Handwriting analysis can help careers

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Handwriting analysis is no longer for freaks and psychics. Multinational companies hire handwriting analysts to understand personality traits of prospective job candidates. Character traits that matter during the hiring process — creativity, self-esteem, leadership, and optimism, for example — are revealed in one's handwriting.

You should learn how to analyze your co-workers' handwriting and your own to give yourself an edge at work. I have found that the basics of analysis are quick and easy to learn. Getting along with other people and knowing yourself are essential pieces to career success, and analyzing peoples' handwriting can help you speed up the process. Here are some examples:

Get along with people better
Knowing someone's personality traits is invaluable for collaborating with and motivating that person. Depending on that person to tell you his or her own traits is risky. Most people don't know themselves well enough; even focus group leaders don't bother to ask people directly what they like anymore.

Fortunately, with very little expertise, you can use handwriting to evaluate someone's dominant traits. For example, someone with a signature that leaves a lot of space between first and last names is not going to be an intimate, emotional person, so you can stop trying to forge that kind of relationship. If the first and last names overlap, that person is relationship-oriented and probably wants more than long-distance management from you.

Make better career choices
You can also use handwriting analysis to gauge your own dominant traits. Then you can figure out which career is best for the type of person you are.

For example, you can learn what sort of handwriting is appropriate for the job you aim for, and compare your own handwriting to that standard. Angular is appropriate for a programmer and inappropriate for a sales person. Perfect, schoolteacher writing reveals the need to establish order and would be a bad sign if you aspired to the freethinking required of an inventor.

Handwriting really does reflect your true self. So if you discover your penmanship does not reflect traits necessary for the career you have in mind, ask yourself if you are even in the right field.

Improve your image
Handwriting is like clothing. Your audience cannot help but evaluate your message by what it looks like. You wouldn't wear sweatpants to an important meeting, and you wouldn't wear a ball gown, either. Take the same care with your handwriting.

For example, in a note to your boss, if your letters are rigid and perfect you will project the image of someone who is anal, inflexible, and non-visionary. Fine if you are an accountant, not fine if you want to be CFO. If you scrawl a quick, barely legible note to your boss you seem to be more involved in your own ideas than in the people around you, you might project the image of an eccentric artistic genius, but if you aspire to management, write more legibly.

You also project self-esteem in your signature. I am shocked at how many people have a very tiny signature. You need no training in handwriting analysis to know that this is an expression of low self-esteem. Even if you feel like you want to disappear, force yourself to sign your name like you want people to see it.

To all you doubters, test the theory. Get a handwriting analysis book from the library. You only need to skim a few pages to get an idea of what to look for. Then take handwriting samples from people you know well and evaluate them. I bet you'll find the rules of analysis depict an accurate view of that person.

When you add handwriting analysis to your career arsenal, start out small — look at different loops and slopes and figure out what they mean. After a while, you'll find that handwriting analysis actually feels intuitive; like all good insights, once you have it it'll seem obvious, and acting on results of handwriting analysis will make as much sense to you as it does to those multinational companies.

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6 ways to improve your writing

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Almost one-third of workers do not meet the writing requirements of their positions, according to a survey by the College Board’s National Commission on Writing.

Before any of you get smug with your writing acumen, keep in mind that most workers do not need to write more than a sentence or two to get their job done. For example, I bet burger flippers are meeting their job’s writing requirements by a higher margin than one third. My guess is that at the typical email-intensive office, the percentage of less than competent writers is well above the 50% mark.

Most of the writing we do at work is in the format of an email or a presentation. In both cases, the best way to get yourself into the small percentage of competent writers is to write short. The faster and more concisely you get to your point, the more likely your reader will understand your message. Here are some self-editing tricks for writing shorter:

1. Write lists. People love reading lists. They are faster and easier to read than unformatted writing, and they are more fun. If you can’t list your ideas then you aren’t organized enough to send them to someone else.

2. Think on your own time.
Most of us think while we write. But people don’t want to read your thinking process; they want to see the final result. Find your main point in each paragraph and delete everything else. If someone is dying to know your logic, they’ll ask.

3. Keep paragraphs short.
Your idea gets lost in a paragraph that’s more than four or five lines. Two lines is the best length if you really need your reader to digest each word.

4. Write like you talk.
Each of us has the gift of rhythm when it comes to sentences, which includes a natural economy of language. But you must practice writing in order to transfer your verbal gifts to the page. Start by avoiding words you never say. For example, you would never say “in conclusion” when you are speaking to someone so don’t use it when you write.

5. Delete.
When you’re finished, you’re not finished: cut 10% of the words. I do this with every column I write. Sometimes, in fact, I realize that I can cut 25% of the words, and then my word count isn’t high enough to be a column and I have to think of more things to say. Luckily, you don’t have to write for publication, so you can celebrate if you cut more than 10%. Note: It is cheating to do this step before you really think you’re done.

6. Refuse to be boring.
Any topic can be interesting, but not if the writer is not interested. Don’t write about a topic just because you think you should – it’s unlikely your reader will feel passionate about reading when you did not feel passionate about writing. Gen Y gets this intuitively and maybe that’s why it’s so easy to hire essay-writing experts.

7. Avoid adjectives and adverbs.
The fastest way to a point is to let the facts speak for themselves. Adjectives and adverbs are your interpretation of the facts. If you present the right facts, you won’t need to throw in your interpretation. For example, you can say, “Susie’s project is going slowly.” Or you can say, “Susie’s project is behind schedule.” If you use the first sentence, you’ll have to use the second sentence, too, but the second sentence encompasses the first. So as you cut your adjectives and adverbs, you might even be able to cut all the sentences that contain them.

I just checked to see if I have modifiers in the column. I do. But I think I use them well. You will think this, too, about your own modifiers, when you go back over your writing. But I have an editor, and you don’t, and I usually use a modifier to be funny, and you do not need to be funny in professional emails. So get rid of your adverbs and adjectives, really.

Avoid telltale signs of a rube.
Passive voice. Almost no one ever speaks this way. And on top of that, when you write it you give away that you are unclear about who is doing what because the nature of the passive voice is to obscure the person taking the action. Check yourself: search for all instances of “by” in your document. If you have a noun directly after “by” then it’s passive voice. Change it.

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How to choose between passion and pay

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Everyone wants to feel passion about their job, but passion and pay do not always go hand in hand, and often they are inversely related. The trick for many of us is to figure out how to balance the love of our life with the food on our table.

Bill Hewett is the bass player for the band, the Modeles, but he does not consider himself a big risk taker when it comes to putting food on the table. So he knew he was in trouble when fire was banned from street performances on his favorite street for performing. Before that, he had been making $500 in a weekend juggling flaming rings.

“It wasn’t easy work,” he says. “I’d have to stake out my spot at 8 a.m. even though I didn’t start juggling until 6 p.m. I used to let other performers have my spot until my show began. The best juggling spot was a place a few jugglers have held for forever, and if you don’t get a big enough crowd, they hassle you for wasting their space. So my spot was at a newsstand.”

After the fire ban, his income fell and he had to supplement it by working at a grocery store. But when the juggling season ended in the fall, the salary of a bagger didn’t cut it. So he took a computer job at the New England Foundation for the Arts. Bill didn’t really have all the skills the company needed, but the company didn’t have the money to pay for the skills they needed, so it worked out well for everyone.

Barbara Reinhold, a psychologist and the head of the Career and Executive Development Program at Smith College, encounters people with the passion-pay dilemma at all levels of the workforce.

“There’s no escaping the need to do what you love as part of your paid or unpaid work,” she says. “But like so much of life, the secret is in the timing.”

And Reinhold recommends that people make money first and then follow their dreams, “as long as you’ve been careful not to grow your tastes with your income. Many people spend and spend to try to forget that the lucrative work they’re doing doesn’t really fit them. This unfortunate condition usually results in a bad case of the golden handcuffs.

“Young people who make a deal with themselves about eventually going where their hearts would lead them and live frugally can have a much easier time of it than those who forget the frugality, or those who don’t develop the skills and discipline required to make money until later in life.”

I ask Bill about the possibility of postponing his dreams of being a musician, and he says he can’t imagine not making music. “I’d do it anyway,” he says, “for myself. So I want to see where I can take it.” But it’s clear that his dream has limits.

He makes $34,000 a year as a computer guy, and I ask him if he’d leave the job if he could make $40,000 a year touring with his band. He says no. He is certain he could make a lot more money as a computer technician in the future. And he sees it as a job he could keep his whole life, and grow with it.

He sees the creativity required to solve computer problems as similar to the creativity involved in music. And he is more skeptical of life on the road: “I couldn’t live off that $40,000 a year for more than a few years. Right now, I don’t worry about food, but sometimes I worry about strings for my bass.”

It is no small feat to get band members to talk to a career columnist. A bass player explained that it would be death to her image to talk about her job to the press. And Bill himself cited a friend who has actually worked for years as a consultant to save a truckload of money and is now spending six months focusing on his band. “Don’t mention his band, though. He’d be embarrassed if people knew he owned a condo.”
Meanwhile, the Modeles continue to make headway in the hyper-competitive world of almost-breaking bands. Bill is a modest guy. When I ask him how he knows his band isn’t a dud, he says, “When we play in upstate New York, people get excited to see us.”

Of course, the music industry is not known for signing a band to a label after hearing them in Utica, but one guitar player (who said his band is gaining traction in the underground and therefore cannot be mentioned in an above-ground career column) reports that the Modeles are well-liked by people who have jobs.

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Notes from a grouchy networker

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I met a not-friend at a not-cool-but-not-cheesy restaurant. I was networking, because this is what you must do to further your career. Even if you hate it you have to do it. I did not wear work clothes, because even though networking is work, you’re not supposed to look like you’re on the job. I knew we weren’t really friends, because I wasn’t wearing my really ratty overalls.

We discussed segmented marketing, but in a cool, maybe-we’re-not-working kind of way. For example, we talked about who is using Napster now, and about which bands get downloaded most. We moved a little in the direction of which bands we each like, but my not-friend didn’t share my musical tastes, so we danced away from the topic quickly.

If I were really looking for a friend, I would have gone full-steam ahead into topics that may be controversial, but can weed out inappropriate people: politics, money, sex. These are make-or-break topics. But I could not afford a “break” on this occasion, because this person was one of my best connections in the advertising world.

Early in my career, my boss was having trouble because someone who reported to her hit on her, and was upset that she said no. The story got out, and soon the whole office knew about it. She pulled me into her office one evening and said, “What do people think of what’s happened with ____?” At the time, I was flattered that I was the one she pulled aside. Now I realize that I have to be extra careful to edit myself as I go. Complete honesty is not completely good: It alienates people — specifically, me.

The not-friend I went to dinner with asked me if I liked her yellow scarf. I thought it was gross, but I was afraid to tell her the truth. (In fact, I’m not even telling you the real color of the scarf, in case she ends up reading this.) Maybe if I told her the scarf was awful, we would have immediately become good friends, and she would always love me for my honesty. But maybe not. It was the maybe-not part that kept me from telling her the truth — because I would rather have a good network than a good friend. (I don’t need a Rolodex full of friends; I do need a Rolodex full of contacts: people who will have dinner with me at innocuous locations and help me navigate my career.)

Still, I wanted to tell my not-friend that I hated her scarf. I want to show people who I really am. I want to see if they would still like me. I want to distribute surveys (to be put on file later in my Rolodex) that ask people if they enjoyed my honesty, and if they would be willing to do favors for me now that they know the real me.

Instead, I ordered a cosmopolitan because she ordered one — even though I don’t really drink. And I told her little things about me that she didn’t already know, so she felt like she was getting to know me.

I did not tell her that I find the networking so exhausting, my Rolodex is actually shrinking from atrophy. I decided that maybe a good step would be to buy her a new scarf — a way to express my true feelings in a positive way. If I could only be more positive.

I told her things that are so banal that they would annoy you. When we parted I pretended to take the train home and instead of going straight home I bought a milkshake at a diner and sat in a booth decompress. The most tiring part of networking is having to be clever and interested for so long. And the cruel truth of the work world is that people who love to network don’t need to do it.

People like me, who hate networking, need to be diligent. I tell myself I have to endure one of these nights each month. I remind myself that I might meet the perfect person to help me later, that networking is like money in the bank. So even if someone has terrible taste in music and scarves, I work hard when I’m with her, because you never know when networking will pay off, but I really believe that it always does, even after all my complaining.

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Learn goal-setting from the Olympics

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Watching the Olympics is inspirational if you need a kick in the pants to set high goals for yourself, but the trick is not to make goals so lofty that you make yourself sick.

Having finished 17th at beach volleyball nationals, I can tell you that the difference between the very top and those near the top is not skills — everyone has the skills. The difference is mental. Players in the top five or ten are so tough that almost nothing makes them waver, and their belief in their ability to succeed is extreme. I know because I didn't have those qualities, and as I inched closer to the top ranks the pressure gave me stomachaches during games.

I remember the first time I played the team ranked #1 in the United States: I got killed. Their focus on the game was unflappable, whereas I found myself thinking about my bathing suit, the crowd, my mother. Anything. Everything. It was like my mind was possessed by the volleyball devil. And every time I lost focus I made an error on the court.

Lack of focus became a defense against the goals that overwhelmed me. By distracting myself from my goal – to get to the number one spot — I protected myself from huge disappointment. Unfortunately, I also ensured that I never inched up beyond 17th place. I found myself spending too much time off the court, excelling at ancillary parts of professional sports where the stakes weren't very high. I was great at landing sponsorships and sniffing out the best coaches, but my fear of failing at my real goal always held me back.

Today I play volleyball only recreationally, but my experience with competitive volleyball informs my approach to setting goals in all aspects of my life: Goals should be tough enough that they challenge you to stay focused; goals should scare you a little because that's how you learn about yourself, but if the goals are too hard, you get stuck and stop learning.

Today most advice is about how to dream big. But goals need to be flexible. Too small a goal would not be rewarding, but too big a goal can be stifling. You need to create goals for yourself that enable you to stay focused. One way to know how well you're setting goals is to look at your intensity of focus: Too small a goal does not require focus, and if you want for focus but you can't make it happen, then your goal is probably too large. The better you know yourself the better you will be at setting goals.

I noticed that Natalie Coughlin, who has been called a more natural swimmer than anyone in history, decided to race in only two individual events in Athens. Most aficionados would say she's capable of winning more — maybe even a Michael Phelps sort of feat. But she knows her own limits and said, “It's good I'm not getting a lot of the attention he's getting. He does really well with that attention and I don't think I would do as well.”

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be as great an athlete as Natalie Coughlin, but I got shivers when I saw her holding a gold medal in Athens. Because I can imagine what it's like to have to adjust your goals in order to cope with the pressure. That is a path to success that requires knowing yourself very well, and it is a path as brave as any other.

That was the first time I realized that my focus was not strong enough to get into the top ten.

But I had worked so hard to get to #17. I felt surely I could figure out how to overcome the focus barrier. I tried the punishment approach (pushups for every mistake) and I tried the Zen approach (lessons in meditation). Nothing worked. Then I tried the introspection approach: I found that in a low-pressure game I had almost perfect focus. But in a high-pressure situation — like the end of a close game – I'd start thinking about my laundry, my mother, my senator. Anything. Everything. It was like my mind was possessed by the volleyball devil.

I came to the conclusion that I was too scared to focus. The harder you focus on a goal, the more energy you put into a goal, there more there is at stake. When you focus very little, then not achieving that goal is okay. But when you dedicated every ounce of energy to that goal, the pressure to achieve is huge. In order to put that kind of pressure on yourself you have to have total faith in yourself. I had total faith until I reached #17. Then I folded.

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Lessons from a French chicken farm

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One summer, when I found myself with no job and no plan, I panicked and took a job on a chicken farm in the French countryside. I told myself the job would look good on my resume — showing I am adventurous and understand the agriculture business to boot. Neither is true, in fact, and I have never put this experience on my resume. But I did learn a lot on the farm about getting ahead at the office.

My deal with the family that employed me was that I would perform household chores in exchange for room and board. To me, “chores” meant sweeping and dusting. To them, it meant killing and plucking chickens. In my lame French, I said killing animals was not among my duties. The matron of the house said I’d be kicked out for breaking the agreement. So I learned to pluck. Lesson 1: Get everything in writing.

The farmer blocked off a small area of the coop where the wee chicks could live without getting lost. Every week, the chicks would double in size, as would the area. By the end of the summer, the coop was full. Lesson 2: Start small, but prepare for rapid growth.

It was important to move the chickens into the buyer’s truck before they realized what was happening. So in the middle of the night, while they were sleeping, we grabbed the chickens by the legs and held them upside down. The farmer couldn’t believe I did it without throwing up, and he gave me three days off. Lessons 3 and 4: Have a strategy, and learn skills outside your job description.

I once bit into an apple before noticing that everyone else had peeled theirs first. The 8-year-old daughter declared in French, “She eats apples like the pigs.” The mother responded, “Be careful, she is beginning to understand.” Lesson 5: Learn another language.

I picked cherries from the branches that were too high for the 8-year-old. Later she gathered the eggs out from under the hens so I wouldn’t get pecked. Lesson 6: Make friends in low places.

I fed the rabbits on the farm for five weeks. One evening, they were gone. “They are not pets like the dog,” the farmer said as we dined on my charges. Lesson 7: Never get too attached to anyone you work with.

Relatives of the host family came to visit from Lyon. I had more in common with the city French than the rural French did. They invited me to spend my last month with them, when I was supposed to be harvesting hay on the farm. I told the farmer I would stay only if I didn’t have to feed the pigs anymore. Lesson 8: Job offers give you more leverage.

Every day a few chickens would be trampled to death or die from heat exhaustion in the coop. I walked close behind the farmer, who would scoop up the dead birds before me. Lesson 9: When there’s crap everywhere, stick close to someone in the know.

I didn’t read any books, and I worried all summer that I wasn’t learning a thing. But really, I was learning solid fundamentals that would help me throughout my career. Lesson 10: Never assume that anything is a waste of your time.

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You only need $40,000 to be happy

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Looking for happiness through financial success? Wondering what the magic number is? It's $40,000 according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert. Really. So technically, most of you should be happy. And if you're working for the next big raise, forget it. You're better off working on teaching yourself how to look at your money with a different eye.

I remember when I passed the $100K mark. My boss loved my work and gave me a raise that put me at $125,000. But a competitor offered me $140,000 and my boss told me he wouldn't match it. At that point, I had no kids, no mortgage and no car payments, so I didn't need the money. But I recognized salary as a gauge of prominence in my field, and although I was making $125,000 I felt under appreciated.

Eventually, I left that job for one that paid more than $200,000 a year, and I lived the aphorism that you have to spend money to make money. I couldn't take high-end clients out to dinner in my refurbished wreck of a car, so I leased a BMW. Dressing as well as my clients cost an arm and a leg. And I hired an assistant to manage my personal life since my new position left no time for that.

You might scoff at my choices, but I was not unique among those whose salaries hit six figures: My expenses rose with my salary, and my desires expanded with my bank account. You might think, “That won't happen to me,” but how foolish you would be to assume you would be the exception to the rule.

In fact, the rule is well established in research: The first 40 thousand makes a big difference in one's level of happiness. Happiness is dependent on being able to meet basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. After meeting those needs you need to turn to something other than consumerism. Because additional money has negligible impact on how happy you are. Your level of happiness is largely dependent on your outlook.

Maybe you're thinking there's another magic threshold beyond forty thousand. Like maybe 40 million. But you're wrong. When I ran in circles of venture capitalists, there was a common phrase, “It's not jet money.” Which was a way of saying, it was a good deal, but it won't earn enough money to pay for a private jet. No matter what size the pile of money is, there's always a way to see it as small.

So for those of you looking for more happiness, realize that a new job or a new home won't be nearly as rewarding as a new outlook. Optimism makes people happy. Raising your standing on the optimism scale will impact your happiness more than raising your worth on the pay scale.

Here's a ten-second test to figure out how optimistic you are:

Think of something really bad that has happened to you. Do you think:
1. It has made me a better person.
2. I made some mistakes, but bad things happen to everyone sometimes.
3. Nothing ever goes right for me.

Think of something really good that happened to you. Do you think:
1. I am good at creating my own success.
2. I got lucky.
3. In the end it didn't turn out to be that great a thing.

If you chose the first answer both times, then you probably already feel pretty happy regardless of your income. If you didn't answer one both times, then a shift in the way you think could dramatically improve your happiness.

The good news is that you can train yourself to think positively. Watch how happy people behave. The cliche about gaining strength through adversity might annoy you, but happy people live by those words.

If you took the test above and picked the third answer both times, you probably blame your life on external things so that you don’t have to take responsibility for your plight. Happy people take responsibility for their success and consider failure a temporary fluke. To change your thinking, start assuming responsibility for your emotions.

If you chose the number two answers, you probably tell yourself, “I’m not happy but I don’t know why.” Start believing that if you take action, good things will happen. Tell yourself good things happen because you expect good things and bad things happen to make you stronger.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Forget it. I don’t believe any of this works. And I can’t do it anyway.” But that’s part of your problem, isn’t it?

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4 interview questions you should never ask

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Most interviews reach a pause when the hiring manager says, “Do you have any questions for me?” In a world of workplace transparency the most common response to this question would be, “No. I have no questions. I am sick of job hunting. Give me a job.”

But alas, you must play the interview game. So ask three or four questions as a way to convey that you have options, even if, in fact, you do not.

Your questions should convey: “I'm trying to find out more about this position to decide if I'm interested.” But you cannot say that flat out without sounding like an arrogant pain in the butt. You have to *imply* this message. Like the rest of the interview, what you imply — purposely or inadvertently — is as important as what you say. So craft your questions carefully, before you get to the interview, and have some extras in case a few turn out to be inappropriate.

Here are some types of questions to avoid:

“How many hours a day do you work?”
This is a quality of life question. Quality of life is important, and if you need to leave at 5 pm every day, that's fair, but it is not something that automatically makes you more attractive as an employee, so don't ask directly.

If you get through a full interview and the hiring manager never reveals that she has a life outside of work, there's no need to ask: She doesn't. If you are unsure about the situation, conduct some independent research. Park your car in the company lot and stalk unsuspecting employees to see when they come and go. Or, go to a pay phone and anonymously call the interviewer at 7 pm four nights in a row to see if she's still at the office. Just don't ask about it in the interview.

“If you were an animal which one would you be?”
Nothing abstract. Please. This nutcase question throws off an interview and is appropriate to test what someone does under pressure. But as the interviewee it is not your job to instigate pressure.

Most hiring decisions are made based on chemistry. Your number one goal when you interview for a job is to get the person asking the questions to like you. So you should ask questions that make this person feel comfortable.

If you can do it without sounding like a brown nose, ask the person something about how they got to be so great. Like, “Why did you decide to work for this company?” That question implies that you're interested in other people and that you respect the interviewer.

“I just read that your stock is down 15%. What is the company doing in response?”
Unless you're interviewing to be a stock analyst, forget the meta questions. If you are so interested in the company's recent downturn, read the analyst reports.

A question like this reveals to a prospective boss that you are either (a) preoccupied with the idea that the company is tanking or (b) preoccupied with details of the company that are way beyond the scope of the position at hand. Either way the meta question definitely does not scream, “Hire me! I'll be easy to manage!”

A relatively big-picture question that you would do well to ask is, “What are your primary goals for the next two quarters?” This question shows you care about the company's future in a way that is relevant to your boss's immediate concerns.

“What needs to be accomplished in this position in the next six months?”
This is a useless question at the end of an interview, but an essential one for the beginning. So ask this question within the first five minutes of the interview. And then tailor everything you say to address the goals of the position.

The overall rule that should guide your preparations is that you never stop selling yourself in an interview, even when you pretend to stop selling yourself in order to ask a question.

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There are no bad bosses

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Want to deal with a bad boss? First, stop complaining. Unless your boss breaks the law, you don't have a bad boss, you have a boss you are managing poorly. Pick on your boss all you want, but if you were a top employee you wouldn't let your boss's problems bring you down.

Everyone has something to offer. Find that in your boss and focus on learning everything you can. Or leave. The good news is that in most cases, you don't have to leave. You just need to manage your relationship with your boss with more empathy, more distance, and more strategy.

Overcome incompetent skills by leveraging others
My favorite example of a bad boss is one I had at a software company who refused to learn how to use a computer. I conducted most communication with him via phone, and when other people didn't, I often played the role of secretary even though I was a vice president. He once said to me, “You're such a fast typist!” And I thought, “You're such an incompetent, lazy idiot.”

But in truth, he was not. He was a top negotiator of government contracts. I stepped back and recognized that he was overwhelmed with the prospect of changing the way he had been working for 20 years, and I was in a position to help him. I found that the more dependent he was on me for email the more I was able to insert myself into high-level deals that he would not otherwise have let me in on. I helped him avoid having to change, and he taught me how to be a dealmaker.

Overcome moral incompetence by knowing your boundaries
After a few big deals, I thought we had hit our groove, when I realized that this same man was having an affair with my sales manager. For months he grumbled that she was terrible, and I should fire her. Then he announced she needed more responsibilities. I should have sensed something was up, but I didn't. Then she dumped him with great fanfare and I found myself sitting awkwardly between them in many meetings.

Sure, I lost a lot of respect for them both, and it was a pain to manage the sales person after that. But the awkward situation didn't mean that I couldn't learn a lot from my boss. And it didn't mean that I couldn't continue to forge important relationships with his important friends. As long as I did not have to act in an immoral way, my boss's issues were not my problem.

Always weigh your benefits
A good boss would have learned to type and never would have thought of delegating his typing to a vice president. But I didn't have a good boss. I had a typical boss. One with poor execution of good intentions. He had knowledge and skills to offer me as long as I could manage our relationship productively. I never expected him to manage the relationship for us, because I wanted to make sure I was getting what I needed out of it.

I could have spent my time complaining. There was a lot to complain about. Instead I always approached him with empathy (“I'm sorry she dumped you”), and I always knew my boundaries (“We can't fire her. It's illegal”). Even when he was at his worst, I never took what he said personally (“When you are done yelling, I'd be happy to talk to you”).

Aside from cutting a deal, he didn't have a lot of management skills, and this gap left more room for me to shine. My solid interpersonal skills helped fill in what he was missing and helped me to get what I wanted: A (reluctant and difficult but ultimately) very useful mentor.

So take another look at the boss you call bad. Think about what motivates him: What is he scared about that you can make easier? What is he lacking that you can compensate for? What does he wish you would do that you don't? Once you start managing this relationship more skillfully, you will be able to get more from your boss in terms of coaching and support: You'll be able to tip the scales from the bad boss side to the learning opportunity side.

In fact, you should always hope for a little incompetence on your boss's part. The hole in his list of talents provides a place for you to shine. The point, after all, is for you to shine, and no one shines when they're complaining.

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Lessons about age discrimination that I learned from my mom

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If my mom were telling you her life story, she would begin with her dad suffering a stroke when she was very little and having to grow up with no money. Despite such humble beginnings, my mom’s career has never been about money. I think my mom genuinely enjoys management, but it has taken a long time and a lot of hardship for her to be able to truly enjoy it.

During my mom’s first job interview, in the late ’60s, she was asked two questions:

1. Does your husband know you’re getting a job?

2. Who will take care of your kids while you’re at work?

My mom passed the interview with flying colors, and she became a Cobol programmer. I loved going to the office with my mom, especially when the computer system went down, because everyone at the office wanted to ask my mom a question.

My dad did not love that stuff. So after 14 years of working, my mom got pregnant and quit work in a last-ditch effort to save her marriage.

After the divorce my mom had two small children and an awkward resume. She had managed a very large team at a very large company years earlier, but the only job she could land was as the secretary for someone who was not qualified to be a secretary, let alone a secretary’s boss. Mom cried a lot. She said no one would call her about jobs because she was 45 years old. By this time I was 21 and could tell her things that she often told me when I was frustrated: Be patient. Once you get an interview, you’ll get the job. And, sometimes you need to send out 100 resumes to get one response.

My mom taught herself C++ at night, after the kids were asleep. She learned Java at another job, where she stole away for long lunches to go to doctor’s appointments with my younger brothers. At still another job, this one at a large credit card company, my mom took the bus to work every day so my brothers could drive the car to school.

All this, and she was still at the bottom of the programming ladder. She reported to a woman who was my age.

If my mom were telling you this story, she’d say this woman was a smart, professional, and a compassionate manager. But every time I tried to imagine reporting to someone 20 years younger than I am, I got sick and sweaty.

Recently my mom got a promotion. Now she manages 11 people at the credit card company, and her new boss made it clear that my mom could move up fast. The first thing my mom did as a manager was use her two weeks of vacation to visit colleges with my brother. The second thing she did was grant a woman permission to work flexible hours so she could be at home with her kid.

It used to be that when I interviewed someone 20 years older than I am, I'd think, “What’s wrong with this guy? Why is he stuck at my level at his age?” But watching my mom navigate her career made me think again: I started hiring people older than I was and while I've only had a few chances to do it, each has worked out well. I realized that I had a bigger problem with the age gap than the people I was hiring. And in all cases, the person I hired had not just a very interesting story but also a lot to teach me, and I felt lucky to have made the hire.

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