Doing the Dirty Work, Part II

(MoneyWatch)  Dear Ron,
I'm being strongly encouraged to consider helping manage an underperforming division of our company. The current group I'm running is relatively stable but unlikely to win me great visibility at my firm. What should I do?
As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my answer about volunteering to do the 'dirty work' at your firm, you should never turn your nose up at what look like unattractive opportunities, since there's always possible upside. So the question for you becomes how do you determine whether this particular job represents a genuine opportunity for you, or simply one in which you're being set up to fail.

The first question you should seek to answer is could this group be an asset to the company if its performance were to improve? Second, will you have enough support to be successful? That means looking at the current people in the group to see if they're both capable and motivated. And if they're not, will you have the support of senior management to move people around and have other people transferred into the group? Finally, if you were to succeed with this new group, will you be able to gain recognition from the right people--i.e., the ones that can watch out for you and help advance your career there? If all these things are in place, then you ought to strongly consider taking the position.

One former client of mine was asked to take over a customer support group at his company that was a complete mess. They were burning managers out because it was so demanding, but at the same time, it was the company's most critical interface with its customer. My client did some checking around and ultimately decided it was worth throwing himself into. He discovered that the problems were more structural, as opposed to being due to the quality of the workers, so he realized he could make some big improvements fairly quickly. Also, before he accepted the position, he discussed some preliminary thoughts about what needed to be changed with his bosses and got their support to make those changes if necessary.

My client wound up implementing more flexible work schedules and also improved morale by playing up the call center workers' roles as the face of the company. The performance of the group turned around, and my client was recognized for his creativity and ingenuity. Eventually, he was promoted out of there and has since moved on to bigger things at the company.

The thing to remember is that while being amenable to less glamorous jobs in the first place is important, it's just as crucial that you go into a situation like this with a sense of creativity and opportunity, as opposed to feeling put upon or burdened. Only with that kind of attitude will you be able to really turn a situation around.

Send Ron your career and job-related questions.