Dale Sackrider II

There is a LOT of money in selling secrets:

• The secret to losing weight
• The secret to getting rich
• The secret to a better love life
• The secret to success

If you google any of these phrases, you will not only get millions of search results, you’ll also get a TON of ads from content providers (books, podcasts, bloggers) all willing to sell you the secret you are looking for.

Whatever it is you are trying to do, someone is selling a solution and one very important way to get you to buy their solution is to convince you that the reason you have failed in the past is not your fault. Its because there is some secret information that you didn’t have access to. And they are going to sell you that answer.

The secret is… there is no secret.

A few years ago, my wife and I were arguing over our budget. Once a month we would sit down with the intention to align on how and what we spend money on, but often it would turn into a frustrating conversation. “Why do you get X but I can’t have Y” or “I don’t think we should do X right now – lets do Y now and put X in next month”. I’m a systems thinker so I was looking for a system where Stephanie and I could get on the same page without the frustrations we were running into. I also don’t like to reinvent the wheel – there had to be an answer to this already… this is where the QBR comes in.

If you have been in the corporate world for more than a minute, you’ve certainly run into the QBR. Quarterly Business Reporting is essential to maintaining focus and alignment across many areas of the company. We use it to measure our progress and ensure our future. So I proposed a similar approach to my wife – we would host a QMR (quarterly marriage report) meeting.

We needed to balance the stress with communion, the disagreement with alignment. So I proposed that once a quarter, we leave the kids and the house for a 3 day weekend, even if it’s just a hotel room in our town. We bring our budget, but we also bring our goal setting notebooks, at least one outfit for a fine dining event, and plan to connect with intentionality over our past, present, and future.

This has been one of the best things we have done in our marriage and I recommend it to everyone. We bring our individual work goals, our health goals, our family plans, and of course our budget with us, but we leave the daily distractions, the unfinished projects around the house, the kids, and the pets all at home.

You have get the joke, and the joke is, nothing’s personal. From the I love yous to the unreturned phone calls when your last picture didn’t perform they will pick you up in a limo, but you might have to catch a cab home. It’s not personal, it’s just business.

Matthew McConnaughey, Greenlights

My LinkedIn feed is flooded with close friends, colleagues, and aquantisces sharing what is one of the hardest days of their career – they were laid off. The tech sector has been hit particularly hard and my company just informed thousands that they were impacted (including me).

I’ve seen over a dozen layoffs in my career (first time on this end of one) and they are never easy for anyone involved. When I was much younger, I was more arrogant and assumed immune to company layoffs. One colleague said to me years ago, “Dale, the worst lay off you’ve ever seen is what, 10%? You only have to be better than 1 out of 10 people you work with”.

Of course this is not the case, but when you are in your twenties, you think you have it all figured out. Since then, both he and I have been laid off through no direct fault of our own. Still, it’s easy to take it personally. You know the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance? Well, they don’t happen one emotion at a time, transitioning you from denial to acceptance – they hit you like a ton of bricks in waves, moving between each so quickly you feel manic.

One of the thoughts that seem to dominate in the first few weeks is, “why? why me?”. This for me is part of the denial process. I recently read Greenlights by Matthew McConnaughey and I remembered the quote above. He has such a great way with words here; “they will pick you up in a limo, but you might have to catch a cab home”.

Next I hear a lot of the same idea regarding loyalty. “I guess loyalty doesn’t mean anything any more” one friend recently said to me after the round of layoffs at his company (interesting sidenote, he was not directly impacted by the layoffs). This idea is rooted in anger, the feeling of betrayal. But is loyalty the right word here? You’re exchanging value for value – your time and talent for their money. Loyalty is what you do when you help a friend move or pick them up in the middle of the night from a bad situation. Loyalty is staying with your spouse during the tough times. Loyalty is not a word we should use to describe a job or our relationship with a company, but it’s hard not to evoke the word when the feeling so closely matches loyalty’s counterpart – betrayal.

The point here for anyone going through being impacted by layoffs – you are not alone. What you are feeling is raw and real and you need to take time to process it all. Just don’t let it consume you. A colleague called me after I was impacted to tell me it took them 3 months to get over the anger of being laid off earlier in his career. He shared its ok to feel angry but holding on to it isn’t useful. I really appreciated his call and willingness to be open and vulnerable with me.

Every great inspiring story has adversity. We like to see the protagonist climb out of despair to triumph over the pain, but often only get to know the story by the end, when the victory has been won. The journey through the horror is told in the past tense but experienced in the present. Know that this is just a thing you are experiencing on the way to… actually, I don’t get to write the next part – you do. I look forward to hearing your story when you are ready to tell it, because losing your job might be “just business” but it’s also very personal.

So you just got laid off and you are a little panicked. You jump onto LinkedIn and start messaging everyone you know that you were impacted, asking if they know of a job or have an opportunity for you. STOP! Don’t do that.

First off, take a moment to breath. Its a lot to process and you are going to feel a lot of emotions (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance maybe?). But I am not suggesting you take a lot of time doing nothing.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of those texts, “Hey Dale! I don’t know if you remember me. We worked at XYZ together. I was recently laid off and wondering if you had any openings available?”

Every time I got that text, my heart sank. Getting laid off is devastating but even if I did remember working with them and if they were impressive, I still needed a position available that was in a role they could do. Of course I would help if all those conditions were true. BUT that’s a lot of IFs.

Its tempting to ignore the odds of all those if’s aligning in your favor because what do you have to lose, right? Wrong – There is a better way.

1) Update Your Resume

If you haven’t kept your resume current, you will need to do that immediately. If you did frantically send those texts and someone actually came back with “I absolutely have something you would be great for!” but you aren’t able to send a resume over for another several days, you aren’t setup for success. You jeopardize your relationship if your connection put their neck out there for you and you don’t show up to even apply for several days or weeks.

2) Do Your Own Job Search

There are job boards and corporate career pages that you can check out before you start asking people to find a job for you. Decide what role you want next. Be intentional here, do not fall into the trap of desperation. You don’t want ANY job, you want the RIGHT job for you. And only you know what that is. No matter how strong your network is, you cannot expect them to find a job for you.

3) Now Reach Out to your Network

Now that you have your resume updated, you know what kind of role you want, and you have found one or two job postings you believe fit – you are ready to reach out to your network. But instead of “I’m unemployed, do you have a job for me?” you can send “Hey Dale! I’m looking into a role at XYZ company. Do you happen to know anyone there?”

That does two things for your network connections:

First, you’ve asked them for something with a LOT less “IFs” – and its free for them to look to see if they do know anyone where you are looking to apply, and if they do, its free for them to make an introduction. Remember, its not their job to get you a job, but if they can get you connected with the hiring manager, especially if they include a recommendation, you are way ahead of the other applications on the pile.

Second, they now know you are looking. If they have an opportunity – if all the stars align and they remember you, think you are a strong resource, and have a role you would fit, they now know to ask you to apply.

If you are reading this because you’ve recently been laid off – I’m sorry. I know personally how difficult this can be. I hope you find your next big role and its better than the last, but I also wish you peace and joy.