Promote Yourself (11 page)

ACCEPT CRITICISM …
   When people give you feedback, you have to be willing to hear it without having it ruin your day or give you a bad attitude. Being able to handle criticism shows that you're interested in improving yourself and that you want to be part of the team. As devastating as criticism is, and for quite a few people it can be, try not to let it get the best of you. I know it's easy to get defensive when someone says something negative about you—especially if the criticism is unwarranted or less than constructive. But before you take a mental swipe at the person who critiqued you, consider whether there might be a grain of truth in there somewhere. If you need to, you can get a second opinion from someone you trust.

… AND LEARN FROM CRITICISM
   If there
is
a grain (or a ton) of truth in the criticism you receive (and there almost always is), think about how you can learn from it. Honestly, what could you have done or said differently? If you suddenly found yourself in the same situation again, would you do the same thing? Being able to learn from criticism is not an easy thing. But it's something that will definitely get you noticed by your manager and others.

AND LEARN TO CRITICIZE.
   As you move your way up through an organization it's inevitable that you'll have to do some critiquing. Some people love to jump down people's throats. They actually look forward to being able to knock people down a peg or two and aren't above reducing someone to tears. They're insensitive jerks. Don't be one of them. Find a way to get your message across in a way that doesn't do any harm and that actually makes the person you're speaking to want to improve. The best way to do this is to start the conversation on a pleasant note: find something to compliment the person on, something she does especially well. Then move on to the main event and return to something positive before finishing up the discussion.

 

Project Management: Where Hard and Soft Skills Collide

There are a few areas where hard skills and soft skills go hand in hand. One of the most pivotal is project management—the process of taking an idea from conception through to completion. To be a good project manager, you'll need to be extremely organized, have the ability to prioritize, create to-do lists, assign ownership of various elements of the project, and track milestones and deadlines—all hard skills.

But the project managers who truly excel are the ones who can keep their team on track, help them work through obstacles and stay focused when they run into them, encourage their teams when they feel discouraged, and motivate them to work together to accomplish things they might not have thought they could accomplish—all soft skills. The secret here is to break things down into digestible chunks. Say you've allotted three weeks for your team to finish a project. Figure out what needs to happen in week one and which people can best get the job done. Then think about weeks two and three. Throughout, check in regularly with the team to see how they're doing and what additional resources they might need.

Building a strong network and becoming a leader are mutually reinforcing. When your colleagues respect you and your manager trusts you, it's much easier to take charge of a project. Promote yourself into leadership roles rather than waiting around for someone else to give you more responsibility. Let people know that you want to be in charge, while assuring them that they'll be integral to the success of the project. Prove yourself with the first project, and you'll solidify your position as a leader and you'll get trusted with bigger projects. As you manage larger projects, you will become more visible, with more responsibilities, and you will gain new experiences and relationships that you can leverage in the future.

 

Soft Skills Are Life Skills

One of the greatest things about soft skills is that they don't just apply to your work life. Soft skills that might seem work-related can help you in your personal life and vice versa. A friend of mine, Bill Connolly, was petrified of talking in front of others. But after taking an improv class, he was able to eliminate his fear of public speaking, which helped out at work but also helped improve his dating life. Adam LoDolce, another friend, had always been shy and awkward around women, so he forced himself to take a class on dating. It worked, and the skills he learned in that class—starting conversations, showing interest in other people, coming across as confident—also helped him attract more customers to his business. As you go through your day, think about the skills you're learning on the job and try to figure out how to apply them in other areas of your life.

If you're fortunate enough to work at Google, you should definitely sign up for their “Search Inside Yourself” program. In a
New York Times
interview, Karen May, Google's Vice President for Leadership and Talent, said, “We have great people. Now how do we keep them? Teaching employees with terrific technical abilities also means helping them to develop presentation skills and communication skills, helping them to understand their impact on other people, their ability to collaborate across groups, and cultivate a mentality from which great motivation can spring.” So far, over 1,000 employees have been through the course, which teaches attention training, listening skills, self-knowledge and self-mastery, developing useful mental habits, and dealing with failure.

Of course, Google's program is a pretty rare case. Plenty of people struggle with acquiring and polishing their soft skills. As we've discussed, there are a lot of ways to do that. But the most successful one (which is also the hardest) is to jump into the mix and give it a shot. It might be tough the first few times (or few dozen), but the more you do it, the better you'll get.

 

Master Soft Skills to Become the Person Everyone Wants to Work With

If you're looking to move into a leadership position you need to be working on developing and improving your soft skills. Unless you're able to fit in with your company's culture, be a team player, and motivate others, you won't even make it to the short list of candidates.

So starting today, pay more attention to how other people see you. Try to get feedback from your manager about how your soft skills are today, and check back with her every six months or so to see how you're progressing—more often if she's identified something that is a serious problem.

H
aving strong soft skills opens up opportunities for you to become more social and build stronger relationships—relationships that can benefit you at work and in your personal life. Very few people are able to accomplish big things completely on their own—you're almost always working with a team. When you're known as someone who is good at developing strong, positive relationships with your team, and can rally them to tackle tough business problems, you'll become an even more valuable resource. That will help you grow your brand and will position you to move up in your organization.

 

4

Online Skills: Use Social Media to Your Advantage

 

Social Media, it turns out, isn't about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social Media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

—
SETH
GODIN
,

AUTHOR
OF
T
HE
I
CARUS
D
ECEPTION

 

By becoming proficient in the most prominent social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google
+
, and by identifying and learning how to use ones that haven't been invented yet, you'll keep yourself ahead of the curve. You'll be able to build and grow a strong network of contacts you can call on in a variety of situations, whether it's to generate buzz and sales for your company's newest product, or to build your own personal brand. Having a strong personal brand will make you stand out at work, increase your visibility, and position you for promotions. Combine that with a strong social network and you've got the ultimate safety net for any economy.

I started using Facebook when I was a junior in college, and now everyone in the world is accessing it, and it's having a profound impact on our society. (Social media is so widespread that 92 percent of toddlers already have an online presence.
1
) We're connected to our friends, families, coworkers, and random people that we meet at events and through our daily travels. Even the few people I know who refused to open a Facebook account a few years ago are now actively using it because in today's world it's just about impossible for anyone to get along without it. In the past few years, Twitter has promoted the embarrassing antics of Charlie Sheen (#winning) and even played a role in the Egyptian uprising that marked the beginning of the Arab Spring of 2011.

Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used for good or bad. In 2012, people used Twitter to keep victims of Super Storm Sandy informed about where to find basic food and shelter and how to find lost friends and relatives. On the other hand, not everything you read on Twitter is true. Also during the storm, a Wall Street analyst sent out a series of completely made up tweets claiming that the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water and that all power to Manhattan had been cut off. He was fired from his job and there was even talk of prosecuting him.

Following the right sources is important, and following industry experts can help keep you up to date on the latest developments in your field and what the thought leaders are up to. These are people who are completely immersed in the topic, and because they (usually) enjoy sharing their knowledge, you can learn a ton from them.

Having a large social media presence and following can also add a lot of value to your career. From a purely personal perspective, your social media connections can help you improve your productivity by giving you access to information faster. From a getting-noticed-and-building-your-brand-at-work perspective, your social media connections can help you support your company in a variety of ways that are sure to attract attention from your manager and coworkers. For example, if your company has a major product announcement, you can promote it through your network to generate buzz and get extra attention for the release—and you might even land a new client. If a customer is complaining on Twitter and you stumble upon the tweet, you can let your PR department know, resolve your customer's issues, and come out looking like a hero. (If you let negative news go unchallenged it's only going to spread.) And when your company is looking to hire, you can source target candidates through your online profiles and maybe even make a few thousand dollars from your employee referral program.

Think of your social media profiles as assets that you'll be building on throughout your career. The networks you build can help you stay connected with people you know and build new connections with people you don't know. And, as we'll talk about in later chapters, the more people you know, the easier it becomes to open doors to new opportunities. Build and use your networks wisely now, and they'll pay big dividends later.

But watch out. If you aren't careful, you can get yourself into real trouble. You might have heard about the aides to Representative Rick Larsen, Democrat of Washington, who tweeted from their personal accounts about how cool it was to be sitting in the seat of power at midday, drinking Jack Daniel's, and watching Nirvana videos on the taxpayers' dime? You know who isn't sitting there anymore—from the seat of power to the hot seat in 140 characters.

You'd think people would know better, wouldn't you?
You
know better, right? Then again, how often have you hit Reply All on an e-mail when you meant to hit just Reply? It can be pretty embarrassing.

We all do it. Fifty-four percent of people under twenty-five and 32 percent of people over twenty-five
2
say they've posted something they later regretted. Those numbers seem too low to me. I believe that anyone who says they haven't done it, either hasn't noticed—or hasn't been caught … yet.

The fact is we live in a fast-paced world where the pressure to respond and to post is constant, and where it's all too easy to make mistakes. Unfortunately, there's often an inverse relationship between the time it takes to post a comment and the negative impact that post can have. In other words, the simplest mistakes can have the biggest—and longest-lasting—repercussions.

That's why a host of companies are now making money cleaning up people's online reputations. They know that, to a great extent, who you are
online
is who you
are,
period. People you'll never meet—across your company, across your industry, across the world—can read about you with their morning coffee, and to them, what they read is the absolute truth about who you are.

Do you think your managers and coworkers aren't looking? Do you think there's a firewall between your online and offline lives, or between work and personal time? Think again. Eighty-five percent of companies now use social media to research employees—for promotions as well as new hires. Sixty-three percent use Facebook and Twitter to unearth digital dirt. Seventy-one percent monitor employee social network use.
3
Oh, and if you were hoping things would get better, think again. A new study by Gartner found that 60 percent of companies plan to
increase
the amount of snooping they do on employees' social media by 2015. The moral of the story? Big Brother is here, so watch what you post!

Of course not
everyone
is looking over your shoulder. Steve Fogarty, Senior Manager, Strategic Programs at Adidas, doesn't do what young workers call “creeping” (aka spying) on employees' profiles. “As long as an employee is performing well on the job, then I'm not interested in what they do in their social life or on social media,” says Fogarty. “Of course if they do something press-worthy or damage the brand in some way and others bring this to light, then of course this could have negative consequences.” But managers like Chris Petranech, Sales Manager at PayPal, do it all the time. “I like to understand their interests and how they use social media to represent themselves online,” he says. “Ultimately they are a reflection of my team within the organization.” Others go even further and actually assess the quality of employee's social networks. “I connect with everyone I work with on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, if they're there,” says Michael Brenner, Senior Director of Global Marketing at SAP. “And I secretly judge people who have very few connections on social channels.”