make a difference in the situation, you’d do it.

If I said, here is how you can figure out your ideal role and you believed that whatever the outcome was that you would be able to have a plan to make it happen, you would do it.

We choose to be stuck and believe things aren’t possible when we believe that we can’t control the outcome. When we believe we aren’t good enough. When we believe that there is nothing we can do.

I’m here to tell you that 100% there is a justifiable reason for why you believe that. There is a valid reason for your thoughts right now.

But it’s also possible that you’re wrong.

That those thoughts are there because you’re scared. Because you don’t want to be too visible or too vulnerable.

You don’t want to go all in on you and then be disappointed if it doesn’t work out.

You don’t want to let other people down. You worry what your partner or colleague or boss or friend will think of you if you try and fail.

That pain of being stuck and not troubleshooting the root cause is more comfortable than the vulnerability of betting on you and facing the fear of the unknown.

I get it.

I can talk about this so clearly to you because I understand you. Everything my clients think and feel I have overcome myself and have been helping women with the same issues for years.

Members of Beyond the Ceiling tell me one of their favorite things about the group is that they see they aren’t alone and that how they think and feel is similar or the same to the other women in the group.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a scientist or a Senior Director, the same fears come up and that is really reassuring and healing for you to see. It doesn’t go away when you reach a certain level.

If you don’t solve the root cause of your problems and pain points they come with you every step of the way through your career.

You reduce your potential. You don’t earn or achieve what you could.

My clients also ask me sometimes if they are a lost cause. If my process can really work for them.

And here is a secret for you.

Maybe I don’t say this enough.

I don’t work with every person who wants to work with me. I don’t market myself to every person who works in the industry/

All of my clients have a similar profile.

I help a certain kind of woman. The women that feel called or connected to me, that connect with this podcast, with my social media posts or emails, that connection you have with me and the fact you get value from what I teach and understand it is because I can help you.

Because I see you.

We have overlap. We have similarities. So if you apply to work with me and I offer to help you, it’s because I know I can.

It’s because you are similar to all of the women I work with.

It’s why my process works and my clients get results. It’s niched.

It’s specific and I understand and am invested in my clients in a very real way.

It doesn’t do me any good to have you fail. I want you to achieve your goals as much as you do.

Because of my expertise and that I have been where a lot of my clients have, I can also see what you can’t.

You haven’t built the skills yet or built your confidence or seen your dream job come to fruition, maybe you don’t yet think of your problems as just something to solve.

But I do, I see your potential. I see what you can’t.

I believe in you and your goals.

And I know you can grow into the person you want and have the career you want.

I’m here to show you what you can’t see yet.

To help you build your belief and confidence in yourself and become unstoppable.

Troubleshooting, this is just a skill.

Just like you learn the CAPA process, you get to the root cause and you know how to write a good CAPA you can learn how to see your issues in your career as just problems to solve and you can become skilled to get anything you want.

In Beyond the Ceiling we troubleshoot problems in a few different ways.

One is through coaching. We correct the issues you’re having in real time and prevent them from happening again. It’s sustainable.

Another way you can troubleshoot is by using the Career Coach Hotline – this is like having me on speed dial for you. You don’t have to wait until a call to get coaching or feedback. You can submit your resume in prep for an interview you have coming up, you can submit tools in the program like your transferable skills worksheet or opportunity magnet framework audit or thought leadership exercise to me and I will review it for any blind spots or areas for improvement and give you coaching and feedback. 

You don’t fail because you get support and coaching every step and the materials and coaching are all personalized to your unique situations at work.

It’s not theory that you learn and then go try to implement. You’re getting a specific action plan for your situation.

You can submit your Career Protocol that I guide you in creating so you know exactly what you want out of your career now and in the future. I review it and provide video feedback to you.

Aside from coaching calls and the Career Coach Hotline you can also leverage the community, your personal board of directors. This is a curated group of women in industry who have their own experiences you can tap into. Whether it’s insider information on their companies or type of role or how they’ve handled a problem. You can take the action plan you get in coaching and evaluate it, share your results with the group and we all cheer you on. You get momentum from the other women who are celebrating their own successes.

There is no shortage of support, feedback, and coaching curated and personalized to you. I can’t emphasize enough that this is not a course or generic development.

Troubleshooting your career problems is easy.

You just need to identify and fill the gap you have right now that is preventing you from being as happy in your career as you want, making the impact you could, and doing the work that is best suited for you. Your gap could be a skill, it could be a blindspot, or it could be a strategy.

You have to find it and solve for the root cause.

If you want me to help you with this, because you get the skill building, the coaching and blind spot identification, and the strategy all in Beyond the Ceiling, then apply now.

Enrollment is closing August 6th.  We kick off this cohort on August 23rd.

Thank you for tuning in and I’ll talk to you next week.