Management Leverage Blog

Do others’ perceptions become more important than results as you move up the corporate ladder?

I don’t think so.

Social capital becomes more important as you move up the ladder than it was at the beginning of your career.

Why? Because as your career progresses,
1) Your results are harder to measure, and
2) You are competing for promotions against others who produce results, and have taken the time to build social capital. In the beginning of your career this isn’t necessarily the case.

But even if perceptions are more important now than they were before, they’re not more important than results.

For the sake of simplicity, lets divide the corporate world into three buckets. In the first bucket, we’ll put the “results should speak for themselves” people. In the second bucket we’ll put the “it’s not what you know, but who you know” crowd.

Everyone in both of these buckets will hit a ceiling sooner or later.

The people in the first bucket are the best kept secrets in their organizations. They are the ghost people. We may know their name, or their face, but no one is really sure what it is they do.

In Texas we call the people in the second bucket “all sizzle and no steak”. They spend so much time working the crowd and promoting themselves, that it doesn’t take long before the perceptions of their abilities far exceed their actual abilities. They have spent more time worrying about what others think about them than actually developing themselves.

It won’t take long before they are put in charge of something and fail miserably, and very publicly.

Sure. We all know people who succeed in spite of themselves. But put these people in the same group with the 325 year old woman who has chain smoked for 324 years. Or the high school drop out who starts a
computer company and becomes a billionaire before turning 30.

If you want to work your way up, put yourself in the third bucket with those who manage  results AND others’ perceptions of them.

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Don’t tell anyone, but a senior level manager recently told me that she heard from a very reliable source that one of her direct reports wanted her job.

I told her that it was her responsibility to help him get it.

Isn’t that career suicide?

Think about it. If you developed the reputation as a manager who effectively develops employees to reach their own potential and career goals, people would flock from everywhere to work for you.

And what kinds of people do you think you would attract?

But I don’t want to end up on the street

Of course, this is only a good strategy if you have developed your own career. If you haven’t, then maybe you want to surround yourself with unmotivated, passive people whose single career goal is to leave work on time. You won’t accomplish much, but hunker down and maybe no one will notice for a while.

If you haven’t done so already, a great first step is to ask your directs where they see their career in five years. Help them get there and you will notice an immediate difference in their enthusiasm, motivation, and quality of work.

And when you develop the luxury of delegating your work to your team, you free up your own time to take on your manager’s responsibilities.

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When we want to persuade, we often rely on facts and figures and ‘offers they can’t refuse’. Such techniques appeal to our minds. We like them, because they are logical. And the truth is, building a logical case is an important skill in a manager’s repertoire.

But it’s not enough.

Logical persuasion persuasion packs an even greater punch when combined with techniques that appeal to the heart, such as metaphors.

Metaphors connect two concepts that really have no business being together…”time is money” or ”business is war”. And when accepted and adopted by your team, metaphors will help guide their everyday actions.

Sean D’Souza of psychotactics.com has a great technique for coming up with metaphors. He uses Google.

Let’s say you want to inspire your team to cognizant of how they balance their responsibilities at work. If you simply search Google for ”balance”, you’ll have a difficult time weeding through all the information that is dumped back at you.

Instead, try using Google to search for images of ‘balance’ at http://images.google.com. Now you’ll find images of a balance sheet, a balance beam, yoga… all things you can use to paint a vivid metaphor of balance.

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I had a manager who ruled by metaphors. And it was extremely effective way of getting me to do things.. First of all, his metaphors often made me laugh. “I can feel for you but I can’t reach you,” was his way of telling me to leave him alone and figure out the solution myself.

Metaphors appeal to our emotions. But because they also leak our perceptions of the way the world works, they provide openings to persuade. If you hear a colleague say “business is war,” for example, you have not only discovered something about the way he or she may perceive the world of business, but also what behaviors are acceptable in that world.

Suppose I notice that ‘business is war’ describes the world as you see it. If I want to influence you to do something consistent with this metaphor, I would just use words you already identify with, such as ‘compete’ or ‘attrition’.
But that’s the easy part. What if I want to delegate some of my CRM duties to you. I can’t just say, “Business is about building relationships with our customers”, because you will say “No it’s not. It’s war.” Then we will go back and forth like my 3 and 5 year-old sons—“No it’s not.” “Yes it is.” “No it’s not”. But in a much more refined fashion, of course.

But if I first use your metaphor, I can guide you where I want you to go, because I have unconsciously tapped into what you already believe. I could say something like “We spend more time fighting with our suppliers than we do building relationships with our customers.”

Now, I have gotten your attention. And freed up some of my time.

The key is to simply listen.

What metaphors describe your boss’s view of the world? Your colleagues’? Your direct reports?

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As a kid, when it came to picking members for a kickball team, I learned to either be the one doing the picking, or be picked last. So I got to be a pretty good picker. Or so I thought. I picked those people who could kick the ball the furthest. It was all about offense.

We do the same when putting together a project team. If I am building a widget, I want the best widget minds in the room.

While the best widgeters may be critical for the success of the project, so too are people with organizational knowledge. Every organization has people who know how to get things done within their specific organization. And no matter how important your project team, it’s not self-sufficient. It depends on the rest of the organization for funding, time, supplies, etc.

Don’t forget about defense! Make sure you include at least one person with know-who. If your team lacks the know-who factor, it will eventually starve.

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No matter where you find yourself on the organizational chart, the ability to influence people you can’t fire counts as one of the most important skills in a manager’s repertoire.

The ability to influence up, laterally and down, draws from several different bags of tricks. If you want to do this well, here’s what you need to learn.

1. Authentic networking skills—you’re not looking for targets, but for people you truly like, and whom you want to help succeed.
2. Negotiation skills—you’re not trying to win, but to look for ways where both can benefit. Think long-term here, not short term manipulation.
3. Advocacy skills—although door-to-door selling may play a part, effective advocates know how to build coalitions to do their selling for them.

These skills are even important for your boss’s boss’s boss. He or she must influence their peers, their boards, and even you to do things they have no formal authority to ask you to do. No one is born knowing how to do this. It has to be learned. And lucky for you, it can be. And the earlier in your career you begin the better.

I didn’t invent this stuff. Lucky for you we know quite a bit about influencing without authority. I suggest you look at Jay Conger’s work to start, and then take formal training in networking, negotiations, and advocacy. And then practice, practice, practice.

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Given the 12 to 15 hour time difference, the Olympic athletes will be enjoying their breakfasts while we watch their events here in the US. So, although we may not watch the Olympics live, we can watch Bob Costas live, as he hosts an Olympics that happened they day before.

This puts Bob in an interesting position. Even if someone long-jumps thirty seven city blocks, the excitement has already gone to bed before we see it. “You can’t honestly have the same reaction you would if it were live,” says Costas. “It would be dishonest to feign anticipation or initial excitement.”

Costas is a seasoned broadcaster. Shouldn’t he be able to feign excitement by now?

As managers, much of what you do involves influence. What can we learn from Bob Costas?

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Imagine you have an opportunity to move up in your company. To your surprise, your boss gave the promotion to a much less qualified co-worker. My guess is you would feel disappointed—probably even frustrated.

Now imagine you discover that the opportunity never really existed, because your application was never given serious consideration. If you are the best kept secret in your organization, you might want to get used to this kind of abuse.

But What If I Don’t Like To Toot My Own Tuba?

Me either. In fact, I hate it. Do you work with people who constantly draw attention to how great they want you to think they are? Am I asking you to become a braggart? Of course not. Just don’t blend in. Let your brand shine, or become one of the ghost people at work.

Why It’s Not Your Boss’s Fault

Her brain isn’t wired to promote you. Here’s a quick pop quiz (modified from Max’s wonderful book):

The following 8 corporations were ranked by Fortune magazine to be among the 500 largest United States-based firms according to sales volume for 2007:

a. Apple, Black & Decker, McGraw Hill, Owens Corning, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb

b. American International Group, McKesson, Publix, Plains All-American
Pipeline

Which group of five organizations listed (A or B) had the larger total sales volume?

Most people incorrectly choose A. Why?

When making decisions the human brain is wired to make mistakes in very predictable ways. We choose “A” because we hear, read, and see more about Apple Computer than McKesson. We choose motor vehicle accidents for the same reason. Yet each year about twice as many people die of stomach cancer than car wrecks.

Is Your Career Like a Car Wreck?

So what does all this have to do with your career? In the words of my two kids, “mucho”. We tend to give greater weight to those things we can recall easily. That’s why your boss grimaces when you leave work an hour before she does. She wasn’t around when you got to work (two hours before her), so it’s much easier for her to recall you leaving early. She saw you do it!

When it comes to promotions, don’t blend in. You want your boss to easily recall your positive traits. Standing out doesn’t necessarily mean bragging. Find a way to promote yourself that fits your personality, your strengths, and your company culture.

Or go ahead and make yourself comfortable in your cube. You aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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