The Queen of Candor

Manage the Impressions You Create

People talk.  As simple and obvious as it is, I’m continuously surprised by how much people talk about other people, with how much depth and with what result.

Everything you do forms an impression with other people.  What you wear. What time you come to work. What time you leave.  Who your friends are and who you are seen chit chatting with at work and going to lunch with.  And it’s these little, seemingly insignificant things that can hold you back.  And very rarely will someone talk with you about them, letting you know that they are potential career limiting behaviors.   

If you finish a project late or over budget, someone will tell you.  If you wear clothing to work that is inappropriate for your office environment, very few people will tell you.  But they’ll make a mental note that you may not be the best person to send to a conference to represent the company.  Or perhaps you’re not the most appropriate person to represent your boss at meetings when s/he’s out of town.

Impressions are formed quickly.  Here are some of the tough lessons my clients working in corporate settings have learned:

Suzanne worked hard.  She came in early and stayed late.  She wanted to be promoted, but three years after being in her same job, neither her title nor her responsibilities had changed and her pay increases were the standard three to four percent.  She was frustrated.  It came out during a conversation with her boss that the Senior Vice President of business unit, her boss’s boss’s boss, thought she was a slacker.  When Suzanne heard this she was shocked.  “How’s that possible,” she asked her boss. “I manage more projects than anyone on our team.  I work harder than anyone else in our department.”  Her boss hesitated, hesitated some more and finally said, “Your cube is right outside Mike’s office and you get a lot of visitors at your desk.  He feels that each time he comes out of your office there’s someone else hanging out at your desk chit chatting. He thinks you squander your time and as a result he won’t support your promotion.”

After this conversation Suzanne came to see me. She was furious and confused.  She said, “I deliver great results.  I manage more projects than anyone in this department.  Does he not know that?  So what if I talk with friends during the day. I’m doing my job and I’m doing it well.”   

I was empathetic and understood her frustration.  And here’s what I told her:  Perceptions are everything. They’re made quickly and they’re hard to change.  Mike’s not as close to your work as your current boss is.  He doesn’t see your day-to-day results.  What he sees when he leaves his office is a different person hanging out at your desk, and every time he sees that it further reinforces his feeling that you’re not a hard worker and that you waste time socializing at work. 

You can manage what you put in front of him. 

So, what do you put in front of the people whose opinion you care about?  A tip: 

If you are a morning person and are in the office by seven a.m. and out at four p.m., make it really clear to others that you’ve been in the office since long before they arrived.  Make sure you occasionally send an email at seven.  The same goes if you’re someone who comes in late and leaves late. If you’re at your desk long after others have gone home, the only person who knows that is you.  Make it apparent to others that you work late.  The same rule applies if you’ve negotiated a work at home schedule or that you leave at five to pick up your children in exchange for working in the evenings after the kids go to bed.  You have to make it clear that you are indeed producing outside of regular work hours, and one of the beautiful things about email is that they’re date stamped.

Some of these practices may sound manipulative and contrived to you.  Log on at night and send an email so people think you’re working.  Send an email early in the morning so others won’t question your work ethic when you leave the office before five p.m.  They’re not intended to be crafty, they’re intended to make sure people know what you’re doing, because in the absence of knowledge, people fill in the gaps, and never for the better. 

Meaning, human beings have a need to be-in-the-know and understand, understand what is happening and why.  And when we don’t have the information we need, we go looking for it and at times will ‘make stuff up’ in order to understand our surroundings.  By make up I don’t mean maliciously invent, I mean extrapolate and add to.  For example, John and Sue are seen returning from lunch together twice a week for three weeks. He is seen at her desk a couple of days a week as well. You and the rest of the office assume that they’re dating.  Maybe they’re working on a project together and the only time they can meet is over lunch.  Maybe Sue is mentoring John for his next role.  But that’s not where people go; they go to the most juicy, interesting story because it is just that, the most juicy and the most interesting, and people have a need to ‘know.’ 

So, don’t make people wonder. Get there first and fill in the gaps so people don’t have to go looking for more information and ‘make stuff up.’  Manage others’ perceptions by what you put in front of them.

Shari leads The Harley Group, a Denver-based training and development firm focused on helping organizations develop and retain key talent. Shari can be reached at shari@harleygroupllc.com or http://www.shariharley.com

Know Your Reputation

You're smart. You work hard. You went to a great school. You may have even gone to graduate school. And you have a good job. You want to be promoted, but you haven't been. You've asked your boss what it will take for you to take the next step and you were told, "It's just not time yet. Keep doing what you're doing; And you do. For one year, maybe two, maybe three. And three years later you haven't been moved to a different job, or team, or project, and you don’t know why.

There is a reason you are being held in your current job. There may be several reasons, but very few people will tell you. It’s not that your boss doesn’t want you to succeed, but giving candid feedback makes most people uncomfortable; it’s easier not to say anything. And the things that are holding you back are hard for your boss and colleagues to articulate. They’re little things; it almost seems petty to even mention them to you, but they’re preventing you from getting where you want to go.

This is the first part of the Career Accelerator Series -- Taking Control of Your Career: Being Successful in Any Organization. Twice a week, over the next several weeks, I will articulate the ten things you should do to accelerate your career. And if you do these ten things you will be successful in any organization, in any industry and in any job, anywhere. This is a bold statement. You may be wondering, “Is she saying that if I do these 10 things I’ll be successful anywhere I work, regardless of the company’s culture, the job I’m in, or the economy?” Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

So tune in each week for the next tip, and accelerate your career.

Tip #1 KNOW YOUR REPUTATION

My father has been telling me my whole life not to worry what people think. “You can’t control what people think, so don’t bother trying.” He’s not wrong. People are going to make their own opinions and judgments. But we choose what we put in front of people. We choose what they see, and thus what they judge. And if we don’t know what they see, then we can’t manage their perceptions and we’re at the mercy of others’ opinions of us – of which we are usually unaware.

The only way to find out what people think of how you come across is to ask them. And know that most people won’t tell you, even when you ask. But a few will. A few courageous souls, who want to make a difference for you will tell you how you’re seen. And when they do, make it easy on them. Make the experience go down easy, like candy, so they’ll want to do it again. Giving constructive – a fancy word for negative – feedback is so hard for people, you have to make it easy for them. The right response to negative feedback is, “Thank you.” Saying “Thank you” doesn’t mean that they are right or that you agree, it means you heard them and you appreciate the risk they took in telling you. No one wants to make anyone feel badly, so they won’t tell you the things you do to damage your reputation and frustrate others, instead, they’ll tell other people.

I used to work for a woman who all too frequently used the phrase, “Feedback is a gift.” She usually said this either right before or after she verbally annihilated one of our team members. After verbally decimating one of us, she’d twitter, “Feedback is gift!” And while her positive spin on the verbal butt kicking we had just gotten was annoying, she was right.

So few people will be honest with you, when they do, it is a gift. When someone takes off the kid gloves and just tells you like it is, it’s like nothing else. It’s the most valuable thing anyone in the workplace can do for you. Because without candid feedback you’ll sit in your current job year in and year out, wondering why your career isn’t going anywhere. And eventually you’ll become frustrated and leave your company, only to quickly become pigeonholed in your next job, because the keys to being successful in business are the same everywhere, not just at your current company. And if you don’t master those things, your career will stagnate wherever you are.

If this feedback is so important, but hard to get, how do you find out how you’re seen? Find a few key people in your life who care about you and are direct. Don’t seek feedback from the person in the office who hates you, covets your job, or has an ax to grind; you get the point. Being straight is a risk; someone who cares about you might just take that risk.

How to set up a feedback-rich conversation: Approach friends, family members and colleague(s) who have had a chance to observe you in different types of settings. Tell them that you are working on understanding how others’ perceive you and that you would be very grateful if they’d give you some feedback over drinks, or lunch; you’ll buy. Tell them that whatever their feedback is, you’ll say thank you.

On the day of the meeting thank them for being willing to have a direct conversation with you and remind that that you want them to be honest and that no matter what they say, you’re only response will be “thank you.” You may have questions but will ask them to get more information, not to defend yourself.

A few questions to ask colleagues, friends, and family members:

What first impression do I create?

What am I like to work with? If they don’t work with you, ask what they think you would be like to work with.

What is my best skill?

What’s an area you think I need to develop?

What is a time I let you down?

What’s my reputation in the office or among our friends or family?

When receiving feedback, ask questions for more information and for clarification. Feel free to ask for examples if the feedback wasn’t specific enough. The best feedback includes a specific instance that you can remember or see yourself doing. And regardless of how hard it is to hear the feedback, don’t defend yourself. Remember, being honest with people and giving feedback is hard and it’s rare to find someone who will do it directly. Make feedback easy to deliver so they’ll be willing to do it again. Ask permission to follow up with them later, after you’ve had a change to think about and digest what they’ve said, if you want more information.

Once you know what people think and are saying about you, leverage the positive things and begin to work on improving the not-so-positive things. Start small, with one thing at a time. Human beings are most successful when we work on fewer than three things at a time. So pick one behavior to leverage and one to improve.

Consider going to see your boss to let him/her know that you’ve gotten some feedback, you’re working to improve in this area and you’d really appreciate their input. You’re going to catch him/her off guard, and you already know that most people aren’t comfortable giving feedback, so to set both of you up for success, try starting the conversation like this: “I’m working to improve on _________. I was wondering if you’d be willing to watch out for this behavior over the next two weeks and then perhaps we can set a time to discuss your observations. Would that be ok?” By doing this you’ve accomplished several things most people never even attempt.

You’ve demonstrated that you’re serious about and are taking action towards your professional development. You’re introspective and open to others’ input. You’ve also given some control to your boss and allowed him/her to save face, rather than putting him/her on the spot. It’s embarrassing for a supervisor to be asked a question about your performance that they can’t answer. By setting a future time to meet about your question, you give him/her a chance to be prepared for the conversation, reducing their defensiveness and increasing the likelihood that you’ll get the information you’re seeking.

Shari Harley

Shari leads The Harley Group, a Denver-based training and development firm focused on helping organizations develop and retain key talent. Shari can be reached at shari@harleygroupllc.com or http://www.shariharley.com