Letters to My Kids

A mantra is a religious syllable or poem that’s designed to bring a person to a meditative state through repetition. In my day, the business world has co-opted that word to mean a central personal philosophy that becomes your focus.

I rarely call it that, but I have a personal mantra.

Make yourself.

So many people seem so lost in a world that isn’t their own. They feel enslaved by their capabilities, their opportunities, their resources. They lament the person they are not, complain about their lot in life and deal with their unhappiness in a silent resignation to the destiny they see laid out for them.

Thoreau in Walden wrote “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. That’s the sort of attitude I see in so many people. They’re not who they want to be and cope by resigning themselves to their fates.

Make yourself.

Human beings have a remarkable capacity for growth and change. By putting your mind and body to it, you can change the person you are. Careers can be changed. Financial situations can be changed. Your appearance and health can be changed. Your social structure and associates can change. Even deep set beliefs and traditions can be changed. It just takes the determination to do it.

One of my artist friends that shares the same credo has his own way of stating it. “If you don’t like who you are, go and do something else”.

I agree wholeheartedly.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Ghandi

There’s an interesting thing about people – we are drawn to imitate.

Move a native New Yorker to the deep South and before long, he’s be sporting a drawl. Put an enthusiastic employee in a group that continually complains about work and soon he’ll be as grumpy as anyone. It’s a demonstratable fact that women who spend a lot of time together will begin to match one another’s menstrual cycles. Scientists in this day and age say there are actually neurons in the brain that react in the same way when watching someone accomplish a task as when attempting it yourself. It’s an unconscious process that you can overcome with diligence, but the more time you spend around a certain kind of person, the more you become like them.

A perfect example is right here in your own family. I grew up with basically no fear of bad weather. In college we even drove out for pizza one night during a tornado warning. But a few years with your mother, who was raised in “Tornado Alley”, and I found myself a slave to the weather channel every time it gets dark outside. No matter how hard you fight it, the desire to imitate is nearly impossible to overcome.

In practical terms, that means you’re going to be like the people you surround yourself with. If you’re around a positive, happy, enthusiastic crowd, you’ve going to follow those norms. If you’re involved with burnouts, the depressed and the cynical… guess what.

Parents seem to worry an awful lot about the company you keep. A lot of times that may seem silly to you. You’re an individual, and you will be your own person. You can rise above the bad crowd you have fun with. You can listen to angry, depressing music and not be affected. You can fill your mind with violent, misogynistic imagery through movies and television and see it just as entertainment.

But the odds are stacked against you. It’s not just parental advice, it’s built into your brain structure. Your brain is designed to become what it sees.

Think about that really closely, and be around the kind of people you’d like to be.

At some point in time, it’s very likely you’re going to want to get a job. Even if you go the entrepreneur’s route, it’s very possible you’ll be looking to get hired in order to get experience, start up cash or something else. The key moment in that job search is the interview.

An interview is where the deal is made. The employer’s already going to have made certain decisions based on your resume and reported qualifications, but the interview is where he or she will seek to answer some final questions. It’s your job to see to it that those answers are provided, whether they’re mentioned explicitly or not.

What does the company want to know?

• Do you have what it takes to do the job? Do you have the skills, background experience and basic professionalism to get the assigned tasks done?
• Will you fit into the organization? Is your look, attitude, work style and sociability a good match for the company?
• Do you understand the company and what it does? Do you know the basics of the business? Do you understand its philosophy and agree enough to help it move forward?
• How do you stack up? Are your skills, background and experience comparable to or better than the rest of the applicants?
• Do you have the right mindset? Are you a clock watcher, or a goal achiever? Are you about bringing home a paycheck, or trying to help this company accomplish what it wants to do?
• Do you want the job? Yeah, it seems like a given, but do you really want to come do work for the company, or are you just trying to earn some quick cash, meet parents’ expectations, or fulfill some personal need. Granted, they expect you to be self-serving to some degree, but in the end they’re looking for someone to help them, not someone to help.

Those are the points you want to get across to the guy on the other side of the desk. At the same time, the job interview is your opportunity to figure out if this job is actually what you expected. You want to find out a number of things, too:

• What exactly are the ins and outs of the job? Can I do what’s expected of me and do I want to do it?
• What’s the work environment like? Are the employees friendly? Does everyone complain? Is it a cutthroat atmosphere? Will they look down on me for leaving at closing time? Are the amenities desirable?
• Is management reasonable? Will I get rewarded for good work? Will my boss understand the work/life balance or just try to bleed me dry?
• Where does this job go? Are the skills transferable? Do I have a clear path of advancement? How stable is the company?

Now, some specifics on interviewing:

Above all, remember this – you are selling yourself. You want to streamline the process of presenting yourself as the right choice. Anything that could distract an interviewer from seeing this, you want to conceal. You want to answer their queries well and get your sales pitch for yourself in without messing up the impression.

When you get a call for an interview, stand up to take the call if possible. You will sound more confident and professional when standing. It’s a good rule of thumb to always stand during these kinds of calls – especially phone interviews of any sort.

Find out the people you’ll be interviewing with so you can research them later. Be sure and get the phone number of your main interviewer. If the name is difficult to pronounce, write some pronunciation notes beside it. If you’re asked for your preference for a time, set it near the end of the day. Second choice would be around, but not during lunch.

First of all, do your research. Get a good overview of what the company does, its goals/vision, its critical clients and its financial performance over the last few years. Get names and titles for upper management and the department you’re interviewing with if possible. Make yourself a cheat sheet of this information to read just before the interview. Do some more research and see if you can find common interview questions for the type of position you’re applying for and have a rehearsed answer ready.

Dress appropriately and conservatively, but don’t be afraid to give yourself a visual hook to help people remember you. For a guy, a charcoal suit with a tasteful, but interesting tie is good. Girls have a little more leeway, but remember to be tasteful. When in doubt, overdress.

Bring a conservative folio with extra copies of your resume, a notepad, pens and breath mints to take before, not during the interview. If you have letters of reference, bring a couple of copies of them also. If you’re traveling to a strange place, get directions and carry them as well, along with the phone number of the interviewer in case of an unavoidable delay. Show up a few minutes early so you can “cool down” and prep yourself in the car before entering. Now’s the time for a breath mint.

When you show up, you’ll likely be waiting in the lobby for a while for your interviewer to arrive. Spend your time gathering an impression. Is the receptionist friendly? Do people coming and going seem cheerful and happy about being here? Is the area clean and the magazines up to date? If there’s a company report, see what you can glean in the last minutes.

When you meet your interviewer, give them a smile and a dry, firm handshake. And keep the smile going. Smiles scream interpersonal skills and team players. As you follow them to the interview location, comment on how nice things are.

Sit, stand and walk straight. Remind yourself often. Sit up straight. It screams professionalism. f they offer you a drink, take it. Not only do you send the boss a signal that says “Here’s a guy/girl I can drink coffee with”, it gives you something to do with your hands. Also, if you need a second to think about a response, you can take a sip.

Never interrupt and don’t motor-mouth – but don’t yes/no through the interview. A good impression is a fine balance of respect for the interviewer, showing your enthusiasm and elaborating on your strong points. Nod when appropriate to show that you’re understanding them.

Likely, the employer will ask if you know anything about the company/job. Tell him you’ve researched the position, but are sure there is more to learn about it. Let them give you their spill. Take notes. If you have any questions, save them.

There are some common questions that will come up at most interviews – you should be prepared to answer them well:

• Tell me a little about yourself.
• What interests you most about this position?
• Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?
• What is your ultimate career goal?
• Tell me about a project that had a tough problem that you solved.
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What did you like about your last job?
• What separates you from other candidates?
• How does your previous experience/preparation relate to this work?

You should also expect a good deal of questioning about how you meet the posted qualifications.

There are also a number of “trap” questions you may be subjected to – you need to be ready for those:

• “What is your greatest weakness” or “what area do you need most improvement in” is a common fish for anything they might need to worry about. You don’t want to give them your character flaws. What you want to do is give them something that’s a slightly less than ideal characteristic, not a real weakness. Some examples: “I prefer to see a project through from start to finish rather than working on a single component and never seeing the finished product. I sometimes find it a bit frustrating to work without that overall context” or “Sometimes I have a hard time saying no to people, and I end up taking on more than my share of work.”
• “Why are you leaving your old company” or “Why are you interested in this job” – this is to make sure you’re not a bad seed who lost their last job or can’t settle down. You want them to know that you’re looking for an opportunity to work with the best, or that your old job couldn’t take you any further.
• “Describe your toughest assignment so far” – they want insight into your weaknesses and how you counter them. Best bet is to describe the situation where the difficulty was out of your control to manage and how you neutralized it. For example, dealing with a budget cut in a project, or a vendor related problem, or a problem employee. Your solution should have seen to it that the barrier did not prevent you from delivering within constraints and how you ensured the problem would not arise again.
• “Describe a conversation you had with your boss where some feedback you heard was hard to take” – trying to determine how well you listen and react to feedback. A good answer is one that gives you a chance to emphasize a current strength. For example, a boss told you you communicate poorly and you put a procedure in place to ensure you update people and took a public speaking course.
• “What will you do if you don’t get this job” – they want to see how serious you are about this career path. A good answer is that you’ll look for another job in the same field as the one you’re currently applying to.
• “Have you ever had to terminate someone” – both to see if you can handle the responsibility and to see if you work to develop and train people who are struggling.
• “Why should I hire you” – it’s the opportunity to see how bad you want it. This is your chance to give an inspired answer, a tagline to the whole interview. You need to reflect ambition, your best features, that you’ve researched the company and the position and that you have an understanding of the realities of the position.

Near the end, the interviewer is going to ask if you have questions for him. You must have questions. If you can ask him to elaborate on some company information he gave you earlier, that will show you were listening.

This is also your chance to see if the company is a good fit for you. Time for you to become the interviewer. Try to cover these, if they haven’t come up already:

• “What is a typical workday like” – to ensure you understand exactly what’s involved in the job and how defined it is. If there’s not a lot of definition, you can expect some flexibility, but you’re going to have to work harder to prove yourself.
• “What’s the best part of working at this company” – beware if they struggle for an answer. If the answer is too canned, ask them to elaborate.
• “Are there opportunities to learn more about other facets of the company” – mainly to understand how well they will train you.
• “Does the company culture reward people who put in extra hours” – both to give the impression that you’re willing and to see if they plan to just work you bone dry.
• “Can you describe a time that you rewarded an employee for a job well done” – get an idea of just how much they take their employees for granted
• If the interviewer is a department head, “Can you give an example of a time you were able to boost department morale” – watch out if they give vague answers. It may indicate that they don’t really take employee morale seriously.
• “Can you give an example of a time you feel you demonstrated your company’s commitment to ethics” – this will really throw them for a loop and you can get some interesting impressions on just how capable this person is and how dirty the company works
• “What is my path to advancement in the company, and how would I achieve that” – to get an idea of how dead-end this job might be.
• “What is my route for getting ideas to senior management” – to see if upper management actually has a method for recruiting opinions. Be careful if this answer is dodgy – may indicate a clueless management culture.

As you close, find out what the selection process is and a timeline for expecting a response. Finally, always end the interview by letting them know you are very interested in the position and asking what are your next steps to take. Just re-emphasizes your determination.

As you exit, make small talk if possible to be sociable, but notice the office. If you were able to time things right, you’ll see how many people are working late/thru lunch and whether or not the interviewer’s answers to your questions seem to fit what you see in front of you. This is your chance to see if they were just dealing out the BS or accurately representing the situation.

Always follow up with a thank you letter the day of the interview, restating your contact information and your desire for the job. Follow up with a phone call appropriately to the selection timeline they gave you earlier. Pushy is bad, persistance is good.

Hopefully, that will put you in a better position to ace an interview. Having been on both sides of the desk, I can tell you it can actually be a very fun process. How many other chances do you get to spout on for a couple of hours about how great you are!

Unfortunately, everyone doesn’t see truth as a virtue. Through your years you will regularly have to deal with people who out of malice, desire for personal gain or poor social development – will lie to you.

The thing about the human spirit is that it doesn’t want to lie. Unless the speaker is a genuine sociopath, his character is going to present telltale signs that he is misrepresenting himself. He’s going to be uncomfortable with the process on some level, and his body will display that discomfort in subtle signs that you can pick up if you keep a watchful eye.

• People will avoid eye contact when lying. However, that trick is so well known, a good liar may actually work at maintaining eye contact in order to throw you off.
• People tend to “stiffen up” when they lie – they tend not to move as much and they try to take up less space. Their hand, leg and arm movements go in toward themselves instead of out toward you. Lots of crossing arms, hands in pockets, etc.
• People will often touch their face, throat or mouth when lying
• When lying, emotions are off-pace. If they are showing a “fake” smile, look of concern, etc. it will be delayed until after they make a statement, it may stick around unnaturally and stop very suddenly. If someone receives a gift, says “I love it”, then smiles… they probably didn’t.
• When confronted, the guilty usually go on the defensive, the innocent on the offensive. However, if the person is naturally shy or feels threatened, they may be on the defensive anyway.
• Liars will often unconsciously put things between themselves and you – papers, drinks, crossed legs, etc.
• Liars tend to avoid contractions. They will more likely respond “I did not do it” instead of “I didn’t do it”.
• A great test to catch a liar is to change the subject quickly. A liar will go along willingly and look more relaxed, because he’s achieved his goal of dodging responsibility. The innocent person will want to come back to the topic, because he feels it’s unresolved.

On a side note, people don’t show these signs if they don’t feel guilty. So if they’re just joking with you, or unafraid of being exposed, or genuinely believing their own falsehood, the signs they show are going to be much more subtle.

Another more subtle way of catching lies is by following eye movements. A right handed person will tend to look to the left when constructing things and to the right when recalling things. If you ask him to imagine a green dog, his eyes will go to the left while he constructs the picture in his mind. If you ask him what color his dog is, his eyes will go to the right while he remembers.

Using that knowledge, you can see how a person responds to a question. Suppose a friend brags that he has a large trust fund. Ask him which bank it’s held at. If his eyes go to the right, he’s trying to remember where it’s held, if they go to the left, he’s “constructing” an answer that sounds good. If you suspected a significant other of cheating on you and asked where they were on a particular night, eyes to the right indicate they’re remembering, to the left means they’re making up a tale.

So keep your eyes open and listen to everything that’s being said.

A big part of getting something accomplished is working through the little problems en route to the goal. Getting through the times when you’re stuck for an idea, or a solution doesn’t present itself, or when it appears like your only alternatives are dead ends. There always seems to be those moments when you’ve put all the pieces together, but it’s still not running.

The best way to get yourself through this is to pull someone else into the mix – someone with fresh eyes and insights that can show you what you’re blind to. But that’s not always going to be available to you.

“Rubberducking” is a great technique to call into play. It’s just the act of talking to yourself, out loud. The picture is of a guy having a conversation with his rubber duck; but the mechanism of the problem solver is getting you to vocalize things. You might want to talk to a reflection in the mirror, your pet, a toy or whatever you feel most comfortable anthomorphizing. It really doesn’t matter, just as long as you express yourself in audible, spoken dialog.

The reason for this is that forcing your thoughts to align enough to sensibly state yourself forces those thoughts to congeal and become something more easily criticized. The silly will sound more silly, the brilliant more brilliant. Either the thoughts come together more solidly or show their cracks.

One situation where rubberducking is very handing is when you have to brainstorm alone. Forcing yourself to phrase everything conversationally will add just enough structure to the mix to make your results wothwhile.

Talked you your rubber duck lately?

In the last letter, I talked a little bit about blowing your own horn while being a team player. I want to flesh out the mechanics of that act, because it’s a difficult thing to do.

How do you let people know about your talents and contributions while still appearing to be a team player? Well, it’s always a delicate process that has to be experimented with, every time. But here are some generic suggestions:

• Do your job first. There is nothing that will immediately turn people off more than shirking any responsibilities you already have to try to grab someone else’s. Exceed expectations. Show that you can do more with less, or for a lesser cost, or take the toughest assignments, or the ones that no one wants. Show you can do the things assigned you before anything else. And once you do a great job on your own tasks, it’s reasonable to ask for more or to go deeper.
• Make it a proposition. The worst way to position yourself in your peers’ or superiors’ eyes is to call attention to your own brilliance. “Hey look at me, aren’t I doing a great job” will just gain you groans. What you have to do is make your next step a proposition. Instead of saying “I did all my work, what else you got for me?”, pay attention to what’s needed and offer your involvement; “I figure we are going to need approval on these funds – can I put together a proposal?” “I don’t think anyone has planned for a speaker – can I work on getting us one?”. Make your peers and superiors aware of a need, and offer to fill it.
• Show enthusiasm. Everyone likes someone who has a smile on their face. If you do the work cheerfully and show some enthusiasm for the product, guess who is likely to be elected or selected to take a leadership role?
• Be humble. Don’t let your responsibilities or recognition go to your head, and more people will be willing to let the accolades stay fresh.

Just a few minor suggestions to flesh that last one out.

Everyone loves a team player. Everyone wants the person that unselfishly gives of himself to see the group get ahead. There’s no easier way to build rapport and guarantee yourself inclusion than to be the kind of person they know will do whatever’s necessary to see that the team wins.

Being a team player is important. Very few things in this life get accomplished on your own. But there’s one pitfall to that advantage – it’s easy to get lost in the team.

There’s a really delicate balance to being a team player. You have to support the team, but you can’t blend in so perfectly that your own accomplishments don’t get recognized and subsequently rewarded. You can’t be a ball hog, but if you give away every shot you’ll never have any to call your own. You can’t be the company showboat, but you can’t anonymously make everyone else look good all the time.

It’s hard to give you solid advise about this, because every situation is a little different. But you will have your best shot at a good balance if you pay attention to the reactions of people around you. Do you sense resentment when you step up, or do people seem to accept your status? When you take the lead, do the people with influence understand your contributions?

You won’t always get things right, so you have to step up and do your thing, then test the waters. If you’re getting a negative response, ease off. Patch up the wounds by including others in the praise. Or give someone else a chance to shine. Or play it with a bit more subtlety. The more you practice it, the better you’ll get.

You never want to prop yourself up at the expense of the team. Not only does it get you resentment, it gets you and the team a loss. And it’s just not a very honorable way to do things.

But at the same time, you don’t want to fade into obscurity, either. You’ll never get ahead if people don’t know why you should be getting ahead.

In an ideal world, people would be judged by their merits alone. Your physical appearance would be seen as incidental and routine. But we live in a visual society. People make snap decisions on the most superficial levels. And while that’s not really a valid judge of worth, you’ll find the majority of people you’re forced to deal with will be quite satisfied with determining your worth based on appearance alone.

Especially in your formative years, it’s hard to see that. You want to look like the rest of the crowd, or express your individuality, or rebel against the picture your parents had laid out for you. And that’s normal and healthy.

The problem is, most of the time your peers are not in a position to get you ahead. They don’t assign your grades, or give you leeway in a disciplinary matter, or offer you a promotion. Generally, the people that can manage this are older than you, and probably don’t have the same appreciation for the concert T-shirt or the crazy hairstyle your peers would applaud.
If you want older people to take you more seriously; if you want to build influence with people who can help you out, you have to look the part.

Generally, you want to dress the part you want to play. If you want someone to see you as responsible, you want to look like what “they” would characterize as a trustworthy person. At work, you want to dress for the job you want, not the one you have. Doing so sets you apart from the crowd in a constructive way and helps the higher-ups see you as a little more together than your peers.

Naturally, you don’t want to be too out of place. If the norm is jeans, a suit is probably too much. Being that much out of place not only ostracizes you from your peers, but will be seen as odd enough to be negative.

But you can make subtler choices that still have an impact. Sometimes you can get away with casual pants where everyone else has jeans. Sometimes you can ensure your shirt has a collar, or wear a button-up instead of a pullover. Tucking in your shirt, avoiding jewelry (outside of a nice watch) goes a long way in helping them see you as a mature person. And just making sure your clothes are clean and pressed will make a difference.

We all wish we could be judged on our merits instead of the impressions we leave. But since you know that the impressions are going to define you to the people that have influence, you can use this to your advantage.