Guest rant: My investment-banking brother says…

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Here is one of hundreds of reasons senior investment bankers make life for analysts worse than it already is: Voicemail.

First of all, no one under thirty uses voicemail unless they are making a joke. If you make a call and the person does not pick up their phone, send an email. That’s why they gave you the BlackBerry, right? Picking up a voicemail is slow and there is no way to file it.

Also, people must stop using inept management tactics like the “red bomb.” This is when a senior guy wants to tell you something, but instead of calling you and risking that you’ll answer the phone and therefore be able to ask a question, (like What’s the deadline?), he goes directly into the voice mail system to leave you a message.

It’s a red bomb because you get the red light on your phone that means you have a voice mail, and a bomb because you know only someone internally can do it, and it must be a senior guy because no one else would do it. If you’re sitting at your desk and all of a sudden you have a voice mail, and you know your phone hasn’t rung, you’ve just been nailed by a red bomb.

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Overrated: Cleaning up your online identity / Underrated: Cleaning up your offline identity

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The idea of having a perfect online identity is not realistic. Instead, maybe you should focus on making your offline identity one that you’re proud of.

First of all, no one is getting away with anything online. Today recruiters are expert and tireless Internet researchers when it comes to scoping out candidates. I just read a story about someone interviewing for a job who was asked about his wish list on Amazon. I would never have thought of that. (In fact, I can’t even figure out how to find other peoples’ wish lists on Amazon.) The list of ways to snoop feels infinite. And the list of ways to fix snoopable problems seems very limited.

If there’s someone in your life who is glued to their computer each night, posting career-killing commentary, maybe you should forward a link to this Wall St. Journal article by Vauhini Vara chronicling one man’s struggle to get his page removed on MySpace:

“He emailed MySpace, begging the site to take down his old page. Nothing happened. He sent at least eight more urgent messages to the site, including a note to MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson. Finally, he received a cryptic email telling him to write his user name — “craigisanidiot” — and password with a marker on a piece of paper, to take a photo of himself holding it up, and to email it to MySpace along with a note saying, ‘I wish to be removed from MySpace.” (Note to the concerned: It worked.)

A pseudonym will not save you. A majority of bloggers use pseudonyms, but people will find out who you are. The first weekly column I wrote was about my job while I was in my job. I used a pseudonym and presumed I was safe. I wrote about my CEO’s pharmaceutical cocktail and diagnosed him (correctly, I still think) as manic depressive. I described the scene of my boss sexually harassing me. I documented my expensive and useless business trip. It turned out, pretty much the whole company had been reading my column.

If you are going to be anonymous, take a tip from Waiter Rant, who never reveals his restaurant but never disses it either, or Your HR Guy, who writes funny human resources scenes, but publishes his policy of not getting fired for his blog.

But don’t go to the other extreme. If you get too careful, you’ll be like college student Matthew Zimmerman, and find yourself unable to write anything. (Don’t worry, he got over it.)

The BBC News tells us How to Blog and Not Get Fired, but it seems much harder to give advice on how to blog and still get hired. When it comes to recruiters, a blog is like a lighthouse: You don’t know how many people have been repelled because they never show up.

At some point, you just have to be yourself. Figure out your best self and be that — online and offline — and then no one will be surprised.

The people entering the workforce today did not grow up posting every little thing that happened to them. But in five years, those kids coming to work will have no way to cleanse the Internet of their posting transgressions from when they were fifteen years old.

There will have to be new standards for what is okay to have online. It will have to be okay to say, “Oh, yeah. I remember when I posted that. Stupid, huh?” Interviewers will have to judge people by what they are doing right now, or else they won’t be able to hire anyone.

So for now, take a look at that wish list you made. Does it make you look like a moron? Instead of getting rid of anti-social items and replacing them with crowd pleasers, ask yourself why you want to read books that reflect poorly on you. Ask yourself who you are.

Karen Salmansohn writes about the idea of congruence: “Be yourself wherever you are, whether at work, with your partner or with friends. When you compartmentalize yourself to be wildly different in different circumstances you can start to feel out of whack. Create a life that is congruent with the person you truly are.”

The impact of incongruence is big: You’ll have an online persona that conflicts with your work persona. You’ll have huge stress. When I was making fun of my co-workers in my column it was because I was a fish out of water in that office. When your impulse is to write mean things about the people you work with then you probably shouldn’t be there.

Research published in the Harvard Business Review (paid) shows that in order to be a great leader, you need to make your work consistent with your core self. When you can be authentic in your job and authentic when you blog that’s a step toward living congruently and you will be priming yourself for success.

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How to be a star performer: 4 things to get good at

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One of the best ways to get what you want is to be an extraordinary performer at work. Stars get more training, more mentoring, better projects and greater flexibility. Fortunately, you don’t need the perfect job situation in order to be a star, because most star qualities come from you — from taking your basically good skills and bringing them up a notch.

Most people have the ability to be a star, according to Robert Kelly, professor at Carnegie Mellon, and author of How to Be a Star at Work, because “most people genuinely want to be more productive, do their best, and live up to their potential, but they don’t know how to do it.”

The traits that make stars different from everyone else are the strategies they use to do their own work and to work well with other people. Star strategies allow people to be highly effective, yet highly productive at the same time, so that stars can fulfill their potential at work and in their personal lives. (Yes, stars have time for both.)

It isn’t so much what you’re born with as how you use it. And the traits of star performers are traits you can teach yourself. Here are the four areas that Kelly identifies:

1. Initiative
Stars exceed expectations. Just doing your job is not enough. Stars do their own job well and then perform well in areas that exceed the job description. Generally star initiative includes helping people, taking risks and seeing a project through to the end — all in arenas that go beyond their job duties.

2. Networking
Stars don’t think of networking as something to do once a day at 3pm. For stars, it’s a constant. Nothing is a complete waste of time because you can always meet someone, talk to someone, or help someone. That last piece is important — stars know that networking is as much giving as taking. And there is an inherent humility in this way of life; stars know they can’t get what they want by acting alone.

3. Self knowledge
Knowing how to do your job is expected. You need to know how to manage your relationships, your long-term goals, and your personal development. This is not a one-time goal, this is a life commitment to very regular self-assessment. And this is a commitment to soliciting and accepting outside input, because it’s impossible to know for sure how you appear to others.

4. Kindness
Average workers see the world from their point of view. Stars have exceptional empathy and act on it: They are good followers because they know it’s important to help leaders be the best they can be, too; stars can give the right message to the right audience; and they can get an accurate big picture by looking and listening to the people around them.

The interesting thing about star performance at work is that it actually demands that you be the person you want to be anyway. Being a good person, seeking self-knowledge, and taking responsibility for where you’re going are probably key pieces of your core belief system. So you truly do not need to stray from your idea of a good life in order to be wildly successful in your career.

But Kelly is quick to point out that star performers are not people hanging out in lazy-boy chairs relying on their stellar IQ or remarkable social skills. Star performers work hard to live up to the values they believe in.

People who can be their true selves at work will be the outstanding leaders, says Rob Goffee, professor of organizational behavior at London Business School and author of Why Should Anyone Be Lead by You: What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader. Many of you will find yourselves in a position to lead others. The most successful of you will find the right balance between authenticity and adaptability: No small feat.

To become your best self — a star, a great leader, a fulfilled worker — you need to know yourself and your goals very well. Start now. It’s a lifelong process, and done honestly, it’s the process that makes almost any job intrinsically challenging and interesting.

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How to get a raise

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You do not deserve a raise just because you have been doing your job well for x amount of months. It is your job to do your job well. That’s why you were hired.

Also, do not complain about your salary not being at market rate six months after you take your job. Because if you are underpaid it’s your own fault for accepting the job six months ago. Do the salary research before you take the job.

Here is a situation where you do deserve a raise: You are doing more work now than when your salary was set. Caution: This does not mean that you are doing more work within the job description you were hired for. Because then you are just doing what you were hired to do. You need to show you are doing more than you were hired to do.

So if you want a raise in six months, get really good at your job immediately so that you can take on more responsibility in another job, in another capacity. Look around for something more to do, and figure out how to do it. Then tell your boss you are doing more than one job and you want to be paid extra for doing the other job you have already been doing. That’s how to ask for a raise.

What if things are moving too slowly for you? David Christiansen at Information Technology Dark Side gives sound advice for those who are both feisty and mobile — put pressure on your boss relentlessly, and if that fails, job hop.

But hold on. Surely there are more important things you can get from your boss than a little bit more money or a better title. Your career will go further faster if you negotiate for things that really matter.

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How to pick your leadership style

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I am doing research about women in sports, and one of the most memorable statistics I have come across is that nearly four out of five women executives played sports growing up. So I called Jennifer Crispen, to talk about her work in this field. She said that there has been a lot of research to show how much women’s careers benefit from exposure to sports — “in terms of teamwork, shared commitment, and leadership.”

But Crispen told me that most current research focuses on how we talk about women. The media focus on women doing “skirt sports” like ice skating and gymnastics, because, “People still want to describe women doing sports as graceful and pretty,” says Crispen. “If you define men as aggressive and competitive it’s positive. But for women, these are negative attributes.”

The double standard for men and women is true at the playing field and the office. The Hay Group did a study (reported by Paula Burkes Erickson of the Daily Oklahoman), which concluded that successful women employ a mixture of male and female leadership styles. But when women use a strictly “command-and-control” style typical of successful men, the women get feedback like “‘bitch,’ ‘disempowering,’ ‘not clear what she wants from me’ and ‘we’re not working as a team.'”

So women need to keep their leadership style a little soft in order to keep everyone on board. But what about men? Authoritarian leadership may have worked in the past, but it absolutely won’t fly with Gen Y. They will quit rather than put up with it. So the most effective leadership style for everyone is a mixture of male and female leadership styles.

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How to get along with difficult co-workers

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People with good social skills can get along with almost anyone, and if you want to be successful in your career, you have to make people like you: Figure out what matters to them, what makes them tick, and then speak to that when you interact.

The key to being likeable is to be able to adapt yourself to different situations. This does not mean that you have to be someone you’re not. Each of us is complicated, adaptable and curious. You need to know yourself well enough to understand a broad range of facets of yourself so that you can call up the right one with the right crowd.

The field of psychology that focuses on this particular issue is social psychology. And, fortunately, we have massive amounts of data from clinical research to tell us how thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others: Use this research to train yourself to be someone everyone wants to work with.

Think hard about how you approach a group. Do you hope that the group conforms to you or do you conform to the group? As long as you respect the people in the group, conforming to them enough to form a bond is not a bad idea. No one can be with their soul mate 100% of the day. But you can find pieces of yourself that match up with just about everyone, if you are in-tune with yourself and other people.

Social psychologists call people who analyze social situations and try to match their public self to the situation “high self-monitors”. Self-monitors are very good at gauging what their audience expects in each given situation. And these people are very sensitive to impression management techniques — they watch other people use them and then use the techniques themselves.

For some people, this skill of monitoring themselves within a group comes naturally — they are chameleons who can mirror other peoples' moods. Chameleons know what to say when their boss's pet gerbil dies and they know what to say when a co-worker suggests a date.

Other people are low self-monitors. These people attempt to alter a situation to match their private self. These people have one way of conducting themselves and have no idea how to change for a given situation. These are the people who make inappropriate jokes at a client meeting or are too stiff and formal at a company picnic. Chameleons generally disgust these low self-monitors, but I've got news for you: chameleons don't lose opportunities for being difficult to work with.

If you can get along with different groups of people, you won’t just be liked more at work, you’ll be more equipped to meet your personal goals. People who are able to develop friendships with a wide range of people are more able to change the way they think about themselves, according to Tracy McLaughlin-Volpe, professor of psychology at University of Vermont. Developing cross-group friendships as opposed to in-group friendships makes your more adept at creating a dynamic image of yourself — you are likely to be a person who can make changes to become the person you want to be.

You want to be someone who can make changes in yourself when you see the need, because social psychologists have also found that people remember negative traits more than positive traits. So if you tell a new employee your boss is “smart, open-minded, kind and disorganized,” the new employee will form an opinion of the boss primarily on “disorganized.” Your bad traits have more sticking power on your reputation than your good traits. If you want to be liked, face up to your weaknesses and compensate for them.

Most people who hate office social dynamics think people have to change who they are to succeed. But good social skills at work are really a reflection of empathy for the people around you. Anyone who is being their best self — kind, considerate, expressive, interested in others — will instinctively do the right thing at the office.

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Think about workplace diversity in terms of experience

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Just about every major business publication has run something about how diversity improves business performance. If you are on a diverse team, you’ll probably have more success than if you’re on a homogenous team. And, to some extent, we can each control the teams we’re on.

For one thing, you should pick companies to work for that have a diverse group of employees. You can also do what you can to build your own diverse teams.

One way to think of diversity is race. A professor at the University of Chicago conducted a study about workplace racism in which he sent 5000 resumes to want ads in Boston and Chicago. He sent duplicate resumes, but changed the names. The names that sounded white (Emily Walsh) were fifty percent more likely to get a call back than a name that sounded African-American (Lakisha Washington).

You are probably saying to yourself that you would never be racist at work. But that is probably not true. Because almost no one will admit to being racist, but a lot of it is unintentional, and it’s definitely not limited to the scope of that resume study.

While you’re busy denying that you’re racist, consider that diversity is not all about race – or gender, for that matter.

I had an eye-opening experience when I wrote an article for the LA Weekly about medical issues for “non-whites”. I could not write “minorities” in the LA Weekly, because in LA, Hispanics outnumber whites. (Interesting side note, from the article: Many top doctors who study this topic are advocating separate but equal treatments for blacks and whites.)

So, try thinking about diversity in terms of experience. Look for diversity in economic experience, in schooling, politics. The June issue of Harper’s magazine ran a little piece about how “living libraries” that have taken place in Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. The idea is that there are real people that you can borrow for an hour in order to explore your own prejudices and stereotypes. Here are some examples of the kinds of people you can borrow:

Animal-rights activist, black person, bureaucrat, environmentalist, ex-football hooligan, ex-illiterate person, e-neo-Nazi, feminist, Jew, Muslim, priest, unemployed person, asylum seeker, blonde woman, disabled person, ex-drug abuser, ex-homeless person, ex-prisoner, gay person, lesbian, police officer, skateboarder, vegetarian.

The charm of the list, of course, is that we each ask ourselves who we have the most prejudice against. For me, it’s the football player. I’m not sure, frankly, that I’ve ever talked to one for more than a couple of minutes.

So maybe diversity you need to create in your work teams is as wide or as narrow as the kind of experience you are missing in your own life.

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Blogging essential for a good career

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Blogging is good for your career. A well-executed blog sets you apart as an expert in your field.

Ben Day blogged his way into a career as a high-earning software consultant while maintaining the freedom to schedule frequent jam sessions and performances as a keyboard player. Blogging gave him the opportunity to stand out enough to support the life he envisioned for himself.

Phil van Allen, a faculty member of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, said to me in an interview, “For your career, a blog is essential. It’s the new public relations and it’s the new home page. Instead of a static home page, you have your blog.” It’s a way to let people know what you are thinking about the field that interests you.

Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them. Blogging gives you a way to control what employers see, because Google’s system works in such a way that blogs that are heavily networked with others come up high in Google searches.

And coming up high is good: “People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible,” branding consultant Catherine Kaputa told me.

But pick your topics carefully and have a purpose. “The most interesting blogs are focused and have a certain attitude,” says van Allen. “You need to have a guiding philosophy that you stick to. You cannot one minute pontificate on large issues of the world and the next minute be like, ‘My dog died.'”

Day realized the value of focus after a misguided mashup of his politics and business. “I used to have liberal politics on my website as well, but my mentor said, ‘Dude, you gotta trim that off.’ Which was fine because in the world of liberal politics I was just another piece of noise.” Now his blog is all about software development with an emphasis on technologies such as NHibernate and C#.

Once you zero in on your topic, here are eight reasons blogging helps your career:

1. Blogging creates a network.
A blogger puts himself out in the world as someone who is interesting and engaging — just the type of person everyone wants to meet. “A blog increases your network because a blog is about introducing yourself and sharing information,” says Kaputa.

2. Blogging can get you a job.
Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that “tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley told me that the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.

3. Blogging is great training.
To really get attention for your blog, you’re going to have to have daily entries for a while. At least a few months to get rolling, and then three or four times a week after that. So you will really get to know your topic well.

4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
To escape the entry-level grind, you can either pay your dues, working up a ladder forever, or you can establish yourself as an expert in the world by launching a blog. High-level jobs are for people who specialize, and hiring managers look for specialists online. “Decision-makers respect Google-karma,” writes Tim Bray, director of Web technologies for Sun Microsystems — on his own blog, of course.

5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
You can’t make it on your own unless you’re good at selling yourself. One of the most cost-effective and efficient ways of marketing yourself is with a blog. When someone searches for your product or service, make sure your blog comes up first.

Curt Rosengren, a career coach, periodically Googles “career passion” — words he thinks are most important to his business — just to make sure his blog, Occupational Adventure, comes up high on the list. He estimates that his blog generates at least half of his coaching business.

6. Blogging provides more opportunities.
Building brands, changing careers, launching a business — these endeavors are much easier once you’ve established yourself online. Rosengren told me, “My blog is a foundation. I’m building an awareness that I can leverage to do other fun things with my future, such as product development, or public speaking.”

A blog gives you a leg up when you meet someone new. Dylan Tweney, a freelance writer, told me his blog, the Tweney Review, gives him instant legitimacy with clients.

7. Blogging could be your big break.
Visually creative types can blog beyond just text. Mark Fearing has a cartoon blog. “Cartooning and illustration are very crowded fields,” he says. “My blog has gotten me more notice than any other publicity tool I’ve used. Plus, the blog gives me a way to have a new conversation with potential clients about other work.”

8. Blogging makes the world a better place.
“Blogging is about giving stuff away to a community,” says Day. “For years, as a junior developer, I would go to the Internet for solutions and I would always take, take, take. Now I am happy to be a contributor and give something back.”

Article sponsored by YouSayToo – a bloggers community where you can make money blogging by uploading your existing blogs.

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Look like a leader: Buy new shoes

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Ever since I bought a pair of MBT shoes I have been waiting for the media to jump all over them.

I have been waiting for five months, and finally, there is one little tidbit in People magazine: In Grey’s Anatomy “Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl have been wearing sneakers by MBT — whose unusual sole makes wearers mimic the way one walks barefoot on sand, working leg, butt and ab muscles.”

Not surprisingly, People magazine misses the best part of the shoes: They make you stand up taller. In fact, the shoes make it physically impossible to slouch. I wear the shoes about two hours a day and they have actually trained me to stand and walk differently — more upright, better posture. (This is probably why Pilates teachers love the shoes.)

You’re probably wondering how I am going to relate this to careers. Hold on.

When I was playing professional beach volleyball, one thing I noticed is that all the players had amazing posture. I used to think it was from using our abdominal muscles every time we hit the ball. But when I switched careers and started slouching I did a lot of sit-ups to no avail. Now, after wearing MBT shoes, I realize the great volleyball posture comes from walking in the sand all day.

Here’s why you need the shoes for your career: Because people who stand up straight look stronger and more confident, and those are traits people want in leaders. The shoes can actually improve your charisma.

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Learn to be a leader in tolerance

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Here’s a piece in the Boston Globe about learning how to react constructively when someone makes offensive comments at work. In fact, the majority of people, it appears, will say nothing, even though a comment offends their sensibilities.

Decades of research into bystander apathy shows that people freeze when they are in a group. “In one 1969 laboratory experiment, people were put into a room where they heard someone behind a curtain moaning about a hurt leg. Seventy percent of those who were alone offered help, compared with just 40 percent of those who were with a stranger.”

This does not surprise me. I am Jewish but for some reason, bigots do not realize that I’m Jewish. So I hear a lot of slurs against Jews and they always catch me off guard. Once my boss made a comment about getting “Jewed” out of something, and I said, “I’m Jewish.” Certainly, there are better responses — one that would educate, perhaps. But I couldn’t think of one on the spot.

I remember as a kid being told by the “Just say no” campaign how important it is to rehearse beforehand. I think this is true for diversity training as well. It’s very hard to come up with the right thing to say in the moment, but it’s important. To be a leader at work, you need to be a leader at bringing tolerance to the workplace. People who matter will admire and appreciate you for this.

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