Get a Life

On Thursday I am off to India. Yes I have some business meetings there. But what I really am excited about is that I will get to see the Taj Mahal. While I do extensive traveling as a speaker and trainer in Asia as well as Europe, I have never taken the time to visit the Taj Mahal, something I have always wanted to do before.

That got me to thinking. When I was the head of Human Resources for Barneys, USA Networks and TV Guide I did a lot of business travel. I would go to someplace I had never been before, attend some meetings, often at the hotel I was staying at, have some business dinners at nice restaurants, maybe go out afterward for drinks and then as soon as my business was over I would get on the first available plane to fly home (unless as frequently happened the Chairman of my company called me earlier and had me cut my trip short)

Now whenever I go someplace on business I always make sure that I spend some time seeing and learning about wherever I am. Doing so is not only fun, it is important for your career. We learn through our experiences and business is iterative. (Look it up). You never know when the information that you learn in one setting will prove to be valuable to you in another.

When I was writing A Woman's Guide to Successful Negotiating I interviewed Jeanette Chang the Publisher for International Cosmopolitan Magazine. She told me one of the things she did that helped her become successful was to make herself more interesting. When you are more interesting people want to spend time with you. That leads to opportunities. People seek you out to work on their projects. Customers want to do business with you. colleagues spend time with you and share information. All that leads to career success. Job opportunities, promotions and salary increases follow. Jeanette suggested getting a hobby and becoming an expert in something. Her hobby is Asian art. She collects it; she travels to exotic destinations to purchase it and she has become an expert on the subject. That has made her more interesting. The result of those efforts. Well her success speaks for itself.

So take advantage of the world outside of work. Do something; learn something; travel somewhere. In short get a life. That will not only make you happier, it will also make you more successful.

Its Not Only About Doing A Good Job

In my last blog I talked about the importance of friends in moving your career forward. Your network will help provide you with information, advise and assistance. In the same way what gets you high visibility assignments and promotions is the relationships you development with the people making those decisions and your ability to let people know about your good work. The same is true about your boss. Face time with the boss is important. Find ways to build a relationship with your boss. When it comes time to handing out assignments and promotions the quality of that relationship is every bit as important as the quality of your work.

Not only is connecting with your boss important but so is keeping him or her informed of your successes. People think their bosses know what they do on a daily basis and what they have accomplished. Surprisingly most don't. Most bosses are overworked these days. If nothing is going obviously wrong they assume your doing an okay job. However, your successes often go unnoticed or may be attributed to others.

It is important therefore that you make sure that when you do something significant the right people know about it. You need to do that without seeming to be self-promoting. You can do that with matter of fact updates to the people you need to influence. E-mails allow you to do this easily and routinely. An excellent technique for making sure all the right people know about business success is to send out a note praising your subordinates for their outstanding efforts. That way you can brag all you want about the achievements and at the same time be considered to be a good boss because you are sharing the credit for your successes.

Remember if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears who cares? If you do great work and nobody knows about it, in terms of your career it is as if it did not happen.

Friends of Harry Potter

What does Harry Potter have to do with careers and why do you care? And yes I know I just wrote a blog about Harry Potter. However now that I have actually seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I can write with some knowledge about the subject. While not knowing anything about what I am talking about has never stopped me from expressing an opinion in the past, I try to limit sharing of those opinions with my closest friends who are likely to forgive me. So what does Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have to do with careers. We could talk about branding, extending your franchise, doing what you love (J.K. Rowling was fired from her job as a secretary for writing stories at work using the company computer) or persistence as keys to career success. The Harry Potter franchise that J.K. Rowling has created is an excellent example of using each of these tools to further your business goals.

What I want to talk about, however, is not the making of the movie but the moral of the story. That is not in my view that bureaucracy is the enemy of good policy although I suppose that is one theme we can deduce from the movie.

I want to focus on the real career lesson you can take from the movie-- the value of friends and mentors. After all it is Harry's friends who stick with him when everyone else thinks he is crazy or a traitor. It is his friends and mentors who support him, keep him from being expelled and save his life. He repays them repeated by teaching them and helping them when they are in danger. Early on Harry is tempted to push his friends away when he is in trouble rather than seek their help. He has to be persuaded to offer his help to them as well, feeling that he does not have sufficient expertise to offer them.

As a bright young Harvard lawyer I thought I was going to conquer the world by being smarter and harder working than everyone else. What I learned is there is always someone else who is smarter or harder working. While those qualities are important they will only take you so far.

To be successful we need to offer help to others whenever we can throughout our career, particularly to those who at the moment may seem like they have little to offer in return. We need to mentor others whenever we can. We need to build our network and help our friends without thinking about what we might get in return. If you do that they will be there for you when you need them and they will help you in ways you would not even think to ask. Most people don't understand that networking is about what you can give not what you can get.

Career success, as well as success in life, is built on the quality of your relationships. When it comes to career success it is your friends, your network and your mentors who will make all the difference. Even Harry Potter can't do it alone.

Layoffs for Employees, Dividends for Investors

So read the headline of an article recounting the quick turnaround of a recent private equity investment. Much of that quick profit came as a result of a 10% cut in the company's workforce. I spent much of the 1990s watching the LBO cycle play itself as a senior human resources executive who had the unenviable task of firing lots of people. Never an easy thing to do. However, I am not going to write about how unfair it might be to the individuals involved. It is. Most of them did their jobs, worked hard and cared about the companies they worked for. However, the world changed around them. Private equity firms merely speed up the process.

We are repeating the cycle we went through in the 90s. Thanks to ever improving technology I anticipate this trend will not only continue but will accelerate. As a result no matter how hard you work and how good you are at what you do, your job is always at risk. New boss, merger, private equity buyout- all have job ending potential.

What can you do to protect yourself. Always make sure that you keep learning new skills. Stay current on what is happening in your field and in your industry. Develop a network of friends and colleagues that you can count on. Help them whenever you can. Most importantly, always have a plan ready to find a new job. If you lose your job, and statistically that is highly likely, you need to be ready.

The good news is (and there is good news), most people who change jobs, or careers, are happier after they do so. Often they are thankful that they were laid off because it forced them to do something they were thinking about doing but were afraid to do. Okay that perspective comes with hindsight only. Getting fired is painful, scary and really, really difficult. That is why it is best to prepare for it beforehand or, if you are unhappy where you are, be proactive and find something better before you are faced with the prospect of being let go.

Let me leave you with one final thought: When I was a lawyer I never imagined ever doing anything else. For business reasons I was transferred by my firm to another city and shortly thereafter, for reasons of geography, I took an HR position with one of my clients. Surprisingly I liked that work even more. After a long career in HR at several companies, after a takeover I took some time off to write a book, teach and start a corporate training and consulting firm. Surprisingly I liked that even better and felt really good because I was helping people. Each of those transitions was not without their challenges. However, I survived and prospered, leaving me to preach what has become my basic life philosophy- "There are no limits on what we can accomplish except those we place on ourselves." Remember, from the vantage point of doing something you love the view around you is always pretty good.

Expect the Unexpected

Murphy's Law: "Whatever Can Go Wrong Will." Maybe we should rename it Miller's Law. The universe has chosen to bestow on me in equal portions-- great luck and mishaps which are completely unexpected and which no one else in the world seems to experience. When I tour giving seminars or promoting my books, I usually fly to a different city every night. Inevitably when I arrive at the airport and look at the flight board my flight and only my flight is delayed or cancelled. So whenever I am speaking I make sure there is another flight leaving after the one I book that will still allow me to make my speech even if mine is cancelled. I kid you not but I recently had to use the second flight to get to a speech in Kansas City on time.

I am in Singapore at the moment. Today I was scheduled for a telephone interview on drive time radio. I am staying with a friend and gave his telephone number to the producer. I also gave the producer my cell number as a back up. Well, lo and behold, about five minutes after the interview was suppose to begin I get a call on my cell phone from the host saying that they had to cancel my spot. When the producer tried several times to call the telephone number I had given him a woman answered each time claiming not to know who I was. Why the producer did not call my cell phone is beyond me. However, when I called my friends number, sure enough the phone sitting in front of me did not ring and some woman answered. Apparently when my friend called the phone company to find out what was going on it turns out the wires were somehow crossed.

The moral of this story is that I should have called ahead of time to make sure my friends phone was working properly. (Okay perhaps anticipating that problem might be too much even for me to anticipate.) What I really should have done, in addition to giving the producer a back up number, was to get his direct number so I could have called when the producer's call failed to come through as scheduled. That way I would have been in control of the situation.

So what does this have to do with careers? Actually everything. Few of you will have my extraordinary level of impossible to anticipate (but fortunately minor) difficulties plaguing your life. However when it comes to your career all of you will have unexpected challenges. The key is to plan for them. If you have a critical meeting that you absolutely have to be at on time, drive the route ahead of time to anticipate any problems. Leave early anyway.

More importantly, statistically most people will be terminated from a job at one time or another in their life. Ask J.K. Rowling or Mayor Bloomberg. Both were fired from their jobs before they went on to be enormously successful. Everyone needs to have a plan in case that happens. Create a job search plan and have it ready just in case. Build and nourish your network. Have some money put away in reserve. Do those things before you need them. Expect the unexpected.

The One Magic Bullet That Will Guarantee Career Success or How Harry Potter Slayed the Career Dragon

With the latest Harry Potter book and movie being released this week, I feel a need to reflect on why we are all so drawn to the idea of magic. While J. K Rowling does show that even magic doesn't eliminate the angst of being a teenager, I am reminded of a common career fantasy perpetrated by many career writers. Wouldn't it be nice if there was one magic bullet that would solve all our career problems.

Many a business or self help book has rocketed to the top of the best seller list advocating how one magic bullet will fix whatever the problem is that is holding you back in your career or that is derailing your business. Perhaps I am even guilty of this as well since I am always talking about the power of the U Perspective. But while authors can extol the value of their tools and concepts, the best of which can be very powerful, they are just that tools. Do not confuse a business tool with a magic wand. And you need more than one. Do you know any carpenters who approach a job with only one tool in his or her tool chest.

There is no one thing other than luck that can guarantee success. Hard work, brains, EQ, creativity, understanding the U perspective of the people you are dealing with, a willingness to take risk, and a little help from your friends are all are necessary to be successful. Unfortunately there is no one magic bullet. Success requires a combination of talent and hard work and all the tools you can put into your toolbox. That is one thing we should all strive for in our careers is new challenges and lifelong learning.

International Opportunities

I am doing cross cultural and virtual influencing training programs in Singapore over the next few weeks. While I was being interviewed on a business news program this morning I heard a news report about how more outsourced work is moving from India to Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and China. This got me to thinking about the enormous career opportunities available to people who are able to adapt and operate in different cultures as well as the rapidly nature of international business. It is no longer about simply understanding another culture but rather to be successful today requires learning how to understand and operate in any culture where you might find yourself doing business.

Doing business today requires understanding not only the nature of the global economy but the ability to understand and work with individuals from a variety of different cultures. I would recommend to any student interested in business, studying at least one other language and living abroad for a period of time. Opportunities to work in other countries abound. The experience gained from an international assignment is also invaluable. At some point in their career everyone should consider taking advantage of international opportunities whether that be looking for an assignment overseas or working in some form of international trade from your home country. In the future lack of that experience is likely to hold people back in a number of industries.

The key to succeeding when you are working cross culturally, however, is not only to understand another person's culture but to respect their cultural differences. Different cultures have different views of time, relationships, communication and formality. Understanding how those difference manifest themselves can help you motivate someone, with a different cultural background, to want to cooperate with you. Failure to so is a prescription for misunderstandings. So when working cross culturally try to determine the U Perspective of the people you are dealing with-- what they care about and how they see a given situation viewed through the prism of their own background and experiences. Then use that information to facilitate your working together with that individual.

The Power of Like

I am writing this from the Narita Airport in Japan. I am sitting here waiting for my connecting flight and thinking about the flight I just took. By most standards it was a pretty good flight. It left on time (almost) and arrived early. That, in and of itself, should have qualified it as a great flight. The food was good by airline standards (it was eatable). The seats were comfortable. I worked. I watched a movie. However if you asked me to rate the flight I would probably give it a C. Why? The stewardess. No she didn’t forget to serve me my meal or spill drinks on me. She was focused and efficient. She got those drinks delivered; served those meals; did her safety checks. But she wasn’t friendly. She dressed severely. No jewelry, no makeup and closely cropped hair. She answered your questions but had no time or interest in engaging in conversation. During the12 hour flight I never once saw her smile. Basically she was not very likeable. As a result she set an unpleasant tone for the whole flight.

When it come to getting the job, getting the promotion or even getting someone to help you, it is easier if they like you. We want to work with people we like. We want to do things for people that we like. So how do we get someone to like us? Spend time with them. Show interest. Do something for them. Find out what you have in common. Compliment them. Show them you like them because, in the end, we tend to like people who like us.

Emails Are Often Misunderstood

I read a study today that I thought was fascinating. Because I write and train about how to more effectively influence others the results of the study did not surprise me but the magnitude of the issue was much higher than I would have thought. In this study the recipients of the e-mails were almost 50% less likely to recognize that what was being said was being said sarcastically than when the same message was left on a voicemail. What was surprising though was that approximately 90% of the recipients believed they had properly understood the e-mail and almost 80% of the e-mailers had believed the message would be properly understood.

What does this tell us about virtual influencing or V-Fluencing which is what I call it when I teach workshops on how to be more effective where you are not dealing face to face with the individual you are seeking to influence. This skill is critical in today's global business world because the conference call, e-mail, and virtual meetings have replaced the conference room as the method of exerting influence used by most executives, and their key employees, to get business done.

So how can you be more effective V-fluencing. First chose the right medium. E-mails are best where you are seeking to convey information. Where tone is important pick up the phone or arrange to meet face to face. The more important and difficult the conversation the better it is to have in person or at least by telephone or video-conference. Moreover the better your relationship the easier it is to deal with misunderstandings so find ways to build that relationship ahead of time. One technique that works for me when I make that first call to someone I don't know, particularly in Asia where there is a 10 to 12 hour time difference, is to do it when during their morning (the middle of the night form me). That showing of respect, and consideration, is not lost on the recipient and it goes a long way toward starting the relationship off on a good footing.