In the modern economy, expertise, skills and knowledge are some of the best measures of your competence. Many of us are afraid to admit whenever there's something we don't know. Despite that, one of the most important skills we need in the age of information is the ability to say "I don't know" both to ourselves and to others.
First, being able to admit that you don't know something forces you to stay humble. Being honest with yourself and others by saying "I don't know" means that you don't overstate your area(s) of expertise. This prevents you from receiving false recognition, which prevents arrogance and over-inflation of the ego.
Being able to say "I don't know" also keeps you curious and ready to learn. I'm not sure how most people are, but personally, if I'm asked a question and I don't know the answer, it bothers me. I want to find out the answer and look it up. That kind of behaviour develops curiosity and a love for learning new things. All because I admitted to myself and whoever is asking me a question that I don't know the answer.
Most importantly, in the long term, saying "I don't know" will keep you from losing credibility. There's always pressure to be a "subject matter expert", as well as the pressure to provide immediate answers without knowing what you're talking about. What will likely happen in this situation is that you'll give inaccurate information. The person who receives that inaccurate information will make decisions, act on that information, and suffer the consequences. When they do, you'll be blamed for their failure and be thought of as unreliable or worse, a liar.
Yes, it's important to be knowledgeable and skilled. It's important to be able to answer questions about your field of expertise. This is what competence in any field looks like. However, no matter how competent you are, there will always be something that you won't know. And that's all right. We're now in a world where almost all of human knowledge can be accessed almost instantaneously using a device in your pocket. You're better off saying "I don't know. I'll give you an answer as soon as I find out."
Of
course, failure is an option. It's not necessarily the one we want to
pick most of the time, but it will always be one of your options. In
fact, failing can be one of your best-case scenarios.
For one, the feeling that you get when you fail is terrible, especially the first time. Learning how failure feels will make you be more prepared and work harder the next time you try, pushing you to succeed.
When stakes are relatively low, when you're trying to learn something, or when you're trying to innovate, failure is an important step. Failing gives you a chance to see what didn't work, why it didn't work and what changes are needed to make something succeed. This is a very important part of developing the white belt mentality required for continuous improvement in any field.
In a previous post, I've emphasized the importance of quitting. Another benefit of failing is that it can help you determine whether you need to readjust what you're doing or to quit altogether. Of course, this also requires an understanding of why you failed.
Yes, failing too often can be detrimental, especially when the stakes are high. However, if can react to failure the right way, you can use it to your advantage. What you don't want to do when you fail is to complain, blame others, avoid future challenges and adopt a victim, "woe is me" mentality. To benefit from failure, what you want to do when it happens is to get mad, maybe use a few expletives, then try to get better, and try harder.
In a previous post, I outlined the simple, 2-step formula to become good at anything:
1) Practice a lot
2) Put in a lot of conscious effort to what you're practicing
Here's a revised version of the formula, if you want to become THE BEST at anything:
1) Practice exponentially more than before
2) Practice with conscious effort and nearly singular focus
3) Be lucky
Assuming you have the luck required, you will also need to drastically increase the amount of practice you do. Because of the increased amount of practice required, you'll have to sacrifice time for other things: social life, sleep, time with family, leisure activities, etc. You are focused almost entirely on whatever it is you're trying to be the best at.
This is true no matter what profession or field you want to become the best at. Whether you want to become the most renowned neurosurgeon, the funniest stand-up comedian, an Olympic gold medalist, the most successful CEO, an elite professional hockey player, the most published and cited academic, or a world-champion MMA fighter, you will have terrible "work-life balance". You'll need to sacrifice a lot of time not only to reach the pinnacle of your field but also to stay at the elite level.
This goes beyond the level of a hobby. You can't clock out at 5pm. Having the goal of being the best at something for a certain amount of time will come at the expense of other things in your life. If the concept of "work-life balance" is important to you, you will never become part of the elite in your field. The truth is, at one point or another, we all wanted to be excellent something. Becoming excellent requires an unbalanced lifestyle. For most of us, living that way for a long time is unsustainable.
If you've ever taken an Intro to Economics class, you would have probably heard of the concept of "Opportunity Cost". Briefly, the opportunity cost of making a choice are the missed benefits of choosing one alternative over another.
Because everyone has limited time, energy and resources, that means that when you agree to do something, you will miss out on other things. By saying "Yes" to do one thing, you're indirectly saying "No" to doing other things.
This is why one of the most important (and difficult) skills everyone needs to develop is how to say "No". Whether it's a business opportunity or friends and family members asking you to do them favours, you will receive requests that will require you to give up a combination of your time, energy and resources.
When thinking about saying "Yes" to any of these requests out of guilt, an unhealthy need to please others or perhaps a miscalculation of financial gain, remember what you're potentially giving up. Just ask yourself how much whatever you're being asked to commit to is going to cost in terms of your sanity, time away from loved ones, your physical health and/or your financial well-being. Then you'll realize why "No" can be one of the most valuable words in your vocabulary.
We've all heard the adage: "Winners never quit. Quitters never win."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The better adage is: "You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run."
Yes, persistence and perseverance can get you far. You can become very successful by sticking to something for a long time while trying to improve. It's a skill that can help you in life.
However, knowing when and how to quit something is actually equally important. At some point, we have to recognize when we're no longer able to improve on a situation despite the amount of resources you've sunk into it.
We all need to recognize the point when, despite any additional effort, failure is inevitable. When that happens, learn from your failure, quit, then divert your remaining resources and energy on other endeavours (or a modified version of the failed one). This is how quitting will lead to future success.
"Time is money." It's an old, false adage that many people in business just perpetuated. The truth is that if you spend money, you can still make it back later on by trading your time. When it comes to time, there's no amount of money that will allow you to get back time that you lost. It's gone. If you're fortunate enough you'll be able to pay someone to do things you don't want so you can have more time for the things you want to do.
Learning how to spend our hard-earned money is incredibly important. Learning how to spend your time is even more so. Most
of us need to be smarter when choosing which activities to engage in when
offered money in exchange for your time. On the flip side, it's just as crucial to respect other peoples' time by providing them value when they've made a decision to give any amount of it to you.
It's election day in Canada today. While living in this democracy is pretty great, there are always ways to improve and make sure that each vote really counts. The best way to do that is by allowing Canadians to change from the "first-past-the-post system" to a "rank-choice system".
What's the difference?
Canada's current system, "first-past-the-post", is the most basic of systems. Voters indicate on their ballot which candidate they want as their Member of Parliament and the candidate who has the most votes wins. Then the party (or the group of parties in a coalition) with the most MPs elected gets to form the government. The leader of that party or coalition of parties becomes the prime minister.
It's not a bad system, but the problem is this allows for parties and MPs who receive between 30% to 40% of the popular vote to form a government. It just doesn't feel as legitimate in a democracy to have a government that over 60% of voters didn't vote for.
My suggestion: rank-choice voting.
Sample ballot for rank-choice voting
In this system, voters are asked to rank which candidates they want as their first, second and third choice to represent them as their MP. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the votes as the "first choice", then that person gets elected. If none of the candidates get more than 50% of the votes as the "first choice", then the candidate with the least amount of votes gets eliminated. The voters who selected that eliminated candidate as their first choice will then have their votes added to the totals of their second choice. The process continues until one candidate gets over the 50% hurdle and is elected.
This will work particularly well in Canada because at any given federal election, there are at least 4 or 5 main parties vying for votes.
Why is this better?
Prevents Strategic Voting
Whenever there's a federal election campaign in Canada and polls show that one disliked party is likely to win with about 35% of the votes, there's always talk of strategic voting. Instead of voting for the candidate that they truly want to vote for, people will instead choose the "lesser evil" candidate they THINK has the best likelihood of winning against the disliked candidate. So in this case, voters aren't really voting for something as they are voting against something else.
In Canada, despite having multiple legitimate parties, voters finally end up choosing one of the two main parties. Again, this is because of the false perception that a third or fourth party has "no chance of winning" and voting for them will "split the vote". With rank-choice voting, you remove this problem. You can vote your first choice in, but your second and third choices will ensure that votes don't get split and you're not inadvertently voting for the party that you really don't want in power.
Creates a more educated voter
Because you now have multiple options, a voter is now going to have the incentive to look at other parties' platforms. They won't just end up picking one of the major parties because they don't like the platform of the other major opposing party. In a healthy democracy, a more educated voter just means that the leaders they elect, for better or worse, truly represent the citizenry.
Prevents the election of extremists
Historically, democratically elected extremists have targeted a small, but loud minority. The problem is, in a system like Canada where having 30% to 35% of the popular vote is enough to bring a party in power, this is a possibility. Vote splitting with other parties caused by the "first past the post" system can lead to this outcome. With rank choice voting, this won't happen because a majority of electors would eventually overcome the 35% of extremists with their second or third choices.
Opens up new parties and ideas
On the other side of the coin, while the major parties are more likely to win with the second or third choice vote, the mechanism of rank choice voting allows voters to really vote the way they want on their first choice. This can lead to some surprising first choice outcomes if enough voters truly believe in what they're voting for. What that means is that the party that isn't supposed to win can actually have a legitimate shot. Whether that party wins or not, it sends a clearer message to politicians that these new parties' ideas are actually important to voters.
Bottom line, there's no such thing as a perfect candidate or political platform. On the economic issues, I personally agree with one party. On social issues, I'll agree with another. On environmental issues, I'll agree with a third party. And so on. In terms of immigration, I'll disagree with one, but agree with the ideas from two different parties. My guess is that most Canadian voters are in the same boat as me.
If we had a rank choice voting system, this would make voting easier. I can weigh the different issues that are the most important to me and come up with a first, second and third choice of candidate. Rank choice voting means that I'm not stuck settling. My vote will actually matter and I won't feel like I have to simply prevent the "most evil" candidate from winning by voting for the "lesser evil". In the long run, this kind of system will force politicians to become less extreme and more reasonable
It's election season again in Canada. It can be fun to see what strategies each political party leader is using to win over their voters. Some are working better than others, but if I ever become a politician and decide to run for office, here's what I would do to win.
Tip # 1: Don't pretend to be "perfect"
One of the
problems with politicians is that they like to project an image of a
leader that's above the common folk, that their values and thoughts are
superior. They want to show themselves as the perfect candidate,
wearing the perfect clothes, the perfect family and always saying the
perfect slogans, participating at the "right" events. So guess what happens when the dirt comes out that
goes against that perfect image? They immediately lose credibility.
What's actually better is to be somewhat less polished. Look at some of the democratically-elected world leaders who gained traction in the past few years and see how less-than-perfect their public images have been.
If you have any flaws as a human being (which we all do), don't be afraid to get called out on it. Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself when you make a mistake. Which brings me to my next point...
Tip # 2: Take ownership of your past
If I were running for office, I would make sure to prevent any potential scandals that could derail my campaign by being upfront at the beginning. I will start by immediately publicly admitting past mistakes. At the very beginning of the campaign, I'll post pictures of myself getting drunk and/or high on social media, videos of me making borderline racist jokes, and controversial blog posts or op-ed pieces that I may have written.
What you're doing is getting all the dirt out of the way as soon as possible. You're telling the voters: "Yes, I'm human. Yes, I've made mistakes in the past as you can see. I apologize if I hurt people before with the foolish behaviours of my youth. I've changed since then. I've evolved. I've learned, I'm now wiser and ready to be your leader."
You can apologize if you want, but it's usually easier to do it once and then move on. Yes, even if you are Canadian. Sure it will hit the "news cycle" and it might hurt your numbers at first. But after a couple of weeks, when a new scandal, natural disaster, celebrity sex tape or a new provocative piece of "news" hits, most people would have forgotten your admitted mistakes and they won't affect your results come election time.
The idea is to control the narrative and not give your opponents the chance to portray you the way they want. This move also gives you the image of being a "flawed human" who can be a good leader because you have "proven" that you can learn from your mistakes. You become more relatable. You'll also be seen as transparent and not hiding anything.
So what's the best way to control your narrative?
Tip # 3: Use "new media" more than (if not as much as) "traditional media"
The problem with traditional media like TV, radio and other ads is that you have to make sure that you can get your views, your personality and why your opponent is wrong in very short, 15 to 30 second sound bites. Now you have to depend on your voters to pay attention and put together all the different sound bites so they can get an idea of what you're trying to communicate before they can vote.
You also have to depend on the goofy political debate formats where nobody really answers questions. Instead everyone's trying to cram their talking points in where it seems appropriate. Worst of all are the political ads. They're expensive to produce, it's expensive to buy time and most people probably don't think they're credible at all.
The better strategy is using new media, like YouTube, social media sites and even podcasts. You have full control over what you say on a YouTube video. You won't get interrupted by an interviewer because they need to get small sound bite before going to a laundry detergent commercial. You'll be able to talk as long or as little as you want to explain your positions and policies. You can respond more clearly to criticisms and you can interact almost instantaneously with your constituents from any where in the country.
Using certain social media sites, you can show the "behind-the-scenes" of your campaign. Or how human and relatable you are. You just have to be careful to not be too perfect with your posts, because it's very easy to see when someone's pretending to be authentic.
What's even better is that you're making it easier for traditional journalists to get the information they need from your campaign because it's all accessible. You get to be top-of-mind. And of course, all this is relatively cheap when compared to buying ad space or paying PR firms to get you on TV and radio shows with dwindling audiences. All you need is good lighting, an intern holding a smartphone and your YouTube and social media accounts. If you provide entertaining, but politically relevant content, you're good to go.
If you truly want to get elected, you might want to actually talk to your constituents instead of watching the news media's version of what the constituents want. Most of the time, you'll find that a lot of "hot-button" issues are really non-issues to the common voter, and a lot of issues that are being ignored by the media are really the most important ones to the electorate.
Once you find the true pain points of your voters, the easier it will be to come to them with a solution that only you can provide.
Tip # 5: Destroy your opponents' credibility
The most interesting thing about elections to me has always been the marketing problem that each candidate faces. They are trying to position themselves to appear a certain way to voters, while at the same time trying to position their opponents in a very negative way. If you want to make your opponent look bad, there's no point in lying or spreading misinformation about their positions. All you need to do is to find a way to diminish their credibility. The simplest way to do that is by making them look like hypocrites.
This will work the best because most candidates are still stuck in the past and haven't followed Steps 1 and 2 above. In all likelihood, most politicians are hiding some kind of secret that will conflict with their proposed policies. For example, if your opponent is championing diversity, equality and is depicting themselves as the "inclusively woke" candidate, finding old pictures of them wearing a racist Halloween costume or recordings of them going on drunken, anti-Semitic rants can be very damaging. If your opponent is the pro-family values candidate, finding old videos of them smoking crack cocaine while partying with sex workers is not going to be good for their image. You get the point.
Whether or not their target voters agree with their behaviour isn't the issue. It's the fact that their proposed policies compared to their past behaviours will make them look like hypocrites that will make them less credible.
Now it goes without saying that when your people find the dirt, you simply have them use anonymous social media accounts and pretend to be "confidential whistleblowers" to leak this information.
Finally, be wise about the timing of your leaks. You don't want to release these too early. What you want to do is strategically leak these as soon your opponents' numbers are reaching a peak in the polls. The damaging information, will cause those numbers to go down and put the opposition on the defensive. As soon as they get their numbers back up again, that's when you release another piece of damaging information to put them back on the defensive again. Just hope that you have enough dirt so you can repeat the process over and over throughout the duration of the campaign.
So that's it. Five simple tips that any political candidate needs to follow in this era. If you look closely, you'll notice that more and more politicians will begin using these strategies in the future.
A recent article from QZ was discussing how our one or two-week vacations are way too short for people to decompress and relieve the stress from work-related burnout. Some are even suggesting that you should just take longer breaks for every two hours of work during your day to be less stressed out.
Sure we can't be all like the Europeans who work for companies that allow 4 to 6 week vacations.
Instead, how about we, as North Americans, change the way that we treat vacations? One of the worst things that I see are email "out-of-office" replies saying that the person is on vacation but that they will "monitor their emails and cell phones in case there's an urgent matter".
No wonder people are feeling stressed out.
Instead of keeping yourself electronically tethered to your desk, why not disconnect from work and spend time with your family and friends? What's the point of spending money on a flight, on hotels, museums and on booze on the beach if you're not even going to try to temporarily escape the pressures of your job?
Maybe you legitimately like your job and you don't really want to go on vacation. Maybe you feel like you're pressured by your employer and the company's culture to stay connected almost 24/7. Maybe the company's culture has no respect for work/life balance. Maybe you're a control freak who thinks that if you leave, people backing you up won't be competent enough to cover you for a couple of weeks. Or worse, maybe you're scared that your colleagues won't notice that you're gone because you secretly think that your job is not really that valuable to the company in the first place. Maybe you're just a really nice person who doesn't want to leave their colleagues hanging out to dry if something goes wrong while you're away.
Sadly many of us see taking vacations as a source of stress. Many people feel stressed before they leave because they do double duty to complete things in advance before they leave. They also feel stressed immediately after coming
back because of the work that's piled up while they were away.
This is why you have people backing you up. In all likelihood, unless your employer sucks at hiring, there should be enough competent and intelligent people who can help pick up the slack while you're away. Trust these colleagues of yours because they'll be trusting you to do the same for them when they go away for vacation.
And for high-achievers who really think that vacations can be detrimental to their businesses, just remember, you can't perform at your optimum level if you're not rested. Vacations are meant to recharge your batteries so you can push even harder to succeed. Unless your job has life-or-death consequences, you really shouldn't be allowing anyone to interrupt your vacation.
So enjoy the beach, the lake, the woods, the new city that you're visiting, the taste of the new foods you'll try and/or the historic monuments that you'll see. You're allowed to leave work for a while and actually enjoy your life.
The same can also be said about your a**hole co-workers
It's almost stereotypical. Some of you have even seen it in person: the executive or even a middle manager of an organization losing their temper. There have been CEOs yelling, bullying, berating and being overall jerks to their employees.
A former, now deceased, CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world (company name rhymes with "grapple") was notoriously aggressive at publicly berating employees who didn't "live up to his standards of quality".
You've also got managers who expect you to be constantly connected on weekends and holidays. They end up shaming you if front of your peers if you decide that you'd rather spend time with your family instead of answering the email they sent at 11:45pm.
Another famous CEO who runs the largest online store in the world (no, it's not Amazon) is making it a requirement for his employees to work from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Anything less will get you shamed and fired, despite how well you perform while working less hours.
Yes, it's abusive behaviour. Yes it creates a hostile work environment and a bullying company culture. It causes stress and burn out.
Guess what: we are all to blame for these terrible work environments. Here's why.
Admiration for "Getting Sh*t Done"
One of the problems is that humans as a society seem to have evolved to want to follow the alpha monkey as our leader.
We end up admiring the conqueror (unless you're the one being conquered), the assertive/aggressive boss who won't let "useless processes" become roadblocks to their goals. We like the person who isn't necessarily worried about hurting feelings or being a bully to "get the job done". We see their seemingly demanding traits and interpret that as a leader having a high standard that we should all strive for.
At the same time, we are captivated by a confident, charismatic public speaker who will be falsely self-deprecating to make themselves seem relatable and authentic. They make mild jokes in an attempt to get their employees to see how likeable they are when they're not being bullies. To us, these characteristics are signs of the strong leader. Incidentally, these are also some of the main characteristics found in clinical narcissists and sociopaths. In any case, these are the kinds of traits that we like to see in our leaders. Because we, as a collective society and culture like those traits, people like that end up getting hired in those positions of power in the companies we work for.
The"Hustle Culture" Fetish
If you spend enough time following "entrepreneur", "motivational" and "influencer" accounts on social media, you'll see that a lot of them are posting about hustling and "rising and grinding". It's not unusual to see these highly successful people showing videos and pictures of themselves getting up at 4:30am so that they can start lifting heavy kettlebells and running hill sprints. Sure, there's nothing wrong with having goals and working hard to reach them. I'm all for people wanting to work as hard as they want, as many hours as they need to feel great about themselves and to make their business successful. The problem is that the constant stream of these social media posts has led to the creation of "hustle porn". Hard work has become so fetishistic on social media that we as a society have come to admire the business leaders who get up early, work so hard late into the night on a daily basis to the point of burn out while wearing stress as a badge of honor.
The narcissist/sociopath business leader then sees this as an example to emulate, you know, because the Instagram post is getting so many likes. And of course, if they're doing that, then they expect all of their employees to be "hustlers" as well. It becomes inexcusable for employees to be unreachable on evenings and weekends because they want to spend time with their kids. In their minds, there's no excuse for being sick in bed not working because you can have a laptop or a smartphone with you on your bedside table. Doing less is just being a lazy employee.
Overly Coddling Customers
In the end, all of these bullying behaviors stem from every businesses' fear of losing clients to the competition. As consumers, we've been spoiled to want every thing yesterday. If the toilet paper ordered online doesn't come within 24 hours, negative reviews get written and complaints are sent to customer service.
We as a society are all customers with these "immediate gratification" expectations at the lowest possible price from the businesses we patronize. Is it really a wonder that businesses then need to transfer that kind of pressure on business managers who in turn put pressure on their employees to deliver? In short, our attitudes as demanding, spoiled consumers who won't do anything inconvenient are partially to blame for our abusive bosses. Instead of immediately writing a bad review or complaining to a manager because you received your double-shot grande caramel macchiato with soy milk 37 seconds longer than you expected, we need to take a step back and have a bit of perspective on how easy it is for us now to get whatever product product we want in the first place.
The
cool thing about getting a job as an executive is that because it can
pay so well, you can leave a company or a department after a couple
years with a lot of money in your pocket. In all likelihood, the
long-term consequences of your short-term decisions won’t be too
apparent. This is especially true if you’re in a publicly traded company
where “performance” is measured every 3 months instead of years or
decades.
If
you’re an executive, your ability to make effective strategic decisions
is secondary. Actually having knowledge of how the business works is
tertiary. After all, you don’t really need to stay there that long if
you’re good at negotiating salaries and bonuses and you’re smart with
your money.
To show your value to shareholders and investors what’s more important are the optics. What
you actually accomplish isn’t necessarily as important as what it looks
like you’re doing to improve the business on a quarterly basis.
Here are a few tips to help you look like you’re worth the large amount of money they’re paying you.
Adopt an “executive persona”
Think of the most iconic, charismatic leaders in the business world. They’ve all got a persona (whether it’s real or not):
You can be the tough, all-nighter-pulling, Alpha executive in a well-tailored power suit.
The supermom exec who successfully finds the balance between crushing board meetings and coaching her kids’ hockey team
You can be the quirky, hoodie-wearing Silicon Valley CEO.
An executive who wears the same outfit on a daily basis to “save their mental energy” for more important decisions.
You
can pretend that you’re the rebellious, “think-outside-the-box”,
jet-setting, risk-taking, jeans-wearing, entrepreneurial exec.
Here’s a persona that many an executive in the financial industry has adopted almost too well.
It doesn’t matter which persona you pick. You just have to make sure that the persona you pick follows these two criteria:
It
just has to be different enough from the person you replaced. This will
give both employees and shareholders the impression that you’re there
to shake things up and make some sweeping changes for the better of the
company.
It
has to be believable enough to show off your authenticity. For this, I
would do what the most successful WWE professional wrestlers do. They
take a real quirk in their personality and just exaggerate it to a point
that it becomes a new character.
WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump using
his created “executive persona” in the ring alongside Stone Cold Steve
Austin, Vince McMahon and Bobby Lashley.
Be “helpful”
Always
present yourself to your employees (preferably when in a group setting)
as someone who is willing to provide executive help for any
“roadblocks” they might face in their day-to-day. Don’t actually help
them, though. You’re busy. Actually helping takes time and effort that
you don’t necessarily want to get mixed up in. We’re talking optics
here. You need to project an image that you’re willing to help.
Remember,
you must only ask how you can help when you’re in a public setting.
That way, whoever actually wants to ask for help will have to do so in
front of the entire company. Putting people on the spot like that will
reduce the likelihood of them asking for anything for fear of looking
foolish, weak or incompetent in front of the rest of the company. At the
extreme, they risk asking something inappropriate from the high-level
executive and get themselves fired.
Either
way, the result is that you look like the benevolent leader with an
“open door” policy, but because everyone’s so scared, you won’t actually
have to do the work of making any changes.
Make your micro-management and bullying tactics look like you’re just “hands-on” and “getting shit done”
Yes,
we all teach our kids that bullying is wrong. In this case, since
you’re the boss, it’s not really bullying. No, not really. You’re simply
showing employees that you’re forcefully getting things done. You’re
not ineffectual like the last exec. As the new leader, you don’t want to
get bogged down by useless processes. You are simply “passionate” and
can get emotional when it comes to making sure that the business
succeeds under your tenure.
To
make it look like you’re getting things done, make sure that all emails
you send to your middle-managers get marked as “Important” or “Urgent”
or “Priority”. Ensure that cons
equences for employees who don’t respond to these emails on time are made clear.
You
might be seen as micro-managing, but really, you simply want to make
sure that your employees are staying focused on the strategic tasks at
hand. You’re simply showing that you’re “hands on” and interested in how
the business functions. It’s part of “being helpful”.
Of
course, the most important thing if you get called out on your
aggressive behaviour is to never apologize. Employees should just be
grateful that you are sharing your wisdom and helping them succeed in
their day-to-day.
Offer your employees “training opportunities”
Offering
skills training to employees looking for both lateral and upward moves
in the company is necessary. That should be standard in any good
company.
However,
if you want to look like you’re a great executive going above and
beyond, you need to sponsor mandatory training programs that will make
your company look like it’s also socially conscious and woke.
Here are some examples, in no particular order:
Diversity training courses
Anti-bullying classes
Mindfulness training
Anti-harassment training
Business ethics
Environmental consciousness training
Employee engagement initiatives
Et cetera…
Sure, those types of training programs can have some
inherent value, especially if your company has a history of harassment,
bullying or even employee burn-outs. However, the biggest value that
they bring is really how good it makes the executive (and the company)
look to employees, shareholders, the media and even the general public.
Let’s
face it. The courses themselves can be empty or simply lip service. But
for a relatively low investment, an executive can now have a great PR
talking point. Now, his HR minions can brag about the company’s
commitment to “preventing harassment in the workplace”, for example.
Whether this actually stops sexual harassment in the company is
irrelevant. The executive can now wash his or her hands when wrongdoing
is reported because current employees have already received the
training. If future harassment happens, the exec can always point to
this training and say that the company isn’t to blame for the
inappropriate behaviour of a few “bad apples”.
Being
an executive can be a great, but difficult job opportunity. Latest
studies of the S&P 500 companies show that the median tenure of a
CEO for example is about 5 years. In that short a time, could you really
make a huge difference to justify the bonuses and salary that you
negotiated so well? If you’re exceptional, sure. If you’re able to ride
an upward trend and make it look like it was your leadership instead of
luck, maybe. If you can turn a company around from the brink of
bankruptcy, of course.
The
truth is, making a difference in a company is difficult. Sure you can
make strategic decisions, but for the most part, results of those will
take a lot of time to actually show. You can only be shown to be
effective by what you look like you’re doing during the quarter, not by
what you’ve done. So instead doing the actual heavy lifting with results
that won’t be seen until after you leave, just do the noisy, but
ineffectual things that everyone will see. If you’re good, you can sell
them on the value that you added to the company as you leave laughing to
the bank and on to a new executive job at a different company to start
the process over again.
