Peggy Klaus (7 page)

Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many people at once. Choose five to begin with and make it your business to get to know them. First learn everything you can about their backgrounds—maybe a speech they made, where they live, whether they have kids, causes, or hobbies they are particularly passionate about. Details like these will provide a greater number of entry points for approaching them, striking up a conversation, and building a personal relationship. Approach this project with the attitude of making new friends, recognizing that the results will build over time. Remember the saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know” … and with bragging, it’s who knows you!

CHAPTER 3

The Business of Bragging In and Out of the Office

•  “I got on the elevator with the chairman and didn’t know what to say. It was my big chance and I blew it!”

•  “I was in a meeting and the head of another division asked me my name. I’ve been here for nearly five years, and this guy had no clue who I was. It was embarrassing!”

•  “I told them about my promotion, and there was dead silence. I’m now afraid to say another word about myself!”

•  “I just worked night and day and my co-worker is stealing the spotlight!”

•  “I always take lunch at my desk. Who has time for idle chat?”

•  “All I need is to deliver the numbers. They speak for themselves!”

•  “Put me in front of five thousand people, but please don’t make me go to one of those corporate cocktail events!”

•  “I’ve sat in on way too many business pitches where the presenters are focused entirely on themselves and their accomplishments.”

•  “I thought that my co-workers would think I was kissing up! So I never approached the director at the dinner.

Getting the credit and recognition you want takes work. And I am not talking about slaving away at your desk night after night, assuming that the rest of the world will put two and two together. Or about waiting for the teacher to stamp a gold star on your book report so that you can advance to the head of the class. I mean taking it
solely
upon yourself to show the world on a daily basis— in a gracious and genuine manner—who you are and what you have done, so you gain the recognition and credit that you deserve and that you need to succeed. Whether it’s office talk, elevator talk, meeting talk, lunch talk, dinner talk, watercooler talk, hallway talk, event talk, networking talk, or even rest room talk, your self-promotion campaign starts and is sustained by
you
. Bragging is all about getting your name out front and center, and your accomplishments circulated, recirculated, freshened and refreshened, time and time again—all in a way that doesn’t come across as disingenuous or too “Me! Me! Me!”

ALWAYS BE ARMED AND READY

“I got on the elevator with the chairman and didn’t know what to say. It was my big chance and I blew it!”

It’s the first month on the job for Alex, the assistant to the chief information officer. He’s at a trade show to check out the competition. It’s his last day at the event and he has loads of juicy insights to share with his new boss that are sure to impress him. In between sessions, Alex gets on the elevator with a stranger and it stops just before reaching the conference floor. The chairman of his company gets on. Whoa! Alex didn’t expect him to be there. No one had told him. (Alex had thought he “was fly-fishing in Alaska.) This is his moment—but he freezes. Completely blindsided, he’s not sure what to say. So he doesn’t say anything. Then the absolute worst thing happens. Mr. Chairman turns to him and says, “I see from your badge we work for the same company. I’m Bob Mayers.” Alex replies, “Yes, I know who you are. I was too embarrassed to say hello.” (Did those words really come out of his mouth? Yes, and after they did, he beat himself up for two days straight.)

What he could have said, warmheartedly, with a sincere smile and a handshake, was, “Hi, Mr. Mayers. I’m Alex Scott. I just joined the company a month ago. I’m the CIO’s new assistant and very excited to be here.” Stepping off the elevator with Mr. Chairman as he entered the lobby, he could have whispered, “It’s been great being here. I’ve spent the last three days sizing up our competition from every angle. I’d love to make an appointment with you sometime next week to tell you what I’ve learned.”

Now, what was so hard about that?

Step one of your bragging campaign is quite simple. Every day remind yourself of four things: your name, your title, your responsibilities, and the positive things you are accomplishing
right now
for your organization. Have them on the tip of your tongue, raring to go. Leave things to chance and you’ll find yourself rambling, stumbling, and missing out when opportunities come calling on the fly. Whether it’s on the elevator, at the watercooler, around the coffeepot, on an airplane, or waiting for a taxi, you need to have your brag bag with you at all times. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda” isn’t going to get you to where you want to go. Be ready to seize the chance to self-promote at a moment’s notice.

DON’T ASSUME ANYTHING

“I was in a meeting and the head of another division asked me my name. I’ve been here for nearly five years, and this guy had no clue who I was. It was embarrassing!”

We all need to become like Mr. Chairman in the elevator, who so graciously extended himself, Yet many people shy away from introducing themselves, especially to higher-ups. And when they do work up the courage, they mumble their names at an inaudible level, as if they are embarrassed to get any attention. At larger organizations in particular, people often skip this basic courtesy entirely. They assume that everyone will magically know who they are and what they do, or that those who need to know them will beat a path to their door. Skillful self-promoters know better.

Marilyn, a senior broker in the retail division of a major financial institution, learned the hard way. She has been with the company for more than five years, and is considered a star player in her division. For the past year she has been eyeing possible openings in private banking, and doing her best to help out brokers in that division when they call asking for favors in a crunch. At a meeting she attended recently, where several managers from each of the company’s core divisions met, her boss casually mentioned, “Marilyn will take care of those numbers.” The private-banking head asked, “Who’s Marilyn?”

“I was shocked,” said Marilyn. “My face actually flushed. I became beet red. There was no way I could hide my embarrassment.” She added, “Here I had been going out of my way for brokers in that division for twelve months, but somehow my name hadn’t trickled up to their senior management.” After that, Marilyn kicked her self-promotion campaign into high gear. She not only completed the requested report in record time, but also took the opportunity to personally deliver it to Mr. Private-Banking Head. When he thanked her for the quick turnaround, she took the opportunity to tell him how interested she was in shifting to his division. He invited her back for a talk and was surprised to find out how much she already knew about the division, having participated, however indirectly, in some of the bigger projects. Within six months she was offered the transfer she had hoped for, reporting directly to Mr. Private-Banking Head.

For the rest of your career, when you are in a meeting, look around the room and, size permitting, make it a point to personally introduce yourself to every single person in the room. When doing so, imagine you are introducing a very good friend and not yourself. It makes it much easier. Just do it. Say your name, mention what you do with a smile and upbeat energy, and then let the bragging begin.

TIMING AND DELIVERY ARE EVERYTHING

“I told them about my promotion, and there was dead silence. I’m now afraid to say another word about myself.”

“You’ll know your bragging has bombed when your listeners suck in what you’ve said and they hardly say a word in response. You either suddenly feel like you would rather be as tiny as that crumb on the floor, or you’re so self-absorbed that the silence goes right over your head as you keep blabbing away, sinking yourself deeper and deeper. A brag bomb is often the result of bad timing, a bad read on your audience, or both.

Let’s take Anne. She has been putting in long hours with her co-workers for more than two years. The company is fiscally strapped, and there has been a freeze on salary increases for nearly a year. They’ve all been reporting to a slave-driver of a boss. While her co-workers have whined, she’s been angling for a better position in a new department. Anne learns that her efforts have been so successful, she has been asked not only to join the new department, but to run it as well. At a weekly project status meeting with her co-workers, she bursts into the room, interrupting the discussion, and announces: “You won’t believe what just happened. I got the promotion! I am going to be heading the new customer service department with thirty people reporting to me. This is big, my friends.”

Here it comes: that deafening silence. What went wrong? First, she rudely interrupted a meeting. Second, she forgot to take the emotional temperature of her audience. How can you expect co-workers who are downtrodden by hard work and little pay to greet such news with applause? The way she delivered her message was better suited to those outside her immediate ring.

Anne’s interests would have been better served if she had communicated the news in such a way that it had a positive value for those on the receiving end. She also could have waited to make the disclosure at the end of the meeting. Then her bragologue might have sounded like this:

I got word today that I am going to be heading the new customer service department. It’s a good opportunity and step up for me, something that I’ve wanted for a long time. Although I’m sorry to say I won’t be working with you directly, I am going to be looking to you guys when it’s time for me to expand or replace new people in my area. I have a lot of respect for each of you and I really appreciate how hard you’ve worked.

The art of tooting your own horn is knowing when and how to toot. It’s always keeping your sensitivity antenna raised. For example, a funeral is hardly the appropriate time to launch into a bragologue. Walking into your boss’ office when he or she is immersed in a crisis makes equally poor bragging sense. And don’t make the fatal mistake of lobbing your brag bites and bragologues into conversations where they don’t belong. If you’re intent on making a few self-promo points, work the conversation so that you introduce them naturally. If you can’t do that, wait for a better opportunity. Even if you get the context right and the style right, recognize that no matter what you say or how you say it, some people are simply not going to be happy for you. Period. Don’t let that stop you. Just walk around them and move on.

STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

“I just worked night and day and my co-worker is stealing the credit!”

There’s nothing worse than credit theft on the job. Yet when co-workers claim credit for the ideas of others or steal the spotlight, most people retreat or bite their tongues. If they do speak up, they’re afraid they will come off as whiners or whistle-blowers. And isn’t it better anyhow to stay invisible and demonstrate self-sufficiency, the belief being “The less I bother my boss, the better and stronger I look”?

This mentality has been thirty-four-year-old Tom’s modus operandi. But the arrival of Julie, who has been assigned to work alongside him in his department, has changed all that. “She’s her own one-woman PR machine. We’re supposed to be a team, but every second she can she gets out there with this ‘I’m doing everything’ circus act. In fact, when she sees that the boss is on the phone, Julie will stand there waiting for her to hang up. She is so over the top, I don’t know how to rein her in,” he says.

“But … if you’re at the top of your game, why do you need to self-promote?”

Because no matter how high you go, you always need to prove yourself. The higher you climb, the more that’s expected of you. So you’d better speak up for yourself. Plus, as they say in show business, you’re only as good as your last film.

Tom’s strategy for foiling this credit robbery is all wrong. Instead of reining Julie in, he should be planning his own attack, figuring out ways to be seen and heard while taking ownership of his own ideas. A revised bragging plan for Tom is amazingly simple and effective. It begins with him freshening up his bragologue by making a list of everything he has accomplished in the last few months and is planning to work on soon. Once a week he sends this list to his boss, then follows up with a phone call to discuss it. Before each meeting that she is going to attend with him, he shoots off an e-mail to her outlining his ideas. After the meeting he follows up with another note proposing the next steps. He copies everyone in attendance, including Julie. At client luncheons Tom now gets up and introduces himself, talking about his long history in the department. He religiously meets his boss once a month for lunch. And then to really top it off, he even compliments Julie to her face in the boss’ presence for her hard work. This simple gesture raises Tom up a notch by making him appear gracious, knowledgeable, and filled with true team spirit—all the qualities of an up-and-coming player.

GATHER AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

“I always take lunch at my desk. Who has time for idle chat?”

The corporate canteen for lunch, the watercooler, the coffeepot, or vending machines for impromptu gatherings are key bases in your bragging operations. Although generally taken for granted, these spots provide nearly constant opportunities to gain a stronger personal footing with people you may want to impress.

I can hear it now. Business is business and break time is
my
time. One of my clients, Lucille, used to be a perfect example of this attitude. She always ate lunch at her desk. Frustrated with her lack of progress on the career front, I suggested she change her ways and use lunchtime as an opportunity to casually get to know others. She went along reluctantly at first, coming back to me five lunches later saying, “I’ve been chatting it up, and I’ve even met a few interesting people, but where has it really gotten me?” I sent her back, insisting that she keep to her promise to try it for two months. A few weeks later, I got an enthusiastic call from Lucille, saying, “Well, how do you like that? Who would have ever believed it, but a woman I spoke to at lunch about my BA in women’s studies mentioned to the human resources director that she should check me out to run the company’s new diversity effort. The director just called and I’m meeting her next week.” It’s easier to accomplish the big things in our bragging campaigns when we wake up to the littlest opportunities that were in front of us all along.