Promote Yourself (9 page)

PRACTICE PRESENTING.
   The further you move up in an organization, the more presentations you'll have to do. Unfortunately, the prospect of talking in front of others is frightening. So, aside from taking beta blockers or sedatives (which, of course, you would only do if your doctor told you to), the only way to calm the butterflies in your stomach is to practice. The more you practice, the easier it'll be. For instance, give a two-minute presentation at dinner and a five-minute monologue to the mirror before bed. Opportunities to do presentations are all around. You could even go so far as to stand up and present everyone's orders to the server when you're out to lunch with your friends. If you can't find any opportunities to practice, you aren't looking hard enough. If you want more practice, join a group like Toastmasters (
Toastmasters.org
), an international organization that helps people develop speaking and presentation skills.

The biggest fears people have around presentations are making a fool of themselves in front of a bunch of strangers, and having to sway others to your point of view. The easiest solution is to make sure you have some allies in your audience, and the easiest way to do this is to go around and meet with some of the people you'll be presenting to. Give them an overview of what you'll be talking about and get some feedback. If they like what you're doing, they'll be in your corner, and you won't have to convince them. If they don't like what you're doing, ask what their concerns are and try to resolve them. You may be able to incorporate some of their thoughts into your presentation. Nothing makes people feel more important than taking their advice. And the ability to make others feel important is invaluable.

 

Body Language: Observing and Using the Unspoken

In the workplace—and everywhere else—you're communicating all the time, whether you know it or not. You've probably read or heard somewhere that 80 or 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. The exact percentage doesn't matter—the point is that it's a lot. People will judge you based on all sorts of nonverbal cues—how you carry yourself, the way you nod your head when you're listening to others, how you walk through the office. Managers do this a lot, particularly when they're evaluating people for promotions. Sure, they want someone with the right skills and abilities. But they also want someone who dresses and acts the part.

A few pages back I talked about improving verbal (written or spoken) communication by learning to listen better. In much the same way, I want to start talking about nonverbal communication by encouraging you to “listen” to others' body language.

OBSERVE OTHERS.
   You're going to do this for two reasons. First, by observing others' oral and body language, you'll get some insights into what's motivating them, what they're concerned or excited about. That will allow you to tailor your approach to their unique situation. With a tentative person, for example, you'll want to be less aggressive than you might be with someone who's aggressive. Observing others in this way applies to both customers and fellow employees and managers. “Change is not easy and is often met with resistance and uncertainty. Social media and technology are so rapidly progressing, as is the way people consume content, that adapting to these changes, and getting people on board, can be challenging,” says Royale Ziegler, Social Media Manager at E! Entertainment. “It's extremely important to consider how an individual will best receive my message and then deliver it accordingly.”

Second, it's essential that you know how others perceive you and how they react to what you say and do. Sometimes those reactions will be verbal, other times they'll be behavioral. Sometimes they'll be obvious, other times they'll be very subtle. Someone who asks you a lot of questions is probably interested in you and wants to hear what you have to say. Someone who's doing a lot of eye rolling, foot tapping, looking around the room, saying a lot of “Oh, really's” and never asks you a follow-up question is telling you very clearly that you're not connecting and you will need to find out why or probe the issue by taking another tack. While many people don't have any problem reading others' cues, not everyone does. If you can't get a pretty accurate handle on how others perceive you, that's a skill you need to work on. If this is you, you'll need to make a concerted effort to pay closer attention to the way people respond to what you're saying and doing. Stop every once in a while and ask yourself how you're doing.

WATCH YOUR BODY LANGUAGE.
   Remember what I just said about most communication being nonverbal? Think about what you do with your body when you're involved with others. Do you lean backward in your seat and cross your arms? Do you find yourself standing with your hands on your hips? Do you have “restless leg syndrome” (yes, that's an actual condition)? Do you face people head-on or do you sit or stand at an angle (research shows that people tend to focus on whatever it is that their feet are pointing to)? Do you straighten paperclips, twirl pens, or fidget in some other way? Simple behaviors like these can make a huge difference in your ability to communicate with others, hear what they have to say, put them at ease, and build relationships with them.

MAKE EYE CONTACT IN ONE-ON-ONE AND TEAMWORK SITUATIONS.
   If you've ever tried to have a conversation with someone who's not looking at you, you know how frustrating and annoying it can be. And you know how nice it is—and how important you feel—when the person you're talking with looks directly at you. Keep your eyes on the person you're with and don't let your eyes wander around the room looking for someone better to talk with. If you have a habit of looking around while others are talking, stop it.

 

Soft Skills for Remote Workers

According to a recent study done by Cisco, 70 percent of college students and young professionals don't think it's really necessary to go into an office. Surprisingly, more and more employers seem to agree. And chances are that you're already doing it. Another study, this one by the software company Wrike, found that 83 percent of employees work remotely at least part of the day. All that time you spend reading and answering e-mails on your commute, before bed, at breakfast, and even on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night counts, as it should.

Here's the problem, though: Even as working from home becomes more acceptable and the rigid command-and-control office model becomes more outdated, remote workers (and by that I mean anyone who does work someplace other than his or her employer's office) worry that their coworkers or bosses will see them as slackers, and that the lack of face time with the boss could hurt their careers.

For Andre Obereigner, an HR Professional with IBM in Malaysia who supports the company's HR business in Germany and Europe, the face time issue is his number one concern. Certainly, not being in the same place at the same time makes it harder to communicate with each other. “And even when you do communicate, you're missing the facial expressions and body language that convey information that can be vital in the decision-making process,” he says.

Unfortunately, some remote workers do, in fact, turn into slackers and wind up getting fired. And even if you're not a slacker (and you wouldn't be reading this book if you were), remote workers have a harder time forming strong emotional bonds with coworkers (no chance for after-work cocktails, obviously), and they don't get that invaluable face time with senior management. “There isn't the opportunity to pop into someone's office and ask how they're doing, talk about what they're working on, etc.,” says Sherri Hartlen-Neely, an Associate Director at Computer Sciences Corporation who manages remote workers. It's also a lot harder to get people to notice your hard skills if you're not in the office. But the things that could get you fired—and the things that will make you a success—are the same for remote workers as they are for in-house workers.

MAINTAIN
CONTACT.

This is huge. The old expression “out of sight, out of mind” is definitely true in the corporate world. If people don't see you, they won't think of you when a new opportunity comes up. So you need to make sure your manager sees your name or your face or hears your voice every day. Sherri Hartlen-Neely suggests that managers reach out to their staff for the occasional chitchat that happens naturally when you are all located in the same physical space. “As a manager (and I would argue as an employee) you have to make a concerted effort to reach out at various points throughout the week to just say ‘Hey there! What's happening?'” Use Skype, Google Talk, or some other video conferencing system. IM, text, or tweet, and don't be afraid to pick up the phone. But make sure you know your manager's preferred method of communication. Age-based stereotypes are sometimes true: If your boss is much older than you, a phone call might be the way to go. If they're your age or younger, newer technologies may work better, but ask anyways.

NETWORKING

Network as much as you can,
especially with coworkers and other people in your industry. Go to your company's offsite training programs and holiday parties, and participate in as many networking events and conferences as you can. Building strong relationships can be a challenge for a telecommuter, but it's incredibly important.

PUT
IN
SOME
FACE
TIME
WHEN
YOU
HAVE
THE
CHANCE.

Many companies will have onsite meetings every year or so. If you get an invite to one of these, don't turn it down. “We generally pick a couple of days in the year when the entire team can fly in and get together for some face-to-face team building and learning, says Hartlen-Neely. “And, of course, there is the team dinner at that onsite meeting that we all look most forward to. There's something to be said about breaking bread together that lets you feel a little closer to someone and understand them better.”

 

Making the Right Impression

The old expression “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” isn't quite correct, and we'll get to that in a minute. But there's no question that first impressions are really, really important. Researchers at Princeton found that first impressions are formed in one-tenth of a second.
1
Pretty scary. But even scarier is the fact that longer exposures don't significantly alter those first impressions. That means that you don't actually even have to meet someone to form an impression, which is why you need to think long and hard about how you come across.

So, let's talk about the various components to making an impression.

MIND YOUR MANNERS.
   “In my opinion, the soft skill that Gen Yers lack the most is manners,” Mark Kuta, Value Chain Planning Sales Manager at Oracle, told me. “How to conduct yourself at a lunch meeting, how to follow up with people, how to use your class to differentiate yourself. I've purchased books on manners for several of my young employees.” This will sound awfully basic, but the kinds of manners I'm talking about here are the same ones your parents taught you when you were little: Be polite, say “please” and “thank you,” listen respectfully and don't interrupt when others are talking. And yes, even though your parents didn't say anything specifically about texting, let me assure you that texting or checking your e-mail in the middle of a meeting or a business lunch is extremely rude.

DRESS THE PART.
   As trite as it sounds, you really do need to dress for success. Forty-one percent of employers say that people who dress better or more professionally are more likely to get promoted than those who don't dress as well. A recent study done by
CareerBuilder.com
took a look at the dress-for-success issue but from the opposite angle. They found that things that might seem superficial to you can make a big difference to managers. The top factors that make them less likely to promote a candidate were: piercings (37 percent), bad breath (34 percent), visible tattoos (31 percent), clothes (29 percent), and a messy desk (27 percent). Other factors included having chewed fingernails, being too suntanned, or wearing too much perfume.
2
Research shows that when women dress in a masculine way for a job interview, they're more likely to get the job, and if they're in a prestigious job and dress provocatively, people think they're less competent.

Feeling outraged? Fair enough. But even though it seems inappropriate for someone to consider how you look, that's just the way it is, like it or not. As Dean Lawyer, Senior Area Manager, State and Local Government Mobility Solutions, at T-Mobile, told me, “Looking down on a co-worker with strange hair, body piercings, tattoos, etc., without getting to know the person behind the package may not be right, but it is a reality. So if your hair isn't the most interesting thing about you, you should consider the kind of attention it demands.” The goal is to look polished and professional but not to lose your personality. The most important thing to consider when deciding how to dress at work is what the standards are. If you're in a start-up and everyone's wearing jeans, great, wear jeans. If they're all wearing jeans and you show up in a suit, you'll look like a brownnoser. But if you're an investment banker where the standard is suits and you show up in jeans, you'll look like an idiot.

So here's the deal. Dress for the position you want to have, not the one you do have. As Melanie Mitchell, Senior Vice President, Search Marketing Strategy at Digitas, explained, “If your peers wear jeans to work every day and most managers wear business casual attire, it is easier for someone in management to perceive you as manager material if you dress up at least a few days each week.”