Persistence

You don’t always get it right the first time…

• Abraham Lincoln failed in business in 1831. He was defeated for the legislature in 1832. He failed in business again in 1834. Hi beloved, Ann Rutledge, died in 1835. Had a nervous breakdown in ‘1836. Was defeated in election in 1838. Defeated for Congress in 1843, 1846, and for a third time in 1848. Lincoln was defeated for Senate in 1855, and defeated for Vice President in 1856. In 1858 he was defeated for Senate. And finally in 1860 he was elected President!
• Thomas Edison built 1800 prototypes until he created the first light bulb. He was one of America’s most prolific inventors, and he was granted 1,093 patents by the U.S. Patent office, including motion picture cameras, the phonograph, and the storage battery. But his inventions included such failures as a perpetual cigar, furniture made of cement, and a flying machine.
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and yet he found it difficult to secure a major backer. In the same year he patented the telephone, 1876, Bell tried to sell exclusive rights to the telephone to Western Union, the leading communications company at the time, for $100,000. William Orton, Western Union’s president, declined the offer, saying: “What use could this company make of an electrical toy?” The rest, as they say, is history.
• Frank Herbert is the author of Dune, the epic science-fiction tale. The book was rejected by 13 publishers with comments like “too slow,” “confusing and irritating,” “too long,” and “issues too clear-cut and old fashioned.” But Herbert was persistent. Dune went on to win the two highest awards in the science-fiction writing and has sold over 10 million copies.
• Albert Einstein was a poor elementary school student. He failed his first college entrance exam at Zurich Polytechnic. However he went on to develop one of the greatest theories of Physics, The Theory of Relativity. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics and today his name is synonymous with the word “Genius.” He will go down in history as one of the greatest scientists in the history of the world.
• Henry Ford failed in business and went broke five times before he finally succeeded. In his first car, he forgot to put in a reverse gear. Then in 1957, he created bragged about the “car of the decade,” the Edsel. This car was infamous for its doors that wouldn’t close, a hood that wouldn’t open, paint that peeled, a horn that stuck, and a notoriety that made resale impossible. Despite this, Ford went on to much success.
• Col. Harland Sanders (the Kentucky Fried Chicken Guy) traveled across the country trying to franchise his business. On the 1009th try he got his first sale. Today, KFC is a worldwide success story.

If at first you don’t succeed…

 

The Secret of Success

It would be pretty bold to claim to give you the single secret to success in one step.  There are a lot of factors that lead to success, but there is a single step that will determine whether or not you succeed.

Know what success means.

Before you roll your eyes, think for a minute.  Why do so many celebrities with every hallmark of success take their own lives or succumb to substance abuse or some other self abuse born of depression?  Undeniably they made some material gains.  They may have achieved notoriety.  They may have gained power and influence.  But their gains didn’t satisfy them.  They didn’t achieve happiness.  They didn’t succeed.

And you don’t have to be a big splash to illustrate this, either.  Browse through the bookstores at any point and you’ll find stories of people who made drastic career changes in mid life because they didn’t find their old profession rewarding.  The high salaries, fringe benefits, fame and fortune looked good back at the bottom of the ladder, but once they had laid hold on it, it didn’t fulfill them like they anticipated.

You can likely see it in your peers as well.  Everyone knows at least a couple of people with intelligence, drive and means who are simply going nowhere.  They career hop, live for the weekend and never seem to really be satisfied with their lot.

You can’t travel without a destination.  You can move around and maybe even have a great time, but you won’t get anywhere.  And you’ll never really know when you’ve arrived.

Success works the same way.  You can put your full efforts into your career, relationships and pastimes, but if you don’t know what you want to achieve, you’re spinning your wheels.

When you don’t have a good picture of your goals, your focus is on activity.  Activity is good, but it can be wasteful and even counterproductive to a desired end result.  To move up, you need to focus on improvement, not activity.

I’d like to challenge you right now to evaluate your life goals and understand where you want to be.  Include career, finances, relationships, commitments.  Flesh it out as fully as you can.  Write them down and keep them in front of you and revisit them often.

Then, when you have a decision to make, you have a clear understanding of what outcome you desire.

It’s the first step, and really the most important.

 

Handling Setbacks

No matter how hard we try, things just don’t always go our way. Sometimes we find we’re just not capable of achieving what we intended. Sometimes the rug gets pulled from under you. Sometimes when you’ve anticipated every contingency, a new one invents itself that’s completely out of your control.

It’s not a great situation. Disappointment, depression and anger are common reactions to falling short of the mark. You want to strike out at someone, find a reason for the sabotage and avenge it. Maybe you want to beat yourself up a little bit, too. Society is not kind to failure of any sort and unfortunately, ego often causes us to reject the support of those who care about us out of pride in our indomitable spirit.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of successes in life. And I’ve been human enough to see a lot of failures as well. I’d like to give you a bit of advice regarding those moments when you’ve missed your goals.

Failure is to be expected. No one comes out of the birth canal perfect. We are all in a state of evolution, of continuous improvement. With that comes the ups and downs, the highs and lows. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never really stretched yourself and consequently, you’ve never really grown. Sometimes when you’ve experienced a long chain of successes, you see failure as a step backwards, or maybe even the slippery slope to greater failings. Failing is not an indicator of insufficiency. It’s a natural consequence of growing to be something greater than you currently are. So expect the failures. Worry if you don’t have one every now and then, because it means you’re stagnating in a comfort zone. Indeed, rejoice in them just a little bit – it means you’re alive and growing and becoming something greater than you were yesterday.

Failure is success if we learn from it. Failure is the greatest educational opportunity you can hope for. The lesson is relevant, emotionally charged and deep seated. The great minds – the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the societal drivers all report a long list of failures that made them what they are today. Make sure when you fail that it becomes a lesson to you. Analyze it. Understand what went wrong and why it went wrong. What can you change about yourself, your life, your outlook to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? Failing to achieve a goal just means that you now thoroughly understand one way NOT to achieve your goal.

Remember your successes. One of the greatest anti-depressants in times of failure is to review your successes. Drag the scrapbooks out of the closet. Review the annual performance appraisals. Take a peek through the college yearbook. Remind yourself that this is only a single incident and deal with it emotionally in terms of all the things that have gone right for you.

Accept support. Ego is a wonderful motivator, but it’s a two edged sword. Don’t let egotistic delusions prevent you from accepting the help offered by those who care about you. Pretending you’re not affected by the problem or assuring everyone that you don’t need any help is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. Call in some of the emotional capital you’ve been building with those around you. Give people the satisfaction of sharing their support and allow it to motivate them to help you.

Everyone fails. Not just once or twice, but constantly throughout life. It’s a part of becoming better than you are now. In a manner of speaking, life is about learning. Let your failures teach you and build you to what you can be.

 

Showing Up

“90% of success is showing up”

That truism by Woody Allen is not without merit. Although you’re not going to hit the heights of success by putting in a marginal effort, it definitely is a prerequisite. You’re not going to get anywhere without trying. You’ll never have great grades in class if you don’t show up. You won’t succeed in a business by sitting at home dreaming about it. You won’t excel at a job (or likely keep one) without getting out of bed and punching the clock.

The real secret to this mantra is that showing up is usually the most difficult step. If you can get up and go to work, you’ll usually go ahead and get some work done. If you actually put on your gear and show up at the gym, you’ll go ahead and get a workout in. If you cut ties with your old company and start your own business, you’ll work at making it a success. Once you’ve made the leap and committed to doing something, you’ll usually get about the business of getting it done.

So if you can find ways to make sure you show up, you’ll be on the path to achieving your goals. And if you can manage to see to it that you do show up – even when you’re not motivated – you’ll see a steady progression toward what you want to achieve. Some suggestions:

• Tie yourself to a goal financially. Pay for a gym membership, and you’ll be motivated to take advantage of that relationship and go work out. After all, you don’t want to think about the money you’re wasting by paying for a gym you never use, right?
• Tie yourself to a goal socially. Get a buddy to co-commit to a common goal and hold each other responsible. Getting up every morning to run can get really difficult when it’s rainy and cold outside, or when you anticipate a big day, or when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. However, if you’ve got a buddy you’re supposed to meet, a little more responsibility comes into play.
• Tie yourself to a goal occupationally. If it’s your intent to learn a new skill, find a way to become responsible for learning that skill within your employment. Volunteer to learn the new programming language, or to give a review of the new business book everyone is reading at a meeting. Volunteer to speak, or organize or analyze – whatever requires that you gain some of the new skill in order to accomplish it.
• Tie yourself to a goal by seeking a mentor. Find a person that’s accomplished in whatever course you wish to pursue and make a connection with them with an opportunity to follow up with them later to have them review your progress. Hire a teacher or tutor. Just find some way to make yourself accountable for reaching your goal to another person.
• Tie yourself to a goal with ego. Brag a bit. Make it well known among your circle that you WILL accomplish your goal within a certain time frame. Make sure your talk is strong so that you will be embarrassed to report failure. Peer pressure can work both ways.

Again, showing up is rarely going to get you what you want. But it definitely is the first step, and one you can control without a lot of effort.

 

What Do You Do?

So what do you do?

You’ll hear this question many a time in the process of meeting new people and going new places. It’s a nice safe question that fits well in our American work sensibilities. You are what you do, what you’ve accomplished, how much you get paid for it. And the response is effortless – I’m a student, I’m a business owner, I’m a computer programmer.

But how you respond speaks to your self-image and purpose as well.

If you consider yourself a student, that means you’re someone who goes to class, tries to get good grades and has an intention of getting a degree and going on to something else – someday. There’s a reason people have such a crisis picking a major. Why they choose their colleges according to team loyalties, or where their friends are going. Why the lure of mindless entertainment can seem to overcome the need to prepare for an exam. If you see yourself as a student, your vision ends there. What will you do after graduation? What should you be doing to prepare for your future? Where will you be a few years from now? If you don’t really think of yourself as anything but a student, there’s little chance of you being anything else.

But what if you thought of yourself in different terms? What if instead of a student, you were an accountant in training? Or a business owner in the very early start up stages? Changes your outlook, doesn’t it? Suddenly you have a reason for what you’re doing beyond the immediacy of just doing it. You understand why you need to learn the material, and what you’ll use it for. You have a goal in mind for your educational pursuits and with research, can find a school that has a program that takes you toward your goals, instead of just wherever your friends are going.

I have been a computer programmer/technologist most of my life. I enjoy writing code, working with software and creating systems. There’s also a lot about the job I don’t enjoy – long hours, lots of uninteresting support work, the inevitable problem you just can’t seem to solve, having to work with outdated technologies, etc. Comparing the things I like about it with the things I don’t, it’s not a very even balance. Not a lot of joy there.

But the code isn’t an end to itself – it’s what the code does for people. It solves problems. It makes things easier and faster. It makes it feasible to keep up with things you wouldn’t bother with without the assistance of the software. And the things people do with that code produces meaningful results in the world. So I don’t really consider myself a computer programmer. I make it possible for people to get the news they need every day, without fail. I help people maintain their businesses. I help people keep up with their loved ones. I help people form opinions about the world that influences the way they vote and in doing so, affect the political process in my corner of the world. I also help get employees get home to enjoy their families, enjoy their lives.

It makes a difference to really know what you do. It gives you purpose, it helps you through the times that aren’t so fun and it helps you to have a better understanding of what’s valuable and what’s negotiable.

So again, what do you do?

 

The Sensible Rebel

It doesn’t take a lot of sense to break the rules. It does however, take a lot of sense to break the rules effectively.

You can really easily identify a couple of extremes in people in regard to playing by the rules. The “goody two shoes” always play strictly by the rules. They seek recognition and achievement in a clearly pre-defined path that’s been laid out before them, and they don’t really recognize alternatives to that mindset as being valid in any way. These are the teacher’s pets, the corporate yes men… you recognize them. They thoroughly believe that they’re going to get ahead by playing it by the book as closely as possible.

The other is the flagrant rule breaker, who sees most any system as a challenge to rail against it. These are the guys that spend more time in detention than out, the people working in low-end jobs that you know are below their potential. They believe that the system is ineffective and the only way to get ahead is to take it on your own terms.

Strangely enough, their end will be somewhat similiar. The guy who tries to do everything by the book will find that there are plenty of people who will do the same, and probably better. They tend to be the guys that end up in a difficult and critical job doing all the work with all of the stress and none of the thanks or rewards. The guy who refuses to play by the rules never gets a chance to get started in the system, so they work below their potential and find themselves unsatisfied with their state.

The smart guy avoids this… by breaking the right rules.

There’s an old adage among musicians that you have to know the rules to break them. Music becomes interesting when you add a bit of the unexpected. If you only play the scales that theoretically “work” with the backing, it’ll sound nice but the audience will lose interest because they’ve heard it all before. If you never learn what people expect to hear, but just play your own thing, a few people may listen for novelty, but it will very quickly become annoying to all who listen. But if you play what people expect to hear, but introduce a bit of dissonance or “out” playing to it, you’ll capture the imagination. Formulaic players will produce proper, but boring fluff. The ignorant will just never interest anyone. Very few would want to hear Jimi Hendrix making albums full of dissonant feedback and out of tune warblings. But when he sets it in a solid foundation of classic blues, people sit up and take notice.

The guy that gets ahead learns how to play by the rules. It gives him a place to start, some structure and an open door into the system. But he knows how to judge his situation and break the rules occasionally to differentiate himself from the crowd.

Let’s talk some practical examples:

• On the football field, the quarterback that runs every play exactly as handed to him becomes as predictable as the playbook and as easy for the defense to read. The maverick likely never gets a chance behind the ball and when he does, keeps his own team as on edge as the opposition. The guy who recognizes the value of the playbook, but trusts his own instincts enough to call an audible occasionally becomes a real threat.
• A great musical example is King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man”. Even if you’re not a musician, have a listen. There’s a lot of dissonance going on, a lot of shifts in tempo and an unexpected verse structure – but the song feels very comfortable and fun. It’s not exactly predictable at first listen, but not completely unpredictable.
• Early in my career I was asked to salvage a computer purchase – they had spent a lot of money on a bulk purchase of PCs and were really unsatisfied with their performance. After learning that the users really needed processing power, I purposefully crippled the graphics systems on them to give the rest of the PC more resources. The result was a slightly poorer visual experience that no one really cared about and a much more responsive machine. I also got a raise for that one.
• In one of my college psychology courses, a lot of people chose classic research projects like Jung, Freud, etc. I chose to dissect the psychology of Mark Twain instead. I got a lot of positive comments for “thinking outside the box” on the project, a top grade (even though I admit it wasn’t my best paper) and as a bonus cut my workload in half – since I was already doing a paper on him for a Literature class.

Being a rebel without a cause generally gets you nowhere. You have grand designs of beating the system in some manner and realize too late that all the rewards you’re looking for are indeed there in the system. Being the shill gets you started on the right path, but efficient cogs in the machine tend to find their place and are forgotten until they break down.

It’s the guy who’s smart enough to know when to step out of line that tends to get what he’s looking for.

 

SMOG

When you take driver’s ed, an acronym they may teach you to help you remember the order of actions to take when changing lanes is SMOG – Signal, Mirror, Over the Shoulder, Go. Signal first, check to make sure you can move, then do it.

Strangely enough, most people don’t do that. They check the mirror or shoulder first to see if there’s room to move, then they signal and go, or just go sometimes. They hesitate to signal because of little ego concerns – maybe there will be no room and they will look stupid driving along with their blinker on. Or that there will be an opening that they’re too timid to take and everyone will know they were too afraid to take the spot. Or that they’ll change their mind and everyone will think they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s a really silly situation – these are likely totally anonymous spectators who couldn’t identify you again in a crowd if they had to. Plus, they’ll likely forget any impressions they had a few seconds down the road. But people invest a lot in their egos, and they hesitate to have them pricked even slightly, even for a fleeting moment. And they don’t signal until they know they can make the move.

The thing is, most people on the road want to be helpful, and a lot of times just announcing your intention will cause the other drivers out of kindness, fear of an accident, or fear of looking like a jerk to make the space you’re looking for. You flip on the signal and someone slows down to give you some room to move. A lot of times you will create the opportunity just by announcing your intentions.

Life is like that as well. A lot of times we want to make a change in our lives. Maybe it’s killing a bad habit, or moving to a new career, or taking our lives in a different direction. And just like on the highway, our egos tend to make us hide our intentions until we’re absolutely sure we can make the change. We want to announce our diet after the weight’s been lost. Or announce our dissatisfaction with our current job when we have a new one secured. Or announce our desire to open our own business the weekend before the grand opening. Our little egos tell us that we’ll look foolish if we announce our intentions and then fall short of them. People will think that we’re failures, or not dedicated enough, or wishy-washy. So we keep those intentions a secret.

But just like on the highway, sometimes just announcing your intentions will open an opportunity. Maybe others who have been along similar paths will give you advice, or encourage you. Maybe they have the means to create the opportunity in their hands. Maybe someone you know has been thinking about investing in a business. Maybe your employer is anticipating some new openings, or has been considering restructuring your department. Maybe a friend has been considering getting in shape as well and will become your workout partner.

I’ve mentioned earlier that people like helping other people. Even the selfish ones get a rise out of demonstrating their generosity occasionally. And just like you, there are lots of people considering change in their lives as well. Change that may be syncronous with what you’re trying to make happen.

But they’ll never know, unless you signal.

 

The Interview

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!

 

Team Players, Continued

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.

 

Team Players

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.