The Fearless Fish Out of Water by Robin Fisher Roffer

Author:Robin Fisher Roffer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

Being a cultural detective is essential when it comes to being able to make an informed choice for yourself and your career. There’s a fine line between fitting in and getting sucked in or overwhelmed by a company and its culture. Doing your homework will provide you with the clarity and perspective needed to determine if you and the company are a fit—even before you’re hired. Once you’re on the inside, it’s a matter of being who you are. To do that, you need to maintain your authenticity to sustain a long and fruitful career.

In Step 1, you met David, a friend of mine who had driven limousines in San Diego. Prior to that job (which he took to make ends meet), he was hired by a well-known person in the self-empowerment field to head his creative department. For him to land the job, he had to do his homework and once he was hired, he had to seriously maintain to sustain.

I knew very little about this person, except what I’d seen of him on his television infomercials. I wasn’t sure what he actually did or what his company produced. To get an insider’s perspective on the company, I decided the best approach was to interview my friend’s wife, who worked in the creative department. Perhaps she could shed light before my first meeting with the president.

She filled me in on what type of person the president was, the kind of relationship I’d be expected to have with him, what the cultural climate was like, the person I’d be directly reporting to, what skill sets the position required, and why she felt I’d be the right person for the job. The list of necessary skill sets required was daunting—five pages long. Turned out, there was only one thing I’d not done on that list: run a teleprompter. Because I am computer savvy and can type 130 words a minute, running a teleprompter was going to be a no-brainer.

But what really appeared to be an obstacle for me was figuring out how to work with the president. He was quite demanding and tended to operate in a stream-of-consciousness mode when it came to strategizing and getting creative. Could I work like that? Me, this organized, everything-in-its-place, logic-and-order, disciplined guy?

I was given the president’s best-selling book as a gift. I took it home and began reading through it. As a writer, my assessment was that it wasn’t well-written, but it had a compelling aspect to it that was very engaging. It struck me, “Has anyone taken this guy’s work and organized it so that anyone can grasp the gist of it in an easy-to-read overview?”

I was sparked and immediately began working on creating a condensed and concise logic model of his work. A day later, I e-mailed my work to the department head. She loved it. We then set up a time the following week for me to interview with the president and a few other key people in the company.

A week

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