A Kick In The Career: Story Time!

On his blog, business advisor Don Metznik has some great insights on how storytelling can increase a company’s ability to attract customers. Don emphasizes the value of creating a narrative not only about your product or service, but also about your business as a whole. This can be extremely compelling to your prospects.

Why not take up this challenge in your career? Craft a short story out of what you have to offer. Draw prospective employers into your experience as if they were reading a short story by Hemingway or listening to a monologue from David Sedaris.

But I would never send you into literary territory without a template. So let’s try it….

As the sun’s rays sank low over the (name of town you grew up in) horizon, my father called me in for dinner. I was engrossed in (name of childhood hobby that holds clear value as having prepared you for your current career) and did not hear him.  Weary of my impertinence, but curious about my activity, the old man stepped toward me and eyed with interest my (aforementioned hobby object). His eyes widened.

            “Well, [son or daughter],” he said, “That’s pretty darn good. You might have a career in (job you are interviewing for) some day.”

            The seasons passed as they do in the fullness of time. As father predicted, the skills evidenced by my formative experience with (aforementioned hobby) shaped my professional development, and soon, with heavy heart, I left the safety of home behind and struck out on my own, excelling at (college or university of your choice) in the field of (study area related to your early genius at aforementioned hobby), thus solidifying my capabilities for independent thinking, taking on enormous responsibility and the complicated eventuality of earning more than my parents ever did.

            At (previous employer), I began in the (mail room or some other bottom-rung position), where I patiently mastered my craft and learned how to effectively interface with even the most difficult of personalities, making me invaluable to my employer, who also became a mentor and friend and wrote the letter of recommendation you now hold in your hand. My interpersonal skills soon found me promoted to a corner office, where the sun shone through the giant panel windows, poignantly recalling the sunset in (name of town you grew up in) on the day my father first recognized the gifts I might be able to bring to the world.

            And now, as the richness of life is revealed by your kind decision to bring me in for an interview, I can see in your eyes the same encouragement and nurturing I perceived in the eyes of the only person I can confidently say was greater than you: my father. I am confident that you will also look over my shoulder and perceive the genius he once saw in me.

            What’s that? Yes, I do happen to have a Kleenex on me. Here you go….

Perhaps a little hyperbole here and there, but writing this was fun—and creating an interconnecting arc of life your experience really can help you stand out in an interview. Let them see what your story is, and chances are they’ll want to be a part of it.    

Here’s the link to Don Metznik’s blog:
http://www.metznik.com/blog/bid/71702/Two-Easy-Ways-To-Use-Storytelling-To-Strengthen-Customer-Acquisition?goback=%2Egde_82194_member_5798497008532611075#%21

A Kick In The Career: Honey, I Shrunk the Workplace

 People often ask me, “Tom, how have you managed to keep your marriage together over many years, even though you work in a high-stress, high-maintenance field? What’s your secret?”

I usually reply that I’m so busy that my spouse and I never see each other -- which works out better for both of us.

Just kidding, of course, although my wife may refute that! But really, how do we really keep workplace stress – including being “too busy” – separate from our relationships? We all bring problems home from work, and sometimes they bleed into tension between couples. The burdens of dealing with a demanding boss or a toxic co-worker can permeate the interactions of what should be a loving couple.

I have developed some strategies over the years to assist in not bringing the work home with me. Here are a few of them:

Punch the Clown. You know those inflatable clowns that sway back and forth when you pummel them? My wife and I gather in the garage after any stressful day and do a little Muhammad Ali on them together. It’s a way for us each to show our support for what the other is going through. When she’s had a stressful day and I haven’t, I will still join her in the clown socking. She does the same for me. When we picture the clown as whoever ruined our day, we can’t help but laugh -- and nothing diffuses tension like laughter. Except maybe partial nudity. But that’s for another blog.

Binge Watch Bonding. Connecting over several seasons of a great TV show is an excellent way to unwind and process feelings. The people in long form television shows are usually far more messed up and in far more trouble than any of us could ever be. Art is an interpretation of the collective human experience. You know that whoever created your favorite show has felt something like you’ve felt at one time or another. Stories of any kind usually include someone releasing emotion, so if you end up sniffling a little bit, no problem. Just don’t start thinking about Breaking Bad as a resource for role models.

Call in Sick Together. This brings all the excitement of a forbidden vacation, without all the expense and poorly circulated airplane oxygen. It’s especially rewarding if you can do it while the kids are at school. It will feel like you are back to the early days of dating again, except you won’t have to try so hard to impress each other. (But do please wear deodorant).

Take a Walk Together. Does outdoor physical activity somehow create a calming effect that puts things into perspective? Who’d have thunk it, right? Oh, and notice how every suggestion so far has involved doing things together? The last thing either of you need is a brooding spouse going all quiet in the other room. I can’t stand that spouse, especially when it’s me.

Problem Puking. When you don’t feel like getting even the slightest bit creative, just set aside time after work every day to check in and see if there are any problems to puke out at each other. No judgment, no comparison, just being a sounding board. The best part about this strategy is that some days you won’t have to do it! (And that leaves more time for binge watching.)

Work and life are always going to be butting against each other. Our sanity depends on how often we kick that butting in the butt!

Your Inner CEO: Out With The Old, In With The New

Today there’s a hunger for new breakthrough technologies in all areas of business. Apple probably did more to create this hunger than any other company, with Steve Jobs’ dramatic unveilings of new Apple products. As an entrepreneur, of course, you are the product – so you need to re-invent and re-introduce yourself on an ongoing basis.

You need to show your clients that you’re on the cutting edge. You need to make them believe it, and you need to believe it yourself as well. You have to convincingly present your understanding and mastery of change. That’s the only way to satisfy the hunger for newness that has become a principle of business success.

The US Post Office has been losing millions of dollars a year. One reason is the fact that the Post Office is locked into a certain way of doing things that simply cannot be radically changed. First class postage was a moneymaker for the post office, but what happened to first class postage when fax machines began to appear – not to mention email. The Post Office had all their distribution centers, they had trucks, and they had mail sorting, but all that became irrelevant when totally new technologies appeared.

Here’s the point. If you can offer your client new and powerful problem-solving benefits, you don’t have to compete with whoever had been the dominant player. You don’t need to be on the same playing field as the post office. You can create a whole new game with new and different rules.

Consider what happened to telecommunication systems. With all the old landlines, to succeed in that business you had to have cables and right-of-ways and all kinds of other hardware. Then somebody put a microwave tower on a hill and everything changed. Steve Jobs created the iPhone and everything changed again. These were huge leaps beyond where the old phone-system was.

Another example: the publishing industry is trapped in a 400-year-old paradigm, based on printing hard copies of books. Now an almost infinite number of electronic books can be distributed just by pushing a button. An e-book publisher can completely bypass the traditional publishing industry.

At one time the most accurate watches in the world were made in Switzerland. You needed to be extremely meticulous and spend years looking into a magnifying glass at little gears in order to make them. You had to understand everything about gears and springs to be a watch manufacturer. Then some people in Japan said, “Forget that! We’ll just put it on a quartz chip. It vibrates at an absolutely stable rate when stimulated by a tiny battery.”

The amazing part is, the Japanese didn’t invent quartz watch technology. The Swiss invented it, but they didn’t patent it. So the Japanese just put it in the chip, because the Swiss had already told them how to do it. The Swiss were so invested in the springs and gears that they couldn’t see how the time for change was here.

At one time the Swiss had 95% of the watch market. Now the Japanese own 95% of the watch market. Because the Swiss didn’t take the technology that they had invented themselves, they got beaten with their own technology.

What lessons do stories like these hold for you as the CEO of your own inner corporation? How can you create a new version of yourself that makes you attractive as an innovator? Or how can you recognize and improve upon an already existing idea, so that it becomes your own? “Out with the old, in with the new” – we should all embody this ancient principle, and we should make it seem like we just thought of it ten minutes ago.

Your Inner CEO: "Hey, what's your problem?"

An old business truism states that everyone is really a salesperson. At every moment we’re all selling something. It may be a product or service, or it may be we’re just selling ourselves.

With that principle in mind, one of the strongest principles of marketing psychology is the concept that buyers don't really buy products or services. They don’t buy special features. They don't buy innovations, and they don’t buy bells and whistles. What they do buy is the perception that a product or service (or an individual) will make their lives easier in some very practical way. They buy the solution to a problem.

For example, a flat screen television might include the feature of internet connectivity. That’s technically impressive, but it’s only meaningful if a customer has the desire to connect to the internet through his television. And it’s most meaningful if the customer has been trying to connect a TV to the internet and has been having trouble doing it. No one is going to make a purchase simply because of a positive feature. But lots of people will make a purchase if that feature relieves them from some form of pain.

It's the savings in money, time, and aggravation that the customer is really buying. A salesperson who formulates a sales proposition or product offer around those benefits will sell far more internet TV's than someone who simply offers television with internet connectivity. The goal of solution-oriented selling is to create an offer that does two things at once. It highlights what the product or service will do -- and most importantly it links those capabilities to relieving some discomfort that the buyer now has to endure.

Making this happen involves deeper levels of questioning and exploration than was expected in the past. This kind of exploration brings greater understanding of the client’s needs, and the questioning process itself builds trust, rapport, and empathy with the client. Variations of this process have been followed instinctively by highly gifted executives for many years – but now it’s really essential for everyone who wants to do well in the profession. Tools that were previously known to only a few have become prerequisites for working in the new, faster-paced environment.

Needs-sensitive communication involves not only knowing what a client’s conscious requirements are – but also revealing a whole new set of problems and solutions that the clients themselves may have been unaware of. You are now not only the provider of a product or service, but a consultant and collaborator. The role is similar to that of professionals in engineering, law, finance, and other relatively abstract areas of business. 

You may drive a taxi, but but don't think of yourself as a taxi driver. In the 21st Century, you're an urban travel consultant.

A Kick In The Career: Let’s See Your C.V.

There are lots of things you can do to improve your life. Give up fatty foods, for example, or get more exercise. Take a meditation or yoga class. (But why is the so-called downward facing dog pose so popular in the stately and dignified discipline of yoga? Not exactly a power position for the next interview.)

And there is always one thing you can do to improve your economic outlook: make sure your resume is up to snuff.  Reviewing your accomplishments can be a self-affirming experience. It can psych you up for diving into the job market.  So instead of binge watching American Horror Story when you should be trolling LinkedIn, you can make sure your resume sparkles by avoiding a few key mistakes. Here’s how:

EIGHT MISTAKES I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT MAKE ON MY RESUME 

1.     Forget to spell check. You really don’t want a prospective employer to see that you worked for the professional services firm of Delight & Tush, do you?

2.     Use a funky font. Your new maybe boss has thousands of these things to go through. The last thing he or she needs is to try and figure out how to read your name in Brush Script.

3.     Include irreverent, irrelevant personal interests. If you are applying for an aerospace job, you are within your rights to include the fact that you are a weekend pilot. But if you are applying for a job with an accounting firm, you needn’t mention your stint as Gandalf at the Renaissance Faire.

4.     Use buzzwords instead of emphasizing performance. If you increased productivity at your last job by fifty percent, say so. Nobody cares that you were “part of an aggressive, team-centered workforce.”

5.     Forget to customize your objective. That statement about wanting to carve out a niche as someone who is admired for taking on sacred cows is okay for the sales job. But when you don’t bother to change it for the job at the slaughterhouse, well, don’t blame them for being confused.

6.     Fashion a ‘clever’ standout resume. Unless you are applying for a job as a designer for a shooter game, please don’t include any DVDs with your resume. And no, your funny hanging mobile made from the logos of your last six companies will not go over well.

7.     Fail to demonstrate why they need you. If the job listing asks for one set of skills, and the key words in your resume match a total of none of them, perhaps you will be joining your friends in the shredder.

8.     Be all over the place. Your resume should demonstrate an easily identifiable progression of your job history; it should tell a compelling story in a simple way. Your employer wants to spend a few minutes with Steven Spielberg, not David Lynch.

So get out there and curriculum up your vitae. And a little yoga probably wouldn’t hurt either.   

A Kick In The Career: Hold All My Tough Calls

One of the hardest leadership qualities to develop is making the really tough calls.

Firing somebody, for example: “You’re just not working out. I don’t know what else to say except that your sucky qualities have begun to outweigh your non-sucky ones.”

Or telling someone that the heartfelt idea for improving workplace productivity is just not going to fly: “It’s great that you brought this to the table, but I’ve seen more fully-developed strategies on an ant farm.”

Or letting people know to leave their attitudes at the door: “In a perfect world, scumbags like you would not be allowed to keep their parking card.”

Those are the kind of extreme cases that develop when we’re called upon to convey difficult truths. But every day we have to face minor versions of these same situations in our daily lives. Ever had to inform a friend that he hurt your feelings? (I know, guys, the very idea is frightening. After all, it’s why men always slap each other’s backs when they hug rather than cope with the emotional vulnerability of an honest-to-goodness hug.) 

Ever had to tell kids that their plan for building the fort out of matchsticks is not quite the best-engineered idea in the world? (Or worse, watch the “waterworks” when they have to find it out for themselves?) 

What did you do in these cases? Chances are, you either found the most tactful way to express yourself, or you blew it and learned from it. Either way, interpersonal relationships are no different from work relationships. In fact, work relationships are interpersonal relationships.

 Steve Vamos is a board member and a former executive of both Apple and Microsoft. He says the best way to make the tough calls is to “take it personally.” In an interview with Smart Company, Vamos describes how he fires people himself instead of referring it to Human Resources. He goes straight into an honest explanation of what is going on. One in five employees, he says, are still upset, but the other four are grateful.

Imagine not deferring to the big anonymous corporate entity that cuts the paychecks and instead going one on one with the person most impacted by the bad news? Dang, if that catches on we’ll all be respecting each other and bringing new levels of understanding into the volatile dynamic of workplace hierarchy.

I wonder if we have the guts it takes to do that? Tough call.

Here’s a link to the interview:

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/leadership/29775-why-good-leaders-need-to-be-able-to-make-the-tough-calls-vamos.html#

Perfect Pitch: Questions

If giving compliments is the first step in rapport-building with a client, the second step is asking questions. Once again, uniqueness and originality are essential. Care about the answer to your question. Demonstrate this through your tone of voice and the expression on your face. By giving positive attention, you have a chance to get positive attention.

Ask unique questions that take some thought to answer. That’s the way to get greater connection from your client. Despite how it may seem, the person asking questions controls the direction and the flow of any conversation. Conversely, if you just start talking, you may seem to be in control – but there’s a good chance your client has simply stopped listening.

Your real purpose is to make clients know that you care about them. Even in a business conversation, people long to be heard and understood. You should genuinely want to find out as much as you can about their problems -- and especially how they perceive their problems. Because solutions to those problems are what you’re really selling.

Remember that all questions aren't equal. Some are much more effective than others – and what really defines an effective question is changing all the time. Clients today are much more aware of questions that seem to be insincere or manipulative. For instance, twenty years ago business conversations routinely included hokey phrases like these:

                “What would you say if…?”

                “What would you do if….?”

                “Would you buy today if…?”

Questions like these are thinly disguised traps for a client – but today nobody is going to fall for that. Nobody is going to be put in the position of letting you set a time limit or an agenda for their buying decisions. It’s much more effective to ask genuinely open ended questions that really show what’s on a client’s mind. Above all, you want to get the other person talking – and the more they talk, the better off you are. Some examples of open-ended questions are these:

What can you tell me about your organization?

How would you like things to be improved?

What are the barriers to making that happen?

How can we eliminate those obstacles?

Behind all these questions there’s a single insight; people want to know what you can do for them, especially by helping them solve their problems. But before you can do that, you need to know as much as possible about what their problems are. That’s why questions are so useful, and so important.  

Perfect Pitch: Compliments

                                

The basis of building rapport with a client -- or with anyone, really -- is to connect with what that interests them most. And what interests them most (of course) is themselves. Compliments are verbal tools for connecting with that self-interest in a very compelling way. But there a certain amount of skill is still required.

Everyone likes compliments but people can also be suspicious of them, especially in a business setting. If a compliment seems insincere or generic it can do more harm than good. In particular, wealthy and successful people are always getting compliments. If they’re smart, they see right through them. Even if they’re not smart, they can still get bored with an endless stream of praise.

In order to be effective with your compliments, you’ll need to make sure they satisfy two related criteria. First, they should be original, and second, they should be delivered in a way that shows sincerity and good intentions. 

If you’re in the office of a corporate CEO on the top floor of a high rise building, making a compliment about the view won’t get you very far. Probably ninety percent of the people who walk into that office say something about the view. If you’re another one, it’s a missed opportunity. 

So challenge yourself to think of something a bit more original. What else can you think of besides the view? If you’ve done preparation for the meeting, you ought to know something about your customers and their companies. Where do they come from? Where did they go to school? Has there been any positive news recently about their company in the media? 

The internet is so vast that almost everybody and everything gets mentioned somewhere. Find a way of positively referring to something you’ve learned about your customer. Just make sure you do it an informal and casual way. It shouldn’t seem like you’ve stayed up all night studying websites for this. And it shouldn’t be delivered in a stiff, mechanical way.

Keep in mind also that a really good complement should be one that you can deliver with the right tone of voice and with just the right mix of genuineness and humor. Again, remember that powerful people are suspicious of complements just as much as they like them. If you show you’re knowledgeable and excited about an area of common interest, your compliment will be unique. Then it will be a good start toward building rapport.

Giving compliments can be the first step in building rapport. The second step is asking questions. That will be the topic of my next post.

A Kick In The Career: Going Along to Get Along Cannot Go Along for Long

Gianpiero Petriglieri’s Harvard Business Review blog post about “violent politeness” is a good one.

In it, he argues that the workplace can encourage a “follow the leader” mentality, in which it is easier to go along to get along than to spark a dialogue with one’s superior: a dialogue that might inspire positive change and company growth. Of course, I agree with Mr. Petriglieri because he writes for a big, fancy blog connected to Harvard, and what am I but some lowly recruiter who better suck up to him if I know what’s good for me? (I’m kidding!)

 Petriglieri smartly points out that our most valued relationships are actually the ones in which we feel close enough to challenge an opinion. In other words, our favorite people are the ones we don’t simply agree with to avoid conflict. This must mean, then, that our bosses aren’t our favorite people, and it may be worth our while to give them—and ourselves--a bump in status by not sucking it up.

Certainly, going along to get along is a recipe for disaster in a romance. Not that I haven’t sat through my share of excruciating romantic comedies in order to have the privilege of cuddling up with my better half; and not that she hasn’t endured my endless sports-statistics conversations with my buddies in order to have the privilege of going into another room to read. (Seems like she is getting the best of both worlds here, but I’ll look into this later.)

The problem is, we often cannot see the dysfunctional patterns forming in our closest relationships, and one of the ways that couples have to cope is to go to couple’s counseling. I think it may be time to offer that same option to employees and their bosses. You know the dynamic is unhealthy, and you want to try to make it better, so you find a qualified third party to give you a safe place to express yourself.  We’ll call it “Co-workers Counseling,” for lack of a better term. Let’s imagine how a typical session might unfold:

THERAPIST: Tom, when we left off last week you were upset because you weren’t being heard.

TOM: That’s right.

BOSS: Well, how can I know he wants to be heard if he doesn’t tell me?

THERAPIST: Hold on, Boss, you will have your time to speak.

TOM: You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about. He says he wants a variety of opinions in order to make decisions for the good of the company, and then he behaves like this and wonders why I keep my opinions to myself.

BOSS: You need to toughen up a little, Tom. I’m your boss, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value your opinion.

THERAPIST: How does that make you feel, Tom?

TOM: Well, it’s a start. Do you really want to hear my opinion?

BOSS: Lay it on me.

TOM: I think the decision to downsize the recruitment department is a bad one. It will cost the company money in the long run.

BOSS: Nobody else told me this.

TOM: Nobody else is going to therapy with you.

BOSS: Well, let’s talk more about this, Tom. I’m all for not costing the company money.

THERAPIST: There, you two. How did that free exchange of ideas feel to you?

(TOM and BOSS weep openly and embrace.)

All right, so maybe going by the boss’s office and seeing people crying and hugging might not be the most comfortable fit for your workplace. But see if you can find a way to remain silent when decisions that will ultimately have an impact on you are on the table.  If you remain isolated and voiceless, it will only contribute to fatigue and dissatisfaction. To borrow another analogy from relationships: “If anyone in the conference room feels that these ideas should not be implemented, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”  Nobody ever does respond to this challenge at weddings. Except in romantic comedies. Which reminds me, I have to go watch one now.

Here is the link to the Harvard Business Review blog:  http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/why-work-is-lonely/