{"id":1305,"date":"2011-06-20T06:57:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T13:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2011-06-20T07:01:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T14:01:49","slug":"who-is-your-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=1305","title":{"rendered":"Who is your problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/100_21621.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/100_21621-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"100_2162\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1252\" This weekend I met a schoolteacher who retired at the age of 49 because she believed that the school administrator had poisoned her career.  Although she had outstand credentials, outstanding performance reports, and multiple special recognition awards, she was never selected when she applied for special assignments that would enhance her career. \n\nThere was no doubting her credentials, she had three masters degrees in various teaching specialties, and her teaching awards were a matter of record as were outstanding performance reports.  She was recognized for work in specialty areas of education, and had even work on developing curriculum for the entire state education system. However when she applied for special committees, although always at the top of the best qualified list she was never selected.\n\nWhen I asked what she thought the problem was, she related an incident when at a teaching function, she and some other teachers had a glass of wine with lunch.  After lunch when they reassembled, she was in close proximity to the administrator and he detected alcohol on her breath.  She to this day firmly believes the administrator held that against her, and derailed any special activities that would advance her career.\n\nThere was example she related where she applied for a committee to develop a new curriculum for a special education segment of the county school system. This was a very high profile project that won promotions and special recognition for those who served on the committee.  Again she was at the top of the best-qualified list, but when the committee was named, she was not among them.  Several months later she was at function with the school board when on of the school board members asked why she declined to serve the committee.  She was devastated to learn that she was selected to serve on the committee, but her name was withdrawn without her ever being aware of it.  She did some checking and found the administrator had replaced her on the list with the reasoning that the committee lacked balance.  \n\nThere was little recourse outside of filing a formal complaint, which would have marred her stellar career.  The more she thought about her situation the more bitter she became, the love of teaching that had propelled her to achieve such high level of performance was fading fast and she decided to retire early rather than playing into the administrators plan to ruin her career.\n\nPerhaps there were other options available to circumvent the reach of the administrator.  A transfer to another district or even further to another state would have placed her outside the grasp her nemesis.  However she truly believed that even if she transferred away from the administrator his negative influence would follow her.  She convinced herself that her only option was to retire early.\n\nOver the years I have met several people who believed they had enemies in high places that ruined their careers.  True or not, since a person\u2019s perception is their reality, their careers were stalled or ruined.  \n\nOnce the belief of that you have an influential enemy who has the power to hold you back or poison your career settles in, it is very difficult to dispel.  The best remedy I have found is building a strong relationship with other influential people in the organization to neutralize your enemy.  This easier said than done.  Another strategy is to move out your enemy\u2019s realm of influence. This may even require a career change or at the very least a new avenue of focus.  I know several people in federal service who careers stalled at my agency, but when they transferred to a new agency their careers got back on tract.  \n\nIf you think you have an enemy in high places that is holding you back.  Listen carefully and make friends with some personal assistants.  A secretary once told me she overheard my boss give me a very lack luster reference when I was applying for a job outside the department.  Although there was no percentage in confronting my boss, I was able circumvent her influence by applying for a position in department where my boss had no influence.  Usually if you listen and do not pursue the topic to aggressively you will learn what or who your problem is.\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1,22,78,145,111,112],"tags":[209,244,27],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abundance","category-advice","category-challenges","category-difficult-boss","category-influential-enemies","category-strategy","category-tactics-aptitude-advice","tag-abundance","tag-influential-enemies","tag-tactics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}