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Master the Hallway First, Then the Board Room
Tweet Share on Facebook July 22, 2008 Comment (90)When they were younger, my kids would tell their friends that Daddy had a boring job—he just talked with people in the hallway all day.
Guilty.
It takes real skill to master the hallway chatting experience, and here are some "takeaways" or "learnings" for future leaders (that's HR code for "here comes the advice").
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10 Mistakes Employers Make in Hiring
Tweet Share on Facebook July 21, 2008 Comment (7)I've written a lot about the mistakes job applicants make in the hiring process, but it's often no better on the employer's side. Here are the 10 biggest mistakes I see companies make when they're hiring:
1. Flakiness. They say they'll get back to you this week, and you hear nothing. The job description seems to be a work in progress that keeps changing. You're told you'll be reporting to one person and later it changes to another. You arrive for your interview with Bob and learn that you'll be meeting with Jane instead. Guess what it's going to be like to work with these people? (That said, there can be legitimate, nonworrisome reasons for any of the above. But a nonflaky company will realize that these things can look flaky and will acknowledge it and explain what's going on. What should alarm you is an absence of any awareness or concern about how this may be coming across, as it indicates it's not anything out of the ordinary for this company.)
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Courage and Discretion: Two Essential Qualities
Tweet Share on Facebook July 18, 2008 Comment (4)I've written earlier about the importance of trust, both from the standpoint of integrity and reliability. There are two qualities that bolster trust—and they deserve far more discussion than is given in the average workplace.
The first is courage. Do you have the courage to walk away from an abusive working environment, a demand for unethical behavior, or an improper relationship? Are you fearful of the consequences? That will certainly be the case if courage is involved, because courage is not the absence of fear but the control of fear. Remember the standard rule in negotiations: The side that cares the least has the most power. We see this power rule in marriages, offices, and politics. By being courageous, we have not removed fear—we've simply decided that something matters more than our fear.
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Don’t Let Fear of Failure Keep You From Success
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2008 Comment (2)Creating an energizing, inspiring life inevitably brings with it some degree of failure. Sometimes it's just a little stumble, sometimes it echoes with a resounding splat.
The important thing isn't that you've screwed up—we all do on occasion—it's what you do with the experience. You can either learn and move on, or let that failure limit your life.
In my most recent M.A.P. Maker podcast, Howard Behar (former president of Starbucks Coffee Co. and author of It's Not About the Coffee) stresses the importance of a positive mind-set. Learn from failure, try not to repeat the mistake, but ultimately accept it with a positive attitude. If you don't, he says:
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Become the Right Person for the Job
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2008 Comment (1)There is nothing worse than job hunting. OK, that's a slight exaggeration. The stomach flu on a hot day is worse, as are presidential election-year commercials. But job hunting is an unpleasant activity, so I'm going to tell you a little secret about it:
The person who is interviewing you really, really, really wants to hire you.
Well, not you, specifically. What they want is to hire the person they are interviewing right now because they can then quit interviewing people and get back to work. So, that gives you a distinct advantage—all you have to be is the right person.
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How to Screw Up a Thank-You Letter
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2008 Comment (12)An evil trend is afoot in the job-hunting universe: form thank-you letters.
Can you imagine? That's almost—not quite—worse than no thank you at all!
One, because it's sort of rude. And two, because you're giving up a primo chance to remind your potential employer why you are such a great candidate for the job.
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What to Do When the Meeting Turns Ugly
Tweet Share on Facebook July 15, 2008 Comment (1)Business meetings have a way of "going south," especially if an authority figure is not present. It is human nature to complain, even whine a little, and we are all very good at piling it on.
Someone told me once that "the more you stir it, the more it stinks," and it happens in some business meetings—they go negative and in no time at all, it does tend to stink. People are upset, no solutions are found, and what started out as problem identification becomes another episode of Chicken Little's THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING. People leave the meeting unmotivated and unsettled. What are we going to do??
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What to Do if You're Overqualified
Tweet Share on Facebook July 14, 2008 Comment (12)To job applicants, being told you're overqualified can feel like being told by a prospective date that you're too attractive. In other words, why is that a bad thing?
To understand what hiring managers mean when they say this, and how you can get around it, put yourself in the manager's head. When a manager says you're overqualified, here's what she's thinking:
- You'll be bored.
- You don't have a realistic understanding of what the position is about.
- The salary will be too low for you.
- You're just looking for any job right now, and once a better one comes along, you'll leave us.
- You'll have trouble being managed by someone less experienced than you.
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Why Too Much Information is Bad for Business
Tweet Share on Facebook July 11, 2008 Comment (2)NETMA (Nobody Ever Tells Me Anything) is a major problem in many organizations. Employees aren't briefed on activities directly related to their jobs and the rumor mill thrives because of management's lack of openness.
But what about NETMA's opposite, ETMTM (Everyone Tells Me Too Much)? Can it be that too much information creates as much anxiety as too little?
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Do What You Love, but Money Won't Necessarily Follow
Tweet Share on Facebook July 10, 2008 Comment (12)This may come as a surprise to hear from someone who makes his living helping people find passion in their careers, but I think the whole "do what you love and the money will follow" idea is completely flawed.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that passion and thriving financially are mutually exclusive. I absolutely believe that the two can go together. I would even say that passion can feed your potential to thrive.
What I am saying is that passion isn't magic. There are far too many starving artists in the world for the "do what you love" saying to hold any water. Not by itself, anyway.
