Old Dogs: Looking Successful = Being Successful

It's the start of the week. What better time to learn a new trick? "Old Dogs" is designed to make you more effective by giving you a new skill to practice throughout the week and if it works for you, keep using it! All you have to do is read the article and give it a fair trial.

Can I start by apologising for last week. I've had a crazy one preparing several projects and didn't have time to write any articles. Funnily enough, that's quite against the principles of this article.

A lot of people talk about whether someone is productive, helpful or successful but what they actually mean is that someone appears to be productive, helpful or successful. The interesting thing is that this is a perception of success. Successful people may be perceived as 'useless' if they work in a messy environment, communicate badly or appear to crumble when under pressure. Conversely unsuccessful people may appear to be doing well if they cover their tracks by smooth talking, appearing calm under pressure or working in a tidy manner.

This generally means that regardless of whether you are actually calm or flapping massively, if you give an outward appearance of calm, people will think you're more competent than you feel. You'll have a calming effect on those around you and in turn this will calm you as your environment is less stressful.

Research has shown that those who adopt a persona in this manner generally develop those traits in time. So by acting calm, successful or helpful, you'll become calm successful or helpful instinctively.


So what?

For this week, try the following.

* Come in a little earlier, leave a little later or forgo one break today or tomorrow. Use the time to look at the space you're responsible. Try to see it from an outsider's point of view. Does it look cluttered, hectic or messy? See what you can put away, clear or file. Tidy your cables. Hang your coat. Put your work bag away. Above all, be brutal. For demo purposes, here's a quick snap of my office as it is now, with no tidying.



* Look at your dress and grooming. Are you presentable? Would you be happy with your appearance if the CEO had a surprise meeting? If not, maybe you need to rethink. When adopting these principles a few years ago, I realised that jeans, a t-shirt and a 3-day beard were not acceptable in my role regardless of my long hours or what my co-workers did and made a decision to smarten up. Casual doesn't mean grubby/lazy dress.

* Look for the next 'mini-crisis'. Try to look at yourself from others eyes whilst it's happening or alternatively analyse your responses afterwards. Make sure to leave off the rose-tinted glasses. How do your facial expressions appear? Your body language? Your tone of voice? Around 80% of communication is non-verbal. Make sure yours is confident and positive or at the very least neutral.

* Listen to the words and phrases you use. Whilst you don't have to offer the world or become a doormat and you still have three acceptable answers, are you making a 'mountain out of a molehill' or are you calm? Remember, social convention means you can almost always go away, prepare an answer and come back later.

* Look at your task management. Are you being effective or are you finding reasons to avoid that job you don't want to do? Get on with it and stand out from the crowd as a can-do person.

* Also, whilst on the subject of task management, make sure that you get the important things out quickly. Remember, 'what's important to my boss' is a good mantra, and try to extend this to the company as a whole


Remember...

Theodore Roosevelt said "Speak softly, and carry a big stick". Whilst this post advocates calm and reliability for the most, the ideology of a duck that is calm above the water but paddling furiously underneath, there will be times when you'll need to be loud, and throw your weight around in a real crisis. If you're usually the paragon of calm, when you do raise your voice or look concerned, it will carry far more weight than if you do so all the time.

Old Dogs: Getting Your Outcomes

It's the start of the week. What better time to learn a new trick? "Old Dogs" is designed to make you more effective by giving you a new skill to practice throughout the week and if it works for you, keep using it! All you have to do is read the article and give it a fair trial.

I've had a lot of contact recently about my post about learning styles. The best way to get your preferred outcome from any interaction is still to develop rapport, which can be done using learning styles as a springboard. However, there isn't always the time to do this fully and sometimes you just need some quick and easy responses. Judging from the feedback I've had, people seem to be identifying the styles and using them to develop rapport with others, but are struggling in short interactions where you don't get sufficient time to do this effectively. There are other areas of NLP that can help and this post is about -

"Tricking" the Brain

A great way to get your required outcome quickly is by using verbal cues. The brain is a funny instrument and has to develop shortcuts to be able to function. In fact, if it didn't, you'd be overloaded as you struggled to keep up with all the things you were experiencing.

However, this does mean that you can take advantage of these shortcuts by playing with words. If you need any convincing about the effectiveness of these tools, why not ask terrifying mind-artist Derren Brown when he uses these tools to play a great trick on Simon Pegg. These techniques work even better when you've some rapport with the person in question, but can be used with just about anyone. To get a positive outcome, try one of the following phrases at some point this week:


"When now would be a good time to..."
Throwing the word 'now' into the wrong part of this sentence nonchalantly will slip past most conscious brains. The subconsious however will see 'now' as a good time to do most things and will present it to them as their own idea.


"I, like you..."/"You, like me..."
The conscious brain hears what you expect, a phrase akin to "I'm thinking/acting along the same lines as you in this endeavour". However, the unconscious hears "I like you" or "You like me" with no punctuation and to some extent, believes it.


"Just imagine..."
Can you honestly say that if you hear this, you can avoid imagining whatever is being proposed? Starting any phrase with this will make people envisage what you say in their own preferred learning style. Great for getting people to stop and think about what you're saying


"No, really?"
This is my favourite of all. It's like a subconscious trigger for brains and one you really must try. Look someone in the eyes and ask a question with a variable answer like "How much is this car", "What's the best you can offer" or "How soon can you deliver this project". Then, when they give their answer, keep a poker face and eye contact and say "No. Really." Keep the eye contact/poker face and every time they respond, just repeat "No. Really." It may take a couple of times but watch as they scramble to outdo themselves with their best offers. Insanely powerful, but use sparingly for results when you really need it. Works beautifully on car salesmen!


Try at least one of these things this week and see the results for yourself. Whatever you do, make sure you use "No, really" for a real result.

You, like me, will be amazed with the results!
(see what I did there?)

Task Management

Are you an achiever or a procrastinator? Do other people see you as an effective 'can-do' person or a slow-to-respond roadblock that needs to be placated? Modern organisational power doesn't come from holding people up, it comes from being a can-do team player. Use the tips in this article to make yourself productive and see how in a short space of time you can get more done.

It's funny how there's always at least one person in every organisation that will tell you constantly that they're so busy, and definately too busy to help you. However, the interesting thing is that if you ask the people who interface with them, they'll often tell you that the individual is not doing what they need to. I'm sure you can think of this person. You probably see them on a regular basis and see how their reports and colleagues struggle to pull the dead weight left by the jobs they don't do.

However, there are some simple ways that anyone can avoid becoming this office nightmare. Be more effective and achieve more in the same amount of time. All it takes is a little discipline and these ideas.

1. Do the worst first

Most people cherry pick the jobs they want to do, human nature leads us to this. We're all guilty of working on the things we want to rather than actually getting the heavier, scarier, more important or difficult things done. The bad jobs hang around like dark cloud or a bad smell, spending far too long on your desk and holding others up. Often, these might take two hours or less but lower morale for days or weeks before being completed.

If you actually started on these things and got rid of them quickly, they wouldn't be hanging over your head and you'd be free to get on with the other stuff. Cut the procrastination, get on with it!


2. Is this task really yours?

Not to be a jobsworth but really, look at the tasks you're spending time with. Are they really your tasks or are you doing them because you're getting involved with something that you want to, but has no benefit for you? In a recent post, we looked at building a power base. There is almost always something to be gained by doing extra tasks but never at the cost of your primary role. Besides, passing the more enjoyable tasks back to the person responsible rather than stealing them for yourself will motivate them, keeping them has the opposite effect.

I used to work in an organisation in which people didn't care about this, at all. Led from the top down where an unrelated Director would enjoy 'investigating' conference venues without any real job requirement, rather than deal with their staff, other staff would get involved in things that they didn't need to such as one department lead who seemed to get involved in everything. This meant all decisions were protracted and took almost superhuman effort from everyone who should be involved to get them steered in the correct direction. As Scott Adams wrote in his Dilbert series, [if people are given the opportunity] "we'll have meeting after meeting after meeting, everyone will want to have input because input is much easier than doing real work."


3. Clearing the decks

One of my favourite tricks as a manager was "Tidy Friday". I was introduced to this by a boss of mine early on in my career. Part of the concept was about appearing succesful to other areas of the organisation (a topic I'll cover in more depth later) but a large proportion was effective task management.

Tidy Friday is a concept whereby Fridays are largely used to clear up small jobs that may be lingering. The task list is scrutinised and everything that can be finished and cleared (where feasible) is prioritised and written off by the end of the day. The office is cleared/cleaned and come the new week, there are no lingering tasks that need to be completed.

Part of this helped motivate people because they got into the mindset that things could be achieved by the end of the week and similarly didn't have things hanging over their heads all week. They went home with a smile and came in on Monday able to see the wood for the trees. Also, people outside the department could easily see that the team appeared on top of the workload.

4. "Red hat" time

I worked in an open plan office space for a while and genuinely used to have a red hat. Nowadays, I have an office door that performs the same task. If my hat is on or my door is closed, I'm busy and not to be disturbed.

Particularly for someone like me who wants to provide the best interactions I can with everyone else, this was a difficult one. However, I'm also strongly 'visual' and don't deal well with interruptions at all. In fact I'm not alone, on average it takes someone 20 minutes after an interruption to get back into their task. On top of that, if you, like me are one of the 55% of people that are visual, you're more succeptible than the rest and may take longer than 20 minutes to get back to work.

With careful and selective use of the hat/door, anyone can get through a task in a shorter time than they would otherwise. Other members of staff more often than not respect what you're trying to achieve and are supportive. Often, they'll try it themselves! Just remember to explain your reasoning to people in advance.


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So what do I do?

1. Do the worst first. Take all the tasks you've been putting off and get them done
2. Stick to your tasks or tasks you're doing purely to build a power base. Don't get involved if there's no reason to, especially if it's just because you're avoiding other things.
3. Clear the decks. Tiday Friday gives you a great opportunity to do this.
4. Find your 'red hat'.
5. Profit as you watch your productivity soar.