Boost Your Career

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick. And welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Sander Flaum. He's an MBA and CEO of Pflum Navigators, a consulting firm that galvanizes leadership, builds brands and creates growth. He is chair of the Fordham Leadership Forum at the Fordham University Gabelli Graduate School of Business, executive in residence at the Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, and the author of several books, including our focus for today, Boost Your Career. Sandra, thank you so much for making the time. I know you're a super busy guy, and we really appreciate your sharing a bit of your time with us today.

Sander Flaum: Thanks for inviting me, Anita.

Anita Brick: Well, I do love the book. I love the projects. There are many, many of them that give people something small and tactical and tangible to do to create a boost in their career. Often this whole subject is just either very ephemeral or very amorphous. You've made it very, very concrete, very specific. So let's jump in. We had some very interesting questions. Let's start off. There was an evening student who said, I hate to admit this, but I feel I could be someone whose career is fizzling out. I have ten plus years of work experience and want to score again. Where should a person like me start?

Sander Flaum: The key thing is if you want to be a booster, if you really want to get your career going, you have to be motivated to go beyond expectations. That's really key. Real leaders who really want to make an impact. And when the recognition that one needs to move forward to have recognition, there's lots of impact ideas in the book. The key thing you have to do is go beyond expectations, expand your reach and your expertise. You just have to work harder and be smarter.

Anita Brick: That sounds like a pretty big, onerous task. You start with the thing that is easiest for you. Do you start with the thing that is hardest? Where do you start?

Sander Flaum: That's a great question. You work on the strength that you have. That's really key. As you are an Excel person. I use an online marketing person. I use a person who can close a great sale. Can you write a good creative plan? Really, you focus on the strengths and what leaders do as you go from being an A player to an A+. You always are working on that. Great leaders surround themselves with people who are in areas where you are not great, who are great.

Anita Brick: So start with the saying that maybe it's right in front of you to break the inertia and get moving.

Sander Flaum: Yes. Work on your strengths. Always weaknesses. You were born with some weaknesses and that's it. You work on them. But the key thing is strength. Focus on the strengths and use them to move forward.

Anita Brick: Got it. A student asked this question. I kind of like this question, but I'm not sure that it has a concrete answer. So here we go, he said. How does a person know with whom to build relationships to create enduring career advancement?

Sander Flaum: That's a very good question for all our friends. Mentorship is really key today more than ever and find out what you have in common from a relationship, a couple.

Anita Brick: Of things, and I think this also applies to alumni. I mean, because they allow alumni who are listening. The question, though, goes back to mentors. People will say to me, how do I get a mentor? Or how do I get their attention? They're super busy. Do you need a mentor for life or do you have more people? Talk about advisory boards, where you have different people who provide advice and insight in different ways. How do you get someone's attention to even have them spend that time with you?

Sander Flaum: Number one, the person has to like you. You can't get the right person unless there's a relationship and there's no one mentor for life. And that's really key. You know, you go through life with different people.

Anita Brick: This applies throughout one's career.

Sander Flaum: Absolutely. And what you do with a mentor is tell me what you think the weaknesses are that I need to work on. That's really key for mentorship. It's a continuing thing with friends, colleagues, and bosses.

Anita Brick: Here's another take of the relationship piece. At least the person is self-aware to know that he might not come across so well. So an alum says, this may make me sound like a jerk, but I don't feel there's value in developing relationships with people who are not in a position to help me. Yet I'm willing to learn and change. What would you advise me to do as a starting point?

Sander Flaum: That's a good question. My view is on that. Relationships with everyone are key. You may think they're not in a position to help you work as a leader, to get the best out of people.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. And sometimes you have to have an open mind as to what is valuable.

Sander Flaum: Exactly.

Anita Brick: It's not always obvious. So here's another person struggling with another aspect of relationships. And this weekend, students that I know talk about helping someone without expecting anything in return. I struggle with this and believe this belief slows my progress and my career. Help. Thank you in advance.

Sander Flaum: You always get something in return. Always. You may not get it immediately, but you have made an impact on this person.

Anita Brick: So it's not that you tried to be like, not human. And I have that expectation. It's not saying push that away. Don't ever have an expectation, but just know that there is likely going to be something, whether it's direct or indirect, whether it's now or later. It's not about divorcing yourself from an expectation, but maybe putting aside what that return could look like, but.

Sander Flaum: Doing something good. You want to have a legacy. A person who does the right things and does good things and has credibility and principles is very important for forever, no matter what the situation is.

Anita Brick: It is an interesting dilemma around that, because some people feel like I've just gotta keep going. Yeah, I believe in the principles, but I gotta keep going. And I think some people get stuck in this very fast paced world, and they lose sight of their character.

Sander Flaum: And that's very true. And in the end, you see a lot of people like this. My view is, again, if you don't care for the people, if you feel you're not going to move forward, you're not going to get ahead, get out of there. You want to enjoy life no matter how much money you can. If you can't stand the people you're with every day or you can't stand your boss, get out. You don't want to live like this. It's not worth it.

Anita Brick: It's a good point. And you talk about the whole emotional investment. One of the exec MBA students said, this may sound like a really simple question, but it has me stuck. How does an individual identify and measure the emotional investment needed to achieve an important career goal?

Sander Flaum: The emotional investment is very important. It's about passion too. If you're not enjoying the job, if you're not really focused on making an impact and getting recognition because you like the company you're with and you want to move forward, it's about always moving forward in a positive way. Finding the next big opportunity. And how do I make an impact there? That's it. You don't have time to be angry. Depressed. There's no time for that. Use your time and a valuable way.

Anita Brick: In the book, you created these lower risk, lower resource projects. It's done quite brilliantly, and one of the weekend students wanted to know how you advise individuals to actually identify and implement those low risk, low resource projects?

Sander Flaum: The key thing is always recognition. You know, we have a lot of examples in the book of impact ideas. You know, one of the ideas says start a reverse mentorship program, become a reverse mentor to one of the senior people. So love you for it because you made it a lot, lot smarter and they will give you the recognition.

That's just a pat on the back. But they will talk to the human resources about you and what you have done. Another thing we used to do is meet in the morning over a cup of coffee, 11: 30 in the morning with some colleagues and come up with new innovative ideas, then go to work and find a way to present these ideas, okay, to senior management.

So you are the motivator of these early Monday morning meetings every week. What new ideas do we have? Okay. You may not have an idea every week, but you will come up with some interesting ideas. Become the Dean of continuing Learning at your firm. Bring in a great guest speaker every month, a continuous learning program to talk to the crew.

Great guest speaker every month. So you know you become the Dean of continuous learning and everybody now wants to come work for this firm because that's what you do. You do the cool stuff. The wargames exercise is going to be a war games exercise. I was in the military and I was in the War Games unit. You know, Pat versus Rommel.

And most people forget who Rommel was with General Rommel and General Patton. It's the war games exercise where you discern what your competitor is doing to hurt you, the same way that Rommel came up with a plan to outflank that competitor, or she did outflank your big enemy and win the South African war. That was Patton. Over.

Rommel does a war games exercise. Very successful. When you find out ways to outflank a competitor that's hurting you, you become a hero there and get recognition. And so there's lots of lots of different things that we can be doing to get the recognition and win out. Make yourself indispensable, as we say in the book, make yourself irreplaceable. So when the hard times come and the layoffs come, as you know that you are the one, the last one that they ever want to let go. They never want to let you go. That's becoming irreplaceable. And that should be your goal.

Anita Brick: It's a very good point. And if you are also bringing others along with you, then you get recognized for your own actions, but also for your ability, as you said early on, to bring out and really shine light on the strengths of the team.

Sander Flaum: Exactly, exactly. And that's your goal. It's always impactful and you never stop. And you know, you never stop. Leaders are continuous, you know, lastly, age. Lastly we ran Procter and Gamble for the first time. It was ideas, ideas, ideas, new products, new products, new products. You never stop until he retires. That's the original 80. Lastly, a profit gamble continuous learning ideas, innovation impact projects. Always never stop.

Anita Brick: Got it. So do you have time for a couple more questions?

Sander Flaum: Sure.

Anita Brick: Okay, good to do. Very interesting. And I suspect that the company he's referring to could be a top strategy for an existing MBA student. Said, my company prides itself on complexity. Our clients pay us a lot for our intellectual prowess. Where would you recommend that? I start to simplify without creating something seemingly simplistic?

Sander Flaum: That's a great question. The key thing for this person's client is what outcomes do they want? What outcomes are they looking for? That's where you got to do research on the outcomes. Forget the complexity stuff. I mean that's the easy stuff to overcome really. You have to think of simple outcomes. What do I need to do? What do I need to do to make them look good?

My client is a senior VP. Okay. Smart. Make a lot of money. If I can't find things to make him or her look good, I'm not getting the work. I'm not getting the job. I'll be out. So it's always about looking to the customer or the client about things that you could do to make them look good. Is it increasing the, you know, EBITDA, doing better ways to increase EBITDA?

Is it looking at a potential acquisition and saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to pay that kind of money. It's crazy. I've already gone to the bank. It's way too much telling that to your client or the boss. So that's the key thing. It's making them look good. Make it very dear and they will love you and take care of you forever. It's not complexity, it's simplicity. Outcome. Outcome. Outcome.

Anita Brick: Got it. Okay, good. You've given us a lot of insight and wisdom around this. At the core, it really is who we are as human beings, and I love that. That's great. Final question. What are three things that someone can start doing today ?

Sander Flaum: Boost.

Anita Brick: Their career and increase their recognition?

Sander Flaum: Well, number one, you got to read the book. I'm just joking. We put in many, many items in there about new and better ways to do it through 18 of the actual ways to make it happen. But I would just say that go online. You know, life is so different now. Go online. Number one. Number two, what does your resume look like?

Is it the same as everyone else's? You can't. You have to have a personal brand in the resume. So you have to think about when you go in an interview and Human Resources says, okay, until you have 15 seconds to tell me about you, couldn't you do it in 15 seconds? Can you hear the horror or your personal brand?

You have to practice that with a good mentor. What is your personal brand? 15 seconds. That's all you have. Do you have an elevator pitch and of course, you know, the third thing is create, follow through and focus on what the person needs. Focus on what you can do to make them look good. As we discussed before. That's really key. It's never about you. It's about IFM. What's in it for me? That's what they're looking at you for. What can you do for me to make you look good? And those. Those are the things I would consider. Certainly.

Anita Brick: Great. Thank you so much. The book is great. It boosts your career. And you're absolutely right. There are 18 projects and they're very, very accessible and doable. Whether you're a student or a seasoned alum with a very long career. Thank you for writing about it. And thank you for making it so accessible.

Sander Flaum: But you're a wonderful hostess and a wonderful interviewer, and thank you very much.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.