Career Advice (maybe even wisdom)

During my years with Landmark Communications, I was fortunate enough to work with some of the best people in the world - ethical, good moral compasses, high work standards and for the most part humble. But even the best of us arrive at points in our lives where we want to get someone else's perspective on something we are dealing with.

I had a number of different positions with Landmark - accounting, personnel and management - but, for some reason, no matter what my function some people used to seek my advice. This is not my ego talking, but I think God just gave me a sixth sense about people, and Frank Batten, the owner of Landmark must have thought so because he paid me a lot of money for a lot of years to help him play "checkers' with the careers of our managers.

It was, at the same time, a tremendous burden since you were "playing God" in the lives of your managers and their families, but it was some of the most rewarding work I did.

One fairly common situation a number of young managers wanted to discuss - they felt they were at a crossroads in their career or maybe they had a job which had become "stale". They felt as if they had done everything creative they could with the job and now they were just repeating and now growing. Often they would want to know what I thought about their changing career fields.

My advice was this (and it isn't brain surgery) - take a yellow pad and draw a line down the center of the page. On the left side write down all the things you like to do, starting with your job and then in your personal life. On the right side of the page write down all the things you think you are good at. Then you examine both sides to see if there is something you enjoy doing that matches what you are good at.

If you are lucky you will have a match. If the characteristics of that match agree with the characteristics of your current job, then chances are you will succeed in the career field your job is in. You may be stymied with no upward mobility in your department available, then it becomes a question of whether you want to continue on there or look for a job posting in your division or another Landmark division which matches your skills and interest. Individual situations and working conditions required different alternatives.

If you don't have a match, then things are a bit more complicated. I would explore what is their primary motivation (career, money, an ambitious spouse, job satisfaction, making an impact on society, etc.). Then you should examine carefully the things you like to do and select three of those and prioritize them.

Next look for something on the right side of the page which comes as close to providing what you the opportunity to do the top priority something you enjoy doing with something you are good at. Then if the job you are in doesn't mesh with this choice, you have to weigh the factors and make a decision. Is there another job in Landmark which matches this choice? If not, do I want to consider changing career fields with another company? Sometimes, in mid-career, interests change dramatically and you may have to consider returning to school for training in another career field.

After they did the yellow pad exercise, they would come back and we would spend usually an hour in which I listened and asked them questions. Even if they had asked themselves the same questions, it was helpful to me and to them to have them articulate their answer "out loud". I never gave them advice on what I thought should be their choice because it was their decision and they needed to have ownership of it. (I write about an exception to this below.)

I don't know how important these sessions were to the advice-seekers, but I do remember one in particular. Late one afternoon a young ad salesman at the Norfolk newspapers came to my office and he had pretty much decided his career was stymied at the paper and he was going to look for a job with another company. (A digression - annually Frank Batten and I would meet with the Landmark division managers and go over the situation of each individual whom the division manager felt had high management potential.) In the discussion with this young man's division manager, I knew he was well thought of and they were grooming him to advance if he was up to the challenge. (You couldn't tell an employee he/she was being groomed lest you raise false hopes and then find they can't deliver in the job they were in.)

Since I knew this young man was considered to have a high potential I spent about an hour "selling/recruiting" him on staying with Landmark, without promising a thing. I'm sure he spoke with others, so I don't take the credit for him staying. He did stay and about twenty years later he became president of Landmark's publishing division, one of the more important executive positions in the company.

Another situation which I was asked about a lot was "what next job should I set my sights on?" This is where I had no advice because in my career with Landmark I never had my eye on "the next job". The more ambitious managers thought I was nuts, but I told them I just try to do the best job I can in the job I have now, give 110%, and I have confidence Landmark will notice and my career will take care of itself. I began as Assistant Treasurer of Landmark's paper in Roanoke, then became the publisher's assistant until Landmark transferred me to their corporate headquarters in Norfolk. In eleven years on the Corporate Staff I was Director of Management Information, Corporate Treasurer (accounting function for over 40 divisions) and Corporate Vice President/Personnel (5,000 employees nation-wide), then left the staff and ended my career as Vice President of The Weather Channel (TWC). I never ever had my sights set on the next job, although I probably should not count TWC.

Landmark President Dick Barry came into my office one day in June of 1981 and said we want you to recruit a manager for us. He said they had just signed an agreement to start a cable television network in Atlanta and they needed a start up general manager. I asked what skills I should look for and he told me strength in business skills, finance and accounting and personnel.

As he spoke I grinned at him and said, "I think I know someone just like that". I went home that night, spoke with my wife, wrote a page and a half on why they should pick me for the job. The next day I presented my paper to my boss, Frank Batten, and two days later I had the job.

A few weeks later I took three file folders and $20 million dollars of Landmark's money and headed to Atlanta on a great new adventure we called The Weather Channel. The rest, as they say, is history.

2010 Copyright Hugh Eaton