Krista English came to see George Dutch after seeing his name in the Yellow Pages and then looking at his website. “She was at her wits end with a job she was supposed to like,” said George.
Krista had been a nursing case manager and, since she spent
a great deal of her time working with insurance companies and attorneys, she
and her family thought it would make sense to get an MBA (Masters of Business
Administration).
After finishing her Masters degree, she got a good job at a
bank working with small businesses. “Life in the business world is quite
different from nursing and in some ways she had not thought about before,” said
George.
“As a nurse, I am 100% patient driven. The jobs I got after
my MBA were totally sales oriented models. That makes sense in business—and I
did well—but it really wasn’t me,” said Krista.
“I did so well as an Account Manager & Financial
Advisor, they wanted to promote me into management where I wouldn’t work with
clients. I not only got pressure at work, but from my family and society. We’re
expected to want to be promoted.”
“Krista was not in an unusual situation,” said George. “She
was being torn apart by worry and anxiety. She was in the wrong work
environment.
“Often a bad situation is made worse by a number of
stressful factors, such as unreasonable workloads; or the prospect of an
impending layoff due to a change in the economy; or the expectation that they
be available 24/7; or a change of job conditions from flex-time at home to
face-time in the office; or the fear of being squeezed out of being competitive
due to lack of educational credentials; or the unspoken pressure from family to
maintain a high income at any price.”
Whatever the circumstances, Krista felt an overwhelming need
to get out of her current job field. George said that her short term goal was
to avoid the pain. The long term goal was to find a better job fit…if she only
knew what it was! In the meantime, her priority was to maintain or improve her
compensation package.
“There are two contradictory goals at work here,” according
to George. “She wants a new job that will give her more vitality and joy, but
she also wants to avoid financial insecurity.
“Krista was an example of the essence of being stuck,” said
George.
“I had no energy on weekends,” said Krista. “I was drained.
It took everything I had to go in to work 8-5 Monday to Friday. I had nothing
left for the weekends.”
“In order to avoid a future that might be financially
insecure, she couldn’t take action to move out of her current job field because
she didn’t know what else to do; therefore, to move immediately meant she might
end up financially insecure. Damned if she does take action, damned if she
doesn’t.
She was likely to remain stuck for as long as she seek a
long term solution to a short term problem.
“A career transition is not the solution to a short term
problem-an unpleasant work situation. A transition takes time. It is best to do
during a period of stability without overwhelming financial or psychological
pressures. A transition is oriented around creating the kind of life you want;
it is not oriented around problem solving,” according to George.
George said that, in order to solve her problem, she needed
to learn to separate her contradictory goals. Her mismatched work environment
is a short term problem requiring a short term solution.
As distasteful as it was for her, she realized that her best
chance of getting out of her unpleasant environment, while maintaining her
current pay check, was to do the same thing as a job change for another
organization; or, cross the street, and purchase the services (that she was
selling) for large organizations. Or, repackage her skills and market them for
a related but different job target.”
George said, “She realized that the first thing she needed
to do was take care of herself by getting out of her mismatched work
environment. She needed to get into another job for the SHORT term in order to
build up the capacity to make a transition over the LONG term. So first she had
to get out of the crisis and take the time to transition.”
She did that by working as a program coordinator and
teaching some clinical skills for a medical group.
“Making progress towards a long term goal is about building
the life you want,” said George. “She understood that her long term goal was to
have a career that fits her deepest values and top priorities and that it is
possible but takes time and energy, two things that are in short supply when in
crisis.
“Her JobJoy assessment helped her become more conscious of
who she really was, and provided her with an impetus to change her situation,”
said George.
“George was amazing,” said Krista. “He had me write a
narrative of my life. What he does is the most amazing thing. He helps people
understand their core purpose. Who they are and what that looks like in their
careers. He helped me see that I was out of alignment with that.
“That’s huge. He was able to give me permission to be me. I
kept hearing ‘You have a great job,’ but it wasn’t me. He sort of gave me my
music back.”
Krista is now a rehabilitation case manager again, but now
she enjoys all the things she liked about it in the past and a lot more because
she knows now how to leverage her motivational pattern into her work. She works
with a multi-disciplinary team to treat individuals with catastrophic injuries,
such as brain injuries due to car accidents. She uses her influencing talents
that better align with her deepest values to be of service and leave her mark
on people by nurturing their potential or encouraging growth.
“Now my current job is awesome. I still use all my business
skills. And I work directly helping patients. My salary has gone up by about
$35,000 in a year and a half.
“Jobjoy is absolutely a possibility and George can help it
happen.”
~with Nick Isenberg
For More Information Please visit www.jobjoy.com
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