Derwin Dubose

5 Resolutions to Avoid Falling Into A Mid-Year Burnout

// July 14th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blog, Career, Random

The past month has been a blur. I’ve had four big deadlines at work, been out of of town four times (including an entire week in Chicago), and got some bad news about a family member’s health.

Being busy, traveling, and dealing with tough person news is difficult to manage for anyone, but it’s especially tough for those of us who battle perfectionism. Two weeks ago, I felt extremely frustrated and overwhelmed with everything on my plate, when I had to take a deep breath and figure out how I can pursue my goals while avoiding burnout.

My thoughts led to me making five mid-year resolutions:

Accept that there’s no real Superman: Realize and understand that no matter how talented or bright you may be, you can’t do everything.

Not being in the office much this past month has created a long to-do list at work and left some personal things neglected. I found myself getting more and more stressed, simply by the number of things on my plate, but I finally realized that it’s virtually impossible for me to get to everything in the time I’d like to and that it’s okay. I’ll do my very best to get to what I can each day, and eventually, I’ll get caught up.

Refocus on priorities: Concentrate on the things that matter most to you.

I wrote down the things that were important to me and pared the list down to the top 5 things in my life (in order): friends and family, time outdoors, excelling at work, volunteering, and blogging. I’m making sure that the tasks I work on at any given time fit within those five priorities, and any new projects or opportunities have to fit within a priority or else I won’t pursue it.

Simplify life by letting go of things. Eliminate the optional tasks that you genuinely don’t have time for or don’t enjoy doing.

After looking at my priorities, I evaluated the things I’ve been neglecting to see if they’re things I can realistically give time to. I made a tough decision to leave the board of one of the organizations I volunteer for and donate to. Although I love the organization and its work, my work and personal demands aren’t allowing me to give the organization the attention it needs from a board member. I’m doing the group a favor — allowing them to find a board member who can be more active — and taking one big item off of my to-do list. It’s okay to cut things and say no.

Take time for self: Each day, do something that fun and personally fulfilling to you.

I need to make sure that I spend time each day doing something that I enjoy doing — not something to please someone else or that I feel obliged to do. It’s as simple as walking my dog each afternoon or reading a book. It means curbing my travel schedule so that at least two weekends each month are spent at home instead of on the road or in a plane. Time at home to catch a baseball game, go on a hike, or simply veg out on the couch is important.

And it means not answering the phone. Our technology dependency has created the expectation that people are always available, and we feel the urge to immediately answer the phone or respond to each voicemail. My recent purchase of a Crackberry has only made me even more guilty of it. Over the past few weeks, though, I’ve turned my phone off when doing personally fulfilling things or simply refused to answer when the phone gives that oh-so-familiar buzz. I can ignore it because I have to create time to catch my breath and do things that I enjoy.

Accentuate the positive: Instead of focusing on what hasn’t been done, think of all the things you’ve accomplished.

I am notoriously self-critical, and while it can sometimes be a great motivator, I often create more stress than external factors do. The other week, I caught myself thinking solely about what tasks at work I haven’t gotten to (donors I need to call, emails I haven’t sent, etc.). When I finally thought about the things I had gotten to (getting three major donor receptions off the ground, sending a 4,000-piece mail appeal, and submitting four grant proposals), I quickly realized that the pluses far outweigh the minuses. As my girlfriend tells me, I need to be far nicer to myself at work and concentrate on actual accomplishments versus pending tasks.

I can tell a marked difference between my mood a few weeks ago and how I feel now. The list of things that have to get done haven’t changed too much, but I’m more confident about the rest of the year and ready to move forward — with much less stress.

Win Them Over: Generation Y Can Overcome Age Discrimination with Emotional Intelligence

// June 17th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Blog, Career, Columns, Education

Ageism is something most — if not all — twenty-somethings will have to confront as we build our careers. Often, we’re the youngest people in our organizations, and every now and then we’re confronted with overt displays of ageism. How we respond is critical.

My advice: Nip overt ageism in the bud. Make it clear that you won’t tolerate blatant disrespect and that you expect to work professionally and equally. Otherwise, the problem behavior will continue and you’ll never gain respect within the organization. The key to this is choosing the right approach, though.

Sometimes you have to kill them with kindness. During the second week of my first political job — consulting a state-wide organization while doing constituency organizing — a 70-year-old activist walked up to me during an important meeting and yelled, “Who in the hell hired this kid?”

I wanted to tell the lady where to shove it, but she’d become one of the most vocal activists in the state over a 40-year career.

I bit my tongue and said, “Maam, I didn’t hire myself, so you’ll have to take that issue up with people far higher on the totem pole.” It created a laugh in the room, and I continued by saying, “There’s no changing the fact that we have to work together, so I ask that you do me a big favor and share your wealth of knowledge with me so we can both be successful.”

Her mood changed drastically and the meeting moved forward without incident. After the meeting, I got several comments for handling her outburst, and I was able to talk with her one-on-one and convince her to start getting lunch with me regularly.

So when you’re faced with ageism from someone with authority and respect within your organization and whom you have to work alongside, you might have to consider the nice route by:
- Being humble and as nice as you can
- Showing respect for their age and experience
- Asking them to mentor you (realizing you don’t have to take their advice)

Basically, you want to make the potential adversary feel like they are a partner in your success.

Other times, you have to show authority. I worked full-time through undergrad, and in one of my jobs, I managed a housing complex near the university. Part of my responsibility was managing 100 tenants, 12 staff, and our relationship with a food service and janitorial company.

Within three months of my job, my main contact with the food service company — a 50-year-old guy with over 30 years experience in the field — began going over my head when he disagreed with my decisions, saying “Young guys don’t get it.” Luckily, my bosses didn’t micromanage, but I knew I had to stop this pattern quickly.

I called the guy into my office for a one-on-one meeting and began it by saying, “Look, I may be young, but I’m not a fool. I respect you, but I sign your check and I should hear your concerns directly instead of from my supervisors. Please don’t go above my head again, or we’ll have issues. I would hate to see you lose this account due to insubordination.”

It was extremely difficult for me to be so stern (I’m usually a happy go lucky guy), but it was necessary. He stopped going over my head and brought concerns directly to me, which made it much easier to be effective in the job.

So when you’re faced with overt ageism from a direct report, consider showing authority by:
- Having one-on-one conversations
- Being direct and authoritative
- Showing respect for their age and experience, while asking for the same
- Clarifying roles and responsibilities
- Indicating potential outcomes if problem behavior doesn’t change

Basically, you want to make the potential adversary feel like you are a partner in their success.

These are two methods that have helped me deal with overt ageism. Stay tuned for strategies to deal with inconspicuous — but still troublesome — examples of ageism in the workplace.

Things I learned from a career in politics

// May 5th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Blog, Career

Twenty-somethings are engaged in politics like never before. Online communications, social networking tools and the general buzz around the this year’s elections have made us more socially conscious and politically active than ever. The zeitgeist has no doubt made countless twenty-somethings consider making political work their career, but twenty-somethings should apply some serious thought before deciding to work in politics.

The excitement around 2006 led me to take a political job. I spent two years working in North Carolina’s political realm, doing grassroots organizing (canvassing, phone banks, training, and voter outreach) and fundraising and campaign finance consulting. I worked with state-wide organizations, groups in all 100 North Carolina counties, 10 political committees, and over 85 candidates.

Let’s start with the things I gained from being a political staffer:

A “tenacity in pursuit” work ethic. Campaigns are time-driven machines that require careful planning, prioritization of tasks and quick execution. Good political staffers have to be fast, focused, flexible and ready to respond to anything while under all kinds of stress, and those skills have tremendously helped me in the “real world” workplace.

Management skills. A campaign’s success is driven by the staff’s ability to get volunteers, surrogates, consultants and candidates to perform key tasks — even when it’s pure grunt work or something the person does NOT want to do. These skills give former political workers an edge on managing employees, clients, donors, and volunteers.

Cool travel and and phenomenal networking. I put well over 35,000 miles on my car in two years and it was worth every dollar I spent in gas. I got to drive all around North Carolina, meeting great people from all walks of life — voters, local leaders, candidates at all levels, elected officials, activists, political consultants and state-wide leaders. I was able to build relationships that I still keep today, find several mentors, and learn more about the state I now call home.

Workplace research and strategy skills. No matter the specific role, political staffers have to conduct careful, intense research on your candidate, opposition, and electorate before launching the campaign. The research makes sure you’re looking at all angles to find strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats before charting a course. It’s very valuable for me in my current job as we create new fundraising programs.

Technological skills. At every level of modern campaigns, staffers have to daily use technology for data and volunteer management, voter contact, fundraising, and polling, to name a few things. I’d taken some great computer classes in college, but political work refined my web, database, and Microsoft Office skills.

Being inside of the news. Once you work in politics, you can never read the news in the same way. It’s pretty cool to pick up a newspaper and read things that you knew days prior to the press finding out. It’s cooler to read a politician’s statement and know the staffer who actually wrote it. It’s coolest when you wrote a statement yourself or were directly involved in something that made the news.

Impressing people after you move on. People, especially donors, seem to be impressed by my political past — far more than when I actually worked in politics, to be honest. It is the launching point for many conversations in social and work situations, and the skills I gained from working in politics undoubtedly helped me land the job I currently have and will continue to help in future job searches.

And finally, stargazing. When I was in politics, I regularly ran into political celebrities — congressmen, state-wide elected officials, journalists, and pundits. Less often, but still exciting, I’d run into national people like Howard Dean and governors of other states. Just by volunteering last week, I saw both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speak and was about 20 feet from BO. Exciting stuff.

The key, though, is to not simply stargaze; meeting these political celebrities provide great networking opportunities. I’d dare say that few of them know me from Adam — they meet thousands upon thousands of people — but I’ve taken the opportunity to network with their staffers, who’ve helped me get access to the celebrities when I’ve needed them and given me great advice.

And I’d be remiss not to mention how fun it was to run into political celebrities I’m not particularly fond of like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Kwame Kilpatrick, Mike Nifong, and even Star Jones. These are not my favorite people, but my encounters with them provide great content for random conversations, especially at parties.

These are the positive things that came out of my stint in politics. Stay tuned for a post looking at the negatives before deciding a career in politics is for you.

Fast Company says my boss is like a monkey, a dog… maybe even a steer

// April 23rd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Blog, Career

Quick post, but my friend Kerra told me to pick up the current Fast Company magazine, which features a great article on how we can manage our bosses to get the desired working relationship.

Bosses are tough. I’ve worked for yellers, bullies, silent types, huggers, mentors, and complete goof-offs. Right now, I now face the extraordinary rewards and challenges — mostly rewards, in case Dan is reading (haha) — of working for one of my best friends. No matter how great the boss, though, we’ve all been in situations where we’re not entirely happy with how our boss treats us and wish we could change it.

According to Fast Company, we can change our boss’ behavior by doing one thing: treat them like animals.

Dan and Chip Heath propose that we use the techniques of exotic animal trainers to manage our bosses and create the work environment we need. They suggest that we ignore bad behavior, reward good behavior, and stay consistent.

It makes sense to me. I don’t have any experience with exotic animals, but I grew up with pets (three dogs, a flock of ducks, a cockatoo, rabbit, cat, and even a show steer — yes a cow), and the techniques they recommend were the only way we could get the animals to do anything.

At work, it makes sense especially because many of the supervisors we encounter are continually learning how to manage and lead while facing pressure and deadlines from their bosses. We have to make sure their learning process includes how to deal with us in order to keep us happy and get top results.

So the next time my boss does something I don’t like, I’ll try to think of him like Mooey, my old show steer. By ignoring bad behavior, rewarding the good, and staying consistent, it should work. But be careful, even the most carefully trained animals can unexpectedly cause serious harm.

From margaritas to Quadrant II: My time management lesson

// April 17th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Blog, Career

Many apologies for not posting for a week, but the past week has been pretty stressful with crunch time coming strong at work. I’ve got a 63,000-piece mailer dropping next week, and our major gift campaign goes public on April 29. Running back and forth with all the tasks at hand sent my stress levels to a high that could only be mitigated by Margarita Thursday at the local Mexican diner.

My boss — a good friend and mentor — noticed my stress and challenged me to move from being reactive to the admittedly crazy workload to calmly concentrating on our priorities. I noodled on his advice over the weekend, and checked out some information one of our trustees passed along a few months ago — Covey’s four quadrant time management system.

It seemed a little hokey at first, but Stephen Covey’s matrix system has given me plenty of insight on how I can be more effective and drastically decrease stress.

Quadrant I contains things that are both urgent and important, akin to firefighting or triage work. Life naturally puts us in this quadrant from time to time because stuff happens and we have to respond to it. However, we often send things into crisis mode because of procrastination and lack of planning. Spending too much time here will lead to stress and burnout, which I definitely experienced at a previous job whose culture was deeply rooted in Q1.

Quadrant II is where we need to be; it contains things that are important, but not urgent. Tasks can be scheduled when you can give quality thought to them. Quadrant II is where we do long­range planning, anticipate and prevent problems, empower others, and increase skills through personal development. Ignoring this Quadrant enlarges Quadrant I, creating stress, burnout and deeper crises.

Good examples of Quadrant II tasks include preparing for an important meeting, building relationships with coworkers and mentors, family time, meaningful personal time, and exercise.

Quadrant III activities are masked distractions. They must be dealt with right now, but frankly, are not important. People in this quadrant react to things that are urgent assuming they are also important. Often the urgency of these matters is based on
the priorities and expectations of other people, and operating here produces a short­term focus, broken relationships and a loss of control.

The final quadrant, Quadrant IV, includes things which are neither urgent nor important — pure wastes of time. Some meetings could fall into this category – they’ve been scheduled in advance, but if they achieve nothing, or you don’t contribute to them, then they have simply wasted time. Some of my examples include commuting (I traveled 35 minutes each way in my last two jobs), reading the latest political news and gossip, and most YouTube adventures.

After such a stressed-out week, I’m making it a goal to shift my work and home time to Quadrant II and do as Covey advises: define my personal and professional priorities then organize and execute around them.

At work, those priorities are our major gifts and direct mail programs. On the personal front, it’s reading and blogging, spending time with my girlfriend and best friends, meeting new friends in Durham, and getting in better shape.

Each week, I’ll be revisiting my priorities and scheduling tasks to make progress on them. I can already notice a huge difference in my productivity, and I think I’ll not need a margarita to calm stress for a while. This Thursday, they’ll be just for fun (haha).

I borrowed the image from The Quixotic Hierophant . For more information on Covey’s “First Things First” model, check out this 1994 essay on his website.

Four tips for twenty-somethings to navigate the generation gap at work

// April 9th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Blog, Career, Education

I ran across this Chronicle of Philanthropy article, which discusses generation gap challenges in the non-profit workplace. As someone who has been the youngest person in every organization I’ve worked with, I can fully understand the challenges of balancing that gap.

The article reminded me of In Good Company, a 2004 film in which Topher Grace plays Carter Duryea, a naive, know-it-all twenty-something who flails in a job managing people twice his age.

In Good Company is one of my favorite movies (well worth renting or buying), and if you pay attention to the things Carter did wrong, you can learn some great lessons on how twenty-somethings can effectively handle being the NKOTB (New Kid on the Block) and use it to advance one’s career:

Enter with humility. From day one, be respectful and mannerable to all employees, no matter their rank or age and go out of your way to be nice to people. I carve time out of my day to have a conversation with each of my coworkers, and everyone in the office hears my Southern “How yall doing?” spoken to everyone I pass in our building. This shatters the stereotype of the young know-it-all punk and sets the tone for open conversation and friendships.

Build relationships with the veterans. When I took my first political job, I befriended the woman whose office was next door. She was the longest-serving employee, having served at least 7 years more than both the CEO and CFO, and had the largest state-wide network of anyone there. She not only gave me great insight into the business, but she also became my mentor, giving me valuable career and personal advice, standing up for me when a bully attacked, and giving me references. Although I moved on from that job, she and I still keep in touch.

Seek institutional knowledge. Ask the people who have been at your organization for a while to give you context on the organization’s history and current problems. Not only will you better understand the issues facing the organization, you’ll almost always learn some lessons and potential pitfalls you wouldn’t otherwise see. Plus, it helps with relationship building.

Be helpful outside of your job responsibilities. You can easily win friends and influence your older coworkers by being of service to them. At one job, the staff was responsible for taking the trash outside to the curb three times a week, and I volunteered to lead trash duty each week. At my current job, one other coworker (who is 25 and really cool) and I have helped teach MS Excel and Publisher to veterans without much computer experience. It continues relationship building and developing an office brand of being helpful and a team player.

These tips have helped me navigate the generation gap in my career, and I hope it can help someone avoid making Carter Duryea’s mistakes.

Expand volunteer roles to gain experience in your field

// April 2nd, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Blog, Career, Fundraising, Non-Profits

For twenty-somethings, volunteering has long been a part of our lives. Our parents made us volunteer as kids, our high schools required it, and we needed it for college admissions and resumes post-undergrad. We built Habitat houses, volunteered in soup kitchens, mentored kids, worked in group homes, and all kinds of things that help our community.

Continuing our volunteer work is important to personal growth, but expanding our roles as volunteers can give us a professional boost. We should considering joining boards and committees for non-profit organizations they believe in — and taking leadership roles in them.

Joining non-profit boards and committees and providing pro-bono services to organizations give great experience and learning opportunities to young professionals. And twenty-somethings can get involved with local organizations who need our knowledge and skills.

My best friend Josh, a 23-year-old construction executive in South Carolina, recently stepped up as a Trustee of his church, which he’s been a member of his entire life. He’s taken on a heavy role with the church’s finances, learning about non-profit accounting and governance.

Because he’s done a great job as a Trustee, he’s been asked to lead the church’s capital campaign to build a new sanctuary. He asked me to volunteer, and I’m trying on a consultant hat for the first time by giving them some fundraising advice as they plan their campaign.

We’ve already prepared a strategy document for the church (attached below), had one excellent meeting with the church’s leadership, and I’ll be working with Josh to train church members, prepare materials, and coach them through the fundraising process.

These experiences will not only accomplish good things for his church, but they’ll give us added experience that will hopefully help us in our careers.

Look at non-profit organizations. At my job, the Ronald McDonald House and Family Room of Durham, volunteers are crucial to our operations and leadership. Volunteers help us provide direct service to the families; advise us on operational, legal, fiscal and strategic moves; and are actively involved in our fundraising and special events. We have several young professionals, including two Duke MBA students, on our Board of Trustees and committees.

Political committees need volunteer leaders. When I worked in politics, volunteers were key to fundraising, get out the vote (GOTV), and events. Political experience is applicable to many careers, especially fundraising.

Also, public boards and commissions are always looking for young people to serve. A college friend of mine with an interest in city planning was the only person under 30 who applied to serve on the Town of Chapel Hill’s Transportation Board, and he had a very successful term.

So get involved! No matter your field, I bet there is an organization in your area who could use your help. You’re doing great work, and it gives you valuable experience that could be helpful in future career endeavors.