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Number 196

Did somebody tell you that if you work hard and do a great job it won’t matter what you wear to work? They were probably wrong.

The way you present yourself to other people has an impact on how they evaluate your accomplishments and potential. And your personal style – your clothes and your grooming – influences how you show up, and how you’re perceived.

Among the situations when your style is obviously important are job interviews and presentations. Thinking about these occasions, I went to an expert, my sister, Libby Vick.

Libby spent 10 years in politics and public relations, and for more than 20 years has been on the faculty at Northern Virginia Community College. In her Business and Professional Communication classes, students of all ages and backgrounds explore how they come across on the job or in the job market.

Whether you’re making a speech or trying to make a good impression, she says, “your audience may focus less on your words than on your non-verbal message. In addition to things like posture and facial expressions, personal style is a part of that message.”

Having great personal style doesn’t mean you have to spend lots of money, Libby says. You look stylish when it’s evident you thought about how to put yourself together. For example, if your budget is tight you can still look stylish if you wear mostly black, making sure your clothes are always clean and pressed.

You’ll feel better about yourself when you know you look good, and you’re likely to perform better. Libby says that in her early teaching days she didn’t require students to dress up for presentations. But then she realized, “the speeches students give when wearing sweats or ripped jeans to class are nothing like the speeches they give when they know they look good.”

But everything comes back to understanding your audience and recognizing that all good communication is audience-centered. So give some thought to what you want to communicate and how it might be best expressed to the people you’re trying to reach.

You might want to kick your style up a notch if you:

• Work with younger people. If you still dress like you have for years they may assume your thinking is back in the 90s, as well. Notice what your hipper young colleagues are wearing, and adapt their choices to create a style that suits a person your age. If you don’t know where to begin, ask for advice from a friend or personal shopper.
• Work with older people. It won’t help your career if you look like a kid. Get rid of the flip-flops if your colleagues think casual dress means you don’t mean business.
• Interact with clients or customers. You won’t make much of an impression if you’re dressed like you don’t really care. You’ll be more credible if you look like you considered all the details, including what to wear.
• Should be a good example. In today’s tough market, young job seekers “need to have every little thing on their side,” Libby says. And knowing how to look good in a work environment is part of being competitive. If you teach students, mentor interns or work with young people, your style might be the one they learn from.
  
  
• Are making a speech. Libby says it’s tougher than ever to make a presentation, with audiences yearning to check their phones and tablets. And no matter how well you know your material, you’ll lose your audience at the start if you look sloppy, uncertain or unprepared. Dress up a bit, in an outfit that makes you look and feel good, and you’ll get off to a strong start.
• Want to move up. If you’re hoping for a promotion, dress like you’ve already moved up the ladder. Instead of blending in with your peers, take a cue from your bosses, or their bosses, and dress as if you’re one of them.

Number 195

Even if you’re a naturally organized person, the systems you use for staying on top of things may occasionally need some maintenance.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload it’s time to tweak the way you do things. Pause right now and ask yourself: does my to-do list have me tossing through the night? Do I have nagging fears about things I forgot to even to put on my list? Am I buried under paper and email? Am I faced with different or challenging circumstances? Would I feel happier with less stress and a greater sense of control?

Your work process is like your car. Even if it seems to be running pretty well, a regular tune-up is a good investment. Stepping back and trying out new ideas may relieve pressure and free up valuable time. Why not give it a try? Take these steps to tune up your productivity:

• Start with your goals. Sometimes when we’re feeling harried it’s because our frantic activity doesn’t have much relationship to what is most important. Begin your tune-up with this exercise to clarify your goals:
  • Jump forward and look back. Imagine it’s December of 2014, and the past year has brought you tremendous success. Identify the accomplishments that contributed to your success. What are the best things you’ve done in the last year or so?
  • Frame key goals. Return to today’s date and write a list of three to seven objectives for the next 12 to 15 months. State your goals succinctly and post your list where you can frequently glance at it.
• Write it all down. Next do a brain dump. Write a massive list of everything you have to do. For now, don’t worry about how your list is organized. Get it all out – your tasks, projects and all the details you need to track. You’ll feel a little better once you’ve captured everything in a single place.
• Choose a system for tracking tasks. Think about how you’ve been managing your to-do list. Has your system broken down? Do you have a problem getting everything onto the list? Is the list so cumbersome you don’t really use it? There’s no single best way to maintain your list, and sometimes what works for a while stops being effective. So give some thought about how you’ll arrange and keep up your list going forward. Ask yourself:
  • Paper or electronic? For some, the act of writing a to-do list on paper is linked to organizing the project in their mind. But it’s worth exploring options for keeping your list in the cloud. It’s a little complicated for my taste, but I’ve played with OmniFocus, a popular app that allows me to store, categorize and shuffle to-do items on my Mac, my iPhone and my iPad. And many folks swear by the free to-do templates in Google Docs.
  • One list or many categories? Some people manage well with a single long list of all pending tasks. My preference is to break my list into sections. Sometimes I squeeze my current list, divided into 4 to 8 categories, onto a single page of grid paper. I keep separate lists for long-term projects, moving action items to my current list.
• Control your schedule. Whatever method you use for keeping your calendar -- whether you still love your wire-bound planner or you’re wedded to Outlook – the key is how you fill out those hours. It’s easy to keep busy and so tempting to say “yes” to everybody who asks for a meeting or a conference call. But your goal, as you tune up your game, is to better align the allocation of your time with your own goals. As you study your calendar:
  • Find the prime time. Consider the time of day when you’re most likely to be productive. Are you sharpest in the late morning or do you leap into action at 4 p.m.? And do you typically use this prime time for your most important projects? If not, create productivity zones in your work week dedicated to your highest priorities.
  • Create space. Opening windows for what matters most might mean reducing meeting times, setting aside blocks of time for rushing through batches of low priority tasks, and simply saying “no” to some opportunities.

 

• Start with the rule of three. Each morning, look at your calendar and to-do list and identify three action items most likely to move you toward your goals. Find time on your calendar for getting them done.
• Choose your capture tools. Your to-do list identifies action steps and your calendar structures your time, but how do you save the gems in each day’s relentless flow of data? And what do you do with the ideas flitting through your mind? A classic strategy is to maintain capture notebooks. Instead of reaching for sticky notes, always have a handy journal on your desk or in your bag for saving each day’s flow of names, numbers and other vital bits of info. Then go further and explore apps that will make it easy to remember interesting items that pop up on your phone, computer or tablet. My favorite is Evernote, which lets me keep track of web clips, links, documents and images, and access them whether I’m at my desk or on the go.

 

Number 194

 Innovation is among the benefits flowing from collaboration among people with different views and skill sets. In today’s workplace, one way in which managers are learning to foster creative thinking is by partnering expert professionals aged 45+ with tech- and social media-savvy 20-somethings.

As Kerry Hannon wrote in a recent New York Times article, entrepreneurs are among those finding the power of multi-generational partnerships. Boomers are launching start-up businesses at an amazing rate, and some are looking to younger family members to co-lead their enterprises.

Work teams that cut across generations have so much potential that it’s a shame the trend isn’t building faster. One barrier to cooperation across the decades is that people of different ages communicate in different ways. In response to my recent post on reciprocal mentoring, a few readers seemed to doubt that a real dialogue is even possible. And, let’s face it, sometimes Boomers and Millennials find each other boring.

Recently I was talking with a group of Boomer friends about the tedious conversational patterns of our age cohort. In particular, we all confessed to indulging in prolonged accounts of our various aches and pains. We bore even each other with this kind of talk and could drive a Millennial out of the room. So we invented a game to remind each other to avoid annoying old person talk:

• Code Blue (for blue hair) is our signal to break the habit of complaining about sore body parts. I’m not talking about a serious talk with a dear friend about health challenges. Rather, the goal is to resist the temptation to mention your sore back or sleepless night when the conversation should focus on something else. In you want to play, empower your friend or partner to give you a gentle “Code Blue” reminder should you rant about the state of your body.
• Code Green is a signal I wanted to use while eavesdropping on the next table at the local bistro. There, a prosperous looking young couple was buying dinner for the man’s mother, a woman of about 60+. Instead of expressing appreciation for the great choices, Mom embarrassed her son by going through the menu loudly complaining about the prices. When the waiter took her order, she said, “Well what I really want is the swordfish, but I’d never let him pay that much, so bring me the pasta.” When your spouse once again shares the discovery that prices have gone up since 1984, offer a gentle reminder: “Code Green.”
• Code Golden Harvest is the contribution of our friend Paula Miller, who says it drives her crazy when people interrupt a conversation about something current with yet another story of what it was like back in the day. “Golden Harvest” was a wildly popular color for appliances and décor from the 60s into the 80s. But there’s a reason people stopped using it and we’re all still tired of it. If you know you tend to reminisce when future thinking is what’s needed, let your colleagues know it’s OK to call a Code Golden Harvest.
• Code Sparkles is what Merry Foresta suggests we use to remind each other to enjoy the moment. It will come in handy if your friend decides to eat cake at the office birthday party, but accompanies every bite with a monologue about the calorie count and evil impact of sweets. Merry – a creative art museum visionary who works well with colleagues of all ages – says the trick is to stay fully engaged and enjoy what you’re actually doing right now. If you choose to eat cake, do it with gusto, enjoying every moment. If you can’t manage engagement, at least stop talking, so others have a chance to stay in the flow.

The classic concept of a “mentor” is someone who’s older and more experienced and has the know-how to advise you on your professional path. That idea of a wise, generous senior advisor is wonderful and soothing, and makes us all want mentors to support our careers. But the image is so limited, and so dated.

If you want to know what makes mentoring really hum, a key is to understand that long lasting relationships are always reciprocal. At first glance it may seem the mentee benefits the most, getting advice and sometimes even the support of an informed advocate at critical moments. But when the relationship works, the mentor gains just as much.

Initially the joy of mentoring includes ego strokes. It’s nice to have someone listen to you, and it can feel good when they follow your advice. Then, as the relationship grows, the mentee’s questions and feedback can give the mentor a chance to pause and gain a new perspective. Eventually, the conversation becomes truly two-way, with both partners seeking advice, sharing insights and exploring delicate career questions in an environment of trust.

But there’s no need to wait for mentoring relationships to mature over the years into bilateral dialogues. Why not seek relationships, or create programs, which from the very beginning are dedicated to reciprocal mentoring?

Initiating a mentoring partnership that works both ways is easiest when both people have strengths and expertise, but in different areas. These days, when generations have such diverse skills sets, reciprocal mentoring across age groups has immense appeal. A Boomer with leadership experience but meager social media skills might be partnered with a Millennial who understands IT and new ways to stay connected but doesn’t know how to manage people.

Whether you want to recruit reciprocal mentors to support your own growth, or are interested in introducing the concept to your organization, here are points to consider:

• The match is key. Not every partnership is likely to click. Both parties should feel like there’s something to gain, and mentoring works best when both people enjoy the other’s company. If you’re on the hunt for possible mentors for yourself, whether reciprocal or otherwise, you’re more likely to spot possibilities if you have broad social and professional circles. So pump up your networking and find groups and activities that allow you to meet new people. If you want to structure some kind of program, consider using social tools like LinkedIn.com as part of the matching process.
• Require commitments. Sometimes protégés chill their mentoring relationships by taking offense at the very advice they sought. Partners who ask for guidance or feedback should agree to listen carefully and put aside defensive reactions. It’s a good idea to set some ground rules at the start of a partnership. Touch upon issues like confidentiality, agree to maintain a positive tone and promise to avoid time wastes, like whining.
• Identify specific requests. It’s not enough for partners to begin with a vague sense they’d like some career help. Each partner should enter the process with clear ideas about issues to explore and forms of assistance that would be welcome. Later, when the relationship is successfully launched, it might grow in surprising directions.
• Consider logistics. It’s great if you find a mentor in your neighborhood and can meet over coffee or lunch. But what if you go through your professional or alumni group and find an ideal partner who lives across the country? Explore options like phone calls, Skype or social media chats, and set a schedule that’s comfortable and convenient for both of you.