Words of wisdom from a Career Coach: Interview with Carol Woodley

Carol Woodley is an executive and career coach, as well as HR, and organizational development consultant.  Carol has owned her own business communication consulting business, taught high school, opened a teacher supply store, worked in corporate America for 10 years and recently left again to be an independent consultant. Carol hosts a blog titled “The Day You Curse Your Job is the Day You Don’t Go” and has always looked for and found employment that fulfilled her needs, allowed her to be creative, and ultimately made her happy.

I was lucky enough to have Carol be my coach for a short time a few years back and we recently rekindled the relationship on a more personal level. I am excited to share bits of Carol’s wisdom about careers and career changes.  Carol brings so much energy to a conversation I had trouble keeping up but I am sure you’ll agree with me that she is a powerful women to take account of.

Painting yourself into a corner

Question: You recently wrote a blog post about painting yourself into a corner and talked about how teachers do this all the time because they can’t see themselves outside of the teaching profession. Do you have an example to share from the technology space?

Answer: Yes. My daughter and son-in-law were both webmasters for a long time. He went to school to do this, found a good job doing it, and thought he might be a webmaster forever. Then they started revamping their 1950s bungalow home and blogging about it. When they got to the front door they hit a real challenge. Their old door wouldn’t fit with the new door jams. They found someone to build a custom door for them and shared this with their readership. People started asking how they could get one too.

Already an amateur photographer, my son-in-law started traveling around their 1950s neighborhood taking pictures of all the front doors. Photography ’focused’ his artistic talent in a new realm which helped him envision himself in a career outside of the web. Soon after they started a business manufacturing and selling mid-century replica doors.

Recognizing his photographic talent was key to helping him find a new path. Some people find their talent themselves, others require guidance or assistance to find it.

Question: In the BA profession, we build a lot of skills that are useful in many professional contexts. I also see many people doing “BA” work but do not call themselves business analysts. I’d like to talk about the relationship between painting yourself into a corner and identifying yourself with a profession.

Answer: Oftentimes people find a nugget of something they really enjoy in a career. But that nugget, or seed, is buried in dirt. And the dirt is all the “other stuff” we have to do so we can enjoy that one nugget. We lose sight of the fact we are not really doing what we love because we hang onto that nugget so dearly.  At some point, we recognize that the corner we’ve painted ourselves into only contains that one nugget we truly enjoy.  That’s when we need to turn around and realize the floor is dry!  We can walk out any time we choose.  And we take that nugget with us.

You need to ask yourself, do I like everything about being a business analyst? Or do I only like pieces of it? Am I a BA because of a nugget that I’m hanging onto or is the entire role something I truly enjoy?

Give yourself the freedom to live what you love.

Read more on Carol’s blog about painting yourself into a corner.

Professional Development

Question: I’d like to talk about your perspective on the balance between employer and employee responsibilities when it comes to professional development.

Answer: When I’m in a coaching situation or when I’ve been brought in to help an employee build a development plan, I always start with the question of “where does the employee want to go?”  In contrast, the supervisors view starts with what the employee does well and poorly. Typically a supervisor-driven development plan starts based on improving what the employee does poorly. This is starting with a negative and rarely ends in a positive.

Instead, if the employee tells me what they want to do or can draw me a picture of what they want their career to look like, we are starting from a positive. Oftentimes, in a case where the employee’s performance necessitates a performance improvement plan, we’re talking about a career change. They are just in the wrong role to do their best work and be an A-player.

On career coaching

Question: Tell us a bit about your coaching practice and the kinds of people you help.

Answer: Coaching is an opportunity to open a vault inside of people. We look at their dreams, hopes, fears, and aspirations. We take each piece out and examine it. Oftentimes people focus on the money, thinking that the more they make, the happier they will be.  But when we’re doing what we love it’s often easier to live on less money than we might think we could.

You might benefit from a career coach if you find that you are unchallenged, unfulfilled, or simply think there must be something better out there. If you have been given a performance improvement plan in your current job, this is a key sign you probably need to make a change. Many times people don’t even realize they are doing a poor job. They are holding on so tightly to that one nugget of the job that they like, they don’t stop to think about the fact that the rest of their tasks or responsibilities are slipping.

I coach individuals who are currently employed and those who are not.  I alter my approach with each based on their needs.  Some coaching processes take no more than 5 or 6 sessions, while others can take up to 10.  One of my coachees came to me with a well-prepared resume and cover letter and had spent time with 3 other career coaches before me.  Another coachee has been out of the job market for 18 years and is just now hoping to reenter.

Question: What motivates you to be a career coach? Why does it get you up out of bed in the morning?

Answer: Knowing that I’m helping someone find what they love to do.

On IT careers

Question: Anything else you’d like to share?

Answer: The first question I ask people in IT is “Where is your career going?”. Technology changes so quickly. Your job will always be evolving. How do you want your career to evolve? Will business analysis as it exists today always be there?

Also, business analysis takes a lot of people skills. Be sure you want to work with people if you are going to be a business analyst.

Listening is a critical skill in any business analyst position. Our public education system doesn’t really teach us to become good listeners. When I was a high school debate teacher I had one classroom rule.  Each student was required to repeat in their own words what the person prior to them had said before they could voice their own opinion. For the first six weeks each semester, no one said a word. They didn’t know how to listen.

As a business analyst, you not only need to know how to listen, but you need to enjoy listening.  This isn’t one of those tasks you do because you have to.  It truly is a core of the role.

If you are a strong and interactive listener, you can do anything. You have the power to make people feel their value.

Related posts:

1. Taking a long-term view of your BA career: interview with Doug Goldberg
2. “The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask”
3. Purposeful business analysis learning: Interview with Ellen Gottesdiener