From daemon Mon Jun 12 07:45 EDT 1995 Received: from ix4.ix.netcom.com (ix4.ix.netcom.com [199.182.120.7]) by town.hall.org (8.6.12/941123.08ccg) with ESMTP id HAA27020 for ; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 07:33:14 -0400 Received: from by ix4.ix.netcom.com (8.6.12/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id EAA22849; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 04:33:56 -0700 Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 04:33:56 -0700 Message-Id: <199506121133.EAA22849@ix4.ix.netcom.com> From: mcg1@ix.netcom.com (Hugh McGuire) Subject: Adapting to the 21st Century To: jec@town.hall.org TO: Chair@ix.netcom.com, Joint.Economic.Committee.Town.Hall.Meeting@ix.netcom.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 30261 Status: RO FROM: Hugh McGuire McGuire Research 749 Farmington Avenue West Hartford, CT 06119-1611 P/F: (203) 236-6610 mcg1@ix.netcom.com RE: Career Directions Workshops: A Market Research Approach to Finding Career Opportunities I have developed a uniquely innovative team based approach toward leading unemployed professionals through the process of analyzing industrial markets to identify unserved or under served needs for which they can position themselves with their background and experience. People can me much more effective approaching firms with a proposal than with a resume. To adjust to a new global economy people need to be encouraged to adopt a cognitive change from viewing themselves as the embodiment of a variety of skills that they sell to employers and expect the employer to identify the market opportunity and structure their role, to seeing that they can identify market opportunities directly for which they can position themselves with their experience and education. People can be far more effective approaching employers with a proposal than with a resume. An entrepreneurial cognitive perspective is essential for adaptation to the 21st century. During a time of major economic and social structural change, traditional job search methods are ineffective. People need to be taught to perceive opportunities through an entrepreneurial cognitive lens. They need to over come viewing themselves as the embodiment of a variety of skills that they sell to employers in a competitive market, and expect from the employer that he/she identify the economic opportunity and structure their role in pursuing that market. People can learn to see that they can identify needs and economic opportunities directly. A person ca be more effective approaching an employer with a proposal than with a resume. I demonstrated this program over a two year period for the Connecticut Department of Labor, with extraordinary results. An evaluation by the UCONN Center for Organizational Learning concluded that participants who used my approach, when they found jobs or initiated businesses, earned "significantly" more money than those in the control group. All other factors were equal: education, age, years of career experience, etc. I am seeking a sponsor that will permit me continue offering this program, to further develop this approach to identifying opportunities. This approach can be used to help corporations train their employees to work more effectively as teams, and more independently. It can also help small businesses more clearly identify market targets. Below is more detailed information. A MARKET RESEARCH APPROACH TO FINDING NEW CAREER OPPORTUNITIES Rationale Hugh McGuire mcg1@ix.netcom.com Phone/Fax - 203/236-6610 749 Farmington Avenue West Hartford, CT 06119-1611 Our global economy is experiencing a major structural change that some have compared to the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Many of those unemployed due to industrial reconstruction may never be able to return to the kind of jobs they formerly held. Consequently, the traditional methods used to find employment may not be effective for everyone. Knowledge is replacing capital, land and labor as the prime determinant of economic success. These changes are demanded by the globalization of world markets, the rapid advances in technology, and the new demographic and political realities we are confronting over the immediate future. The business of the future must be capable of responding to rapidly advancing changes, and that cannot be accomplished through traditional bureaucratic for ms of organization. A quiet revolution is transforming the character of our society. Three major demographic trends are occurring: 1) the basic consuming units of our society, population and households, are growing more slowly every year, and our rate of growth will soon be at a record low. 2) our population is aging because of low birth rates and longer life spans, and the European countries are aging faster than we are. 3) consumer markets are fragmenting, firms are targeting niche markets rather than mass markets more than ever in the past. All the net new jobs created are in tiny companies with fewer than 20 employees. In private sector organizations with more than 20 people, a greater number of jobs are being lost than created. Temporary workers are replacing permanent employees. Manpower, Inc., is now the largest private employer in the U.S. with 560,000 workers. Temporary agencies supply American business with 1.5 million people every day. Another 34 million people are " contingent" workers of some sort: part-timers, contractors or freelancers. Some have predicted that as much as half the work force will consist of contingent workers by the year 2000. Many social, economic and business analysts including Alvin Toffler, Lester Thurow, Peter Drucker, Robert Reich, and many others predict that we are in for a period of structural social and economic change; some have used the word upheaval. Economic and political fragmentation is occurring domestically and globally. Educated, experienced older workers, some of whom may have spent more than twenty years with the same firm, are a segment of the unemployed labor force for whom job development, occupational skills or worker adjustment se rvices were never considered relevant. Today, this segment of the labor force is highly vulnerable and traditional occupational skills and worker adjustment services may be inappropriate. As we search for effective ways to adapt to economic and social structural change, we need to find innovative ways to make skills development programs relevant to current conditions According to recent census bureau data, a greater proportion of persons losing jobs were 55 or older (14 percent) compared with people finding jobs (8 percent) in that age category. Further, between 1990 and 1992 men who left full-time jobs and found another job experienced average earnings declines of 32 percent The comparable percentage for women was 37 percent. Men who left executive, managerial, and professional jobs, 24 percent ended up in technical, sales, and administrative support or service occupations. The comparable percentage for women was 30 percent. A slightly greater proportion of men left full-time employment in the executive, professional, and precision production, craft, and repair occupations than entered (37.3 vs. 33.6 percent. From 1990 to 1991, significantly more declines than increases in household income were experienced by middle-aged persons, 45 to 64. During the 1990-91 recession, when layoffs were announced most employees assumed that the layoffs would stop when the economy improved. They were wrong. While corporate profits were surging to record levels last year, the number of job cuts approached those seen at the height of the recession. Corporate profits rose 11% in 1994, after a 13% rise in 1993, according to DRI/McGraw Hill, a Lexington, Mass., economic consultant. Meanwhile, corporate America cut 516,069 jobs in 1994, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago. That is far more than in the recession year of 1990, when 316,047 jobs were eliminated, and close to the 1991 total of 555,292 jobs. How We Perceive Change Affects our Ability to Adapt Whether we view change as a threat or an opportunity is determined by how we look at it. If we can learn to perceive change through a different cognitive lens, then the facts don't change, their meaning and relevance does. This is as true for an unemployed person seeking a new career direction as it is for public service agencies seeking to develop efficacious programs. We can respond to change in various ways: we can resist it, deny it, isolate from it, or accept and adapt to it. We can look to the past or to the future in seeking opportunities. We can view ourselves as the embodiment of a variety of skills, ability, and experience which we present to prospective employers in a competitive market, and expect that the employer will define the opportunity and structure our role in the pursuit of that opportunity. Or we can learn to see through a different cognitive lens through which we no longer look to the employer to define the opportunity, but define that for ourselves through our own analysis. Thus, we can present em ployers with a specific and substantive proposal as to what we can accomplish. Established business is as much the victim of myopic vision and misjudgments as any of us individually. Though people are unemployed, there are economic and business insights and opportunities that can pursued. Our challenge is to analyze them, determine which to target, and how to position ourselves. Our primary goal in these workshops is to facilitate this cognitive change. If people can learn to see through a different cognitive lens, they can identify opportunities that they would otherwise not see due to perceptual blindness. We cannot change the economic realities, but we can show people that they have a broader range of methodologies and options than merely sending around a resume. There is far more dignity in having a substantive proposal to sell that directly relates to consumer, business and economic needs, than simply seeking an employer to provide structure and direction. I am not suggesting that there is a formula into which we can plug a variety of factors and success will be inevitable. I am suggesting that the last word has not been stated about anything. Change presents opportunities as well as threats. Working together in teams, people can combine resources to identify opportunities that can be pursued either individually or as a team. Central Focus of the Career Directions Workshops This ten week workshop has been organized under four major assumptions: 1) The planning and research to find new career directions is basically market research and can be pursued using market research concepts and methods. Market needs can be identified by studying market trends—social, technological, regulatory, demographic, etc. People can become highly knowledgeable about a market or industry on which they focus. They can identify the strengths and weaknesses of companies, as well as opportunities and threats to an industry. They can identify the leading edge of innovation and the opportunities and obstacles that presents. They can identify the most productive new markets and how they can be effectively served. They can identify people in an industry who are most knowledgeable and creative and innovative. We can produce the research to challenge traditional assumptions, identify patterns, make creative connections, and seek new market op portunities. More data is available today than has ever existed in the past. Translating that data into relevant and purposeful information is our challenge. 2) In developing an entrepreneurial perspective, there are two questions that we must answer -- what? and how?. It is our contention that by focusing on the question - what? - what are the trends? what are the opport unities? what are the threats? what are the strengths? what are the weaknesses? - the information and the insights we will develop will condition the answer to the question - how? If we give a substantive analysis to the question what? we can identify insightful, creative and innovative proposals to address the question - how? 3) Pursuing a career search as market research will produce a cognitive change in the way we perceive opportunities. People can be more effective approaching an employer with a well researched proposal than with a resume. Seeking market opportunities will affect the way in which we perceive the world, the questions we bring to reading the newspaper, or watching the ads on television, or even the observations we make walking down the street. As we learn to see through entrepreneurial eyes, we will become alert to new ways in which needs can be served, new ways in which firms can expand markets or further penetrate markets. A person who has an entrepreneurial attitude, who is innovative, is a much more attractive prospect to a firm, especially smaller firms that are struggling to compete and who are most likely our targets. 4) The sophistication and diligence in performing market research can be enhanced by pursuing the work as part of a research team that is focused on a specific market or industry. As a team, we can accomplish much more w ork, and on a more sophisticated level, than can individuals. A team of five people can accomplish much more work than five individuals working alone, especially given the pressures and stress of unemployment. The members of a team bring complementary skills, abilities and vision to the research effort. A team can approach people at a higher level in a firm to verify assumptions and analysis, than they could as individuals seeking a job r eferral. A team has a certain amount of power. It may not be a great deal of power, but it is more than zero. As isolated individuals one's power is zero. A team in one of our workshops was pursuing producing television programming directed toward the structural economic changes we are experiencing. They approached a local commercial television station in West Hartford, Connecticut as a team of seven people. That television station presented their general manager, their program manager and their sales manager. An individual unemployed person could not have set up that kind of meeting. Creativity is a dynamic. It is not a vision that springs fully developed through someone's intuition. It is the product of discussion, varying perspectives and perceptions, complementary abilities, and the range of insight and resources that members of a team bring to the effort. Together, the members of a team can identify many more opportunities than individuals working alone. The research and collaboration produced by a team can be used by individuals to support a job application; as the basis of a proposal that could be submitted to a firm irrespective of whether or not they are seeking to hire someone; as a way to network on a higher level in an industry and identify a broader range of opportunities; and possibly as the basis of a business plan. As teams become more knowledgeable and sophisticated, it is con ceivable that a firm might be willing to contract with the team to obtain its data and conclusions. A firm might offer a consulting assignment. A team could initiate focus groups or workshops on specific questions that re late to the research focus. A team could become known and build a reputation within an industry locally or regionally. Without ever asking for a job or a job referral, people can demonstrate a creative, innovative entrepreneurial attitude that will be enormously attractive to employers. The work of the teams can have several objectives and each team will determine which aspects of their work they will pursue as a team and which as individuals: overview, segmentation, targeting, and/or implementation. Finding Employment Using An Entrepreneurial Perspective A number of programs designed to create reemployment have been piloted in the United States and Europe, most of those projects (e.g., Washington State Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED)) are distinguished by their entrepreneurial focus targeting people who have concrete ideas for a business or have had a previous business. While these programs may be useful for a segment of the population, the Washington State Project results (First Impact Analysis of the Washington State Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED) Demonstration) indicate that the size of the segment of the unemployed population who have concrete ideas for business or who have previously owned a business is relatively small in comparison to the total number of unemployed people at any given time. In contrast to programs such as SEED, the Career Directions Workshop begins with the premise that there is a large population of unemployed workers who may be able to benefit from skills associated with entrepreneurial ac tivity but not limited to starting and running a new business. The options of initiating a business enterprise or finding a job are not mutually exclusive. Analyzing market needs will reveal opportunities for which one can develop a proposal and/or a business plan. It is the cognitive change in perception that is central to the focus of this workshop. If one can learn to see through an entrepreneurial cognitive lens, then an unemployed person will seek out market needs rather than jobs. There may be few jobs available, but there are many market opportunities that can be pursued. The approach of the Career Directions Workshop expands the options available to unemployed people. Further, an entrepreneurial perspective is not a solely a function of formal education. It is a function of identifying unserved or under served needs. Combining an entrepreneurial cognitive perspective with a team approach not only opens a vast number of remunerative possibilities for people, but provides the complementary resources needed to pursue those possibilities. Most importantly, by learning to see the creativity and effectiveness with which we can compete as teams, we can overcome the social isolation that undermines our ability to leverage resources. Workshop Demonstration This workshop was demonstrated over a two year period for the Connecticut Department of Labor with very successful results. Their evaluation concluded that those who completed my workshop using market research methods, when they found jobs, earned "significantly" more money than those in the control group. All other factors were equal: education, age, years of professional experience, etc. Among the projects pursued by teams, include: Creating a database of information to serve the medical community. Providing geographic-based marketing plans to small business. Marketing adaptive clothing to physically handicapped people. Brokering waste materials to recyclers. Providing bioremediated waste disposal services to institutional kitchens. Facilitating export activities among manufacturers Marketing tourism opportunities. Coordinating Teams As entrepreneurial teams form and pursue initiatives, teams involved in similar industries can be coordinated effectively. All business incubation facilities that I have observed consist of a random collection of businesses. If incubation facilities were to seek new businesses in the same industry, these businesses could combine their resources in pursuing initiatives and contracts that would be too large and complex for any small firm in dividually. The manager of such an incubation facility could seek broader opportunities for firms in his/her facility to pursue. Thus, individual firms would be seeking market opportunities as well as the manager of the facility, each from a different perspective. The result could involve firms combining resources to pursue larger projects and at the conclusion return to their respective market focus. There are many possibilities, but they begin with adopting a cognitive change in perception from the isolated individual seeking the employer to provide direction and structure to perceiving the vast landscape of possibilities that emerge from coordinated entrepreneurial efforts. Excerpts from the Evaluation of The Career Directions Workshops Prepared by The Center for Organizational Learning University of Connecticut July, 1994 The Center for Organizational Learning at the University of Connecticut evaluated the Career Directions Workshop proposed, planned and facilitated by McGuire Research, West Hartford, Connecticut. The pilot project began October, 1992 and ended May, 1994. The evaluation covered the workshops that met between February 9,1993 and April 22, 1993. The Career Directions Workshop began with the premise that there is a large population of unemployed workers who may be able to benefit from some subset of skills associated with entrepreneurial activity but not limited to starting and running a new business. While a number of special programs designed to jump start re-employment have been piloted in the United States and Europe, most of those projects are distinguished by their entrepreneurial focus targeting people who have concrete ideas for a business or have had a previous business. However, the size of the segment of the unemployed population who have concrete ideas for business or who have previously owned a business is relatively small in comparison to the total number of unemployed people at any given time. The workshop organized unemployed professionals into teams and provided training in market research methodologies. This training focused on gathering market information from all available resources and using that information to develop business plans involving the entire team or individually. Three potential outcomes were anticipated from this activity: launching of new businesses, identification of independent consulting opportunities, and the identification of employment opportunities. Summary Participants who described themselves as having been discouraged and convinced that no jobs were available gained new confidence in their abilities and value to potential employers. Participants investigated new employment opportunities and rigorously prepared themselves for employment interviews. participants felt that throughout the workshop they had gained a valuable new skill by learning how to manipulate the CD-ROM databases available in their local and academic libraries and used that skill outside of their workshop project. When the wage analysis results are also examined, with program participants outperforming both a comparison group and program drop-outs, it would appear that the Career Directions Workshop concept should be carefully considered as a method of addressing the needs of job seeking white collar workers. While the workshop organizers stated that the market research strategies presented in the workshop would be equally effective for those people who wanted to start a new business as well as those who wanted to find a job, during the workshop only one participant used the research strategy exclusively as a job search strategy. All other workshop projects were aimed at developing a new business. Workshop Participants One hundred fifty-nine people who met the workshop requirements of a college education, at least four years of post college work experience, and having an active file in the Connecticut Department of Labor Job Service, pr e-registered for the workshop. four other people who had not pre-registered joined the workshop bring the total number of participants to 163. One hundred one people attended the orientation session and 103 attended the first workshop session. Fort-two participants (31 men and 11 women with an average age of 47) completed all 10 weeks. No significant differences in gender, ethnicity, education, last full time salary, profession number of companies worked for, and numbers of positions in last company were found between those persons who completed the workshop and those who withdrew. the mean age of those who completed than workshop was higher than those who did not complete the workshop (47.5 versus 43.9 years). Participants' Evaluation of the Workshop Participants had overwhelming positive feelings about market research as a job search strategy. Participants stated (both in written comments added to the evaluation and in interviews) that they felt that McGuire had identified an important strategy for job seeking. Participants felt that learning how to access the information available on CD-ROM databases was an especially important aspect of the workshop. The social support of the other participants was consistently mentioned as being important; participants described the job search experience as being 'depressing,' 'isolating,' 'humiliating,' and 'devastating.' Participants felt that the workshop gave them a space where they could interact as professionals and regain confidence for their contacts with potential employers. Participants felt that they were doing better in employment interviews because of their regained confidence and their newly acquired research skills. The social support of the other participants and team members was consistently mentioned as being important. More than six months after the workshop's end, participants reported using market research as a means to prepare letters of inquiry and interviews skills. participants felt that McGuire's belief in market research as a significant factor in their workshop experience. Impact on Earnings Participants who completed all ten weeks of the workshop had a statistically significant higher positive change in income between the second and third quarters of 1993 than those participants who registered and did not complete the workshop and the members of the comparison group. Value of the Workshop Participants had overwhelmingly positive feelings about market research as a job search strategy. Thirty-nine of the 42 participants who attended all ten weeks of the workshop completed a written evaluation form. the principle results of the written survey were: - 92% believed Market Research to be a valuable tool in today's economy. - 87% thought their tam project had identified a viable market - 82% felt it was likely they would recommend the workshop. - 76% thought it was likely that their project would generate income for them within six months. - 76% felt their investment of personal resources (time, energy, travel had been worthwhile. - 62% felt that the workshop improved their chance of finding employment. Team Formation Sixty percent of the participants who completed the workshop were still actively engaged in their team's research project three months after the workshop's end. Forty-three percent of the participants who completed the workshop wee still actively engaged in their team's research project six months after the workshop's end. Given that team members received no formal support (e.g., financial, motivational, technical) from DOL or the workshop organizers after the workshop's end, this high level of continued activity would seem to provide further evidence that the participants believed their workshop research projects offered real employment opportunities. Participants were optimistic about the future of their research projects. These findings indicate that participants did not regard their workshop project as an abstract exercise but as a real opportunity for employment. No participant reported using Market Research in the baseline questionnaire although one person did report using the resources of a College library in the job search. As the aim of the workshop was to provide the particip ants with Market Research skills, it is significant that in the written evaluation 56.4% of the participants who completed the workshop reported using Market Research in their job search. Market Research Results indicted that those participants who reported using Market Research had a greater increase in earnings between the second and third quarters than all other workshop participants and the non-participant comparison group. Results also indicted that those participants who reported using Market Research had a greater increase in earnings between the second and fourth quarters than all other workshop participants and the non-participant comparison group. Further analysis indicted that those participants who reported using Market Research earned significantly more in the third quarter than all other workshop participants and the comparison group. No oth er job search strategy (responding to want ads, using a job bank, mailing resumes, or networking) provided a significant earnings advantage. These results indicate that those participants who added Market Research to their job search repertoire were re-employed more quickly and earned more money than those participants who did not use Market Research and the m embers of the comparison group. These results indicate that using Market Research as a job search strategy provides a clear advantage in finding new employment not provided by other job search strategies. Team Cooperation Results indicated a positive correlation between current use of Market Research and more cooperation within teams. Quantitative data indicted that speed of re-employment and quarterly earnings were not related to the level of cooperative learning perceived by participants. When asked how they learned the workshop martial, seven people reported having learned it principally on their own or through some combination of the workshop coordinator's presentations, their own efforts, and their team. Nine people reported having learned the material through their team. One person described this impact by saying that the expectations of others forced him to learn the material. Participants reported that support from other team members focused their job search effort and forced them to function as professionals. This new focus and regained professional behavior fostered a professional attitude among the participants. Participants came to believe that they were valuable to potential employers and felt they had the skills to find those employers. This demonstrated the positive effect of group support and culture on employment outcomes. The majority of participants interviewed stated that working on a team business project provided them with an important opportunity to practice new skills and gain confidence in the research strategies. They attributed their success in individual job searches to this practice in the group.