The Image of Success

I've been quiet here lately due to some hectic schedules, but I have had the opportunity to do some reading so you'll see a few book reviews pop out here soon.

I'm starting with a book I really enjoyed - Lizandra Vega's "The Image of Success: Make a Great Impression and Land the Job You Want."  A long time ago, I read a book called "Dress for Success" but the copy I had was written in the last era of 70's attire.  This book reminded me of that, but was far better than I expected.

Put your best foot forward (and keep your shoes on!)

As you can tell from the title, Vega's book is focused on helping you make a great impression as a job hunter.  I was impressed with how holistic her approach is, as it covers everything from soup to nuts.  For example, you'll become educated on:

• how to market yourself;
• what to wear, and how to match your attire to the company where you're interviewing;
• how to make the most of your physical characteristics;
• how to prepare for a job interview;
• how to behave in the interview;
• how to follow up, and more.

Vega is clearly an expert in her field, having spent many years in recruiting and working as a career and image coach.  The practicality of her advice is definitely rooted in real-world experience.

The style is very clear and easy to read, and there are plenty of visual examples in each part of the book.  Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the book is Vega's collection of horror stories, which show just how much some people need this kind of help!

For example, you might be amused with stories of coffee spills, foot odor (hence the admonition to keep your shoes on), shocking remarks people make, and other interesting things she's encountered in her career.

Not looking? It's still applicable.

I'm not job hunting at the moment (I received a review copy of the book), but I still found a lot of value here to help me re-think the image I portray at work.  There are some things I can do to "up-level" my image and remove some of the rough edges for sure.  I may not do them all, but at least I'm more conscious of the areas I can improve.

If you want a full run-down, check out the table of contents from The Image of Success, or visit Lizandra Vega's web site.

Speaking The Language of Accountability

I'm trying to instill more accountability and discipline in myself, my team, etc.  Since words are important, I am trying to start by insisting on what I refer to as "The Language of Accountability."  This is about being deliberate about commitments, specific about what you're committing to, and trying to root out "squishiness" and weasel words in your commitments.

For example, use words like:

• "I own this."
• "I will complete this by <date>."
• "Here is what I will do..." or "Here is what I will deliver..." or something similar.

Simple changes like this can make a big difference.  The test is pretty simple - you can ask three questions to find out if you're using The Language:

• Do I know what I'm committing to / what is the expected outcome?
• Am I clear on who owns this item?
• Do I know when to expect it to be completed?

If the answer is no to any of these, you aren't done committing.

Don't forget to use your Spock brain

In my last post, I encouraged people to use their Kirk brain in business. Now, let's look at the flip side - engaging your Spock brain.

In many organizations I've worked with, people often make decisions using "gut feel," or based on who's complaining loudest, who's got the most compelling story, and things like that.  Guess what - there is another way.

Give me the facts

With many business decisions, you can learn a lot just by looking at what's already happened.  Gather data on the current situation, look at historical trends, and see what patterns may emerge.  This is often a good way to identify root cause of past issues, and sanity check your hypotheses for the future.

Go beyond the hype

How many times do you choose to do something because "everybody is saying x," or "I just talked to Joe, and this is a big problem," or some other seemingly compelling claim?

It is easy, particularly when you are working with someone who knows how to push the right buttons, to make decisions based on emotional pleas or drama.  While these claims may be a good indicator of where problems exist, don't just rely on "latest & loudest" to drive your actions.  Gather data, assess the situation, and determine whether you really have a good handle on the problem (both in nature and magnitude) before you jump to action.

This is also a place where it makes sense to document the evidence, rather than relying on word of mouth - as the saying goes, sometimes the story grows in the telling.  Forcing the discipline of writing down the problem, steps taken, and other aspects of the situation can serve well to take some of the emotion out of the discussion.

Sanity check (aka "Use someone else's Spock brain")

When you're too close to a problem, your perspective can deceive you.  It may be helpful to join forces with someone else who can take a more detached, objective look at the situation.  Often, they will ask questions you haven't asked, identify pattern you didn't see, or bring a different set of experiences to bear on the problem which can help you come up with new solutions.

How do you know if you aren't using your Spock brain enough?

There is not one litmus test, but some good indicators that your organization may be ignoring the facts are:

• It feels like you are making the same mistakes over and over again, which means you are ignoring data from the past;
• It feels like certain people always get their way in your organization because they know what emotional buttons to push to derail the current plan in favor of their new pet project;
• Your priorities keep getting changed based on fire drills and crises;
• You find that no matter how hard people work on fixing problems in the business, they never seem to get better.

The bottom line is that you should ensure you aren't letting the Tyranny of the Urgent, or Management by Hype cause you to do things that perpetuate the problem.  Taking a step back and using your Spock brain to look at the facts is a useful skill for any manager.

Don't forget to use your Kirk brain

If you have to communicate controversial or significant changes to your employees, chances are you spend a lot of time working through what you want to do, why you're making he decision, and so on.  Then, at some point, you communicate the changes.

But sometimes, the reception of the message isn't what you anticipated, and people respond negatively.  Why?

Spock vs. Kirk

Chances are, you used your Spock brain a lot during this process.  If you're a Star Trek fan, you know that the Spock brian is the home of logic, reason, objective thinking, and such.

Often, the key to making changes go more smoothly is to consciously engage your Kirk brain.  Again drawing from Star Trek, the Kirk brain is the domain of emotion, passion, intuition and personality.

When you plan your communications strategy, spend some time thinking through the reaction to your message - not from Spock's perspective, but from Kirk's perspective.

• How will your message be perceived by your "audience?"
• If you were hearing the message for the first time, without the benefit of the logical discussion and time to digest the details, how might you respond?
• What hard questions are likely to come up?
• And so on.

There is a good possibility you won't know the answers to these questions. After all, we don't know what we don't know.  What next?

Borrow a Kirk brain

At this point, it may be a good time to team up with a few people from your employee population who can act as 'sounding boards'  and help you anticipate where your message could have unanticipated negative effects.  If you go this route, a few things should be made clear up front:

• Before engaging in a detailed discussion, assure your sounding boards that you will take their input seriously (I'm assuming you will, of course).  In return, insist that they not undermine your message by letting it "leak."
• Make it clear that input does not equal a vote, and that there's always the possibility you will not alter your message or decisions based on the input.

During the process, be candid and open as much as you can - and this candor and openness should go both ways. Don't hold a grudge if you don't like what your sounding boards tell you (if you feel like you won't be able to do this, don't engage with sounding boards - you probably won't get positive results anyway).

There are plenty of resources out there for helping managers and companies deliver messages well and to help people through change.  But I think one of the most important resources is right there in your Kirk brain.

By the way - if this topic makes your brain hurt, take a break and (in full color) see what happens when Kirk fights Spock. And, of course, if you have thoughts, best practices, or good resources on effective communication of difficult topics to employees, please share.

Maintaining focus in a cubicle

I work in a "cube land" kind of office. In some ways, I like it. It's open, light, and I get to interact with the folks around me which makes it easy to collaborate, etc. I'm rearranging things soon so I'll be surrounded by my team, and I'm looking forward to it.

The dark side of working in this environment is that it can be very distracting - there is a fair amount of noise, it's easy to find yourself getting sucked into others' conversations, you get lots of drop in visitors, etc.

Around our office, we've had to develop tactics for dealing with this. I'll share a few of them here for two reasons:

1. You may work in a similar environment and find these tactics beneficial.
2. You may have techniques you can share that will help me.

Cut out the noise

Cutting out the noise around me is perhaps the most effective tactic to help me stay focused.  Some of the methods I use are:

• Use noise-canceling headphones. I use Bose QuietComfort headphones, which  I've had for a long time.  I originally bought them for travel.  They are fantastic, but they are so big I almost never took them on trips.  I have found them to be great for cutting out the extraneous noise in the office.
• Use a focus "soundtrack." A few years ago, I bought a CD called "Music to Enhance Concentration," and I started using it during my GTD Weekly Reviews.  It is engineered to be the right kind of music to help you focus on what you're doing, and it works really well - better than a random playlist.  I highly recommend it - I ripped it to iTunes, created a playlist, and I use it during writing, project work, inbox processing, or any other task that requires focus.  When I listen to it through my Bose headphones, it's even better.
• Use a white noise generator. At home, I sleep with a white noise generator.  At the office, I use a SleepMate white noise generator to keep the background chatter from distracting me.  I keep it under my desk where I can easily turn it on & off as I need it.  Having it under the desk also makes it less likely that it will annoy others around me who may not like white noise.  The one I use is a mechanical white noise generator, because most of the electronic ones I have tried have annoying "artifacts" in their sounds, or looping kinds of effects - mechanical ones (like the one I use in the link above) don't.

Obscure the view

If your problem is visual distraction, try to block it out.  Some ideas for doing this:

• Face away from the aisle, or away from high-traffic areas. If you face an aisel or "thoroughfare" you are more likely to get distracted by motion, make eye contact with others (which could invite "drop in" visitors), or get sidetracked.  Face toward a cubicle wall or toward a lower-traffic area to counteract this effect.
• Use a privacy screen. Sometimes, the reason you are facing high-traffic areas is because you don't want people to see what's on your computer screen.  If that's the case, a privacy filter can help.

Send signals

• Establish a protocol with people around you about when you can and can't be interrupted.  In one of the places I worked, we used big "dots" - they were circles about 6 inches across that were red on one side, green on the other.  If your dot showed the red side out, people knew you didn't want to be disturbed.  This works best if you come to an understanding within your team or in a broader group.
• Hanging up a sign can help too, such as, "Weekly Review in Progress - Do Not Disturb" or something like that.

Get a room, camp in a coffee shop, or work from home

• For really intense projects or times I need undisturbed focus, sometimes there is no substitute for getting out of the office.  This could be reserving a conference room for a couple of hours (though in our office, conference rooms are scarce); finding a local coffee shop you can camp out in for a while (be nice - buy some coffee and/or snacks); or working from home, if that is an acceptable option for you.

Shift your day

• Coming in early or staying late can help combat the hustle and bustle of your office.  You'd be surprised how productive it can be to come in even 1 hour earlier, when the office is almost empty.

Those are some of my most common techniques, and they work pretty well.  What about you - do you have other techniques that help you focus?  Drop me a note or a comment - I'd like to add to my playbook.