We all know about the ability of our emotions to affect us physically. Obvious examples: when human beings are sad, water might just pour from their eyes. For some of us, when we feel embarrassed, our faces turn bright red. Or, when we are nervous, some of us go into power sweating. Our bodies seem determined to blatantly betray us!
I used to be knee-knocking nervous when I had to speak in public. I know there are many of you who have not experienced this and you think “knee-knocking” is just a metaphor. I assure you – it really happens to people. I have actually had my knees knock, my voice shake, my face turn red, and my palms sweat all in the same presentation. Is there an award for this?
Thankfully, with practice, we all can get better at public speaking and get some control over these bodies that have minds of their own.
There are other physical things which we choose to do that can diminish the power of our personal presence or brand. Like sitting in a meeting and bouncing your leg up and down. Might as well say, “We need to get on with this, I have more important things to do.”
Or, what about those people who carry on a side conversation with another person while someone is speaking to the group as a whole. Might as well say, “What you are saying to the group is not as important as what I am saying to my buddy.”
But the most common thing we do that discounts our presence, is interrrupt others when they are speaking with us. Interrupters are saying “I have something more important to say than you do.” or “I have heard enough from you.” Interrupting is so common that when I am with someone who never interrrupts me, I never fail to notice it and am impressed by it. It makes me want to be sure I am earning their attention and that I am adding value.
And guess what? People who are at the top of organizations interrupt far less often than people lower in the organization. It’s not that people at the top are more fascinated with us, they just understand the power of completely focusing their attention on you. Try it. It is one of the most powerful things you can do to increase your personal brand’s influence.
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Pre-recession, there were articles, entire books, seminars and webinars devoted to how to change the workplace culture in order to make it more Gen-Y or Millennial-friendly. I even did a seminar once for a client on how to market to Millennials. It was a hot topic. Definitely, hard times have diminished the Millennial-centric workplace as a theme in pop-business culture.
However, I remember that one of the truths that was being bandied about regarding Gen-Y’s or Millennials was that they flourished in a team environment, in fact, they demanded it. This was particularly interesting to me since I had done my thesis on the team player vs. the individual performer in U.S. companies. This was back in 1991 when we were in the throes of Six Sigma and TQM and were captivated by Japanese business culture. “Team” was the organizational rage, particularly in the manufacturing industry. Even though I had taught Six Sigma and was certified in TQM, I was skeptical about the cultural fit to American business society.
Nowadays we don’t do much manufacturing in the U.S. anymore but we hold on tenaciously to the concept of team as foundational to a successful business culture. Senior teams, project teams, management teams, design teams, and so on. In working with Fortune 500 clients in multiple industries over the past 15 years, I know that “teamwork” is one of those corporate-speak words like “vision” or “innovation” – it takes on very different meanings from company to company, even companies within the same industry.
I once worked as a consultant to two different banks – both big players. At one bank, the culture was overtly competitive and confrontational – people clearly climbing over dead bodies so to speak, on their way to the top. At the other bank, there was plenty of competition but being overtly competitive was considered bad form. Indeed, the individual who could advance an agenda without ever creating any noticeable conflict of any kind was much admired. Both banks said that “teamwork” was a core value. But, neither of these banks would have described their culture nor their teamwork the way I described it – not for the record anyway.
So, what is my point? Three points really. One, being branded as a person who is not a team player is rarely career-postitive. Two, the real rules of teamwork at any company are unwritten – no one will spell them out for you. What you think team means and what team really means may not be related. Three, watch how the most successful people in your organization go about managing their relationships – that is how to make teamwork work for you.
We all are aware of the power of scarcity. Not long ago, the Nintendo Wii was scarce around the holidays and people went crazy trying to find one. Never mind that the toy companies do this to us every holiday season – we still allow them to drive us to desperate measures with scarcity.
A client of mine in the restaurant business told me that when it comes to a buffet line, the restaurant should keep the pans full (not let the amount of food diminish too much) or the patrons will think the food is scarce and will rush to fill up their plates with it, even if they don’t really want it. I knew there was more than one reason why I shy away from buffets.
So scarcity can change our behavior dramatically. What about the opposite? What about when we have way more of something than we can deal with? Like too many choices. Think about paint colors – you can go insane trying to find the perfect color from among of hundreds of shades of yellow. If we can afford it, we hire an expert (a decorator) to make the selection for us. Even then, we are never sure we got the best yellow – after all, there were so many good ones.
Today, you can lose your mind trying to get your mind around the information available to you over the internet on any given topic. Or, you can exhaust yourself trying to sort out the implications of business analytics available to you to run your business. Technology has made it possible to delve so deeply and widely into the information available regarding any decision in front of us, that we become stymied about the best way forward. We get stuck in neutral. Enter the decorator, I mean the expert.
Information is easy to come by. The internet is making it easier for people to present themselves as experts because with a little effort, they can show up with a lot of information. But real experts advance the information – they make it relevant to your situation, they reach conclusions and recommend a course of action that you know is right. Real experts sparkle with an aura of authenticity that comes from having done something remarkable with information.
If you want your customers to love you more than they love the competition, know things they cannot easily find for themselves. Data is easy. Experience and information that includes implications, not so much.
The HBO show, Entourage, cracks me up. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a comedy about the lifestyle and escapades of a hot Hollywood movie star and his pack of handlers, friends, lovers, relatives, et al. “Entourage” is a term usually reserved for royalty and celebrities. I mean the rest of us regular people move through life very differently, in a much more self-reliant manner, right? Who can afford an entourage? Well, as ESPN’s Lee Corso says, “not so fast my friend.”
Witness, our entourages: personal trainer, hair colorist, hair stylist, cosmetologist, dermatologist, personal shopper, diet counselor, marriage counselor, therapist, relationship therapist, herbal therapist, hormone therapist, internist, manicurist, publicist, allergist, dentist, cosmetic dentist, nutrionist, pastor, rabbi, priest, spiritualist, palmist, plastic surgeon, speech writer, accountant, attorney, executive search consultant, management consultant, image consultant, technology consultant, executive coach, event planner, tennis coach, golf coach, mentor, maid, gardener, interior decorator, astrologer, friends, family.
I am certain that I know people who count all of the above as part of their personal retinue….and more. Entourage knows no recession. I must admit I was a little surprised when I thought through the size of my own “entourage”, without counting family, friends, or the internet. I mean, isn’t the internet is the ultimate virtual entourage? I know I consult it for all kinds of personal guidance in this age of information.
Which members of the entourage did I miss? Comments please!
image from npalliance.org
In B-school I had a professor who studied the attributes of business owners compared to the rest of working people. Some of the findings were not surprising: entrepreneurs have a higher tolerance for, even an increased appetite for, risk. And, he said, family upbringing exerts an influence on career choices. Children of government or corporate parents were less likely to become business owners, for example.
One fact in particular hit home for me. He noted that many employees in hierarchical organizations say that they dream of starting their own businesses. They go as far as to flesh out these dreams, design the business plan. They share it with friends and neighbors enthusiastically and at length. But they never do it.
They always have lots of reasons why they don’t do it. But what my professor told us was that often the real reason they never do it, is that the dreaming and the designing satisfy them – that, in fact, they did not need to actually start the business in order to be satisfied- they just needed to dream and design.
Maybe this is like daydreaming in detail about what you would do if you won the lottery. You know, you need to be prepared just in case it happens. I do that sometimes.
Dreaming is a form of entertainment but it also can lead to insights, ideas and action. I daydream and nightdream about my work everyday. I have to. I enjoy it. It is my way of pushing myself to see and go farther, faster.
Designing makes the dream do-able to us. But doing – doing is risk, commitment. Doing is proving and winning – and is often done solo. How many people are excited about taking big risks and working their tails off to make another’s dreams come true? (your mother doesn’t count)
But, isn’t it true that many of us join corporations precisely because we believe we can achieve something greater within them, working with others, than we can achieve on our own? Dreaming and designing don’t care where you work – you can do them inside yourself. However, “doing” within an existing organization means first creating a shared dream. Many organizations say they need their employees to be more innovative. But how many demand that their employees dream?
As the former head of a PR and sports marketing firm, I am schooled in the practice of re-framing questions if need be, giving plain vanilla answers when necessary, and above all, staying on message. (I said schooled, not skilled)
We taught clients how to do these things so they would stay out of trouble, not risk being misinterpreted, and refrain from accidentally giving the competition any information that they could use to their advantage. All worthy objectives. However, while remaining within these boundaries, we also encouraged clients to be engaging, open, respectful and answer the questions fairly. Reporters have a job to do and compelling people are helpful to their objectives.
More than ever, I think public figures have a PhD in the science of talking while saying nothing. I have been watching the U.S. Open tennis tournament lately and I swear, most of the players have turned into the equivalent of their own bobble head doll, when it comes to interviews. Unfortunately, the women are particularly adept at being uninteresting.
Reporter: “You have lost several close matches recently when you were ahead. Why do you think that has happened and what will you do differently tonight?”
Player: “She is good player, I will have to play my best.”
Reporter: “Some say that your and your coach have been in disagreement over your approach to this match? Is that true?”
Player: “She is a good player. I will have to play my best.”
Source: unknown
Maybe the women all have the same media coach.
Thankfully, there are a few players, mostly on the men’s side, who engage us, while still staying safely in bounds. They engage us by being genuine. Not everything they say is interesting but it is clear they are genuine so we listen. Genuine is compelling. You cannot fake genuine. I hope.
Years ago, I was in a meeting with a new Fortune 500 client. The meeting was chaired by the COO and the purpose of the gathering was for me to present the findings and recommendations from a study they had commissioned me to do. There were about 15 people present, of which I was the only outsider (the unpopular and often dreaded, “expert consultant”).
As I was presenting, the COO interrupted me with, “your body language is saying something quite different from what you are telling us.” This stopped me cold, not to mention scared me to death. I have never forgotten it and in fact, I later made it my business to understand this whole secret language thing.
The COO remains a client today and whenever I mention this harrowing event, she always laughs and says she vaguely remembers the meeting but has no recollection of what she said to me. So much for my sense of self-importance. She does however, say that I need to remember that she subsequently hired me to do a number of large projects, so therefore (according to her), I must have done alright in the meeting. Done alright!? I was desperately looking for a life line.
Two truths emerge from this. The obvious one is that we are not in our own field of vision so we really do not know how we are being perceived by others at any given time. We judge ourselves by what’s inside our heads or hearts, while others judge us with their eyes and ears. So, it pays to try and understand the message you are sending with your actions, your presence, your style, your tone, and so forth. I say “try” because truly seeing ourselves as others see us is pretty impossible. I was reminded of this brilliantly in an article in the current issue of Psychology Today. (FYI…the article is not yet available online to the general public but will be once the next issue comes out).
The other truth that emerges from this story is that career moments which seem like crashing oceans to us are often not even puddles to the others involved. So, while you may feel like a giant wave is rolling over your career, others may simply see it as a ripple. How you swim through it is what they will remember.
Every once in awhile I encounter a common word that I haven’t been using lately. I think, “wow, that is a great word…. I used to use it…I need to bring it back into my mainstream vocabulary”. Some examples of useful words I have recently re-discovered are “beguiling”, “lament” and “artful”. And my current favorite: admire.
Here’s what I admire about admire. It seems to me to be a perfect combination of “like” and “respect”. You know, you can respect a person, but that implies a little fear or power may be involved – you respect a professor, a cop, a boss, an expert. You can like a lot of people. You enjoy being around them. But how many people do you truly admire? “Admire” seems to demand a higher level of consideration, of emotional commitment.
Gallup publishes an annual list of the most admired people. Honestly, it would be more accurate to call it the “current most widely known people.” The 2008 list is headed by Barack Obama and George Bush on the male side, and by Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin on the female side.
photo from microsoft.com
This blog is about work. Managing relationships at work is one of the top things that make work work for you. I read that admiration between two people is the strongest foundation a relationship can have. I admire my business partner, Vickie Singer. So do a lot of other people. I admire my clients. Sometimes I accept assignments from people I have a hard time admiring. It never works out.
Admiration is full of power.
Saying whom you admire says something about you. Knowing who admires you also says something about you. Who admires you and why?
Last week I asked how boomers should re-brand “old” (since we are). People under 30 view 60 as old. If you are 40+, you are viewed as “older”. We know the word “old” is not a sought-after adjective in our culture. The current popularity of the term “old school” comes to mind as an exception, but that term is used with a kind of grudging admiration.
In truth, boomers did not set about to re-brand what it meant to be 30, 40 or 50. It happened because there were so many boomers – boomers with appetites for experiences, for products, for knowledge, for vitality, for success - and with the wherewithal to indulge their appetites. A significant percentage of 78 million people spending energy and money to do cool things (travel, work-out, climb the corporate ladder), buy cool things (wine, technology, second homes) and be cool in general, cannot help but be a defining force.
This blog is about work. Boomers re-branded the workplace in many ways. In one big way in particular - with women and the rise of the two-job family. Now the question is, how do you make 60, 70 and even 80 cool in the workplace today? And, why bother? Because they can contribute way beyond what we have ever expected of old people before. Because we need them to be different from any old people in the history of the world.
Bartz from news.cnet.com
Buffett from Business Week
Warren Buffet is cool. Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo is cool. Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep are cool. All are 60+ or 70+. But do you know about the Purpose Prize? The winners of the Purpose Prize are “doing what society least expects people over 6o to do…” according to their website. Check it out. Be inspired. Expect things from “old” people that you never expected before. It’s new school cool.
By 2012, almost 1 in 3 American workers will be 50 or older. For multiple reasons, just economic ones alone, we know that we must keep older people in the workforce. Keep them contributing, performing, succeeding. It seems to me that this will never fully happen unless we change our minds about what it means to be old. Well, okay, how?
The NY Times reported that a recent Pew Research study shows that people age 65 believe that old age begins at 75. People under 30 believe that 60 is old. The older we are, the older we believe old age begins. The study also found that most people over 50 feel 10 years younger. If Boomers (a basketball in the garden hose known as the U.S. population) feel younger than their years, they need to demonstrate it. Old people have to own the brand called “old”. Re-brand it.
How can they re-brand ”old”? Let’s start with technology – something older people are always accused of being afraid of, skeptical about, and no good at. I have always believed that (experienced + technology) should outperform (less experienced + technology). In other words, knowledge-based organizations should expect, no, should demand that in general, older people should outperform younger workers. 
Of course, older people have to embrace technology for this to be true.
Here are my 10 very basic technology do’s and don’ts for “older” folks who want their personal brands to be as young as they feel:
- Do personally push beyond email, shopping and mapquest on the internet. Ask others to recommended sites. Research a topic.
- Do keep up with all the ways your organization and its competitiors are using the internet.
- Do evaluate social media - why, how, and if you should participate. Facebook or LinkedIn? Both or neither?
- Do not use a technology or social media just to be using it. Know why you want an iPod, or why to blog.
- Do not boast about texting, Tweeting, etc. if you are doing it. What’s hot in technology changes faster than you can say AOL. If you adopt a technology after reading about it in USA Today, you are not an early adopter.
- Do follow some talented bloggers or tweeters in your areas of interest.
- Do consider learning a new language – a technology language. I don’t really mean become a programmer. What I mean by a new language is get really good at Excel or PowerPoint or a basic web design software. Or be expert at using the personal computer, period. A single learning experience will give you confidence with technology overall.
- Do update your personal technology stuff. The device formerly known as a cell phone is fast becoming the way we access the internet, take photos, record video and audio, and much more. Get a good one. And, your laptop or desktop should not be older than a pre-schooler. Wal-mart will sell you a new one.
- Do keep up with what’s out there, whether you use it or not – what is ning, what is mashable?
- Do not stop reading a good newspaper – the old fashioned way.
BTW – I am an aging Boomer, so the above advice may be outdated. What are some areas other than technology, that we can focus on to redefine “old”?
photos from bigstockphoto.com
