Job Seeker: Be a Solution Video

Stephen Covey offers free Dallas seminar for job-seekers

03:49 PM CDT on Sunday, May 3, 2009

Stephen Covey is about to
give the unemployed in Dallas a piece of his mind - in the purest sense
of the term.

Covey, who upended management thinking in 1989 with his landmark blockbuster The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is coming to town Monday to present a free seminar to help out-of-workers rejoin the gainfully employed.

"People who lose their jobs often lose their spirit," Covey says from
his home in Utah. "They become discouraged, and it feeds on itself in a
downward cycle. They stop being proactive. They stop taking
initiatives."

Covey plans to reverse this downward spiral with a mixture of
inspiration and tough love. Losing your job can be the best thing that
happens to you, he contends. But it's up to you - and no one else - to
turn being a victim into being an opportunist.

It's often a three-part process, the 76-year-old says.

First, you have to figure out what kind of job will fulfill your inner needs and keep your family secure.

Next, you need to find a company where you can achieve those goals.

Then you have to find out what challenges that company has and present
yourself as an answer to its prayers, he says. If you're not a solution
to the company's problems, you're just another problem knocking on the
door.

Research, research, research

"You research their customers. You research their suppliers," Covey
says. "You research their associates, so you know what's happening
inside the company.

"Then you go into the interview with
humility and say, 'I'm not an expert in your field, but from my study
of your customers, suppliers and business partners, this is what I've
learned, and correct me if I'm wrong.'

"People are blown
away by this. They see somebody who has high initiative, very
resourceful, creative, and desirous of trying to help solve their
problems.

"I'll give this counsel to 10 people, and one
will take it, simply because there's too much work in doing all this
research and investigation."

Ordinarily, Covey would
charge $85,000 for a speech like the one he's giving in Dallas. But
when he heard about an initiative by two local organizations to get the
jobless back on track, he wanted to help out.

"This is
amazing that FranklinCovey Co. is providing this for the unemployed of
Dallas," says Laurie Bouillion Larrea, president of Workforce Solutions
Greater Dallas, a local nonprofit group that administers job training
funds from the government and is handling the seminar logistics.

You have sign up online in advance to attend the early afternoon
session at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in downtown. The room maxes out at
2,000, and as of Friday afternoon, 650 slots were left.

Most attendees are expected to be professionals who may be first-timers
to the unemployment line. And they need to know that jobs don't come
knocking on your door, Larrea says.

"People want to go
right back to what they were. If they were making over six figures,
they want to make that again. You can't wait for the perfect job. It
may not come. They have to be a catalyst and set change in motion."

The Covey speech is part of a Monday launch of www.GreatJobUS.com, a
Web site to help people to find meaningful work quickly, says Kim
Bunting, chief executive of Dallas-based Business Access LLC, an online
training company that developed it.

"Yes, we want to draw
attention to the site, and that's great," Bunting says. "But the event
is really intended to give the unemployed of Dallas hope and
reinforcement."

Family matters

Covey, who reconstituted his original work into The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
in 1997, has nine children, 50 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Protecting families is a passion of his.

He worries about
the toll that a parent's job loss has on the spouse and their children.
"It's so demoralizing to everyone in the family."

Just
like a corporation, a family in crisis needs a mission statement that's
created by consensus. Children - preteens and older - need a voice in
determining the family's goals, strengths and weaknesses.

"They have to feel emotionally committed to it," Covey says.
"Otherwise, they'll view it as just another empty exercise that the
parents are putting on. They won't identify with it."

It's a version of "teach your parents well."

"Kids are smarter than you think," he says. "They don't have as much to
unlearn - all the myths that people pick up as part of their cultural
DNA. They are fresher and purer. They accept the concept of being
responsible, proactive and taking initiative, being empathic and a
solution to people's problems. They observe what's happening inside you
and become your teachers.

"Once a family has a creative culture, it's amazing what they come up with."

It might just be your dream job and the path to get it, he says.

 

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Comments (3)


Posted by Reader in Rockwall | 3 weeks ago

I'm
not looking for a job but I do work as a volunteer with those who are
seeking employment. After reading your article I registered in
anticipation of getting some good pointers to help me in my efforts. I
attended today and, sadly, discovered there were more tips &
pointers for the unemployed in your article than in Mr. Covey's
presentation. His program focused on the family and family relations,
some aspects of which could perhaps apply to the job search but I would
not classify the program as "a free seminar to help out-of-workers
rejoin the gainfully employed".

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Posted by Winston100 | 3 weeks ago

Hey
guys, the online article doesn't include the actual registration
information. The print article has a sidebar. Go to www.greatjobus.com
and sign up there. I just did it, worked fine. Scooby, maybe you had
too many snacks? ;-)

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Posted by scooby50 | 3 weeks ago

Info
such as when, where, link to sign up, etc. would have been
helpful!!!!!!!!! Reader must fumble around to get logistics if
interested in attending. How disappointing. Article was incomplete
without this who, what, where, when, why, how info.