Dan Erwin

What's Your Story?

Those who do not have power over the stories that dominate their lives, power to retell them, rethink, deconstruct them, joke about them, and change them as times change, truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts. –Salman Rushdie 

A good story is a key success factor for making a role, job or career change. What truly moves us as human beings, what prompts us into action is the emotion of a good story. Even overly rational, fact-oriented, data driven magazines and journals like Harvard Business Review, journals that think of business as a matter of pure rational calculation, emphasize the same point. Michael Hattersley wrote in an HBR article, “truth to tell, few talents are more important to managerial success than knowing how to tell a good story.”

Sure, people have used all kinds of means for developing and negotiating identities. When I started in the coaching business back in the early 1980s, one of my first jobs was awarded to me by the CIO of Pillsbury. He was an astute guy, exceptionally capable of identifying talent and helping his folk build an identity. That job--and I still laugh about it--was to take a young manager and teach him to dress for success. The CIO recommended laundered cotton shirts, new ties, better suits and polished shoes. “So you’re going to pay me that much to coach him in his dress?” That young manager has since had three superb CIO jobs at well-known corporations. Obviously, his identity worked. And, we’re still intimate buddies. 

Although people have paid attention to dress, humor, personal style and even office décor to signal who they are, the most useful approach is through the development of a personal narrative. As Hermina Ibarra notes, a self-narrative is a story that makes a point about the person. Self-narratives not only express who we are, but they also create who we are. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook beginnings in his dorm room, Bill Gates’ dropout from Harvard, Hewlett and Packard’s and Steve Jobs’ garage beginnings, as well as Obama’s childhood stories are examples of self-narratives—personal stories—that are carefully crafted for public consumption. 

As a consultant, I learned early on that my personal narrative was exceptionally valuable, not only in the approach I took to my profession, but also as a tool to sell and manage to clients. I had to explain how I’d gone from a career as a minister, to that of a teacher and to that of a business consultant. My ability to relate that emotional story often was the determining factor in whether or not I got a consulting gig. 

In today’s world of free-lance, and “at will” employment, a personal narrative is especially valuable for everyone. At the heart of a new stream of research are the practice and strategy of crafting and negotiating work identities with stories. No one has completed a more fascinating study of identity stories than Ibarra’s work, dating from 2010. In her research, she ticks off some of the situations where your personal story will be of utmost value. 

• Career change
• Job change
• Team leadership
• New job
• High job stakes
• Interacting with high-status, powerful people
• Interactions with unfamiliar contacts
• Job interviews 

Having multiple personal identity stories is valuable in all kinds of situations. Even in questionable situations. In her research, Ibarra quotes an investment banker seeking to move into international development: 

With the nonprofits, the first hour of any interview was “Why the heck would somebody with your background and your pay scale be doing this?” It took an hour’s worth of credibility building; they weren’t wondering “What is your background and what can you offer” but “Are you insane?”

People not only construct identities by telling their story, they also reinvent themselves by telling new stories about what’s happening to them. They reinterpret past events and weave the past and the present into a repertoire. A repertoire that allows them to communicate their identity and negotiate it with others. 

Well, what’s your story?

Herminia Ibarra, Identity as Narrative. Academy of Management Review, 2010, Vol 35, No.1, 135-154.

Flickr photo: CTJ online

Even the CEO Needs Feedback, But. . . .

Over the last few months I’ve been conversing with several new managers about their responsibility for giving feedback. Two issues keep coming up. How do you go about really giving effective feedback? And when should you not give feedback? It’s that second issue that I want to talk about. Sometimes it’s more important than the how-to.

 

Giving feedback can be a waste of time. Especially to someone who’s not ready to receive it or incapable of doing anything with it. More significantly, the downside of giving feedback to someone who can’t do anything with it can create a mess of relationship difficulties.

Sometimes the feedback is simply outside the person’s knowledge base. In a previous blog, “If you need a mentor, forget the expert,” I warn that it’s often difficult for an experienced person to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. Rather than enhance the learning experience, it can frustrate it.

On a personal note
My own experience of being coached resonates. Years ago when I first began to get serious about popular writing, I hired a former editor-in-chief from Harper Collins to coach me. “Hire the expert,” I thought. I learned a lot about the publishing business from him, destroying many of my myths. But truthfully, he was too experienced and too much of an expert to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. And it’s tough for an academic like me to leave academic writing behind without a lot of direction.

Five years ago, I bargained for the services of a 22 year-old college grad in English, a Gen-Yer from one of our top schools. His ability to answer my most basic questions has been and remains phenomenal. I’m a “why” person, and he’s always ready to answer my “whys.” Furthermore, unlike the “expert” editor, my young friend is not fearful of being literally ruthless with a red pen. I’ve shown articles he’s edited to some of my cronies and they tell me the hair on their neck stands on edge just reading it. But it’s done in all kindness and care, with lots of suggestions and alternative ways of going at a subject. The “expert” was too far above me to be of more than cursory help, but my young friend was just what I needed. Though there are plenty of times when my writing isn’t the best, I’m certain his feedback has moved me a long way in those few years.

There are other reasons for not giving a person feedback. Some people are too defensive to gain from coaching input. They have to learn from the school of hard knocks. It’s a tough way to learn, and some never do. One of the delights of my coaching business is that when I’m hired, the client is ready for my services. After a couple sessions, there are no holds barred in the giving of feedback. These clients want to know specifically what the feedback means, why it’s important, and what to do about it. But it takes experience a degree of maturity to get to that point.

Still others think they have all the answers. They just want a quick response from you, and then they cut you off. Maybe it’s defensiveness, but maybe it’s just big ego. But one thing is clear. Just a little feedback often fails to go very far. Furthermore, when some say they “get it,” there’s not a chance in hell that they can do anything with such a small amount of feedback. They really need you to take them by the paw and lead them through the steps of development. At the least, based on the feedback, they need to be able to talk you through the next three or four steps they’re going to take with your feedback. And if you can’t get that much time from them, or they can’t respond with the steps, it’s all a waste of time.

How can you tell when someone’s not ready for feedback?
Of course, the easiest way is past experience. You’ve observed that person for months, even years, and you know it’s going to be a waste. Then too, if you pay much attention to the rumor mill, the difficulty of giving feedback to a certain person gets around.

Some people are obviously and openly defensive. If a person always wants to be right or have the last word in a conversation, you’re asking for trouble. And if endless explaining or rationalizing is the norm in his conversations, that too, is a sign of trouble for feedback.

But as a manager, sometimes giving feedback is required. Take the person to a private office. Ask him for permission to give feedback, or, if necessary, tell you’re going to be giving some feedback. Give the feedback in developmental form. Ask what he can do about the information and what steps he's going to be taking to resolve the issue. Offer your support. And just get on with it. Oh yeah, always check back regarding the change. Especially if it’s positive!

Flickr photo: by pamalamadag

Once More: What Do Managers Do All Day?

Austerity. Employee engagement. Social media. Crowd-sourcing. Entrepreneurial. Social networking. Restructuring. Innovative. Internet company.

Words come and go. The verbiage changes, but how has this changed what managers actually do?

In a recent conversation with a Gen-Yer, just 14 months into his first management job, he downloaded most of his day at my request. He uses different language than most of my exec clients. His context, an internet company, is a lot different than theirs: technology, small appliance, agribusiness, etc. Does that mean that the heart of what he does daily is different than what 45 year-old execs at old-line firms do?

For the sake of audience appeal and to desperately offer newness, I need to be able to answer my question with a big, detailed “yes.” There are a lot of new approaches to management: new frameworks, models and buzzwords. But does the heart of managing more traditional companies differ from the heart of managing internet startups today? Or is the new language just new hype?

The context is different
It took only a bit of reflection to realize that at the heart of what managers do, nothing has changed. Oh yeah, the context is quite different, as are the products. But whether you manage at Facebook, GE or General Motors, the heart of management is action.

Most of us know that the orderly reasoning about managing is intriguing, but fairly useless. Even with just a semester of business, you know the business language, describing how managers are supposed to work. A rational approach to management includes the following: planning, organizing, staffing, coordinating, recruiting, etc., etc. When managers step away from the work, most of them still use the terminology of management. But we all know those descriptions have a lot of fiction in them. Managing, like other experiences in life, is messy. Very messy.

The Gen-Y manager
Listening to that Gen-Yer’s talk about chairing a meeting of eight people where an important and controversial issue was to be decided, I thought about his frustrations. He’d gradually come to realize that managing is not what he expected. It’s all action: 10 to 12 hours a day.

Here are six conditions that are completely reflective of what he experienced. Only the conditions were formulated nearly 25 years ago. Not surprisingly, my young friend said that they were completely identical with his 2012 experience. This is a highly descriptive statement about what managers do and can’t do all day:

As a manager, you “cannot avoid acting.” At each moment of the meeting you are acting. Even letting things go constitutes an action—and with effects you may or may not want. So, you are always “thrown into action, independent of your will.

“You cannot step back and reflect on your actions.” You have to rely on your instincts to react and act in real time, even though you may reflect on the meeting later on and realize or wish that you had done things differently.

"The effect of your actions cannot be predicted.” There are too many paths that any action could lead to, so you cannot always depend on rational planning to find steps that will achieve your goals. Instead, you have no choice but to “flow with the situation.

“You do not have a stable representation of the situation.” Things in the meeting evolve continuously. At any moment, you only see fragmentary pieces. The overall pattern of the meeting is only discernible after it is over.

“Every representation is an interpretation.” Even after the meeting is over, your description of what transpired at the meeting will never be the only one. Someone else will read the meeting differently and so the facts will always be elusive—what one must work with is opinions and interpretations.

"Language is action.” Every time you speak, you are not merely stating the facts, you are acting. You are actively shaping and constructing a definition of the situation and trying to persuade others of the facts as you see them and the action s that you believe must be taken. The rhetorical nature of managerial action cannot be escaped and must be constantly attended to.

That new Gen-Y manager breathed a sigh of relief. He expected his job to be something different than what he was experiencing. It was liberating to talk through these actions. They were pragmatic. His practice is not so much about business hype, but what works.

The more you know and understand a situation, the easier it is to work in that situation. I rarely get stressed by a situation I understand. So, like my Gen-Y friend, I find this description liberating. I’m very curious to know what you think about it.

Note: The six points are from Robert G. Eccles and Nitin Nohria, Beyond the Hype: Rediscovering the Essence of Management.
Photo fm Flickr.com: by **Anissa**

A Hitman and a Saint

A questionable ethic?
A few years ago, after developing a relationship with the CIO of a major American corporation and successfully working with a number of his subordinates, I was faced with a challenge. Another consultant, call him John, was edging into my info tech territory from corporate marketing. As soon as I saw what was happening, I set up an appointment with the CIO. I assassinated John with truthful rhetoric and precise data. It was a barrage of sophisticated, critical, agitating rhetoric by which I intended to maintain control. By no stretch of the imagination did I wear my usual nice-guy hat. The next day, the CIO canned John’s ass.

While hard to accept and admit, on occasion it’s necessary to become hitmen because of threats to our career by others. Indeed, plenty of people go into business unprepared for a larger reality that can be supportive, constructive and fun, but occasionally requires them to work with somebody who is dangerous to their career. They may be highly deceptive rivals, indifferent and lazy assholes who won’t carry their weight on a project, or clueless incompetents who need to be brought to their senses.

Religiously ethical?
But my consulting experience reveals that a surprising majority of people hold an ethical and/or religious commitment to life that plays havoc with their feelings. Feelings that certainly would keep them from becoming the mean and calculating hitman depicted above.

As an ordained minister, a former parish pastor and seminary professor, it’s imperative to point out that these quaint religious ideas often sabotage not only your career, but also your life. And even more significantly, these “nice guy” feelings lack a rich understanding of what it means to be fully human. In short, the baseline of normalcy in the “religious” reality structure is often profoundly dysfunctional and false. A serious confusion exists between what people think they should be and what actually is. And it’s understandable that many haven’t come to terms with those differences given the predominant, though skewed, religious perspective.

In stark contrast to much I hear today about organizational “nice guys,” the biblical text paints the person of faith as a mix of saint, sinner and hitman (and, yes, hitwomen) taking on the competition. They are not lily-white, idealistic or naïve nice guys. They work in the same human, screwed-up organizations we work in today. Joseph, he of the “amazing technicolor coat,” engages in deception, manipulation and trickery. He frames his younger brother, tossing him (temporarily) in jail to demonstrate his cruel power. But Joseph also rescues his entire dysfunctional family, including his jealous older brothers who conspired to have him murdered. King David screws his general’s wife and has him murdered to cover his behavior, and engages in trickery and political skullduggery throughout his reign. But he also guides, loves and protects his people. Neither David nor Joseph could ever be considered innocent or naïve. David is punished for his murder, yet the biblical text affirms the godly faithfulness of both Joseph and David. Intriguingly, those ethics differ significantly from the religiosity I hear from many. These characters know how and when to become hitmen, willing to take on others to achieve their objectives.

The biblical ethic is about what business folk would call big picture stuff: radical justice, the common good and food for all, including the outsider, the poor, the widow, the foreigner and the sick and homeless. Its devil word is “oppression.” And the text doesn’t fool around with small potatoes. There’s little to nothing about such things as my trickery of another edgy consultant. Fact of the matter, the biblical text confirms trickery as the action of a person with entre to the establishment, a person who’s both fully human and powerful. I suspect, therefore, that Yahweh got a good laugh out of the whole comedy. And I laughed all the way to the bank, knowing full well that I’ll still win some and lose some.

Shifting the paradigm
At the heart of this blog is an attempt to shift the paradigm regarding business relationships and personal success. As my experience revealed, the reality is far larger and more complex than many are willing to admit. Talk about the current fad of servant leadership all you wish, but reality is not just about nice guys. So I emphasized the biblical reality, not because I’m especially religious, but because it provides a phenomenally valid reality structure: a perspective that can lead to mastery of one’s career, but more significantly one’s life.

In short, reality demands that if we intend to succeed in business and life, we must be willing to use our human power. Stanford’s Jeff Pfeffer has dealt directly with this issue in his classrooms and his consulting for many years. In his latest book, Power, he analyzes the resistance of many folk to even try to become powerful. His analysis is worth its weight in gold. Even in his Stanford MBA classrooms, students find the necessity of power tactics and strategies phenomenally difficult to accept. Why is that? Both Pfeffer and I think it’s because of the wacko reality structure subscribed to by most of the population. Most accurately, he writes that we

conspire in (our) own deception about the organizational world in which (we) live. That’s because people prefer to believe that the world is a just and fair place and that everyone gets what he or she deserves. And since people tend to think they themselves are deserving, they come to think that if they just do a good job and behave appropriately, things will take care of themselves. Moreover, when they observe others doing things they consider to be inappropriate, self-aggrandizing, or “pushing the envelope,” most people do not see anything to be learned, believing that even if those people are successful at the moment, in the end they will be brought down.

Pfeffer goes on to reveal that this naiveté keeps people from learning from difficult situations and especially from people whom we don’t like or respect. Furthermore, it anesthetizes us from the need to be proactive in building a power base and dealing with the inevitable competition. Pfeffer summarizes the research, and concludes that reality is far different than we thought. It demands that we engage in power-building activities, without which we are seriously limiting our potential for both survival and success.

The messy deed
Stanford’s Bob Sutton is another of those writers who takes on a full-orbed reality. But he narrows his focus to organizational assholes in his book, The No Asshole Theory. Toward the end he devotes a chapter to the realistic, but painful task of becoming a “temporary, strategic asshole.” Sutton writes that his book “would be naïve and incomplete if I didn’t talk about the upside of acting like an asshole.”

Unfortunately, even if you aren’t a certified asshole, and even if you despise people who deserve the label and avoid them like the plague, there are times when it is useful to play the part of a temporary asshole to get something that you need or deserve. Polite people who never complain or argue are delightful to be around, but these doormats are often victims of nasty, indifferent, or greedy people. There is much (research-based) evidence that the squeaky wheel does get the grease.

The victim, who Sutton calls a doormat, completely ignores reality.

Hitman activity
What this means is that at least 98% of the time my colleagues can be trusted not to knife me. I can be a nice guy working with other nice guys. But I’m also aware that there are times when I fuck up and when my colleagues fuck up and given half the chance, may fuck me, forcing me to become a hitman. Significantly, I’ve found that my lack of innocence about reality relieves me of all kinds of life and career anxieties. When you know what you’re going to be dealing with, you’ve got a leg up on the situation. But note also, that full-orbed, biblical reality of life and organizations inevitably keeps me from being jaundiced and terribly cynical.

The ethics of my decision to occasionally take on the activity of a hitman are not black and white, but gray. And this is highly reflective of reality. It demands of me that I stay alert for the sociopath while not becoming one. It reminds me also that sociopaths screw themselves over because people won’t want to work with them. So, when faced with a jerk, an asshole or an untrustworthy competitor, stand your ground. Draw several lines in the sand about work expectations, responsibilities and scope of authority and take him on. Don’t be afraid of rhetorical trickery. Otherwise, without those rather sophisticated activities, your rise in the ranks will come to a halt. That’s not only smart power politics, but it’s also appropriate ethically and religiously.

Picture fm flickr.com: by emorse04

If You Need a Mentor, Forget the Expert

Be very, very careful whom you target for your mentors. Especially if you’re in the early years of your career, there’s a tendency to go for the real expert, those people with a depth of experience. But that can be a serious mistake.

As a general rule, always add a slightly more experienced peer into your mentor and coaching network. If you’re a new manager and want management coaching, be sure to use at least one person no more than a single level above you.  

Why forget the expert?
I don’t mean this as a put-down, but too often the difference between an early career person and an expert mentor is similar to that between a kindergartner and a college professor who’s never had kids or taught them. The college prof has no experience putting the cookies on the bottom shelf, assumes language above the kindergartner’s vocabulary, uses abstractions instead of concrete, simple words, draws conclusions that make no sense and offers big picture insights that connect no dots whatsoever for the kid. He even lacks the good sense to get down on his knees and look the kindergartner into his eyes when he’s talking to him. And the child is not at the place where he can formulate relevant questions.

On several occasions I’ve observed HR putting a new manager into a mentoring relationship with a smart vice-president. The relationship breaks down quickly because the mentor and mentee are reading from different sheets of music. Inevitably, the VP views the communication failure as the manager’s problem rather than his own. So he interprets the failure as lack of follow-through, motivation, intelligence and savvy. Guess what’s just happened to that mentee’s future?

So, mentors can be so far removed from your day-to-day work that they are of little value to you. You want at least one or two with little more experience than you. Those are the folk who have recently walked in your shoes and can give you relevant, practical, concrete insight into your work.

Build the social contract
Once you’ve targeted a willing mentor, you want to deal with two very important issues right up front. First, lay out very specific, very concrete objectives and be certain you’ve got buy-in from your mentor. Your mentor will clarify those objectives and often modify them. It’s imperative that both of you get full agreement on the objectives.

At that same first meeting start building a social contract. A social contract is not a legalistic document. It’s simply an explicit, conversational agreement of what you expect from your mentor and how you’re going to work together. Social contracts typically need to be renegotiated throughout the mentoring and coaching process. But any social contract should enable you to behave authentically and get the kind of mentoring you want and need. So you should be able to ask direct questions, find out what the mentor expects of you, probe directly into the mentor’s orientation to confidentiality, get agreement on when and how often you’ll talk with each other, even how to deal with conflicts should they arise, and when the relationship is expected to end. And if you’re really gutsy, I’d ask the mentor how you’ll get in trouble with him. Mentors typically have personal, tacit rules that they don’t share unless asked. It’s not that they’re being secretive, but simply that it never crossed their mind to let you know.  And somehow, in all of this, mentees need to be effective listeners. That’s one thing that the mentor really expects.

Very often long-term relationships develop emotional connections. Nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s to be expected. But the social contract will protect both of you from future difficulties that might arise.

Mentoring is not only a key to organizational success; it’s also a key to personal success. If you check around, you’ll find that all top, successful leaders have been mentored. It should be no surprise that those who’ve been mentored are socialized into the organization, make more money, get more opportunities and are promoted--all faster than other employees. So use mentoring wisely. 

The Uses and "Dangers" of Authenticity

One of the more insistent cries from MBA faculty and many business gurus has been an emphasis upon “authenticity” in work and team relationships. Being authentic is pretty clear: it’s simply the willingness to be who you are and to tell the truth. It’s appropriate to think of authenticity as a personal characteristic, but it’s also useful to think of it as a “tool.”

Calls for authenticity seem to be cyclical, driven by both culture and context. In the sixties and seventies psychologists continually emphasized and even wrote books about relational honesty. But those discussions and experiences dried up in the ‘eighties and ‘nineties. It’s like the “authenticity grease” finally ran out and we need to go back to the garage and get all the parts lubricated again. Yet, the fact of the matter is that authenticity is a constant need in life and business. You can’t build partners without authenticity.

But authenticity can be a very slippery, even dangerous experience for consultants and especially for organizational managers and employees. What’s being authentic can be personally constructive to one and destructive to another. Indeed, one manager suggested that “many people who pride themselves on their transparency in fact have a mean, aggressive spirit which they excuse as being unusually truthful.  I doubt that they would respond positively to similar bluntness applied to themselves.”

Authenticity is like feedback. It’s a tool, not an innate characteristic that a person is born with. And like feedback, some people are comfortable using it and others are not. Just so, some people move quickly to authenticity while others tend to play their cards fairly close to the chest. Some people become experts in its use and others stumble with the process. Authenticity like feedback is best handled with care by a caring person. 

What authenticity can do
Both consultants and organizational members can find that authenticity is the most powerful tool for building trust and commitment from others. When your authentic communication demonstrates care, honesty and depth, those are qualities that can change the world. Authenticity has the capacity to deliver us from the doubts, reservations and unpredictability between people. It can make work not only great fun, but also very productive and satisfying.

Many people, especially in business, have an economist’s view of the human spirit: they think people can only be counted on to pursue their own narrow self-interest. This “economists’” view of life is so widely shared and frequently used that it has become the way people think about relationships, organizations and even how they design their relationships. This “economic,” suspicious view of life inherently rejects authenticity and full trust. It’s frustrating to realize that even if people do not regularly act in their own self-interest (and they don’t), the research clearly indicates that these same people believe that others do act on that basis. As you can imagine, that seriously limits teamwork, collaboration, and mutuality. It throws an axe into the middle of organizational work and impacts personal relationships negatively, limiting the potential for authenticity.

Building authentic relationships   
One way to understand authenticity is to view it in teamwork and collaborative experiences. In those contexts, building authentic, trusting relationships starts out like a dance with back and forth exchanges of personal background or experience. From there the discussion can move to work relationships. Authentic relationships inevitably flowers in the form of a social contract. In my business, I am very straightforward about building authentic relations (even though I rarely use the term), and I test those waters before we have a financial agreement. Development and coaching don’t work without a contract that either states or implies authenticity. I also don’t think there is such a thing as collaboration or teamwork without a level of authenticity. Clients are often starved for authenticity and revel in the relationship. Authenticity is the grease under all social contracts. I’m certain, also, that authenticity is the reason why clients and colleagues remain friends, long after the end of financial ties.

In team settings where authenticity is profoundly helpful, relationship rules emphasize authenticity. Typically, I recommend that the team begin its work with issues like the following:  

 How will we go about setting mutually shared goals?

• How will we ensure follow-through and completion of agreed-upon tasks?
• How can we best collaborate?
• How will we keep issues open for discussion and disagreement, and manage our conflicts?

If you can get buy-in from all team members on these rules which essentially create a “social contract” there’s a high possibility for authenticity among the members. But you’ll find that the social contract and authenticity will break down. That’s inevitable, so you renegotiate the contract--again and again. The straight-talk renegotiation serves as a real plus—celebrating authentic relationships.

Typically, in my client relationships I’m not aware that our contract has broken down until I walk away from the meeting and sleep on it. My clients are not at all surprised to get an occasional phone call the next morning to get the news that we’ll need to renegotiate. Serendipitously, the act of renegotiating usually results in an even better, more authentic relationship than the initial negotiation. The payoff can be phenomenal.

Flickr photo by tstaires

7 Behaviors That Keep Women From Getting Ahead

Over the past two years, this blog (published in April, 2010) has been number one in readership, reaping well over 25,000 unique visits. Numerous bloggers have referred to the blog, even plagiarizing the hell out of it (that’s fine with me). It’s also the most commented upon blog with extremely negative and even more extremely positive comments. The commenters engaged in several heated discussions with each other, positioning themselves within their own ideology.

Initially, I responded to some of the comments, but as time went on I realized that the discussion didn’t need my input.

So, I’m recycling it because of its popularity. . . and because of its obvious relevance to the workforce.

It strikes me that I need to explain why a male would write for females so directly. One of the reasons is that more than a quarter of my clients were women, many of whom stated that they wanted to work with a man who understood gender differences. The fact that our three daughters are also professionals plays into my personal interests. Still, as a scholar in the field of organizational and interpersonal communication, gender differences have been a hot topic for years, a topic that has always intrigued me.

You’ll notice that the blog is supported by a significant amount of research. Indeed, many of the topics have been systematically studied by many scholars. Second, I have tried to be as practical as possible, making the recommendations immediately useful.

_______________________

On numerous occasions over the years, I've coached women managers and execs. Recently, while going through my file on influence management, I stumbled on an old article by Mary Ellen Drummond entitled, Seven Things We Do That Keep Us From Getting Ahead, from a now defunct (?) magazine called Women Managers. Although these recommendations don't apply to a few female execs that I've worked with, they certainly apply to a large number. Drummond doesn't mention the basis for her conclusions, but because of my studies in nonverbal research I'm well aware that a number of the recommendations have a research basis. This information seems to go in cycles in business circles, but I've seen a number of recent articles on personal presentation. I'm also aware that the top business schools, including Booth, Kellogg, Harvard and Stanford give time in their program for personal presentation, usually in leadership development programs that focus on interpersonal communication.

I've found that typically, because of their socialization, women are not aware of these issues. The issues surface out of the assumption that business is a man's world, and that if a woman wants to succeed, she'll need to mimic some of the male behaviors. (Although I've seen and read all kinds of responses to that assumption, I recommend a great deal of flexibility in these issues. FYI: I've noticed more than a few men that need help with their business behaviors.)

Since what you don't know can hurt you, here are some things to think about and perhaps get some feedback on.

1. Women do not take up enough physical space. This is not a matter of size, but how you hold yourself when standing. If you expect to be perceived as a powerful person, stand with your feet apart, and perhaps your hands on your hips. Drummond recommends the steeple gesture, placing your hands so that just your fingertips are touching. This forces the palms apart and makes your arms take up more space whether standing or sitting. This is a classic negotiating posture, so watch for it when observing others.

Although Drummond doesn't mention this, it's a well-researched fact that when men and women all sit down at a large table, women take up far less room. Men put papers and books over as much as twice the space as women. I recommend that women spread out on the business table just like the men. Take ownership of a huge area of space. The difference often has a powerful impact on the discussion.

2. Women nod their heads when listening. A man nods his head only to show agreement, while women nod to show they're listening. Plenty of women in executive suites have been schooled to avoid this. Present yourself as a powerful person, not a nice lady. Just last week, I took my wife to see an endocrinologist at the university clinic. Prior to seeing the physician, the nurse took information and was nodding her head, encouraging my wife and me to talk. Then the physician, a nationally known woman walked into the room. The difference was shocking. Though smiling and warm, she was totally in charge from the time the door opened. She asked questions, but didn't nod. She interrupted me a couple times, probing for information. Once I acceded to her authority, the conversation became much more familiar. It was a hilarious experience for this communication scholar, but also a very powerful way for the physician to assert her authority. I had nothing but kudos and trust of her insights by the end of the session. Well done!

3. Women tilt their heads when they talk. Check this out and notice that women tilt their heads when listening and talking, without even knowing it. It is not a power position from which to speak. So keep your head up, chin forward and untilted, and relax your shoulders backward, not hunched tightly forward, when you want to speak. You want others to listen to you.

4. Women introduce themselves too soon. Research shows that no one listens to what's being said in the first 5 to 7 seconds of meeting new people. They're too busy visually checking you out, and they pay little to no attention to what's being said. That's why we forget the names of people we've just met. We weren't listening. So, when first meeting someone, explain what you do, the company you work for, and then, finally your name.

5. Women's voices rise at the ends of sentences. It makes a woman sound like she's asking a question and asking for assent instead of making a statement. There is a geographical component to this. Women from the Upper Midwest are terrible at this. Sometimes I just want to yell at the phone to get them to stop it. My wife, who's from Detroit, has never done that. My daughters? Not in a thousand years. I've seen them roll their eyes at a woman doing this. My middle daughter, in a playful mood, will mock someone doing it. When we moved to Minnesota and she was in the fourth grade, someone asked why she talked like she did--mouth open, and no questioning at the end of sentences. Her response? "Why would I want to talk like you?" Ummmm. Just to set you straight, she has a terrific number of friends, including a large number of Harvard, MIT researchers who think that when it comes to research protocols and animals, she's god.

6. Women fidget. Although I think this is somewhat dated, the research shows that when men enter a conference room, they make 12 major movements. Women make 27. Many of these involve pulling out a chair and sitting down, but then women start adjusting their clothes and jewelry. The more movements you make in business settings, the less powerful you seem to your colleagues. Beware what you do when you enter a room, and keep your movements to a minimum.

7. Women let men finish sentences for them. Fading out at the end of a sentence is more common for women than men, so is being interrupted. You need to complete your sentences and your ideas. So, keep talking, a bit louder and hold up your finger to signal you're not finished. Never, never, never let men get away with interrupting you. On occasion, you can also interrupt right back to make your point. And keep talking. As Drummond says, stick to your guns and your sentences.

These bad habits are all learned. They're not natural. The good habits can also be learned. So women, don't let the men take advantage of you. Frankly, I lose my respect for a woman who lets a man take advantage of her. I raised my daughters to know better! FYI: I was never interested in raising "nice girls." Our objective was to raise intelligent, achieving females who could make some serious contributions to this world. Abrasive candor is a given. I've always taken the comment that my daughters or my wife could be difficult to be a compliment. It was expected.

Photo fm Flickr.com

What An Overseas Experience Can Do For You

Few work experiences offer more immediate, personal insight than an overseas internship or international job.

Once a month, for more than a year, my first international job meant a quick flight from Minneapolis to Sao Paulo to work with a client at 3Ms main Brazil plant. Although my senior client was an Italian-American New Yorker, my first experience in the cross-cultural, organizational politics of Brazil was never-to-be forgotten. Having grown up in the Eastern and Southern European diversity of Detroit in the 1940s and ‘50s, we made certain our three daughters got out of Minnesota homogeneity and took to Europe for part of their college experience. My youngest worked in Greece for nearly a year after graduating. They, too, found those experiences to be of great, pragmatic benefit.

Phyllis Korkki, in Sunday’s Times, recommends overseas internships for those able to able to float the airfare and expenses, in spite of fact that they are often “all work and no pay.” Korkki emphasizes the importance of finding host companies that will provide a great deal of value to the student. They’ll gain the opportunity to improve language skills and what may be more important, understanding a different culture. Her caution makes a lot of sense: “People have internships on the brain,” but it’s important to choose the right time and place for them. 

Korkki doesn’t deal with my own reasoning for encouraging international experience for every student who can possibly dig up the change for six months or a year. Yeah, I’m well aware that parents are liable to have to continue paying the same American college or university for their kids’ international experience. But if you’re a part of the class that’s willing and able to dig up the shekels for it, it’s an experience that will bring a lot of value to the younger generation whether or not they are planning for an international job.

Similar values and rewards also come from managerial tenures in international settings. Though most corporations recognize international experience as a plus, the more backward organizations may penalize the employee, in one way or another, for outside the US (OUS) experience. As a result managers may need to weigh the career pluses and minuses at his current organization. But the experience may be richly rewarded in another organization. Whether or not the organization rewards you for your experience, the values you can receive from that experience are significant.

Much of the international learning applies directly to the US organizational experience.
Cultural boundaries define us because they stable systems of behaviors and cognition. When a person is placed in another stable system, he or she is forced to learn behavioral and thinking ways that differ markedly from their original system. This gives them inherently different ways of perceiving their own American organization. They are far better at conceptualizing present and potential differences.

People of one culture immersed in another gain a highly useful understanding of different “realities.” Our own culture teaches us what to see and what to ignore. Experience in another culture teaches us that another culture sees and ignores different things. Opportunities in Greece, for example, are closely tied to family relationships. An outsider may be shocked by the direct question of “how much do you make?” Or, “how much did that cost?” If the foreigner is reluctant to answer that question, he may be foregoing unwittingly the proffered acceptance as a friend. Effective product and process designers can use the experience of different realities to focus on design questions from many different angles, often providing significant innovations to their American company.

Adjusting to different beliefs about the workplace.
International experience can make it far more easy for a person to adjust and manage today’s endless reorganizations and restructuring. The classic intercultural experience deals with many of the various workplace questions today’s organizations are focusing upon. How much planning should precede action? How are incentives, rewards and control best managed? How much conformity and initiative are expected? What does an effective work setting look like? And how do diverse ethnicities and religions affect expectations?

Putting important experiences into appropriate perspective.
Managers inevitably draw an infinite number of conclusions from important, conflicted or questionable experiences. What did my boss mean by that? Is he suggesting that I’m going to get laid off? Does he expect me to be at this meeting? Was his anger directed at me? What kind of changes does he expect of me?

But international experience puts that analysis in front of our noses. We’re forced to resolve questions about the meaning of language and gesture. We learn quickly that different cultures organize and process information very different than our American way. Objective facts don’t mean much in many cultures and social values can pose much difficulty. Business practices like making appointments and contacts differ. Negotiating with some cultures can force us to completely rethink how we normally go about the process. Etc., etc.

Emphasizing the role and value of street smarts.
Although a lot of less experienced employees don’t understand the value of street smarts, that ability to deal effectively with all kinds of people and levels of hierarchy, an intercultural experience brings all kinds of issues to the fore. Sometimes the issues are shockingly immediate and embarrassing. It may be a misunderstood gesture, failure to understand how time is used, or even the American penchant for getting to business without taking the time to exercise a different culture’s social protocols and relationship behaviors.

The struggles for business success are now international, not merely local. The reality is that each of us comes from a long line of ancestors who were raised in many different cultures, even though we’ve been Americanized to the hilt. Success in today’s business world will require more and more intercultural moxie. An international experience will be key for many of us.

Forget What You Think You Know About Gen-Yers

Five Millennial Myths
The conventional wisdom that Millennials--all those under the age of 30--are needy and narcissistic is deeply flawed, says Jennifer Deal.

Deal, a research scientist at the Center for Leadership in San Diego, has a book on the subject. Based on extensive survey research, she says that the stereotypes of Millennials are "inconsistent at best and destructive at worst."

Deal's summary in the latest issue of Booz-Allen's Strategy+Business challenges the five millenial myths that have been going the rounds for several years. My own extensive experience with the youngest generation supports her conclusions. Here's a thumbnail sketch of her conclusions:

Myth #1: Millennials don't want to be told what to do.  The unexpected conclusion is that they're exceptionally deferential to authority. More than the other work generations: Baby Boomers--30%, Gen Xers--30%, and Millennials--41%. The obvious implication is that managers can readily shape millennial employees' behavior. That is, if the millennials understand the culture and know the expectations. Her suggestion is almost too funny, but very true: Millennials even appreciate being told what time to arrive at the office. (The flip side will also come up. "If I've worked 12 hours or more, several days in a row, do you think I can go home early?")

Myth #2: Millenials lack organizational loyalty. Deal's research finds that the group has about the same amount of organizational commitment as the other generations. Her explanation of the myth is that Gen-Yers, who are at the lower levels of the organization, are paid less and have less responsible positions. Their elders are likely to be more invested in the organization because of income and responsibility. It's all a matter of the fact that in your 20s is liable to be the best and only time that you can try on new jobs and careers. Loyalty is a characteristic of age, not generation.

Myth #3: Millennials aren't interested in their work. This is new to me, but evidently the mythology is out there. As the research shows, my experience has been that all people at the lower organizational levels are slightly less motivated by the content of their jobs than higher-ups. They're just not that motivated to do grunt work. This is true of all of us, and especially in our early career years. Most understand that grunt work is part of a job, but a reasonable portion of the job should be interesting. If not, why not find a new job?

Myth #4: Millennials are motivated by perks and high pay.  No more, the research says, than Boomers and Gen Xers. And although you think that handing them an iPad will increase their dedication to the job, it won't. As one of my Gen-Yer friends said, "cool," but it didn't increase his overall motivation.

Myth #5: Millennials want more work-life balance. This myth is "marginally accurate." But as Deal points out, society as a whole now believes that life is about more than just work. Policies such as flex schedules, part of a work-life balance, are perceived to be important by both Gen Xers and Yers. 

Ensuring that workers of all generations are "engaged contributors to the workforce" is far more critical in this world than in the last century. Knowledge is the key corporate equity, not bricks and mortar. Deal has given us a highly useful understanding of the Millennial generation.  

Jennifer Deal, Retiring the Generation Gap (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2007)
Photo fm flickr: Ali Goldie

What a Real-Life Yoda Looks Like (Part I)

Mentoring and coaching have been consistently revealed as the fundamental key to career and life success. Nearly every manager will tell you about the mentors that made him or her successful. Yet mentoring, like counseling, lacks a sterling success record. Those of us with a psych background are well aware that in more than half the cases of counseling, the results pale in significance.

What keeps mentoring and coaching from achieving its promise? Certainly the fault might be that mentees fail to follow through, lacking motivation, adequate insight and/or organizational support. Also, mentors can be overly controlling, unable to create a motivational ambience for the mentee. But both of those issues are small potatoes. The real issues making for successful mentoring are rarely discussed. More than any other skill, successful mentoring is built upon two foundations: passion and perspective.

Mentoring anticipates a number of typical questions. What does it mean to have a career? Why do we work the way we do and do what we do? The questions rarely come out that way. Instead, it’s “What do I have to do to earn a promotion? How can I get along better with the jerk next to me? How do I get more productivity out of my team? How can I get the support and resources I need?” Or even, “Where do I go next with my career?” Passion and perspective underlie all those questions.

Passion
In one form or another, the beginning point of effective mentoring is passion, a lively, eager, compelling desire that insists that one’s career(s) can be a meaningful and fulfilling way of life. Passion is obvious with mentors in the arts like dance, music, painting or even law, architecture or medicine. But how do business mentors demonstrate their passion?

Passion is demonstrated not in the relating of specific, concrete processes—the mechanics--within a given competency, but in the telling and hearing of stories that are deeply rooted in business interactions. These are stories imaginatively told with many different scenarios, depending on need, possibility and other circumstance.

Stories told by effective mentors exude real life and business experience. And they are more than tales of well-being and success. The effective mentor wants his student to be aware of the potential for dangerous miscarriages. So they readily admit to organizational evils. His stories will also provide for a critical and evaluative assessment of one’s career and organization. The most brilliant stories are open-ended, begging for the mentee to apply them to his/her own career. They are developmental tales, allowing great freedom for their hearers to imaginatively interpret them into their own life and future.

Not naive
Assuredly, the mentor’s passion is not naïve. His stories equip people to talk about their frustrations and failures, the assholes and jerks that are a part of the business world. And yes, to bitch and agonize over work problems. But they also empower mentees to care about their organization and its objectives. To understand that business is not merely a profit margin, but that it exists to provide a livelihood for its employees, its financial stakeholders and the community. In short, they are disciplined confessions in conversation on a face-to-face basis: questions, complaints, agonies, ecstasies and all.

Abraham Lincoln talked about the story passion this way: “A good story has the same effect on me that I suppose a good drink of whiskey has on an old toper (drunkard); it puts new life in me.”

(Part II to follow)
Flickr photo: The Sergeant of Randomness