Yesterday morning I was at Westfield Mall in San Francisco doing a focused career coaching session. We sat outside a Chinese takeout and reached a crucial step: Action Planning around his Career Transition. All of a sudden my client broke eye contact and his face looked incredulous. "Sorry to lose focus Mike but the two women behind you just threw eggrolls at each other". Apparently, everyone in our vicinity saw this - except me. The eggroll assaulters left quickly, and someh

Career Ladder Story: Must have the Title A couple of years ago I was hiring an emerging leader from a well-known firm to lead a new and highly visible Operations Team. She was a referral candidate leading a similar team as a Manager. “Cindy” (not her real name) had a well-aligned work history, strong knowledge of the industry and most importantly knew essential functions of the team. We were all set to hire her but ran into an issue - her Career Ladder. Cindy was deeply fr