Brown-Nosing 101

Career Tip #11 - Natural Born Brown-Nosers

I used to think that Brown-Nosing was a learned skill developed in response to some magical yet sad combination of extroversion, incompetence, and psychological torment by authority figures when one was young.  Then I learned about David.

Just the other night, over dinner with a friend of mine, I learned that her son, David, was meeting with his high school advisor in preparation for his freshman year in high school. David has always been a bright kid who gets good grades but who always seems to find his way into a bit of trouble.  Not terrible, send him off to reform school trouble, but the kind of senseless and silly stuff that kids will do from time to time --- making excuses about not doing his homework, telling stories so convincingly that he sends his classmates on wild goose chases that get them in trouble, showing up late to class. 

"Why is he always getting to class late," I asked as we began to talk about his escapades.  My friend replied, "Because he's always stopping to say hello to all the teachers.  If he sees an authority figure he has to have a chat with them.  EVERYONE in school knows David."

At 14 years old David is already a natural born Brown-Noser!  He knows how to schmooze with people in high places and create visibility for himself.  He knows how to spin a tale in such a convincing manner that his peers have been bamboozled by him repeatedly.  Hence, he's created a reputation as a storyteller amongst his peers --- "Oh, here comes David. Let's see what story he's telling (or selling) today." And he's created a reputation as the friendly, likeable kid that all the teachers seem to enjoy.  It's this last point that made me take an even closer look at what was going on here.

Career Tip #10 - Know Your Business

To take your career to the highest level possible you must first know your business. After all, how can you expect to add value to the organization if you don’t know the business? You add the greatest value to your organization when you understand your business and your industry. Your competence and intelligence will be evident when you can discuss the business in the same terms and on the same level that people several levels above you do.

If you consistently do this, you have a good chance of developing a reputation as someone who can actually help the business grow-- someone who sees the company as more than a place to collect a paycheck. Over time, this lends to your credibility which helps you create a reputation as someone who can be counted on to understand the issues—and builds confidence in your ability to move up to the next level.

True game players are competent. They understand the company’s industry, keep up with industry trends, know what the competition is doing, know what the stock price traded for the previous day, understand the organization’s mission, vision, values, objectives and strategy. They understand what the customers need and they understand the company’s products and services.

They take the time to expand their capabilities in this area because it is from this foundation that they are able to recognize how best to solve the problems that they are faced with each and every day. Taking the time to learn about and understand the company’s business also sends a message that you are dedicated, loyal and above all, interested and interesting.

If you are early in your career (or even if you are not) and spend much of your time doing rather uncomplicated, somewhat boring work, use your time, wisely, to learn more.

Do you know what your colleagues do and how their work interacts with yours? Do you know what your boss does and how his/her work helps the company to achieve its objectives? What are your company’s plans for the future? Do you read the company’s annual report? Do you take the time to read the company newsletter? Industry trade magazines and journals? For that matter, do you read the business section of the paper each day?

Career Tip #9 - Sychronizing your Brown-Nosing Skill in YOUR Culture

You may have noticed that all four of the brown-nosing skills I've mentioned here - Networking, Connecting, Positioning, and Visibility - are virtually always used in conjunction with the others.  They work together in a seamless attempt to garner you some favor with those people that have the ability to make something good happen for your career.

When you speak up in a meeting you create instant visibility as well as position yourself as someone who has something of value to bring.  Your words position your idea in a manner that you believe will be beneficial to others and as a consequence you make a connection with them.  Your ultimate objective is to get a promotion or pay raise or prestigious assignment, but your approach has others in mind.

When you take an idea to your boss, you connect with her on some personal level in an attempt to insure that she will actually listen to what you have to say.  Then, you position your idea in terms of what is in it for her.  Your intention is to be considered as someone with potential to think bigger than your own job, but your approach starts with how to make others look good.

Career Tip #8 - Creating visibility when you're a peon

Becoming visible is all about getting the word out about yourself. Yes, you must toot your own horn. (A former colleague of mine actually used to keep a ‘blow your own horn’ file where he would drop notes, letters, emails, kudos, results, etc. about his work. This way, when he was interviewing for a new job or crafting a memo, he’d have the fatcs and figures right at his fingertips. I suggest you keep a file like this, too).

You must make sure that people know what you do for the company. It’s not enough that they know your name – “Hey, there’s Jim!” How well do they know about what you do for the company? Do they know what skills you have? Do people talk about your (hopefully good) reputation? Do you have a reputation as a team player? Someone who can be counted on? Don’t expect that your boss lets everyone know what each of her ‘staffers’ does. This happens infrequently, at best. It is your responsibility to get the word out.   I know it sucks, but where you have people you have politics and  you can't very well move your agenda along without doing some of the required groundwork.

So what if you don’t have the kind of job that is high–profiled, involved, or even very important? What can you possibly do or say that will raise your visibility given that you do grunt work? For starters, you need to be the best damned grunt there is. Then, you need to make your job high profiled and make it important to at least you and your boss. If there weren’t some need for the tasks you perform and the services you provide, you wouldn’t be there, would you?

One of my jobs while going to college was as a part-time accounts payable clerk for a small, local drug store chain inSouthern California. I reviewed invoices as they were received and checked them for a set of pre-determined items (i.e., date of shipment, date of invoice, amounts extended correctly, invoice totaled correctly, terms specified, etc.) I’d mark the invoice with a stamp, initial it and indicate the amount to be paid. Then I’d pass it along to the bookkeeper who would write the checks. Not terribly glamorous or complicated work, but somebody had to do it. 99.9% of it was rote…just read the invoice and look for the requisite elements. But, that .1% was enough to get me noticed.

Career Tip # 7 - Do you understand the concept of ‘fit’?

There have been plenty of times in my career when I played the brown-nosing game like a master. I’ve schmoozed with the big bosses, landed huge accounts when I knew it mattered most, maneuvered my way onto high visibility projects, gave those who worked with and for me all the credit while I smiled all the way to the bank. All this while still remaining respected by my peers, subordinates and superiors. In these cases, I was very good at my work, which afforded me the opportunity to use brown-nosing skills without the typical label.

Then there were other times. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I just could not crack the code. I didn’t know how to get the most out of myself and my job let alone my subordinates and my boss. I couldn’t quite figure out how things were ‘wired’ so I didn’t know where to expend my effort. With all the energy that was required just to get my work done there was little left of me to play ‘the game’. 

Over the years I learned that to win, you must know how to play ‘the game’ but it wasn’t until quite recently, working in Human Resources consulting, that I truly came to understand the concept of ‘fit’ and how it related to my previous performance and my ability to ‘play’.

Want a Promotion? Speak Up!

Imagine this painful moment with me ---- you are sitting in a meeting (told you it would be painful) that has 'gone long'.  You have a ton of work to do and you hear yourself talking --- to yourself---

"Oh, please, just shoot me now.  Put me out of my misery.  How much longer is this going to go on?  I get it, already.  Does everyone have to stand up and repeat the same thing over and over and over again just  to hear themselves talk?  Please...no please...NOT  KYLE!  Here he goes.  On and on about how great an idea this is, he thinks it will do great things for us, brilliant thinking, blah, blah, blah, barf, barf, hurl....Somebody get him a tissue so he can wipe his nose!!!  I'm not going to say a thing.  This has got to end because I have got to get back to work.  Besides, it has all been said, repeatedly over the last hour and half. I have nothing of value to add."

Career Tip #6 - Don't bury your talents

Let’s assume for a moment that the work you do is good. So what? I’ll bet that if I look around the place I’ll find a number of people who do good work, too. I hate to be the one who tells you this but doing a good job is only one small part of getting noticed and promoted. Doing a good job is what is expected of you in exchange for your paycheck. If you want to get noticed for the work that you do – or the potential you have - the first thing you must understand and accept is that good work alone will only get you so far.

Come on -- look around! You know as well as I do that in most organizations it is not those people who are the best and brightest at what they do who get promoted. Sure, they typically have some minimum level of competence, but the important thing to recognize is that they are perceived as having other skills, abilities and attributes that the culture values.  These are their true talents.

Too many people muddle through their careers not quite understanding why all the great jobs go to someone else. They can see that something is going on that puts people in the limelight but unless they are lucky enough to have someone help them understand the process, or unless they are one of those gifted observers who can understand what is happening there is only a slim chance they will meet with the success they’ve dared to imagine.  What do you dare to imagine?

Strider's power to make things happen

I'm not going to launch into a discussion about all the types of Power structures at work.  I'm simply going to share a story about Strider - my little Chihuahua.

Strider weighs 10 lbs. and hangs around his big sisters - Loosha, a Rottweiler and Kayla, a Shepherd mix - who collectively outweigh him by about 200 lbs.  Still, he dares to steal the Rotty's food (actually he only tried this once), play tug with both of them, climb all over the Shepherd, pull at her tail and otherwise act as if he was the same size and had the same power.  In fact, he's a runt who could have his ass kicked by either of them if they chose to do so. 

Job Promotions and Fairness

I have an interesting discussion going on with some adult graduatae students -- 20-40 somethings - who seem to think that it is unfair when companies pass over qualified candidates for promotions.

I've heard this before and am always amazed at this argument because it only comes from people who feel they didn't get what they deserve (i.e. they got passed over).  Few of them can actually tell me what the qualifications were - they just make assumptions based on some critieria they hold in their own minds.  And amazingly, somewhere they got the idea that all qualified candidates will get promoted.  They've forgotten that we use a triangle to describe most corporate structures because there are fewer seats as you move up.

Career Intelligence - What's Your CQ?

The other day it occurred to me---

We have ways to measure people's intelligence (IQ) and we now can measure emotional intelligence (EQ), so why not measure people's career intelligence (CQ)?  It seems to me that we spend a lot of time learning our trade or profession, but very little time learning about how to design and manage our careers which could last for 50+ years.  It's no wonder so many of us are dissatisfied with our work and our jobs.   We enter the workforce armed with degrees, skills, knowledge and ability but we never learn how to package them in a way that will get us the most 'buck for the bang we provide' (so to speak). 

Just like any good product, design and packaging are as important as what's inside and knowing how to approach this task starts with knowledge about the customer - or in this case, your organization and the people you work for.  After all, they are the consumers of your knowledge, skill, ability and talent, aren't they?