Perils of telecommuting: Disconnectedness and diminished face time

For over four decades, employers have offered telecommuting and other flexible work arrangements to boost employee morale, promote work-life balance, and retain skilled workers. In spite of the ubiquity of electronic communication and accessibility to travel, a growing body of research has shown that it is significantly harder to build and maintain social relationships electronically than it is in person.

• In the 1960s, Hewlett-Packard (HP) pioneered flexible work arrangements as part of its legendary “HP Way” culture. However, in year 2006, HP surprised employees and the HR industry by deciding to cutback telecommuting in one of its divisions to encourage employee interactivity, promote teamwork, and enable skilled workers to train the less-experienced employees.
• A few years ago, an internal IBM study revealed that when teams went more than three days without a meeting, their happiness and productivity suffered. This promoted the “Making IBM Feel Small” initiative to promote face-to-face contact among its employees.

It’s important of show up and be “there”

Getting management to recognize you for your achievements and consider you for promotions and leadership positions has never been more challenging, especially at large companies. As I have mentioned in my previous articles, career success is no more about “who you know,” but rather about “who knows you” and what they know about you. Earning this recognition begins by showing up, “being there” and acting the part of a dedicated, enthusiastic employee.

Look, companies rarely promote employees who are not around to solve challenges and slug it out during tough times. For those of you who wish to graduate from individual contributor roles and get promoted to team-leader or management positions, telecommuting comes with a cost — reduced face time with your peers, management, and customers, and diminished opportunities to foster your management’s trust in your abilities. Therefore, telecommuting can be an impediment to climbing the corporate ladder.

Suggested Reading

• Not everybody wishes to climb the corporate ladder
• Getting recognition to help career advancement
• When are you ready for a promotion?
• How hard you should work
• Accomplish what you want, not what you think you have to

***See other articles related to telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, career success, career management, promotions, work-life balance

Consider the all-too-familiar boss’s pet employee at an office. He uses flattery, goes out of his way to help the boss, curries personal favors, and constantly tows the boss’s line no matter how unreasonable it is. He never corrects the boss when necessary. He either sugarcoats or withholds information that the boss would rather not hear. Over time, he has perfected the art of stroking his boss’s exaggerated sense of self-worth.

How about leaders who go overboard on their intention to exceed customer expectations and turn out to be “customer compelled?” They bend over backward to fulfill every whim and fancy of their customers to the likely peril of their own organization’s values and priorities.

Sucking up or brown-nosing is widespread approach to win a boss’s approval solely with one’s own self-interest in mind. Consider the consequences of sucking up:

• An employee that sucks up to his boss loses the respect of his peers and employees. They assume positive discrimination and favoritism because of his ingratiatory behavior. The suck-up recursively promotes sucking up in his organization — he encourages others to establish themselves in his good graces.
• Suck-ups quickly get into a pattern of slavishly reacting to every impulse of the boss. Without realizing, they become vulnerable to obligations to support their boss. Neither can they set limits on favors, nor do they stand up for themselves or their employees.

Be Resourceful, Don’t Suck Up

“One does not make the strengths of the boss productive by toadying to him. One does it by starting out with what is right and presenting it in a form which is accessible to the superior.”
* Peter Drucker, in The Effective Executive

Contrary to popular opinion, a vast majority of promotions are not handed out to employees who are most willing to suck up. Research and empirical evidence proves that employees who are honest, sincere, open, straightforward, and helpful earn management’s respect and attention over time. They move up fast because of their demonstrated ability to make the right choices. In addition, most people can innately distinguish the brown-nosers and differentiate genuine compliments from insincere flattery.

Do not get me wrong. There is enormous value in being helpful to the boss. After all, making yourself resourceful can go a long way in staying in the boss’s good graces. It can open professional opportunities and increase your access to new ideas, initiatives, and restricted information. However, there is an obvious boundary between doing favors and sucking up. Running an urgent errand when the boss is busy preparing for an important meeting or watching over his pet when he is travelling are well within reason. Compromising your values and priorities just to get on the boss’s side will not get you anywhere in the long term. Try these suggestions:

• Be sincere and timely in your compliments. Refrain from making flattering remarks.
• Use facts and logic to support or challenge the boss’s ideas. Never praise, or comment on your boss or his plans in front of others.
• Ask your boss how you could help him achieve his goals and follow-up earnestly.

Recommended Reading

• Four keys to an excellent relationship with your boss
• Never surprise your boss
• How to seek proactive feedback from your manager
• Are you ready for a promotion?
• Talent is more than skin-deep

***See other articles related to Managing the boss, flattery, promotions, career planning, managing people, sucking up

Consider the following ‘news’ story (possibly a spoof) from a few weeks ago.

Vaibhav Bedi of India sued Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods conglomerate, for “depression and psychological damage” caused by letdown from the ‘Axe Effect.’ Vaibhav believed in ads that showed attractive women throwing themselves at men who use the Axe brand of deodorants. “I used it for seven years but no girl came to me,” he said in his complaint accusing the manufacturer of false advertising.

False advertising? Hardly. The ‘Axe Effect’ often works. Clothing, cosmetics and lifestyle companies sell more than merchandise — they sell means of boosting a consumer’s self-confidence. Studies have shown that when men and women improve their appearances, they feel more self-assured. Naturally, charm and self-assurance are very appealing characteristics. As a result, others pay confident people more attention, seek their company and value their opinions. Individuals who are perceived as attractive stand a better chance at winning others over, securing jobs and promotions, and benefit from better career prospects.

Clothes Talk, People Listen

It is possible through the skilful manipulation of dress in any particular situation to evoke a favourable response to your positioning and your needs.
* John T Molloy, Source: ‘New Dress for Success’

Attractiveness is not the only thing others judge you on, but it is generally an important subliminal consideration. Attractiveness encompasses clothing and accessories, tidiness and grooming, physical appearance and posture, flair, mannerisms, personality and other traits. Of these attributes, your clothing style is the easiest to improve.

Look, the clothes you put on effect how you feel throughout the day. Your awareness of yourself has a considerable impact on how others perceive you. By dressing sharply and looking neat, you can become more self-assured and attractive. Follow the following four simple guidelines. Seek suggestions from a tailor at a clothing store in your neighbourhood or a mall.

• Research and adopt a dress style that is appropriate to your industry, place of work and social circle. Observe the dress styles of successful professionals and executives in your company/industry.
• Conform but choose a distinctive wardrobe that projects the impression you desire. Dress for the position to which you aspire.
• Choose clothes that are comfortable and make you feel good about yourself.
• Err on the side of conservative styles and darker shades. Simple and classic is often reasonably priced and sophisticated enough.

Recommended Reading

• Be mindful of personal spaces for social interaction
• Tricks for keeping good eye contact
• 7-38-55 rule of personal communication
• The twelve most persuasive words in English

***See other articles related to Lifestyle, clothing and appearance, body language, decorum, etiquette, demeanour, persuasion, self-confidence

Last year, researchers at the University of Warwick found that the mental health of managers typically deteriorates after a job promotion.  Part of this anxiety is attributable to,

1. the loss of the security of a familiar role and the established relationships around the role,
2. perceived cognitive inadequacies concerning demands of the new position, and,
3. the uncertainty of transition and the innate human resistance to change.

The greater part of this anxiety is a common career mistake. Often, professionals take up new responsibilities for which they are not entirely prepared. Even when management judged them as qualified for the new role, without thinking through a new role before accepting the promotion, these professionals unintentionally position themselves for stressful transitions, bitterness, or eventual failure.

When Is It Time to Move On?

Do not assume that you are ready for a promotion just because you possess the right academic background, you look the part, you have the right contacts within the company, or, you have impressed your management with your capability to develop a few good ideas and articulate them well.

Here are a few questions to reflect on and assess your chance of a successful promotion or a horizontal transition.

• Are you enthusiastic about taking on a new role? Does the new role fit into your medium- and long-term career plans?
• Have you been performing your present duties well enough to justify a promotion?
• Do you have a successor in mind for your current role? Have you made yourself replaceable? Are you willing to entrust your current responsibilities to a successor without a significant interruption in pace of work?
• Are you qualified or experienced enough to do no less than, say, 40% of the new role reasonably well?
• Have you demonstrated eagerness to gain knowledge of the new responsibilities?
• Are you familiar with the responsibilities, autonomy, challenges, opportunities, and deliverables of the new role? Do you know how to get things done in the new role? Do you know where to get help?
• Are you proficient with the communication, networking and interpersonal skills needed to make it in the new role? Will you get along with your peers, subordinates, and management at the new role?
• Are you at ease with the demands on the new role: time, travel, pressures, and challenges? Can your family (or other aspects of your personal life) support this transition?
• Can you swallow your pride if you are rejected for the new role? Are you ready to seek honest feedback about how management values you, listen, and make yourself more promotable in the future?

The more questions you answer with a “Yes” to, the better your chances for a successful promotion. Reflect on the questions you answer with a “No” to. Create a growth plan, improve your professional profile, and, ask for feedback from management on what you can do deserve a promotion.

Recommended Reading

• How to write a job description for your present position
• Seeking proactive feedback from your manager
• Do you deserve a raise?
• Seeking proactive feedback from your manager
• Getting recognition to help career advancement

***See other articles related to promotions, job transitions, career planning, managing your career, career success

Feedback is a critical component of our work. We need to understand whether our performance is in line with what is expected of us. We need to learn what we are doing well, what we need to change and how we could improve. We need help to discover opportunities to advance our careers.

One of the common grievances of professionals is that their managers rarely give them adequate feedback. Such feelings are not totally unfounded. Managers tend to be busy and choose to deliver feedback only during cursory performance reviews. And, instinctively, managers fear confrontation: they assume that their employees may respond to even the slightest of criticisms with anger, defensiveness and alienation. Employees, for their part, resent feedback because they hate being criticized.

This article suggests what you can do to become effective at getting feedback from your manager. I have shared this process with several professionals who have successfully adopted it to develop effective relationships with their managers.

Soliciting Feedback

• Setup regular meetings with your manager to seek feedback. Do not wait for the quarterly or annual performance reviews to solicit feedback.
• Prepare and send an agenda to your manager at least one day prior to your meeting. Use the questions in the following section to guide your discussions and agenda. Tailor the questions to suit your unique projects and goals. Cover all the important topics on a regular basis.
• Assure your manager that her opinions and suggestions matter and that you will listen and act on them. You need not necessarily agree to every assessment. Be open; do not become defensive or get angry. If you must disagree, do so politely. Offer your opinions using phrases such as “Could it be because …,” “how about …,” or “perhaps, another way to look at this is ….”
• Ask for specific examples. Take down notes. Conclude the meeting by thanking your manager. Affirm that you will develop and share with her a plan of action.
• Review your notes from the meeting. Look for patterns in her comments and suggestions. In a day or two, develop and send her a plan of action.

Ten Topics to Solicit Feedback On

1. “How am I doing on project or goal X? What can I do differently to be more effective?
2. “My most important projects or goals are X, Y and Z. Do you think I have the priorities right?
3. “Do I meet your expectations in keeping you updated on the progress on project X? How can I organise information better to help you understand my projects and our achievements?
4. “What goals do you see for me on project X (or over the next N months?) How will you measure me against these goals?
5. “What strengths do I bring into your team? What personal skills will enable me to grow and contribute better?
6. “How do you see my career developing in this organisation or function over the long-term? What suggestions do you have for me to prepare for such opportunities?
7. “What steps do you suggest for me to broaden my exposure to our functional area and build my skills? What specific steps can I take to broaden my perspective in our functional area? What key challenges will I face meeting my goals?
8. “What can I do to expand my role? May I assume any additional responsibilities?
9. “What are your goals for the immediate future? What are the most important projects and initiatives for your team? What opportunities do you see for me to support your goals?
10. “How do you think our organization and customers will change in the future? What opportunities do you see? What challenges will we face? How will our roles change? How can we prepare? What is our management’s perspective on the future?”

Concluding Thoughts

This article suggests an informal and effective process to solicit feedback from your manager. By taking the initiative, asking the right questions and proactively soliciting feedback, you can recognize and adapt to your manager’s and the organisation’s expectations of you and discover prospects for larger responsibilities and promotions.

Your manager will appreciate your eagerness to openly communicate, improve, adapt, and contribute further. She will be more forthcoming to share her assessment of your work and offer suggestions for improvement.

By understanding your manager’s expectations and priorities, you can secure the support and resources you need to achieve your goals. Keeping your manager informed helps foster dependability and build a stronger, mutually-beneficial working relationship that benefits you, your manager and the organization.

Recommended Articles

• Never surprise your boss
• Four keys to an excellent relationship with your boss

***See other articles related to Feedback, appreciation, managing your boss, managing vertically, managing relationships, building credibility, performance evaluation, performance review

Concept of ‘Inbox Zero’

In a seminar at Google (see video on YouTube or slides at Slideshare,) productivity guru Merlin Mann discusses the prevalent practice of misuse of email systems.

A number of us check email too frequently, retain too many unread emails in our inboxes or set aside emails without processing them completely, and, habitually organize our work around our email inboxes.

Merlin emphasizes that one of the most important soft-skills a knowledge worker could possess is the ability to productively process a high volume of email. He advocates effectively handling email by implementing and maintaining a system whereby, regardless of the sender or the content, you could process all incoming email by choosing one of the actions described below.

‘Process to Zero’

The core idea behind Merlin’s system of productivity with emails is the practice of maintaining a blank inbox by processing all emails each time you check email. “You never check your email without processing to zero.”

Merlin advocates checking two or three times a day and processing every email through one of these actions: deleting or archiving, delegating, responding, deferring or just ‘doing.’

Here is a system that I personalized and have practiced for the last two years or so.

1. Delete: Many emails that you receive are intended to update or inform you of some development. Or, they could be about commercial promotions, reminders or automatic notifications of certain events in our organization. Immediately delete these and all other emails of questionable value.
2. Archive: If you need to store an incoming email for future reference, move it to an appropriate folder. Develop an organization scheme that works best for you. For instance, you may create a system of folders based on projects you are responsible for; each folder could then store emails related to its project.
   Note to Gmail users: Gmail does not support the concept of folders. Instead try the system of labels. See this FAQ.
3. Respond Immediately: If you can act on an incoming email in a minute or two, act on the email immediately. If you need to respond, compose and send a response immediately.
4. Defer: If you cannot act on an email in a minute or two, hit the ‘Reply’ button to start responding to the email and then save a draft of the reply for future action. Then, delete the original (incoming) email or move it to an appropriate folder. Add the task to your to-do list. When you have completed the task and have all the information necessary to respond, resume composing the draft email and send the email. Your ‘Draft’ folder thus supplements to your to-do list. If appropriate, reserve an hour or two each afternoon to collect information, complete all such tasks and clear your ‘Draft’ folder.
5. Delegate: If another person could best act on an incoming email, forward the message. If you would like to track the delegatee’s response, record an action item in your to-do list or calendar. Then, delete the incoming email or move it to an appropriate folder.

Supporting Actions

• Turn off the ‘notify me when new mail arrives‘ feature on your email software to avoid interruptions and help you focus on your work outside of email.
• Do not open email until later in the morning. A majority of us tend to be more productive earlier in the day. Hence, use your mornings to focus on your more-important responsibilities and priority tasks.
• Check email twice or thrice a day only, or more frequently depending on nature of your job. Process to zero and close your email software when done checking email.
• By the end of each day, target to clear all your incoming mails and try to maintain a zero inbox.

Concluding Thoughts

Evaluate the ‘Zero Inbox‘ and ‘Process to Zero‘ practices and customize these ideas to suit your particular circumstances. Implementing and maintaining a system of productive email practice can help you feel better organize your responsibilities and tasks.

***See other articles related to email productivity, electronic organization, personal organization, time management

Jeffrey Immelt on Keys to Great Leadership

In an interview in the Fast Company Magazine, General Electric’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt reveals his checklist of leadership skills. Perhaps the most significant of these skills is the understanding perspective on one’s job.

“Understand breadth, depth, and context. The most important thing I’ve learned since becoming CEO is context. It’s how your company fits in with the world and how you respond to it.”

The Problem: A Narrow Outlook of our Work

As I elaborated in a previous blog article, we get busy doing and fail to devote time for deep thinking. We concentrate on the minutiae of our work. We forget that these tasks are a part of a larger canvas–an element of a large value-addition process. If you are a metallurgy scientist, your work may be a part of the large value-addition process of converting raw material into turbine blades for jet engines that power large aircrafts. If you are computer programmer working on a small software module, your work may be a small component of software that enables customers to trade stocks directly from their cell phones.

Call for Action: Understand the Big-Picture

The key to understanding the broader aspects of your work is to make a special effort to learn more than what is in front of your face. In addition to understanding the boss’s description of your task or a work-procedure, you need to ask why you need to do what you have been asked to do. Begin by asking the following questions.

• How does your organisation make money from what you do? How does your company make money to pay you?
• How do you fit into the value-addition chain? What are the steps involved? What is the flow of information, money and materials?
• Who is the end customer? Why does he/she need the product or service your organisation is building? What is the fundamental problem the customer is trying to solve? How does you work solve this problem?
• How will the customer use with the particular product or service your organisation is developing? What other features can your organisation add to your product or service to help the customer? What else can you do to help the customer?

Employees who understand the broader context of their jobs and embrace the big-picture perspective of the value-addition process are more inclined to grow quickly because, in addition to technical skills, their repertoire includes the wide-ranging commercial viewpoint of the fundamental problems at hand.

***See other articles related to ideas for impact, breadth, depth, context, perspective, big-picture, career success, promotions, career performance

[Note: Jeffrey Immelt's photo from the biography at the General Electric Company's website]

Robert Nardelli’s on Getting Recognition

I started my career in General Electric (GE) as a manufacturing engineer in the refrigeration plant. When I had an opportunity to volunteer in the ‘feature and appearance council’ or to help design new handles, I would snap the opportunity so that I was able to get tremendous exposure to the thinking and be recognized as someone that could do functional crossover. It served me well throughout my whole career.

When GE implemented a new financial accounting system, the company was looking for someone to volunteer to be the program manager. I did not know anything about accounting and finance, but still said I will lead the initiative. Of course, this was in addition to my day job.

Such opportunities exist in every organization. You can seize those opportunities and learn through broader experiences. They gave me a base of understanding and confidence. When I faced adversity at higher positions, I felt good about my experience and abilities.

Call for Action

Getting management to recognize you for promotions and leadership positions can be challenging, especially at large companies. Career success is often said to be not about what you know but about “who you know.” In the new world of work, where competition is more intense than ever before, what really matters more is who knows you and what they know about you.

Robert Nardelli recommends that volunteering on a variety of organizational initiatives is one way to get the recognition you deserve. When you volunteer on cross-functional committees for product improvement or professional development, the decision-makers can get to know you, your skills, abilities and career interests. Such exposure will help them consider you for challenging assignments in the future.

Volunteer in your company’s initiatives, connect with other functions, broaden your skills, and, build a network.

***See other articles related to Ideas for impact, networking, career success, promotions, career performance

[Notes: (1) Robert Nardelli's photo from the website of the Stern School of Business, New York University, (2) Robert Nardelli's words (above) were altered for clarity and conciseness for this article.]

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the first day of the holiday shopping season. The retailing industry terms this day ‘Black Friday’.

In theory, stores expect to switch from losses (accounted for in red color in financial statements) to profits (accounted for in black color.) Stores, big and small, offer hefty discounts and attractive promotions to lure shoppers. Consequently, Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

• Stores open as early as 5:00am and publicize low-ticket items to attract shoppers. Often, stores carry limited quantities of deeply discounted items. Thus, shoppers scramble to enter the stores and fight to lay their hands on these items. See interesting news stories of shoppers fighting for bargains here, here and here.
• Most stores offer discounts for only a few hours in the morning. For instance, today, Wal-Mart’s discounts were limited to 5a.m. to 11a.m. Shoppers transit from store to store and families split-up to reach various stores before discounts terminate.
• Stores hope that once shoppers are tempted to start the day at their stores, they will buy less-discounted and regular merchandise. Clearly, they risk margins in an effort to boost sales numbers, one of the key metrics in the retailing industry.
• In 2004, Wal-Mart decided to scale down on Black Friday offers in an effort to increase margins. Sales were poor; Wal-Mart stock dropped 4% the day it announced poor sales figures.
• This year, major retailers including Wal-Mart [WMT] and Target [TGT] reported weaker-than-expected sales numbers for October. Wal-Mart announced just 0.5 percent increase in same-store sales for October; these numbers were short of the 2 to 4 percent increase that it had initially expected. Consequently, Wal-Mart announced aggressive discounts on a wide-range of goods including consumer electronics.

As I hopped from store to store hunting for bargains and gifts this morning, I ignored a few questions the investor in me had: Do Black Friday promotions pull sales from later in the shopping season? How many customers return goods they purchased on Black Friday? If a retailer fails to capitalize on the Black Friday craze, can it make up during the rest of the shopping season? Are sales numbers more important than margins?

*Keyword(s): Consumerism, retailing, shopping, Wal-Mart, Target