Careers

Start your search for a new career by first considering which fields are experiencing the fastest growth. During the past several decades virtually all the growth in the U.S. economy has been in the services sector, primarily those involving computers, automation, healthcare, business services and education. The manufacturing sector (i.e., companies making things like cars, appliances, etc) has either been flat or in decline. That trend will continue indefinitely.

In percentage terms, over the past decade, the fastest growing career fields are:

But that list gives a distorted picture of where the real opportunities are because the fields with the highest growth percentage don’t necessarily have the largest number of job openings. Looking at the fields that have seen the biggest growth in terms of new jobs presents a more useful picture:

Those looking for careers where they are most likely to command top dollar will want to take the search another step to careers that combine both the biggest growth in terms of actual projected demand coupled with the biggest anticipated shortage of prospective applicants preparing to fill them. That list is quite different from the prior two and may come as a shock to those who have been thinking that the traditional fields were on the way out.

Finally, those who want to be in the catbird seat even within the hottest occupations will want to take their search even further by asking which specialties within each occupation are likely to be most in demand. Pulling back for a big picture of which industries have seen developments likely to lead to the most explosive growth, we come up with the following list:

By reflecting recent and anticipated changes in technologies and lifestyles, the list will help you pick the winning horses in the growth race. For example, given the rate at which wireless and satellite communications is replacing wired and land-based communications, one can expect that companies providing cellular and satellite services will outgrow companies selling tradtional phone services. If you are leaning toward business management as an occupation, you might want to seek jobs in the wireless communication industry over those in the traditional phone companies. By way of another example, the recent breakthrough in the mapping of the human genome makes it likely that gene therapy will be a hot growth niche within the rapidly growing healthcare field. If you have an interest in a medical profession, you might want to consider specializing in endocrinology in order to take advantage of the likely demand for physicians knowledgeable in gene therapies.

No one has a crystal ball, but you can keep the odds in your favor by factoring the big trends into your career strategies.

What separates top graduates of elite universities from the rest? More career options. For Asian Americans, there was a time when the engineer/accountant/doctor stereotype contained more than a kernel of truth.

During the past two decades, however, a marked increase in the percentage of Asian American students hailing from acculturated families have spread the elite Asian American graduate pool over a broader spectrum of careers. Engineering and medicine remain prominently in the mix, but ever larger numbers are entering business, law and the media.

Here are the careers attracting the most marked concentrations of exceptional Asian American recent graduates as of 2005.

If you’ve been wondering why Asian students comprise upwards of 40-65% of the MBA programs of top schools like Wharton, Columbia and Kellogg, just check out the compensation packages of brand new grads who opt for investment banking or consulting careers. Including salaries, signing bonuses and year-end bonuses, the average Columbia grad took home $157,000 last year. Those graduating from the other top 10 business schools fared nearly as well, with $136,000 for Wharton, $137,000 for the University of Chicago, $134,000 for Dartmouth’s Tuck School and $123,000 for Michigan.

In terms of specialty, the best starting salaries, excluding bonuses, were paid to grads of top-10 schools working in business consulting, with an average of $90,450. Investment banking was second with $87,431, followed by finance at $86,075 and marketing and management, $84,843.

Before fixating on starting salaries, keep in mind that most top business schools don’t accept applicants who haven’t first worked for 3-7 years. And many junior analysts are known to work 70-hour weeks for much of their first couple of years.

Masters of deferred gratification still flock to the more prestigeous specialties of the medical profession — even knowing that the price of entry is four years of college, four years of med school and 3-7 years of internship and residency. Those who survive the gauntlet reap what may be the biggest reward of all — bragging rights for long-suffering parents.

For those who stay on the long, arduous and grossly underpaid road to journeyman status, the money isn’t bad either, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Anesthesiologists, the profession’s surprising financial stars, earn an average of $306,964, even more than general surgeons ($255,438) and OB/GYNs ($233,061). Of course, the superstars lost in these averages are the neuro-, cardiac- and orthopedic surgeons in private practice who, at their peak, may earn upwards of a million dollars each year.

Brainy people with a practical bent are frequently drawn to engineering, the only field that offers respectable starting salaries and solid advancement prospects to those who escape schooling after a bachelor’s degree. The economic benefits of getting a masters or a PhD are marginal. The median income of engineers with bachelor’s degrees and less than a year of experience is $44,500, according to a 2004 survey by the National Society of Professional Engineers. It rises to only $50,000 for those with master’s degrees and less than a year of experience, and $58,500 for those with.PhDs and one to two years of experience.

As with all fields, top grads of elite schools enjoy starting salaries that are markedly higher than less distinguished peers from lesser schools. Pay also varies markedly by specialty. Here are the 2002-3 starting salaries of Michigan engineering graduates:

• Computer: $55,111
  
• Electrical: $51,761
  
• Chemical: $51,593
  
• Mechanical: $49,275
  
• Aerospace: $48,100
  
• Industrial and operations: $46,812
  

Job sites, online resumes and email are valuable tools and resources for savvy job seekers. For the inexperienced or the clueless, they are black holes that suck up countless hours in digital wheelspinning. Let’s face it — to some, the PC and the internet can become avoidance tools that keep you from the hard work of deciding exactly what kind of job you want and narrowing them down to the ones for which you’re qualified, then pounding the pavement to get your best self in front of as many prospective employers as possible.

After speaking with many HR professionals, employers and experienced jobseekers, I’ve isolated the seven most common mistakes that can stall a job search in the digital age.

For large employers, most job openings are known to management several weeks or longer before they make their way onto job listings sites. Waiting for openings to be advertised usually means having your resume join a cascade of hundreds or thousands, with little chance of getting the kind of personal attention needed to get a meaningful interview. There’s nothing wrong per se with using job listings, but you should be aware that it’s the most passive way to look for a job.

To improve your odds, be proactive in targetting prospective employers. Start by doing research not just to learn who your prospective employers are, but where they are in the business cycle. Are they expanding? Are they laying off workers following a merger or to cope with a downturn in revenues? What locations and departments are most likely to be adding the kind of job you want?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you be among the first — not the last — to get your qualifications in front of the people who can offer you the kind of job you want.

The HR departments of even major employers look for signs of sincere interest in the applicants with whom they schedule interviews. Mass mailings show that an applicant is more interested in playing the numbers game than in looking for the most compatible positions and employers. These applicants will receive less consideration than applicants who send personalized cover letters and customized resumes. And the interviews they get will be less meaningful.

Break out of mass-mailing hell by making some calls to learn the name of the person who heads up the department you would like to work for, or at least the person who will be screening the resumes. That’s the person to whom your cover letter should be addressed. In that letter, mention one or two reasons for your special interest in that employer. These may be things like specialties, reputation, location or a connection with current employees or products. By showing right up front that you see each employer as human beings, you are more likely to be seen as one too.

Email is a wonderful convenience. In the time it takes to track down a name and a phone number and get through for a real conversation, you can send dozens of emails, maybe even hundreds if you’re clever. Emails offer the heady sense of easy access and instant communication. Unfortunately, all too often it’s merely the illusion of communication. Thanks to filters and assistants, the likelihood of an email actually being read by the addressee is inversely proportional to the ease with which you were able to send it.

Ironically, the well composed letter and the business phone conversation are more effective than ever in the digital age because they are becoming rarer as more people succumb to the ease of email. Don’t get me wrong; emails have their place. They’re great for keeping in touch with people with whom you already have working relationships or for confirming discussions held by phone. But relying on email in your job search is giving in to wishful thinking.

It’s hard to believe that fifteen years ago I considered my ability to speak fluent Korean a handicap in my career. Playing up my bi-lingual ability, I figured, would make me seem like a cultural misfit. And with good reason. I entered the workforce back in the bad old days when globalization and multi-culturalism were exotic concepts to most Americans.

But even today I find many bi-lingual Asian Americans worrying that they will marginalize themselves in the minds of employers if they play up their bi-cultural backgrounds and bi-lingual abilities. If you ever encounter that kind of attitude, you’re talking to the wrong employers!

Today the top companies in the fastest growing fields are making a concerted push to seek out bi-lingual Asian Americans. Among them are industry-leading companies like Bayer, GSK, Ford, State Farm, Allstate and KPMG. The choicest employers are making a special effort to attract bi-cultural workers with bi-lingual skills by offering compensations and opportunities for advancement that factor in the value of such people to corporate growth plans.

What accounts for the strong interest in bi-linguals? The most important factors include the need for businesses to outsource internationally both products and services and the evolution of increasingly sophisticated marketing strategies that target immigrant populations as keys to revenue growth.

The ongoing business booms in countries like China, India, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines — as well as the robust Asian immigration rates — mean that opportunities for bi-lingual Asian Americans abound in every industry. What follows is a brief list of fields experiencing the highest growth in demand for bi-lingual professionals.

Nowhere is trust more important than in money matters. Nothing is more essential to building trust then the ability to communicate fluently in the client’s native language. Corporate giants that deal in insurance, investments, mortgage lending and other financial services know that in a mature economy with a low population growth like the U.S., success hinges on winning new customers among fast-growing immigrant populations. Recruiting Asian Americans fluent in both English and in their parents’ native languages are key components of the growth strategies of companies like State Farm, Prudential Securities, Allstate, Bank of America, Washington Mutual and many others. People with the skills to tap this demand can enjoy high earnings limited only by their ambition and energy.

Hospitals in today’s American cities have trouble keeping up with the demand for health-care personnel who can communicate with immigrants with limited English-language ability. Especially where precious seconds can mean the difference between life and death, the shortage of bi-lingual staff is being addressed through stop-gap measures like asking high-school volunteers or even the patient’s children to translate. As recently publicized in the media, the resulting problems in diagnosis and treatment have opened the door to needless suffering and medical malpractice suits. The demand for bi-lingual Asians in the healthcare field will remain robust for years, if not decades, to come.

9/11 showed the U.S. the importance of understanding the mentality and tactics of foreign powers, both hostile and friendly. The biggest weakness of U.S. intelligence has been a shortage of analysts and agents capable of monitoring and interpreting foreign-language public and private communications as well as maintaining meaningful dialogue with the governments of other nations. The big push to correct that deficiency has U.S. intelligence organizations like the NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA, Naval Intelligence, as well as the State Department, conducting ongoing recruitment efforts toward bi-lingual Americans, especially of Middle Eastern and Asian nationalities. Much of the resources and openings once directed toward Europe are being diverted toward Asia as of 2006, creating opportunities that didn’t exist in the past.

Ever considered a career in sales? You aren’t alone. Popular misconceptions make many ambitious Asian Americans put sales at the bottom of the totem pole when considering careers. They have a vague notion of salespeople as annoying drones performing a lowly, even despised function.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a matter of fact, in the corporate world salespeople are the trusted warrior class. They are the samurai, riding forth to do battle on the front lines of a fiercely competitive free marketplace. Not only do good salespeople possess poise under fire, sharp minds, high energy levels, unusual degree of discipline and appealing personalities, they carry on their shoulders the near- and mid-term fortunes of their companies.

No wonder top salespeople rank up there in earnings with other highly trained corporate professionals. The average income of a wholesale or manufacturing sales rep for technical or scientific products was $65,360 in 2004, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For a sales engineer, the mean income was even higher — $72,490.

Those compare well with salaries in other well-paying corporate departments like engineering ($66,040 for mechanical, $66,980 for biomedical and $64,620 for civil), IT ($61,440 for database administrators and $62,060 for network systems and data communications analysts), finance ($55,430 for accountants and auditors and $52,050 for cost estimators) or production ($46,690 for first-line supervisors/managers).

Working your way up to a sales management position wins even healthier paychecks relative to managers in other areas. The $91,840 that sales managers earn on average matches or exceeds the paychecks of managers of operations ($88,700), HR ($75,190), industrial production ($76,710), public relations ($74,750) and even marketing ($92,190). More importantly for the long term, in most industries, those who begin their careers as sales executives stand a better chance of working their way up to the CEO position than employees from any other corporate department!

Not that the average CEO’s earnings of $140,580 is envied by the top salespeople. In good years elite sales executives can take home far more than deskbound superiors two or even three steps above them on the corporate ladder. As a matter of fact, not even lawyers ($107,800) or doctors ($139,640) have anything over a star sales executive in the compensation department.

Money isn’t everything, you say? Let’s talk glamour. You know those movies where attractive, well-dressed people entertain distinguished clients in fancy restaurants? In real life, the people who get to enjoy swank evenings more frequently than any other class of professionals aren’t lawyers or investment bankers, they’re sales executives! That’s because even in these days of stingy expense accounts, salespeople are encouraged to keep good clients happy with memorable meals and choice events.

So now that you have some idea of what a sales career can offer, let’s find out whether you have what it takes to be a top sales executive. You may be surprised to find that the qualities you always associated with other careers are exactly the ones that make a successful sales executive.

If you can honestly answer “Hell, yes!” to all of the following questions, you have the makings of a sales superstar.

Discipline is the backbone of effective sales. Sales success requires the timely step-by-step execution of strategies and timetables day in and day out over months and years. At the highest levels, sales is much more like a marathon than a sprint, and you can’t run a marathon without the kind of discipline that puts time on your side.

Corporate sales is information intensive. You need the skills to ferret out, digest and organize key data relating to a prospect and how your product or service can help its business. A busy CEO won’t take the time to give you a primer on his company and its requirements. If you don’t put in the time to become expert on your prospect’s needs, you will turn him off even before the meeting begins.

Leslie Ninomiya loves her job. She got hired right out of junior college and worked her way up to section supervisor. Lately her section has been the division’s top performer and she enjoys great relations with her boss and underlings. She recently got another raise and promotion. “Why would I even think about leaving?” she asks, dumbfounded. “I’ve worked so hard to get where I’m at!”

The answer is, she shouldn’t, unless she’s looking to reach her full career potential by seeking out new opportunities for growth. If so, this could well be an excellent time for Leslie to leave.

The most dangerous career misconception is the belief that you only leave a job if you’re stuck in neutral or afraid of being fired. That false image of an employee as a passive victim of circumstances holds back many talented people from making steady progress toward their full career potential. Only you can take responsibility for keeping your career trajectory on an upward path. If you want that trajectory to take you as high and far as your talents and diligence merit, learn to know when it’s time to switch jobs. Here are the seven most important reasons.

There’s nothing more frustrating and destructive than being stuck doing work that doesn’t match your talents, training and energy. Employees get pigeonholed all the time. The reasons can be varied — everything from a failure of communications between you and your boss, getting yourself hired by the wrong company or department, office politics, even something as trivial as a clerical error at the company’s HR department. It happens all the time, especially in large organizations. If you aren’t sure whether you’re in the wrong job, ask yourself whether you’d be happy in your immediate boss’s job. If so, you should consider staying and developing patience. If not, take the initiative to get yourself reassigned to another job. If that isn’t possible, it’s time to switch. Your days are too precious to waste on the wrong job.

It’s possible to survive while working for a boss with whom you just don’t click, but it’s impossible to do your best. In a healthy working relationship, your boss is many things — mentor, teacher, confidant, cheerleader, friend, even mother and father. That kind of relationship demands good communications. If you feel awkward or strained when talking with your boss, your communications will suffer. If you’re brand new at the job, it’s possible a little time will fix the situation. But if you’ve been there for a few months and the situation hasn’t improved, it’s time to make a switch. Working for a boss you can’t communicate with is like going down in a diving bell with a leaky air line.

Thanks to rapid technological advances and globalization, the pace of change is constantly accelerating. No employer is immune from the effects of this change. Departments and offices within a company will expand or shrink depending on changing strategies and needs. For example, your company might decide to outsource or simply abandon some or all of the functions being performed by your department. If so, you will have a struggle just to keep your job. In today’s economy you must keep an eye on structural changes to make sure you won’t get stuck in a deadend department. Sometimes employers announce changes in advance and promise jobs in other department. Often the moves are made with little notice. The more alert you are to coming changes, the more time you will have to make an advantageous move.

No change is more certain to cause dislocation than having your employer become bought out or merged into another company. Suddenly not even your boss can give you meaningful assurances because she too faces the same uncertainty. Virtually all merger situations entail substantial job cuts. Hoped-for savings from cutting redundant jobs is a major motivation for any merger. If you learn that your employer is about to be merged into another company, at best you will face dramatic changes in corporate policies, coupled with a likely reduction in your prospects for advancement. At worst, you will be laid off outright. Unless you are sure that your department is a corporate gem, it’s a good time to consider a job switch.

Most companies have fraternization policies that discourage office romances. If you are about to get engaged to an office mate, best to have one of you make a job switch before making the happy announcement. That will minimize the potential fallout on the career of the one who stays.

Everyone has bad days when work seems devoid of meaning and enjoyment. Usually it’s simply a function of your physical or emotional state. But if most of your days feel that way, you are either in the wrong job or have been put on a track leading nowhere. Keep your boredom secret for as long as you can and spend your energies looking for a new job. It won’t take long for your boredom to start affecting your performance and attitude. Better to make a switch while you can still get your boss to give you a good recommendation.

This is Leslie’s situation. In her naivete, quite natural for people in the earlier stages of their careers, she sees her career goal as creating a comfortable niche for herself. There’s nothing wrong with that goal, but in most cases it’s the wrong way to reach your full career potential. She has peaked in her job and has more to lose than gain by staying. By moving she may lose that sense of comfort and security, but she will be able to take full advantage of her great track record to find a job that offers better pay and fresh challenges. If she stays on, she faces the high risk that her comfortable situation may change for the worse, possibly forcing her to move without the impressive track record and glowing recommendations. It isn’t easy to leave when you’ve peaked, but those who stay discover that it’s even harder being the old battleax trying to defend her turf against eager young recruits looking to make their mark in the world.

Jobseekers often focus on the impact on the job market produced by short-lived economic conditions. In boom times they expect the benefits of more liberal hiring. In slack times they fret about becoming victims of corporate restructuring (layoffs) and other belt-tightening measures.

That ignores the forest for the trees. Rather than seeing yourself as a victim of economic fluctuations, it’s more productive to recognize the ways in which human resource strategies and priorities are evolving in response to the efficiencies created by widespread computerization and global outsourcing of production and even services.

Employers see automation and outsourcing as having a multiplier effect on the productivity of their U.S.-based workforce. In practical terms, that means employers now devote more of their human resources efforts to competing for the kinds of workers that have the competence to serve as hubs of constantly improving productivity. Conversely, they recognize that one wrong hire can produce a catastrophic loss of business transactions, crucial data and workplace morale.

Consequently, American employers are moving toward a fundamental change in strategies for attracting and retaining talent and in the criteria applied to hiring decisions.

Today’s jobseekers face an employment market that is radically different from the one they navigated as recently as their last job change. To navigate this year’s job market, consider these new hiring strategies and practices:

Employers are recognizing that productivity and profitability depend disproportionately on the efforts of a small number of skilled and dedicated employees. A bad hire, on the other hand, is seen as costing an employer up to 400% of that person’s annual salary. This key awareness is prompting employers to allocate more HR effort to attracting people with a proven record of superior performance.

Regardless of the field, recruiters are placing more weight than ever on a proven track record. That means that the best way to attract offers for desirable positions is to make yourself a proven performer in your current position before beginning the search for your next job.

Recognizing that top performers are less likely to remain on the job market, HR departments are taking a more proactive approach by reaching out to prospects through trade groups, ethnic and professional affiliations, and by looking inside the ranks of existing employees to bring up those who have distinguished themselves.

One fruitful technique has been to encourage referrals from top employees based on the theory that birds of a feather flock together. Being referred by an acquaintence already working at an employer of choice is an effective way to separate your resume from the piles flooding HR department for the choicest positions. Another good long-term strategy is to find a mentor inside a company of the caliber you would like to work for.

In the past many employers have been willing to take a seat-of-the-pants approach to hiring decisions. They have extended offers based on little more than a resume, a pleasant interview and a couple of superficial reference checks. Often the results have been far from satisfactory. Applicants who come across as capable and likeable often turn out to lack the core skills needed to succeed in a job.

Spend hours writing well-researched memos that get ignored?

Make brilliant suggestions that make people’s eyes glaze over?

Send magnificent proposals that clients don’t read?

You are surely breaking one or more of the 3 Laws of Professional Communications.

Trying to make an impression without observing these laws is like trying to make water flow uphill without a pump. But obey these simple laws in every presentation and your audience will drink in your words like manna from heaven.

Every business communication must have a worthwhile purpose. Otherwise why would anyone waste precious time trying to absorb it? Remember that it takes precious energy to digest a piece of information, especially if it’s some brilliant idea no one has yet considered. That’s why you must lead with the question on everyone’s mind. It reassures them right up front that you are down with them, and therefore, may say something worth heeding. If you can’t articulate a killer question with which to lead your presentation, you probably have nothing worth listening to. In that case, keep quiet and save your credibility for when you do.

Articulating the big question earns you about three seconds. That isn’t enough time to start in on a long boring rampup to your main idea. It’s those long rampups that make people’s eyes glaze over as their minds wander. People in the professional world operate on the attention spans of squirrels. So lose no time in spitting out the essence of your idea in one clear, crisp sentence. If you can’t get it down to a quick sentence you probably don’t have an idea worth communicating in the real world.

Only novices try to present everything in one fell swoop. In real life that first suggestion, memo or proposal is typically the starting point for followup discussions, emails, calls, memoes. Great communicators never forget the short attention spans of their audience. Three points is about all most people can absorb in a single sitting, so why risk turning them off altogether by piling on everything you can think of? Do the tough job of picking which three to present first. Keep in mind that it never hurts to save some juicy stuff for the followup communications that will surely follow. Meaningful communication always becomes a two-way street.

In closing, communication is all about grabbing and holding attention. Without it your brilliance will never see the light of day.

If you worry about how you dress for going to work each morning, you might want to spend a few minutes to think about the words you use when you speak and write. They are the clothes that dress your thoughts.

Use the vocabulary of a college student and you will be ajudged young and inexperienced. Use the vocabulary of a sharpie and you will be ajudged cunning and untrustworthy. Use the vocabulary of a tired, jaded old-timer and you will be adjudged a has-been. Use the vocabulary of a blue-collar worker and you will be adjudged unsuitable for the executive suite.

Yes, the successful have their own distinct vocabulary too.

If your ambition is to be a professional success, you must not only dress for the part, but dress your thoughts for the part. If you aren’t already blessed — thanks to family background, academic background, social background or work experience — with a vocabulary right for a successful, fast-track professional, don’t sweat it. You can acquire one through a modest effort sustained over a few weeks or months. It’s a little harder than buying a new wardrobe but not as hard as going through adolescence again.

The vocabulary of success mimics the qualities found in the thought processes of successful people. The most important among those qualities are efficiency, tact, confidence and color.

Nothing gives away a lazy mind like using words that add no meaning or, often, merely add vagueness. “In my opinion it’s incumbent on all of you to avoid unnecessary complexity,” isn’t as efficient as “Keep it simple”. The first rule of efficiency is to leave out unnecessary words. Anyone who uses unnecessary words or unnecessarily long words will be judged incapable of clear thought.

In our example, “in my opinion” is unnecessary because anything you say is obviously your opinion unless you say it’s someone else’s opinion. “It’s incumbent on” is another phrase that has a sonorous ring but adds no meaning. “All of” is unnecessary because it’s understood that it applies to whomever the speaker is addressing. Once the other unnecessary phrases are cut, even “you” is unnecessary because it’s understood. Therefore, the phrase could be cut down to “Avoid unnecessary complexity,” which are three very long and clumsy words that say “Keep it simple.”

Keeping your sentences simple is the most important way to sound like an intelligent professional. It’s also the most difficult because it requires a clear knowledge of the message you want to deliver. But the effort of thinking out what you want to say will be well repaid not only in making you sound more intelligent, but in enhancing the clarity of your thinking.

One of the saddest, most wasteful problems arise from people who, without intending to, speak in words that add to the confusion, ill will, anger and hostility of a situation. By constructing sentences with attention to the courtesy, you can inject courtesy and positive feelings to diffuse tensions and negativity and help make all parties feel more inclinded to work toward a favorable outcome.

“I’m telling you to go talk to that guy,” has the same essential meaning as “I’d like you to speak with that man.” Yet the effect of the two sentences on the listener is like night and day. The first conveys a lack of respect toward the listener and the person she is expected to see. It isn’t likely to make the listener positively inclined toward the speaker or to attach any importance to the man she is expected to speak with. The second sentence conveys respect and courtesy toward both, making the meeting more likely to be meaningful and positive.

“Do something about the big mess you made,” loads down the listener with unnecessary pressure and blame. “Let’s straighten out this confusion,” focuses on the constructive act of solving a problem rather than fixing blame. It also creates more incentive for cooperation by putting the speaker on the same side as the listener, with the same motivation for wanting to work toward a good outcome. By calling the situation “confusion”, blame is diffused rather than focused.

“What do you expect us to do about it?” conveys hostility and unresponsiveness by setting off the listener “You” from the speaker “us” in an adversarial context. “How may we help you?” conveys a respectful, cooperative and responsive attitude in which the listener is made to feel respected.

In the manageral or professional world, there is little room for people who add to the conflicts and eruptions that arise in the course of everyday business. What is valued are people who can help diffuse the potential for conflict and channel energies toward constructive solutions rather than intensifying the conflict and ill will. That means people who know how to use words that convey courtesy and respect.

The business world turns on faith. Marketers pre-sell on the faith that manufacturing will produce the products in time for promised delivery. Manufacturers install production lines and hire employees on faith that suppliers will ship components in time to keep assembly lines humming. Bankers lend millions on faith that borrowers will use the money productively so as to be able to repay the loans. Without faith and confidence, the business world would grind quickly to a halt, to the loss of all concerned.

Mariel L had been the top performer in her tech sales group. According to the organizational logic of many corporate giants, she was rewarded with the chance to head up her own team.

“The problem was, there was no team for me to head up,” recalls Mariel. “They wanted me to build one from scratch. It was the most difficult year of my life. You don’t know how many times I wished I could just go back to my safe old job.”

The challenge thrust on Mariel is one that successful professionals face over and over in their careers. How well they meet that challenge decides whether they move up into the upper levels of management or get stuck in the lower rungs.

The ability to build a winning team is what separates management material from the rank and file. Unfortunately, it isn’t a skill that any of us possesses naturally. Fortunately, it is one that can be learned. It helps to have an overview of the 6 steps that Mariel L used to end up with a winning team at the end of that difficult year.

A group of people cannot become a team unless everyone shares the same clear understanding of a compelling goal. Here’s where managers learn from studying sports. Most people muddle through their workdays without a clear and compelling goal, but they have no such problem with a baseball or basketball game: score more points than the other team and win. What could be clearer than scoring a run or a basket? What could be more compelling than winning?

Of course, a professional or corporate team deals with more complex issues than a sports team, but to be successful, its goal must be every bit as clear and compelling.

A compelling goal is one that everyone on the team would agree is worth attaining. One that is too modest isn’t exciting and won’t engage the emotions and get the team excited. One that is too ambitious would merely provoke skepticism and undue discouragement. Ideally the goal should be one that can be reached with consistent effort and enthusiasm.

When it comes to articulating your team’s goal, go for clarity and simplicity over poetry and refinement. “1,000 renewals by Thanksgiving” is much better than “Love the client and and they’ll love us.” The goal must be one that isn’t subject to different interpretations by different team members.

Fancy phrases and slogans won’t save a goal that is not compelling or unclear. So rather than wasting time trying to carve out a catchy slogan, focus on the substance of the goal and reduce it down to a simple number or other objective indicator.

An efficient team is one that achieves the goal with the fewest members. Stated differently, an efficient structure is one that lets the team achieve a given result with the least proportion of effort devoted to coordinating the efforts of individual members.

The importance of keeping the team small cannot be overstated.

The amount of communication needed to coordinate a team’s efforts rises geometrically with the size of the team. An 8-person team requires 87% more communication than a 6-person team. That means that beyond a certain size (usually between 5-7), each added team member may increase the team’s coordination time nearly as much as its productive time. That is why a team of 12 or 14 may actually end up being less productive than a team of 5 or 6.

Another key element of efficiency is keeping the structure as flat as possible. In the classic organization, a team members are forced to go up and down the chain of command in order to communicate with the leader or other members of the team. In a flat-structured team each member has direct access to every other, including the leader. A flat structure generally allows the leader — often the most productive and knowledgeable team member — to devote more time to productive tasks. On the other hand, for teams in which every member must be kept fully informed of the entire project (i.e. software development), it may be more efficient to have every member be in on every communication.

A common mistakes in team building is maintaining rigidly fixed areas of responsibility. Even experienced teambuilders can’t anticipate how each member will settle into new responsibilities. Some highly credentialed team members may have trouble adapting to a role on a new team while an inexperienced worker may come to thrive on taking on new responsibilities.

As team leader one of your most important responsibilities is to make adjustments to optimize the evolving capabilities on your team members. One who finds her responsibilities overwhelming must be shifted to a lesser role and while one who finds little challenge in her job must be given enough new responsibilities.

A team’s effectiveness is usually directly proportional to the length of time it has been together. A mediocre team that has been together for a year is far more effective than even the most talented team trying to rebuild after substantial turnover. It takes weeks or even months for team members to adjust to their responsibilities and begin interacting efficiently. The longer a team has been together, the better it knows how to utilize the capabilities of its members and cover for their weaknesses. It also develops procedures to handle sustained or complex tasks with an efficiency not attainable by less seasoned teams.

Turnover of even the most junior member severely compromises a team’s effectiveness. The routines of other team members are disrupted as they take time away from their duties to fill in for the departed member. The orientation of each new member costs the team lost productivity and efficiency as team members take time to make themselves available to the new member for consultation and familirization.

A successful team leader is one who instills a strong sense of commitment and loyalty approaching that of a closely-knit family. But instilling the “One for all and all for one mentality” that marks strong families and winning teams takes more than catchy slogans. Each member of the team must be made to feel that her success depends on the team’s success. All available means must be used to reinforce this message. One important way is to tie a big portion of each team member’s compensation to the team’s success. Another is to have everyone from the team leader to the most junior member sharing the same working conditions. Yet another is to make every member feel that, regardless of mistakes or shortcomings, he is an important member of the family.

Parents create a sense of security by being available to their children. A team leader must create that same sense of security in essentially the same way — by always showing her availability to encourage, coach and reassure the team members. “I was both mother and father to my team,” recalls Mariel L. “In some ways, that was the most difficult thing about building a team. You don’t realize how important being available is until you make the mistake of putting up barriers between you and them. There should be no “me” and “them”, just “us”.

One step that proved helpful for Mariel in breaking down the barrier and creating a sense of family was making a point of requiring the team to have lunch together on Mondays and Fridays. Those lunches served as opportunities both to catch up with work-related developments and to bond on a personal level.

“Those were probably the two most important hours of the week,” she says. “I would strongly suggest that every team leader do something like that if she wants to build loyalty and cooperation.”

Unlike a bridge or a building, a team is a living organism that is constantly growing and evolving. From year to year or even month to month, everything about the team may change dramatically — mission, responsbilities and capabilities of individual members, the environment in which the team operates. A team leader must constantly recognize, address and even anticipate these changes. This requires setting aside a regular time each month or two to go over an organizational checklist, both alone and in the presence of the entire team. This is when decisions would normally be made about shifting responsibilities, modifying goals or operating procedures, addressing problems or obstacles appearing on the horizon.

“Once you see the team as your family,” notes Mariel, “you start becoming much more sensitive to everything that affects family health and harmony. A lot of times your people don’t want to bring up potential problems because they don’t want to seem like they’re complaining. It’s your job to sit down and make them feel okay about being honest with little difficulties they’re starting to face. If you address them early enough, you don’t really have too many big problems to deal with. You can spend more time being productive.”

By the end of the first year Mariel L.‘s team was one of the company leaders. That earned her another surprise: the chance to build another team.