Dan Erwin

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

Getting Newcomers Up to Speed Quickly

As the economy begins to loosen up, more and more companies are looking for new hires. And more employees are looking to leave that old job and find a better company for their future. On average, Americans will change jobs 10 times between the ages of 18 and 37. Furthermore, with the constant state of internal restructuring, managers are being continually pushed to assimilate waves of employees. 

The key question for new employees as well as for their new company is how to transform a new hire into a productive employee. 

In a cool piece of research, Rob Cross, Salvatore Parise and Keith Rollag studied that important question. The challenges are tough. From jump-starting productivity and tapping into the new hire’s creativity to keeping them long enough to justify their training. Of course, it’s the first few months that are especially critical for new hire since the probability of quitting reaches a peak at around 18 months.   

To figure out how to overcome those challenges, Cross and his colleagues interviewed both the newcomers and their managers at a number of companies. But they didn’t stop with the usual interview approach. Instead, using social network analysis, they explored the patterns of collaboration and information flow between the newcomers and managers. 

Initial training typically focuses on the organizational culture and the person’s job. This provides the newcomer with a smorgasbord of information about company routines and technologies. However, if you’ve been through that route very often, inevitably you’ve found yourself needing far more and spending a great deal of time trying to find that information. Research outside this study has found that many, if not most newcomers stop with the info about company routines and technologies, either incapable of or unaware of the importance of the network to their success. In short, they know what they want, but aren’t certain how to get that information. 

Cross and his colleagues' research is especially seminal in that it takes a far more holistic approach to assimilation and deals with all the issues. Instead, their research finds that the single most important step for getting a person up to speed quickly is relational. 

But, changing from an informational approach about the job and the company culture to a relational approach is not a simple matter. Instead of asking themselves, “What does my new hire need to know?” they have to ask, “Who does my newcomer need to know?” This will then help them focus on generating a strategic list of key experts and information providers with whom the newcomer needs to meet. From this they can then structure the necessary interactions into the new hire’s assimilation process. 

What’s fascinating about the process is that although it requires a different kind of mental and action effort, it doesn’t require any more time than the old informational approach. Of course, if newcomers can be introduced to a set of coworker relationships, they’ll have far less need to approach their own bosses for information. 

But what if your company doesn’t provide this for you? My clients and colleagues have found it especially useful to ask the relational question themselves and gain the assistance of bosses and others in building their relationship.  It’s as simple as “who do I need to know for my job success?” and “will you introduce them to me?” 

Photo by Flickr: jannetajeda

Passing the Books, But Holding the Oil

I spent a morning hour trying to organize my thinking about Fareed Zakaria’s ground-breaking work, The Post-American World and its direct relation to Sunday’s Tom Friedman’s column, Pass the books. Hold the oil. 

Friedman’s column was eye-catching, well-crafted and exceedingly relevant.  But a quote near the end of the column, by K. R. Sridhar, the founder of the Silicon Valley fuel-cell company, Bloom Energy, stopped me in my tracks:

When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.

Zakaria makes the point that countries with significant oil resources tend not to diversify and not to create jobs outside the oil industry. The long-term result, of course, is that unemployment in those countries is a terrific problem inevitably resulting in huge inequalities and social unrest. The pragmatic monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, buy off the population with their wealth. That, of course, will eventually come to an end. So rather than oil resources becoming an advantage, they will become an eventual disadvantage.  

Friedman follows Zakaria’s thesis, making it immensely relevant by focusing on two nations that have no significant resources, but became very resourceful: Taiwan and Israel. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams test math, science and reading skills of 15 year-olds in 65 countries every two years. And, uniquely, it compares the kids’ results with total earnings on natural resources as a percentage of GDP.  In short, “how well do your high school kids do on math compared with how much oil you pump or how many diamonds you dig?” Obviously, these are correlations not causations. But they are damned significant correlations.

The results indicate a significant negative relationship between money extracted from natural resources and the knowledge and skills of their high school population. Israel and Taiwan, along with several other nations lacking natural resources, but high in educational resources, enjoy a standard living most of the oil-rich countries of Arabia are unable to offer.  That’s why, says Friedman, that the foreign countries with the most companies listed on the Nasdaq are Israel, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Singapore—none of which can live off natural resources. So the CEO of Bloom Energy has got it right. When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.

The summary is telling:

Among the 34 OECD countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 23rd in mathematics.

The U.S. fell particularly short in the share of students achieving the highest level of math performance. Only 2 percent of U.S. students reached the top rung. By comparison, more than 4 percent of students in Canada, Finland, Korea and eight other OECD countries attained that level—as did 11 percent of the Hong Kong students and 27 percent of the Shanghai pupils. (Conversation with Lori Taylor, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas) 

Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the PISA exams says that knowledge and skills have become the global currency of the 21^st century, not natural resources. But, he goes on, there is no central bank that prints this currency. So, Israel and Taiwan are printing a lot of their own currency. It’s great to have oil and gas, because they can buy jobs. But over the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning, they’ll weaken your society. Exactly the point that Zakaria makes. Looks like the good old US has got some work to do.   

Flickr photo: Audubon Images

The Authenticity and Effectiveness of Flattery

To a shocking degree, mentors and the training folk fail to develop the exceptionally important practice of ingratiation, pejoratively known as “brown-nosing,” for their trainees. A surprising number of people believe you should keep your head down, your nose clean and take what life throws at you. Yet the truth of the matter is that the world is sometimes not a very nice or fair place, and you’ll pay for that naiveté.

In a recent blog on managing up, How to "wow' your boss, I noted that ingratiation was one of the key strategies for managing up. Because of a number of emails regarding my post, I’ve decided to enlarge on the subject of ingratiation.

Indeed, studies show the unwillingness to engage in ingratiation, the term researchers use for flattery, sucking-up, brown-nosing and a host of other expletives as a motivational inducement, often results in career and life failure. Acting like everyone gets what he deserves is liable to mean that you’ll miss out on an awful lot: work satisfaction, gaining more favorable evaluations, better leadership opportunities, personal motivation, and even more tips if you’re a hair stylist or waiter. Of course, there are a number of possible reasons for this failure, the most obvious being sheer ignorance and forgetfulness. The traditional adage has a lot of believers: “He gets paid for this. Why should I compliment him?” Even more look down their nose at ingratiation, viewing it as inappropriate and beneath their dignity, questioning its ethical foundation.

Ingratiation, the ultimate art of emotional intelligence, is to become more attractive and favorable to another by deliberate communication strategies. Surprisingly, the psychological findings are that if you fail to use this interpersonal tool, you are not only limiting your own power base and overall career and life success, but also inhibiting the achievements of its recipients. So brown-nosing is not only good for you, it’s also extremely good for its targets.

Why does ingratiation work?
Research, dating back as far as 1963, has found three explanations for the effectiveness of ingratiation. Ingratiation tends to increase liking. As my readers know, the joint powers of liking and competency are the single most important characteristics in the persuasion toolkit. Likable people who are also competent have a lock on the rewards of career and life.

Ingratiation can also create a strong sense of similarity. Studies show that perceived similarity between people, what rhetoricians call mutual identity, is a door-opener for effective communication and persuasion. Most any effective salesperson, walking into a client’s office, searches immediately for similar interests to grease the conversation. Similarities are not only ice-breakers, but also relationship-builders.

Research reveals that positive labeling of a person, otherwise known as stereotyping, can result in significantly positive consequences. We know that negative stereotypes, like thief, sex deviant, card shark, or cheat, affect the self-concept and behavior of a person. But a study at Yale, by Robert Kraut, was designed to test whether ingratiating with (positive) stereotypes or labels can also lead to a change in self-concept. Specifically, Kraut wanted to find out whether labeling a person as charitable and generous had a stronger impact than negative labeling as a “noncontributory.” He found that positive stereotyping caused more powerful results, even, than the negative. So flattery produces changes in the target’s self-concept that, in turn, lead to changes in the target’s behavior. In short, flatter a person regarding a positive behavior, and the person will not only live up to the flattery, but give you more.

Three categories of ingratiation
The original studies of ingratiation by Edward Jones (1963) identified three basic types or categories of flattery. They are reflected by the psychological research on ingratiation. The first and most obvious category is paying compliments. “I have a lot of admiration for your leadership skills. You really get the job done.” A derivative of this category is having a third party deliver the compliment. “Dan thinks your leadership skills are just what this firm needs.”

The second form of flattery is opinion conformity. This involves agreeing with the target’s statement, ideas, and views. A variation of this technique is to initially disagree, then yield, creating the impression that the target has changed your mind. “You know, although at first I rejected your solution to that problem, I’ve decided you’re really correct.”

The third category involves good, old-fashioned bragging, talking about one’s own expertise or experience to influence another’s evaluation of oneself. The first two categories focus the flattery on the target directly, for the purpose of gaining power with that target. In contrast, the third category increases liking and respect by focusing on oneself. One of my best friends, a well-placed clergyman, commented to me last summer that he didn’t mean to be name-dropping. Ha! But while on vacation in London last Spring, he “spent three hours in a private conversation with Prince Charles.” Now that’s how to push the envelope on gaining personal favor by name-dropping. Though most would not view bragging or name-dropping as a form of brown-nosing, it’s clearly a means of gaining favorable acceptance from the other, the very heart of ingratiation.

So you don’t like to use flattery?
Is ingratiation an unethical influence strategy? Only if the ingratiator believes the flattery or positive social labels used are false. If the ingratiator believes in the praise he is offering, there’s no ethical problem in focusing on the positive side of things. Ingratiation is a highly sophisticated form of street smarts. Yeah, I know. Everyone claims to hate brownnosers--unless the brownnosing is directed at them.

But, a lot more than ordinary business skills are necessary to get ahead in today’s highly competitive workplace. Indeed, it’s often necessary to bend the rules of fair play or ignore them completely if you want to succeed. Complain all you want about the lack of justice, but it’s inevitable that you’re going to have to be vigilant and proactive to ensure your own success.

Indeed, contrary to conventional wisdom, hard work and high performance won’t guarantee a promotion or even career success. In his latest book, Power, Jeff Pfeffer warns of the weak link between job performance and career outcomes. Indeed, systematic research reveals that job performance doesn’t guarantee you a promotion. High performance may actually hurt you because your boss wants to keep you in your high-performing role. Furthermore, high performance may not even be that important for keeping your job. In sum, high performance doesn’t do much for your career or for job security. You’re going to have to do something else. And that something else is to make your bosses feel better about themselves by apple-polishing.

So, ingratiation is an important skill in the toolkit for career success. Although it takes time and practice to become astute in its use, ingratiation is a means of persuasion, a motivational inducement that can significantly modify a person’s feelings, moods and emotions. It can be a highly successful tool for jump starting your boss’ drive to support you and your career. It is performance, coupled with the political skill of ingratiation, which will help you rise through the ranks.

Flickr photo: lyk3 On3 tym3

Why Job Search is Like Throwing Darts at a Target with Your Eyes Closed

Job seekers submit hundreds of applications online, but with little hope of receiving a response. The flip side of that, as a Wharton survey shows, is that blunt-edged tracking systems instantly weed out candidates, including well-qualified ones who don’t fit the software criteria. The process is frustrating for both human resources and the job seeker.

A “broken” process from the very beginning
Applicant-tracking software makes it almost impossible for a job candidate to stand out in the initial screening. And companies have become a victim of their success in using social media tools. For the candidate, problems with the hiring process are not new, dating from the 1970s and 1980s. Three-fourths of companies didn’t inform applicants whether a position was filled 40 years ago and still don’t today. Sure, there are strong legal limitations on what companies can say about why a person doesn’t get a job. But, as Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads says, if large companies continue to treat applicants poorly, then the best might spurn them as well.

Hiring always involves a bit of luck, even for the best companies
A recent Wall Street Journal article revealed that 7.6 million people applied to Starbucks for 65,000 corporate and retail positions last year. And nearly 1 million people applied to P & G for 2,000 positions, while 2 million applied to Google for 7,000 openings. Drill down into that candidate list and you see what big companies face: only 35% of the applicants met the basic requirements of the job they applied for. 

The other worrisome difficulty for firms is that the “formulaic hiring” of software can result in a less creative workforce. Companies relying solely on the “blunt tools” of software can unintentionally rule out candidates whose expertise might benefit the company in unanticipated ways. Companies using software that focuses too narrowly typically assume that college major provides a direct line to analyze the most useful expertise. It’s conventional, but wrongheaded. Anyone who’s studied research creativity and significant contribution knows that much of the finest contributions are at the nexus of science and the humanities. To flip the conventional gray matter switches, some of the most contributive scientists also read Proust. And, shock, some of the more effective pattern thinkers in technology, for example, are musicians and English majors. Does the software pick up on this? 

Best approaches for companies
Smart employers are beginning to make their application very, very narrow. And lengthy. And seriously differentiated from competition. That discourages the thousands of folk who ship off dozens of applications. As Wharton’s Matthew Bidwell says, “The more questions an applicant has to think carefully about, the fewer applications he or she will have time to fill out.” It’s always important for employers to pull back from the mass market and focus on canvassing “internal employees, professional networks, job contracts where you work with third parties and even customers” to find the best recruiting leads and good candidates.

Best approaches for candidates
So what’s the job-seeker to do? A lot more than scanning online sites and hitting the “submit resume” button.  Since most companies have a recruiter and a hiring manager, your application had better be compelling to the recruiter-screener. If you can’t connect with the recruiter, you certainly won’t get to talk to the hiring manger.

The experts are advising candidates to make sure their resume addresses the “skills, capabilities and values” of the company. Pay close attention to the keywords of the offering and use them. Furthermore, try to find a connection within the company. Applicants for particular jobs should see if they know anyone who works there, anyone who knows anyone who works there, or even anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who works there. A lot of jobs come out of extended networks. Take advantage of the network of the networks. That means, inevitably, that you’ll be talking to a lot of people you’ve never met. But, if you want a job . . . that’s the drill.  

Photo by Flickr: Army Strong PA

You're Probably a Member of the 1%, Even Though You Don't Know It

The U.S. middle class is incredibly wealthy by international standards. A recent, thoughtful article, appearing in the March/April Foreign Policy, by Charles Kenny, is the kind that inevitably evokes hostile comments. Follow my link, and you’ll have the sheer enjoyment of how nay-sayers position their ideas. You can count on the comments coming out at the level of “it’s my money, and I earned it.” That’s as one-sided as the Bolshevik ideas coming out of the Russian revolution in 1917. That’s not to say that both extremes don’t have a point (though only partially so) and are/were a response to their context. 

Still, as Charles Kenny argues, American inequality is out of control. My eldest and myself have been in and out of the 1% for years, so we have had something to lose in taxing the wealthy. Still, any sense of maturity demands honesty in the situation. So here are Kenny’s stats: America’s rich are really, really rich. Census data suggests that every man, woman and child in the top 1% of US households “gets about $1,500 to live on each day, every day. By contrast, the average US household is scraping by on around $55 per person per day. But the global average is about of fifth of that.” 

That’s Kenny’s context. His argument is built on current data. According to the World Bank economist, Branko Milanovic, you need to  make $34,000 to be a member of the world’s onepercenters. Furthermore, as the late Nobel Prize-winning economist, Herb Simon says: “it’s the luck of where you’re born.” Simon estimated that the benefits of living in a well-functioning economy “probably account for 90% of individual income.” 

Furthermore, political scientists Vincent Mahler, David Jesuit and Piotr Paradowski examined the benefits—from pensions to child welfare payments—that taxpayers rich and poor in Europe and the US receive. While they were at it, they should have looked at all the bennies that corporate America receives. And that doesn’t account for a range of state subsidies like colleges and universities that we all receive.

The most intriguing conclusion by Kenny, is that “countries with high levels of inequality are far more likely to fall into financial crisis and far less likely to sustain economic growth.” Of course, this is going to mean that the richest as well as the middle class are all going to have to be taxed. Whining is certainly not relevant for either the 1% or the middle 60% of America’s taxpayers.

So when you hear all this baloney about “I made mine and nobody helped me out,” what should you say? Well, remember that facts, statistics, logic and reasoning don’t work with committed tribal members. The best way to shake the argument is with emotional appeals. I usually roll my eyes, laugh out loud, and say something to the effect of, “you can’t possibly believe that.” And then you either turn away from the stupid conversation or change the subject.

That process—a classic put-down--is well-documented in my own toolkit. I’ve found, that given the subject, about 20 to 25% of those same folk will want to talk intelligently about the issue sometime later. But they bring it up and they ask the questions. So you’d better have your facts straight, or be comfortable saying you’d like to pull the data together for them. The other 75% or so are a lost cause—at least for now. They write the hostile comments on blogs that challenge their ideas with good data.

How to "Wow" Your Boss

Managing your boss and other execs isn’t just apple polishing, brown-nosing or sucking up. You need to wow your boss to get the resources to do the best job for yourself, your boss, your boss’ boss and your organization.

Your boss can either help or hinder your career: wowing him will help your career. With an effective relationship, your boss can give you all kinds of support, insight and linking to others in the organization. Actually, managing your boss is not manipulation, but forging ties based on mutual respect and understanding. Harvey  Golub, the former CEO of American Express, always told his people they needed the skills of influence management. “Wowing” your boss is nothing more than “upward influence management.” Managing your boss is so important that many of my senior clients ask me to teach their subordinates to manage them better. In short, they want their people to manage them because they can get “more done better.”

Four tips for wowing your boss.

1.      Manage your boss like he’s your client. Is he print-oriented or ear-oriented? Listener or reader? Detail-oriented or big picture-oriented. Strategy oriented or tactically-oriented? Play to his orientation when you give him information, but protect him when his orientation will get him into trouble. Decision-making styles differ significantly. If he’s highly involved, touch base frequently with him like some strategic clients who just want to be kept posted about important decisions already made.  

2.      Give your boss what he wants and needs, organizationally. Effective bosses lay out their business goals and objectives on a regular basis. Make sure you understand them clearly and that you demonstrate they’re important to you in your performance. Make your boss’ goals your priority. If they conflict with your own goals, communicate with your boss and get his help setting priorities. Don’t think you can read your boss’ mind about his organizational objectives. Ask him. Check in with him so he knows that you’re taking care of his needs. But find out how often he wants you to touch base with him.

3.      Remember what matters to your boss, personally.  Your boss’ personal life and career are just as important to him as his business objectives.  Find out his career objectives, keep him updated on related opportunities, and keep him out of trouble. Pay attention to his family and lifestyle objectives, and provide whatever resources possible for those wants and needs. You may know someone who can offer him insights for his kids’ college decisions, a unique developmental opportunity, a vacation location, or even an investment opportunity.

4.      Flatter your boss. The surest way to keep your position and build your future is to make your boss feel good about himself. As Stanford’s Jeff Pfeffer puts it, worry about the relationship you have with your boss as much as you worry about your job performance. Most people, not just the insecure, like to feel good about themselves. That means be very, very careful about criticizing your boss. If possible, get someone else to do it. Most people underestimate the value of flattery, and therefore underutilize it. The technical term is ingratiation and it has been thoroughly studied. An overall, meta-assessment of the research finds that flattery works and it works well.

Furthermore, a study by JD Watt (1993) found that ingratiators were thought by their supervisors as being more competent, more motivated, and more qualified for leadership positions than their nongratiating counterparts. Not too shabby results. But use flattery as a compliment to the other three tips, not solely. To the degree possible, be sincere. Most execs are clueless about many of their strengths—so take advantage of that weakness through the use of flattery.

I have little doubt that some, perhaps many subordinates resent that on top of all their other responsibilities, they also need to make managing their relationships with their bosses a work priority. These folk fail to realize the importance of managing their bosses, how they can simplify their jobs and build their own careers through this task. They think that if they perform well on the job their boss will take care of the rest.

In more than twenty-five years of consulting with leading American companies I’ve never met an executive who failed to make managing his boss a job priority. But I’ve met plenty of employees who failed to manage their boss, either because they don’t believe in it or don’t know how. But I never saw one of those employees become a senior manager or an executive.

Flickr.com: by Koulutus.fi