Create Your Life – Life the Life You Desire

I’m pretty sure at least one person reading this blog has a magnet or card hung at her desk with the words, “What are you going to do with your one precious life?” As far as we know, we only get one go around. So while the question may be overused, what are you going to do to create your life with the time you’re given?

I have an existential friend who is trying to convince me that there is no such thing as time. I am not persuaded. All we have is time, and it’s the only thing we can’t get back. You can gain weight and lose weight, make money and lose it, make friends and lose them, but you can never get back your time. So what are you doing with your time?

I had the privilege of being interviewed by Greg Giesen, one of my graduate school professors, about my new book. During the interview Greg asked how I define success. I answered with, “If I am pursuing what’s most important to me, I am successful [living my desired life].” If I’m doing what I think I should be doing or what someone else wants me to do, then I’m living someone else’s life.

You create your life. A few questions to consider:

• What do you love doing most? How often are you doing that?
• What’s most important to you in life? Does what’s most important to you make up a majority of where your time and energy goes?
• How much time do you spending doing things you think you should be doing, but don’t really want to be doing?
• How much time do you spending doing things someone else wants you to do?

I’m not suggesting you live an indulgent life without compromise. If you’re in relationship with other people, you will, at times, do things you don’t want to do. But I’m hoping that doing things out of obligation is not what your life’s about.

Not everyone in your life will approve of your choices. That’s ok. This is your life. Don’t knowingly harm anyone or anything. Besides that, I don’t know of any rules, except for this, don’t get to the end of the road and wonder “what if.” Create your life.

Office Dress Code – Flip Flops and Cargo Pants Are Not Business Casual

No one wants to tell you you’re dressed inappropriately for work.

The office dress code conversation seems to be feedback managers avoid and struggle with the most. Perhaps because attire is so personal, I’m not sure. But I do know that I’m getting more and more requests to train managers how to give employees feedback that their butt crack is showing. Yes, really.

Many employees push the envelope on the office dress code during the summer, breaking out tank tops, jeans and capri’s. The problem with dressing this casually is that some of the people you work with will judge you for it, but they are not likely to tell you. They’ll just decide you have poor judgment and that you may not be the right person to stand in for your boss at a meeting or conference.

A couple of office dress code guidelines to follow, unless you work in a very casual office environment where even the folks at the top wear jeans and t-shirts to work:

1. Make friends with your iron, or a dry cleaner.
2. If you put something on and ask “Can I get away with this,” the answer is most likely no.
3. Ladies, your cleavage should never show at work. Never ever.  It will only limit your career.
4. T-shirts and cargo pants are not business casual.
5. Capris and sandals are ok, if your company allows them. Spandex and shorts are not.
6. Thongs and butt cracks are a no-no. Ladies, don’t wear low rides to work. Men, if your belt sits below your stomach, buy a bigger pair of pants and raise the belt. This will solve the butt crack problem.
7. Ladies check your skirt length. If it’s too tight or too short, it’s not for the office.
8. Lots of women are wearing really high heels to work. They look great, at a club.
9. General rule of thumb, if can comfortably leave work and go to a club or a baseball game, you’re not dressed conservatively enough for work.

Most of these suggestions are aimed at women because women have more flexibility with clothing and thus a greater margin for error. Men have the man’s business casual uniform: khakis and a button down or golf shirt. That’s hard to screw up, unless of course you sleep in the khakis.

Here’s how you can give a woman feedback that she isn’t dressed appropriately for your office dress code:

“I’ve noticed that some of your clothing shows cleavage. When people look at you, I want them thinking about how smart you are and all that you add to our organization. I don’t want them distracted with something else.” Replace cleavage with whatever misstep the person is making.

Here’s another example: “I’ve noticed that you wear short skirts and pretty high shoes to work. We work in a pretty conservative environment. You always look great, but not for our office environment. I’m going to ask you to wear longer skirts, that aren’t as form fitting, with lower shoes. I know this conversation is awkward, and I appreciate that you’re willing to have it with me. When people look at you I want them thinking about how smart you are and all that you add to our organization. I don’t want them distracted with something else.”

Notice, I didn’t say, “You’re not dressed appropriately for work.” The word “appropriate” is too vague and thus doesn’t qualify as feedback. Being vague doesn’t tell the person what to do differently. If your employees felt that what they are wearing to work was inappropriate, they’d wear something else. You need to spell it out. And this is true for all forms of feedback. Be specific and give an example, or you haven’t given feedback and shouldn’t expect anything to change.

Men, you can’t have this conversation with the women in your office. Ask a woman the employee has a relationship with to have the conversation on your behalf.

Read How to Say Anything to Anyone to get the words to have other difficult feedback conversations.

Some of you are currently gasping, thinking there is no way you can have this conversation. Yes you can. I have these office dress code conversations with clients regularly without damaging my relationships. So few people will tell someone when they’re wearing clothing that damages their reputation, when the feedback recipient gets over being shocked and embarrassed, s/he’ll thank you for caring enough to give such honest feedback.

Writing Effective Emails for Better Business Communication

When I get an email that has multiple paragraphs I look at it, decide I don’t have time to read it, and close it out, promising to go back to it later when I have more time, which never happens. Sorry if you’re the recipient of this practice. I’m sure there are several people reading this who have given up on the idea of my responding.

Here are a few tips for writing effective emails that more likely to be read:

1. Put a specific subject in the subject line that says what the email is about.
   1. This does not include your name. We already know your name.
   2. Ex.:  “Trip” (that’s not specific). Instead try:  “Trip to Arkansas to see Walmart”
2. Highlight and bold important parts of the email
   1. Limit this practice so what’s bolded and highlighted stands out.
   2. If everything is bold, nothing stands out.
3. Use bullets
4. Use the fewest number of words possible
5. Use jump links that send readers to relevant information
6. Offer additional information if desired

If you read my blog regularly, you’ll notice bold important sentences and use bulleted and numbered lists to make the blog easier to read, like the list above.

The shorter your emails are, the more likely they are to get read. You can always offer additional information, but readers won’t get to the detail if they never read the email.  When it comes to writing effective emails, shorter is better.

Stressed? Want Work Life Balance? Create It.

Your job will not tell you that you need a vacation. Your company won’t tell you that you look tired and it’s time to go home. Your job is like a toddler. It wants and will take more, more, more. You need to decide what you’re willing to give.

Admittedly, I’m terrible at work life balance. I’ve always lived twenty minutes or fewer from my office so that I could easily go in on evenings and weekends. I gained twenty pounds the first year I worked at OppenheimerFunds because I never left the office before eleven p.m., and the only thing around to eat late at night was candy. No one told or expected me to work the hours I did. I put this pressure on myself.

Some of us enjoy working long hours. We love what we do. Work is where we derive a great deal of fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with working long hours and getting a great deal of enjoyment from your work. Just don’t blame your organization when you’re tired, stressed out, or out of balance.

You are accountable for your happiness at work.

Every time you email an internal or external customer on a weekend, take a work-related call at 8:00 pm, or check your email while you’re on vacation, you’re training the people you work with that you are always available.

Some of my clients’ employees tell me they feel taken advantage of by their organization and feel leaders’ expectations are unrealistic. As a result employees work more hours than they want to and miss vacations and evenings with their kids. The managers tell me they’re not expecting employees to work the hours employees say they feel pressured to work, so where’s the disconnect?

I suggest talking with your manager about her expectations.

The conversation could sound something like this:

“I want to make sure I’m meeting your expectations. When are you expecting X project to be done?

How are you evaluating my success? What does a good job look like?”

Or, “I’m stressed and am finding myself working evenings and weekends. I’d like to get a better understanding of your expectations about X project. I might be putting this stress on myself.”

I’m not suggesting being lazy or cutting corners. Work hard. Do good work. And know your limits.

In Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In, Sandberg shares a story from her career when the manager of one of the McKinsey & Company offices, where Sandberg worked, realized that every person who left the organization blamed burnout and exhaustion for the reason for their departure. Upon some research the manager discovered that each of these exiting employees had unused vacation time.

Here are my work life balance tips:

• Set realistic goals.
• Under promise and over deliver.
• Work reasonable hours, then go home.
• Recharge your batteries in whatever way fills you up.
• Get enough sleep. Everything feels and works better when we’ve had enough sleep.

See yourself as accountable for creating work life balance. Stop waiting for your boss to tell you you need a break. Send yourself home.

Bad Grammar Limits Careers

A few weeks ago I received an email from a candidate for a job I recently filled. His grammar, in the email, wasn’t great. The job requires writing, so I asked for a writing sample. The writing sample I received was riddled with spelling and grammar errors.

When I rejected the candidate, because of his bad grammar and spelling, some of my friends defended the candidate saying that spelling didn’t predict how successful someone would be and that poor writing is incredibly common in this country.

Their comments reminded me of the graduate level leadership class I taught a few years ago. Many of my master’s level students’ grammar was so poor, when I handed back my students’ first papers, I gave them a grammar lesson. Some class members were so offended and annoyed by this, they reported me to the dean, telling her that they did not pay $1500 for a grammar lesson. My stand remains the same.

I don’t care how great a leader you are. If you discredit yourself in every email you send by using bad grammar, your career will be limited.

Here are some common examples of bad grammar in both written and spoken communication:

1. “A lot” is two words.
2. Incentify is not a word. Incent is.
3. Too means also. To does not.
4. There is no B in supposedly.
5. Your crazy aunt can only visit once a year without you wanting to change your address, and this does not mean that you’re a bad person.
6. You accept advice. You advise others.
7. There is no X in especially.
8. You lose your marbles when you don’t get enough sleep.  Your jeans become loose when you stop eating Snickers bars.
9. You accept advice, except when you think the other person isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
10. Irregardless is not a word. Regardless is.
11. “Where you at?” “Where are you,” will do.
12. Please put your contact information on the bottom of your initial and reply emails. This is not a grammar thing, it would just be helpful.

Call me picky or old school. But I suspect that when you hear these errors made in conversation or see them in writing, you judge the other person. I know most hiring managers do. Hiring managers want to know employees can write reports and email clients without embarrassing the company.

You will be eliminated as a job candidate if your resume has typos. People will judge you when you use incorrect English. They won’t tell you they’re judging your bad grammar. They’ll do it quietly or talk about you when you’re not there.

I spoke at a conference a few weeks ago where an attendee asked how to tell an employee she was going to be fired because her writing was so poor. She maintained client files and wrote client correspondence. Clients’ names were often wrong, in her written notes, as was spelling and grammar. The typos and grammar errors were a deal breaker. And they may be in your job as well.

Have someone proofread a few of your emails and reports, and ask for feedback on your writing. Ask the coworkers you’re close to to tell you when you make grammar errors in meetings. Of course you want them to tell you privately, after the meeting.

I write a bi-monthly column for the Denver Business Journal. I’m grateful that my editor reads this blog and emails me the typos and errors I make. I am not exempt.

Clean up your bad grammar and your writing, and accelerate your career. I promise it will work.

Email Productivity Tips. Reduce Stress. Get More Done.

Reading emails as they come in is killing your productivity.

You’re at your desk working on a project. Aka, doing actual work. You think, “It’s been three minutes. I should check my email.” So you take your attention off your project and check your email. Then you read the next two emails that come in and check your voicemail. You then go back to the project you were working on and spend 10 to 20 minutes trying to get your head around what you were doing before reading all of those very important emails. Finally, you’re back in the groove. You do five minutes of work and think, “I should check my email.”  Then it’s 5:30 pm and you realize, with frustration, that you finished nothing all day.

Sound familiar?

Living in our email inbox is why many of us start work at 5:00 pm or come into the office at 7:00 am to get “something done while it’s quiet.” It’s why we sleep and go on vacation with our phones, and are never really off.

I am most productive on airplanes without WIFI. Without WIFI I’m not tempted to check my email every three minutes or check Facebook to read about what people I barely know and don’t really care about are doing.

Without WIFI all there is to do is what I need to do. There are no other meaningful distractions, except for the B-grade movie I didn’t really want to see anyway. I am focused. And as a result, I get a lot done. I’m also less stressed. Because I’m focused, doing one thing a time, I’m not worried about everything I still need to do.

If you want to get more done and be less stressed, do one thing at a time, for a defined period of time. Decide how long you’re going to work on something, and work on that item for that period of time, with no distractions or interruptions. You may only work on something for ten or twenty minutes, but do only what you said you would do for that time period. Then you can check your email.

Productivity experts suggest you only check your email three times a day, for example, once in the morning, right before or after lunch, and at the end of the day. I find this hard to do. Like you, I feel pressured to check my inbox. Or I use my email to avoid the work I really need to do. But I know that constantly being in my email inbox has me distracted and not doing the work I really need to do. And as a result, I’m stressed and spend my evenings and weekends working on projects that require focused time.

Do one thing at a time, for a defined period of time. Just try it. If you’re going to read your email, give yourself 20 minutes, and do nothing but read, reply, and delete email. At the end of 20 minutes, do whatever you said you would do next, for as long as you decide, and nothing else.

See if you get more done, in less time, with less stress. You might just leave work earlier and have time to do something besides work.

Know Your Reputation and Advance Your Career

Unfortunately you probably already know that people have a tendency to talk about you, not to you. It’s human nature. Sometimes it’s gossip. Other times senior leaders talk about your future with the organization. If you want to advance your career, you need to know what the people whose opinions you care about say about you when you’re not there.

Unfortunately most people get very little feedback at work. If today was the day of your performance appraisal and I asked how your boss and whoever else provides input on your review would rate you, you probably don’t know. This lack of knowledge prevents you from advancing your career.

Not knowing someone’s opinion doesn’t mean you’re not subject to it. Akin to getting a speeding ticket when you didn’t know you were speeding. The cop doesn’t care. He adds four points to your driving record, despite that you didn’t know the speed limit.

You may work for a manager who gives feedback. You may not. It doesn’t matter. There are people in your life who will tell you the truth (as they see it), if you ask.

I recommend assembling a core group of people who you count on to tell you the truth. These are the people who know you well and have your back. They can be friends, family members, past coworkers, customers, or managers.

You might wonder, “What can my mom or friends from high school or college tell me about how I behave at work?” The answer–a lot.

We don’t become different people when we arrive at work. We are who we are. If you’re often late, break commitments, or wear clothing that’s not your friend, you do those things at home and at work. Likewise, if you have great attention to detail, never break commitments, and always look great (in public), you friends and family know.

Identify a few people, personal and/or professional, who care about you and will tell you the truth.

Tell these folks you want to eliminate your blind spots. Ask them for specific feedback, and promise that no matter what they say and how hard it is to hear, you will say “thank you.” Then be sure to manage yourself.  It’s normal to become defensive when we get constructive feedback. But every time we become defensive, we train people it’s not safe to tell us the truth. If you want people to give you feedback, more than once, make it easy to tell you the truth.

You may be thinking that asking for feedback  is unrealistic. People won’t be honest. And you can’t take it.

The people who really care about you will be honest, and you can take it. You’ll be fine. In fact you’ll be better off than before you had the conversations. You might hear things that pleasantly surprise you. And the things you don’t like? Just because no one talked to you about them before you asked, doesn’t mean those behaviors didn’t impact you. Now you can do something about them.

Get out of the dark and into control. Discover your reputation and advance your career.

Gossip in the Workplace Kills Organizational Culture

I had a colleague at my last job who was a peer and a friend. We were at a similar level and would periodically sit in one of our offices, with the door closed, talking about the bad decisions our company’s senior leaders made. One day I realized that these conversations were exhausting to me. They were negative and didn’t make me feel better. In fact, they made me feel worse.

Some people distinguish between gossip and venting, asserting that venting is cathartic and makes people feel better. It doesn’t.

I’ll use an analogy I read in one of Deepak Chopra’s books. When you put a plant in the closet and don’t give it light or water, it withers and dies. When you put a plant in the sunlight and water it, it grows. And the same is true for people. Whatever you give attention will proliferate. Whatever you deprive attention will go away.

Your life is made up of the people you spend time with and what you talk about. What are you talking about?

In addition to draining you of energy and ensuring you focus on the things that frustrate you, gossip in the workplace kills the organization’s culture. If employees can’t trust that their peers won’t talk about them when they’re not there, there is no trust in the organization. And you can’t have real relationships without trust.

Gossip isn’t going anywhere. It’s a human phenomenon and is here to stay. But you can reduce gossip.

A few ways to reduce the gossip in the workplace:

1. Address the gossip head on.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of gossip, which is not good for our culture.”

2. Hold regular town hall meetings, and give employees information about initiatives, organizational changes, profitability, etc. Employees want to know how the company is really doing and what they can do to contribute.
3. Create a no gossip in the workplace policy.

“We want people talking directly to each other, rather than about each other. As a result, we’re putting a no gossip policy in place.”

4. Draw attention to gossip.

“Every time you hear gossip, wave two fingers in the air.” This will draw attention to the gossip in the workplace without calling anyone out.

Also, ask your peers and friends not to gossip with you. End conversations that contain gossip. This will be hard to do, but if everyone does it, it will become much easier.

5. Have an agreed-upon consequence for gossip.

“Every time we hear gossip in the workplace, the gossiper owes a dollar. Every quarter the gossipers will buy the office lunch from the gossip jar.”

The keys to reducing gossip in your office are to draw attention to the gossip, have a consequence for gossiping, and over communicate so your employees don’t have to make stuff up. Employees want to know what’s happening in the organization. In the absence of knowledge, people make stuff up, and it’s never good.

Venting and gossip are the same. Unless you’re planning a conversation with a coworker or friend to address a challenge or problem, you’re gossiping. And talking about what frustrates you will only make you more frustrated.

My advice:  Do something about the things you can impact and let the other stuff go. Talk about the things that matter to you. Resist the temptation to speak negatively about the people around you. And know that anyone who will gossip about someone to you, will also gossip about you.

Be A Change Agent – Make It Easy to Tell You Yes

Despite what you may think, your manager has enough to do. So when you drop a problem at her door, she finds it annoying. Rather than just alerting your manager and the leaders in your organization to the things that need to be fixed, go one step further, and be a change agent by offering a solution yourself.

It’s fine to raise challenges. It’s better to raise challenges you’re willing to do something about. If you think two departments don’t talk to each other, bring them together. If you think a process is inefficient, propose a different way to get the work done. If you’re dissatisfied with software you’re using, offer to source three potential vendors and set up a demo. You’re doing the legwork and asking for a small investment of time.

When we ask for something at work, it often requires time, money, or both.  Thus when an employee asks for something, it’s easier for a manager to say no than it is to say yes. “No” requires no work and no financial outlay. A “yes” may require both.

You make it easy to say yes to your requests when you’re acting as a change agent:

1. Propose a solution to a problem.
2. Offer to do the work to solve the problem.
3. Ask for small things that are easy to approve.

If you’re overwhelmed and want to hire an additional person, but your boss isn’t convinced you need the headcount, ask for a temp for a finite number of hours. It’s much easier for a manager to say yes to a small and known investment amount than to the long-term commitment of hiring someone new.  The point is to ask for something that is easy for your manager to approve.

The word “pilot” is your friend. If you want to make a major change, pilot a scaled down version of your proposed solution in one or two locations, rather than in your organization’s 10 locations. Again, asking for something small makes it more likely that you’ll be told yes.

The bottom line is to be part of the solution – as trite and overused as that phrase is. Don’t be the person who says, “That’s broken” without also saying, “and here’s how we can fix it.  Can I give it a try?”

Career Management – You Create Your Future

Last week some unknown person sent me emails predicting my future. According to the anonymous clairvoyant, in ten years my life will be going well. I’ll have a son who is bright but doesn’t apply himself (shocking), and I’ll be offered a job in Oshkosh that I shouldn’t take. After the third predictive email, the sender wanted to know if I had questions about my future. I didn’t.

1. The whole thing was wildly creepy.
2. No one should take advice from someone with this much discretionary time. The emailer needs a volunteer job.
3. Why would I want someone else to tell me my future? That’s something I enjoy creating.

I’ve got a friend who feels a black cloud follows her. She feels bad things repeatedly happen to her and there’s nothing she does to create these situations, which is, of course, complete garbage.

It may be easier to blame someone or something for the bad things that happen to you, but if someone else is responsible, you have no control. And if you have no control over what happens to you, there is nothing you can do to create the life you really want.

I see myself as 100% responsible for everything that happens to me. As antithetical as it sounds, life is easier when I’m accountable. If I miss a plane because of traffic, I should have left for the airport earlier. If I get overcharged in a restaurant, I should have checked the bill more carefully. If I do a bunch of work for a client and later find out that the work I did isn’t what the client really wanted, I should have asked more questions upfront and asked for feedback earlier.

When I’m responsible for what happens to me, I have some control. When someone else is responsible, I have no control.

I’ll admit to going to a psychic…once. In 2001 I took a transfer from Denver to New York. Living in New York was fun and exciting, and great for my career, but I didn’t enjoy living in such an urban city. I agonized over what to do for two years – go back to Denver, stay in New York, or move someplace else?

Desperately unhappy, but not being able to make a decision, I went to see a psychic. Clearly I had given up. I was going to let someone I’d never met, who didn’t know anything about me, decide my future. Unless you’re at the Jersey Shore and decide to have your palm read for fun, seeing a psychic is abdicating responsibility for your life.

Instead of seeking answers about what might happen, pursue the things you want. If you want a different job in your organization, tell someone who can do something about it. If you got passed over for a job, ask the hiring manager for feedback of what would have made you a better candidate. If the hiring manager doesn’t give you any information, ask your current boss to get the information for you.  If one of your co-workers excludes you from projects, ask him why. If someone you work with seems to dislike you, ask for feedback about what you did to damage the relationship. Regardless of how challenging the situation and how disappointing the results, there is ALWAYS something you did to either contribute to the situation or something you can do to change the situation.

I don’t mean to tell you what to do. Nor do I mean to minimize how hard some life circumstances are.  But I do want you to see yourself as in charge of what happens to you.

Create the life you want by:

1. Asking, “What do I really want, and what’s one thing I can do right now to get closer to that goal?” Then take one step. Then take one more, and so on.
2. If negative things are happening, ask, “What could I have done differently to have a different outcome?” Or, ask, “If I could do this over again, what would I do differently.” Then next time, do it differently.

Regardless of how hard or bad something is, there is ALWAYS something you can do to make the situation better. Take your life, your career and your relationships into your own hands, where they belong.

Email us if you want this career management phrase on a poster, note card, notebook, or magnet.