Thursday, July 16, 2009

Stanley Back - Thriving on the Big Wave


Stanley Back-Thriving on the Big Wave
July 1, 2009

Professional holiday parties are great for meeting people but they do not always lead to really getting to know someone. Fortunately, the HR Alliance holiday party in December 2008 was just the beginning of getting to know Stanley Back. What impressed me in conversations at the many networking events over the past six months was Stanley’s ability to zero in on the heart of an issue. At the May HR Alliance meeting Stanley was one of the panelists who talked about his transition from working as an internal HR executive to being a consultant. I appreciated his down to earth view about his consulting practice, Intentional HR, and invited him to an interview.

You are encouraged to add comments to this blog entry or reach out directly to Stanley at: sdback@IntentionalHR.com

What are you currently working on?

I’m an independent career coach in private practice and work with people who have been laid off, those who want to return to the workforce after a voluntary absence and those who get up in the middle of the night sweating and say, “I gotta get outa here!”. I have a human resources background and am just winding down an assignment with an outplacement firm. I currently co-chair a career transition group for senior HR professionals and am a Mentor at Baruch College in their graduate MBA program. I’ve also been a guest teacher at the NYC HS of Economics and Finance in their world of work program.

That sounds like a hectic workweek.

Yes, my life has turned into 24/7, which is the entrepreneur’s lament.

Thinking about change, when it did occur to you that something was different, that you were on a different path?

I realized that change for me has come from two different directions – change that I prepared for and change that surprised me. For example, I’m a career coach probably because I’ve been laid off three times and know what is needed. The initial three layoffs were total surprises, but the strategy that I developed to get to where I am now, was planned, almost.

Sometimes I do better with less thought, so the surprise type of change like a layoff can have sweeter outcomes than a planned change – for me.

Do you think that there was a more pivotal moment in the three lay-offs or other life events that stand out for you?

All three layoffs were different and I don’t believe that things happen for a reason. Things just happen. It’s what you do with them that counts.

My last layoff was from a financial services company in an economy impacted by 9/11 and the subsequent economic depression. My similarly situated HR colleagues and me could not give ourselves away and even volunteering was tough.

In the years that followed and still with no job, I went though several serious health issues as did a member of my family. The landscape immediately changed and other decisions were called for. Working took the number three-post position and flexibility and energy to ‘deal’ were primary. Frankly, had I found a full-time job I don’t think I would have survived nearly as well as I have, from the health side. I know that I would have survived even if I had a job, but it would have been different. In hindsight, there was nothing good to be said for it, except that I made it out the other end.

Talking about that time, was that a gradual realization or a quick realization that things were going to change for you?

Back to my job situation, I think it was gradual. I consider myself a consultant today. That definition probably took about five years to develop and sink into my consciousness; my entire career was working for large mega-companies. One of my recent assignments as an independent consultant was as interim HR Director for a physician-owned medical practice. It was a long run and I was told with no warning, that they were making changes and that my services would no longer be needed. I left the building and remember asking myself if I were just laid off (because that’s what it felt like) and then I realized I wasn’t. My project had simply ended and that’s when I realized I was a consultant. Change is an event; it’s neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ – ‘positive’ nor ‘negative’, it’s simply an event. Everything else that follows is a process. It’s how you manage the process that really matters.

Under stress I am good at being able to focus and differentiate the process from the event and I continually try to remember that it’s not the event but the process that I have to work with. It hasn’t always been this way.

Like taking a deep breath?

My analogy is like swimming in the ocean and suddenly getting hit by a large wave and knocked under. The wave is the event and I’ve had no control over it. I manage what I can control and will completely relax my body because I don’t know where I am. I don’t know which direction I am facing. If I can relax, I can get my balance back and float the right way. I am describing a physical reaction as well as a story.

Other people I know fight when they are hit by the same wave. That’s not my style, but if both of us deal with the process and not the wave (event) we both have a chance to succeed equally well. There is no one-way. Change hits us all the time. And after I scream, yell and curse I try to remember what I want and that I am in charge. In some ways it’s a skill, a learned behavior to develop the ability to deal with change.

What has been most challenging about dealing with change?

The most challenging part for me about change is not losing my definition of myself in the process. It’s probably why I connected to the name for my company, which is “Intentional HR.” My tag line is “when focus matters.” If I lose my focus or don’t know where I want to go, or what my brand is, then it is very difficult to take the first step and survive the change.

It is so much easier now to answer questions about what I do because of the focus. That brand took three to four years and dozens of different business cards, and at least 20 different 30-second commercials to develop. Physically, it all came together when I was going up an escalator. The ‘overnight’ sensation took four years! Had I stopped at the event – being laid off, I never would have created the focus, which has made my life much less complicated.

It sounds like you have really found a metaphor for dealing with change when you talked about being hit by a wave. Is there anything else you would like to add?

I learned that I could survive. You will come out of it. Nobody has a magic bullet. You have to have faith that it will happen and surround yourself with people. Change, and I mean the process, is not a solo activity. It’s not a straight line. It’s a roller coaster. When you are at the bottom of the curve you need to have people that you can borrow energy and balance from. And when you are at the top of the curve, you need to be willing to share that with someone else. That’s what networking really is. I learned that I needed help dealing with the process and that I needed to bring people into it by sharing what I was going through with many more people. One note here: This ain’t a one-way street. You have to give before you can get. Sharing works both ways.

At the beginning of our interview you mentioned two types of changes, those you planned and those that were surprises. Was there something unexpected that happened along the way in either of those situations?

Sometimes you cannot see the forest for the trees when it is happening. My career started as a counselor working with recovering heroin addicts in a hospital setting. Along the way I got my masters in social work. After being laid off from the hospital, my next layoff was from a major insurance giant and the third time it was from a securities firm. You couldn’t have convinced me after my first layoff at the hospital that I would be fully entrenched in the corporate, for-profit world. No one ever knows what their next step will be. That’s why I call it transition instead of a job search because when you search and you find, you stop searching. Transition is a broader concept and you are more on the continuum. Searching is not that critical – it’s the transition.

It sounds like all this was the result of serious planning but I’m not sure that I can tell you exactly how I got here. I did not have a master plan. The following third-person image illustrates how I think I did it. “You might want to get across the street as your initial focus. You take the first step and you find that you want to go left instead of right. Next you go right, and then you say, I am going to stop for awhile. You have to be willing to say that getting across the street has to change because that focus is being influenced by where I am right now.” It was not a straight line from working with addicts and becoming a senior HR executive and eventually a career transition coach.

But, here you are.

What I could have used throughout the process was a coach or a mentor. Most of the people I know get where they are by trial and error. In my life, I lacked the coach, the mentor who could have helped me focus. Would my life have been better or worse for that help, or only different? I think it would have been better and it might have been different, but in any case, that’s probably why I am coaching people right now.

How do you stay motivated? What inspires you?

I have to go back to the realization that focus is so important to me. As soon as I figured that out it become easier to maintain my motivation because of the focus. I know what I want, I know I direct it, and, for the moment, I am comfortable. I never, ever want to work for someone else again because I think I have adopted the fact that I am the CEO of my company and I am in total control. It’s easier to feel that way when you are working for yourself.

I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to do this. Someone might look at my career transitions and say to me that my worries weren’t as severe as theirs were. I don’t think it matters though because it’s my life and my worries. You can’t compare yourself to others which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. It was from Anais Nin who said: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

As a coach and mentor I have obligated myself to help tell my client’s story, as you are. Can you believe that all this is the result of a layoff and a couple of life threatening illnesses? I can’t.
This interview was taped on July 1, 2009 with additional edits and final review from Stanley.