Entries from March 2010
I shot a video recently where my first boss said I was “a bit of a mess” out of college. Some people have asked if I was offended by that statement and the answer is absolutely not. For starters, it’s the truth, but – more importantly – if I hadn’t been such a disaster when I entered the workforce, I probably wouldn’t have discovered the path I’m on now.
If you’re curious, here are just a few of my rookie mistakes:
• I wore blazers over tube tops in the office… and thought I was being chic.
• I showed up late.
• When I did arrive, sometimes I had wet hair and/or no make-up.
• I turned in work plans in French Script font.
• I hung out with an office smoker and accompanied her on “breaks” that lasted 15-20 minutes at a time.
Sad, I know, but here’s the catch. I was lucky enough to have a great mentor who saw potential in me and took the time to help me become a better, more polished professional. One of the biggest lessons I learned from him at the time was the art of “Gene Kelly Dance Steps.”
You may not know who Gene Kelly is but, suffice it to say that in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Kelly was considered the best dancer in the business. However, he wasn’t actually the best dancer. Others in the industry were more naturally gifted, but Kelly stood out because he was a tireless student of “the incremental edge.”
The incremental edge is a series of seemingly “little” things that build up over time to make someone outstanding at what they do. For Gene Kelly, it was the perfect crease of his pants, a signature tip of the hat, a “look” to the camera, etc. that added up to make his dancing appear effortless.
As a young professional, my career really turned a corner once I picked up the art of Gene Kelly Dance Steps. I obviously wasn’t tipping any hats in the office, but I did begin to:
• Send handwritten thank you notes
• Keep a pristine work space
• Dress like someone with a future at my company
• Turn in assignments early
• Adopt a new, professional-looking font choice
• Extend small courtesies to coworkers, e.g. offer a favorite caramel latte, refill the copy paper, knock before barging in, stand when being introduced, etc.
None of these actions – if taken alone – would have done much to improve my negative personal brand at the time but, collectively, they were very powerful in overcoming the initial perception that I wasn’t taking my career very seriously. And that’s the point of the incremental edge. It’s not about grand, sweeping gestures. It’s little things that, when taken together, equal big success.
(This article was orginally written as a guest post for the Personal Branding Blog.)
Categories: Etiquette · Gene Kelly Dance Steps · Professional Development · Professionalism
Tagged: Career, Careers, Emily Bennington, executive, First Impressions, Gene Kelly Dance Steps, Likability, newbie, professional, Professional Development, Professionalism, workforce
Question: How many jobs in your life have you hunted down like a heat-seeking missile… and how many have just “fallen in your lap?”
Think about the one you hold now. Would you consider it your calling or, at least, a good step on the road to your true passion? We talk a lot about “dream jobs”, but how many of us are actually living ours?
My guess is…not many.
Perhaps part of the problem is that we’ve all been taught that work and play are supposed to be separate. You “work hard” so that you can “play hard” and there’s really not much grey area in between.
To me, this is bullocks.
I prefer to work on purpose. In other words, I do work that I love because it’s part of who I am. I plan my career proactively, rather than simply react to opportunities as they become available. What drives me from within is that I NEVER (ever) want to be the person who – when asked “How are you?”on the elevator at work – sighs “I’m here”, or “Well, at least it’s Friday.”
BLAH! Who wants to live like that? Obviously no one, so the head-smacking question is, “Why do we?” Note: I’m NOT saying that everyone should quit their day job and run out to live their passion. I reject the notion that only entrepreneurs are professionally fulfilled and know plenty of happy employees who work for others.
What I am saying, however, is that life is too short to moan in an elevator and write off eight hours of your life (again) as payment for two hours of fun. So here’s the drill: If your job makes you miserable, find something else. If you’re secretly harboring a career goal, work like hell to make it happen. If you have no idea what type of job would truly make you happy, take some action to figure it out. It’s okay if you don’t have the 10-year plan in place – but it’s NOT okay to wallow in flux. Be intentional about your life. It’s the only one you have.
Note: This is Part 16 in a series called the “2010 Career Challenge: Becoming a Rock Star from A to Z” by Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, co-authors of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.
Categories: A - Z Career Challenge · Career Planning · Focus · Goals · Professional Development
Tagged: Career, Careers, Emily Bennington, executive, Goal Setting, Leadership, new graduate, newbie, professional, Professional Development, Professionalism, Purpose, workforce
By Skip Lineberg
Ownership? How could that possibly be advice suited for a young professional? After all, in the truest sense, a new employee is about as far removed from company ownership as Topeka, Kansas is from the Adriatic Sea.
Actually, ownership is crucial. If you want to get noticed and move up the corporate ladder, you need to begin to take ownership of your assignments at work. If that still sounds like fluff, perhaps you should look a little deeper into the topic. Anyone, regardless of rank or title, can think and act like an owner. The great news is that it’s not hard to do…and you can put this lesson into practice immediately.
Case in point. You are asked to develop a guest list for an upcoming customer outing. Your boss gives you the assignment via email and tosses a half-dozen random contact lists on your desk. You could:
a) Label it as “yet another lowly, busy-work project that’s beneath me” and begin sulking. Remember, of course, to text your best friend about how your job is on a bullet train to downtown Nowheresville.
b) Go visit Trudy up in the administrative office and see if you can slough the assignment off to her. Heck, she seems to have tons of free time.
c) Decide to own this assignment and set your mind to “knock this one out of the park.” You look beyond the initial task, resolving to establish yourself as a driving force behind the best customer outing the company has ever conducted. With a sense of optimism and purpose, you happily delve into the work.
Without question, ownership begins with a mindset. It involves accepting the work, seeing the bigger picture, and cherishing the opportunity–regardless of the task. But there are plenty of ways to carry out that philosophy. Following are a few demonstrable ways of putting your ownership outlook into action:
- Express gratitude for the assignment (but don’t go overboard, here)
- Adopt and maintain a positive, helpful attitude (crucial yet, sadly, becoming ever more scarce)
- Ask questions. Turn the assignment into an occasion for face time with your supervisor. Request a 10-minute meeting where you can ask questions to learn more about your assignment and to understand where and how it may fit into the bigger picture. (Note: This shows vision and accountability on your part)
- Report back to your boss with progress updates (weekly is best)
- Beat your deadline. Turn your work in a day early. If you weren’t given a deadline, be proactive and ask when your part of the work is due–and to whom should it be delivered.
Postscript and personal side-bar story: Technically, I am part-owner of a company. Around our office, the kitchen/break room is an important place. It’s where we gather, a place where bonding occurs, stories are told, and folks come to rejuvenate. Invariably, once or twice a week, I find a sink full of dirty dishes, and a full dishwasher. Instead of cursing the situation and calling for someone to “come and handle this mess,” I roll up my sleeves, unload the dishwasher and transfer the dishes from the sink. It’s a trivial, unglamorous, often-messy job that I have come to embrace. In my mind, it’s a chance for me to do my part, to take ownership of the situation, and to demonstrate to my colleagues that no job is beneath me.
Do you have the same outlook?
Note: This is Part 15 in a series called the “2010 Career Challenge: Becoming a Rock Star from A to Z” by Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, co-authors of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.
Categories: A - Z Career Challenge · Focus · Professional Development
Tagged: professional, executive, new graduate, Career, newbie, Careers, Professional Development, workforce, Leadership, Professionalism, Effective Immediately, Skip Lineberg, ownership, attitude, get noticed at work, stand out, move up
I’m reading David Plouffe’s book The Audacity to Win. If you haven’t read it yet, Plouffe was Obama’s campaign manager in his race to the White House, and the book is a fascinating chronicle of the journey. While I still have a few chapters left (I think I know how it ends), I’ve read enough to know the book is a must for anyone in hot pursuit of a BHAG, or big hairy audacious goal. For me, it was another reminder of the supreme power of focus. But not just any kind of focus. The burn-all-your-ships kind that Gary Vaynerchuk says you “bleed out of your f-ing eyeballs.”
There are many lessons in The Audacity to Win that are applicable well beyond (and regardless of) politics, but there’s one in particular that stuck with me. At the beginning of the campaign, when the Democratic nomination was expected to be a shoo-in for Hillary Clinton, the Obama team decided that Iowa was a make-or-break caucus. They literally threw everything into victory there, figuring that losing the state early in the game would be an insurmountable defeat.
That’s the background, but here’s the point: Once the strategy became “Iowa or bust”, Obama’s staff became laser-focused and coordinated. Plouffe would begin every meeting, every conference call, and presumably every email with one question: What have you done today to win Iowa? Sure enough, they won the state and….well…we all know what happens next.
I’ve written a lot about the discovery of your personal brand. This is because you have to know what you’re about before you can even think about successfully taking action. However, once you have it down, it’s up to you to “bleed out your f-ing eyeballs” to achieve your goals. So today, and every day, think about what you want more than anything else. Think about your personal “Iowa”, then get up in the morning (and go to bed at night) asking yourself what you’ve done that day to win it.
(This article was orginally written as a guest post for the Personal Branding Blog.)
Categories: Book Reviews · Focus · Goals
Tagged: BHAG, Careers, David Plouffe, Emily Bennington, Focus, Gary Vaynerchuk, Goal Setting, Hillary Clinton, Iowa Caucus, Leadership, new graduate, newbie, Obama, professional, Professional Development, The Audacity to Win
No one wants to be a nuisance at work. However, the problem is that sometimes we don’t even know when we’re doing it. So, in the spirit of workplace harmony, I present a top ten list of totally annoying workplace behaviors. If you recognize yourself in any of these, cease and desist immediately.
10.) Speaking loudly on the phone. (Errr…guilty.)
9.) Playing music. (Even if colleagues are too polite to say so, yes, your music is bothering them.)
8.) Not answering the phone, i.e. if you work in a small business and share responsibility for this.
7.) Sneaking off with the last cup of coffee without making a new pot.
6.) Eating food that isn’t yours. (Personally, I’m also mildly annoyed by Activia and the like in the company fridge. Seriously, that’s just way too much information that I really don’t care to know.)
5.) Continuing to wax on about nothing while colleagues are giving you the “I’m busy” nonverbals, e.g. staring that their computer, checking the clock, typing, looking at their phone, etc.
4.) Gossiping about coworkers and / or spilling unnecessary drama about your own personal life. If you’re looking for a quick way to make colleagues uncomfortable, look no further.
3.) Complaining all the time about how busy you are or, equally as bad, trying to “look” busy so no one will assign you more work.
2.) Missing deadlines. When you miss a deadline, there’s usually a ripple effect that spreads through a project, endangering its overall success – and really annoying your colleagues.
1.) Poor attitude. The best managers know to “hire for attitude and train for skill.” That’s because inherently positive people do more to improve and enhance a work environment than even those who are the most technically gifted.
There you have it. This is our top ten list of annoying behaviors. What’s at the top of your list?
Note: This is Part 14 in a series called the “2010 Career Challenge: Becoming a Rock Star from A to Z” by Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, co-authors of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.
Categories: A - Z Career Challenge
Tagged: Career, Careers, Emily Bennington, executive, new graduate, newbie, professional, Professional Development, workforce
How well do you know your personal brand? If you can’t sum it up in a sentence, my guess is that you don’t know it well enough.
Yes, I understand this is difficult.
It’s so tough, in fact, that most people spend a lifetime searching for what they’re “about”, but never quite get it defined enough to take action. If this describes you, I can guarantee you one thing: You will never live up to your highest potential. Instead, your days will turn into weeks that turn into months with no real momentum in your career. Sure, you may move up. You may even be excellent at what you do. But the difference is that you will always be reacting to the events in your life. A clear vision statement, however, will put you in charge of your future – and trying to succeed without one is like aiming at no target.
If you need proof of the awesome power in concrete goals and vision, look no further than the winter Olympics. Everyone knows the mental conditioning of Olympians is legendary… but it’s not a mystery. In the words of Stephen Covey, champion athletes simply begin with the end in mind.
Every day, and sometimes multiple times a day, they picture themselves standing at the top of the podium bending over to receive their medal. They hear the thunderous applause. They see the faces of their proud parents. They can feel the gold in their hands. Then, they back up to their race itself. The focus before the buzzer goes off. The view from the track. The smell of the stadium, the ice rink, etc. Then, they back up to the training. The hours of practice required. The diet that will give them an edge, and so on. Olympic champions eat, sleep, and breathe the image of a gold medal – but – it’s not just any medal…it’s their medal.
Do you have this kind of focus?
If not, you’ll need to do some soul searching to discover your calling. To get started, it may help to read Chad Levitt’s post “49 Personal Branding Questions to Ask Yourself” on The Personal Branding Blog. If you can respond to even half of them, you’re well on your way to developing your personal vision. On the other hand, if you already know what you want – congratulations – you’re almost there. Now, you just need to hone in your statement. Here’s mine:
Bestselling college-to-career expert with a focus on advancing the leadership skills of young women in the workplace.
“Bestselling” summarizes the goal for my books, “college-to-career” is my field, and “advancing the leadership skills of young women” is my niche. Everything I do is measured against whether it improves my position in these areas. If it doesn’t, I don’t do it. Simple as that.
This is my finish line and, as you continue on your own personal branding journey, be sure you know where yours is as well…and exactly how it will feel when you get the gold medal.
Categories: Career Planning · Goals · Professional Development
Tagged: Career, Careers, Emily Bennington, Goal Setting, new graduate, newbie, professional, Professional Development, Professionalism, Stephen Covey, Winter Olympics
By Skip Lineberg
If you want to get ahead … to accelerate your success … you can:
Work harder (we’ve all tried that);
Suck up to an influential (but that’s rather pathetic, isn’t it);
Get smarter (take a training seminar or get an advanced degree); or
Hope for a lucky break.
But there is also another way.
Find a mentor!
In the workplace, we’re surrounded by many types of people, from co-workers and team leaders to supervisors and managers. Some of them have an interest in your success, and others…not so much. After all, they have their own self-interests, problems, challenges and priorities too.
A mentor, on the other hand, is someone who has taken a direct, unselfish interest in your success. A mentor is an advisor, one who shares wisdom and teachings. They are critical partners in your development and, most importantly, they can help you unlock your true potential.
Few would dispute the fact that having a mentor is a great thing, a blessing indeed. But–alas–how to find one?
Obviously, it’s not easy. It is partly dependent upon good fortune and good timing. Since you can’t force someone to become your mentor, it has to occur somewhat organically. (Many well-intentioned companies have tried to create “mentor initiatives” that ultimately fail because, in short, people either click or they don’t.)
So what can you, as a young professional, do to create the right conditions to attract a mentor? Without question, this is a rich and deep topic, but here are two tangible pieces of advice:
Be Prepared. Arm yourself with the understanding that beginning a relationship with a mentor is an investment. You will need to devote the extra time and energy to become actively engaged with your mentor, and don’t expect them to always initiate the communication or the learning environment. Be ready to put forth questions and topics for exploration, and be ready to respond to information, questions and references sent your way. Most mentors want inquisitive, energetic mentees, so come in to the relationship demonstrating energy and a true desire to learn and improve.
Activate Your Sensors. Begin thinking about potential mentors and know what to look for. Seek out those who meet the following criteria:
- Helpful, giving nature and generous spirit
- Good communicator
- Demonstrated willingness to teach others
- Genuine interest in others
- Authentic kindness
- Easily approachable
- Possesses the experience, skills, and smarts you’re looking to develop
The book Emily and I wrote sprung directly from our shared experiences and learning as mentor (yours truly) and protégé – turned – successful young professional (Emily). Not all of you will be lucky enough to develop a relationship that spans more than a decade but, I think we’re proof of how rewarding it can be when you do.
Note: This is Part 13 in a series called the “2010 Career Challenge: Becoming a Rock Star from A to Z” by Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, co-authors of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.
Categories: A - Z Career Challenge · Effective Immediately · Mentoring · Professional Development · Rise of the Newbie
Tagged: Effective Immediately, Emily Bennington, finding a mentor, keys to success, mentor, Mentoring, Skip Lineberg
Will Rogers once said that even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this quote and what it means, both for me at this stage in my life, and for you as a young professional. The background here is that I’ve taken a big leap and hired a career coach.
It was quite an investment and one that I didn’t enter into lightly.
Why does a self-proclaimed “career expert” need a career coach? The answer is that I still have a lot of the other “l” to do, i.e. learning, and I don’t believe you can learn (all the time at least) in a vacuum.
Yes, you can read the books, the articles, the blogs – and you can follow the right people on Twitter in an effort to absorb what makes them tick in 140 characters or less. That said, you can also recognize your own limitations and – assuming they provide the service – hire the best minds in your industry to teach you.
I was inspired to make this leap myself while watching the winter Olympics. Night after night, I would observe athletes and their trainers prepare to compete and it made me wonder, “Who is my trainer?”
(((Silence.)))
In an ideal world, we would all have great mentors who help us craft the vision of our highest possible self –then hold us accountable to achieve it. But we all know that true mentors are endangered species these days so if you don’t have someone in your life right now filling that role, take a leap and seek them out – even if you have to pay for the privilege. This doesn’t have to be one-on-one coaching. It could be attending a conference, a trade show, a workshop, retreat, etc. – anything that gives you access to someone who’s been where you want to go and can show you the ropes. Note: Don’t pay for services from people who claim they can tell you how to accomplish your goals if they haven’t been there themselves. In other words, if you’re seeking advice on how to become a successful entrepreneur in your field, it’s a bad idea to hire someone you’ve never heard of.
However, if you’re truly stuck and looking for answers to big career questions, maybe it’s time to “find a trainer” too. To get started, simply read your industry’s trade magazines, websites, blogs and Twitter feeds. When you hone in on someone you think you can learn a lot from, sit back and follow them for a while. If you like what you see / read, again take a leap and reach out.
Alternatively, you can stay in one place and get run over. Your choice.
Note: This is Part 12 in a series called the “2010 Career Challenge: Becoming a Rock Star from A to Z” by Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, co-authors of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.
Categories: A - Z Career Challenge · Career Planning · Goals · Professional Development
Tagged: Career, Careers, Emily Bennington, Focus, Goal Setting, new graduate, newbie, Professional Development, workforce
I shot a video recently where my first boss said I was “a bit of a mess” out of college. Some people have asked if I was offended by that statement and the answer is absolutely not. For starters, it’s the truth, but – more importantly – if I hadn’t been such a disaster when I entered the workforce, I probably wouldn’t have discovered the path I’m on now.
