Profit from Your Past Experience
How often in life have you wished that you could start all over again with a clean slate? Well, here is your chance. If you have made mistakes in the past, are you going to be honest enough with yourself to admit them? Are you going to try to avoid the same pitfalls in the future? Let's admit that your previous boss was wrong. While some of your coworkers cheered you on, you really told him off. Right or wrong, your former boss is still there on the job. Your fellow workers are also there, but you got bounced-there was not enough room for both you and the boss. You cannot afford to show up your boss. Neither can you afford to make him look small before his employees.
Perhaps you took sides in an office political battle. The slate is now clean, but have you resolved never again to get involved in anything of that nature? Some fourteen of the top echelon of the Curtis Publishing Company recently complained about the president to the Board of Directors.
Most of the fourteen are gone, but the president is still there. Every human being could cite instances where he thought he had been treated unjustly. Harry Emerson Fosdick tells us that though the Bible promises many things, nowhere does it promise that we will be dealt with justly. Stop thinking about past mistreatments. Don't be an injustice collector, if you want to be a happy man. Remember: "Never chew your pills -swallow them. When you chew them, it makes them taste still bitterer."
This doesn't mean that you should stay aloof, be a prude, or be a loner. On the contrary, you should make friends among your associates and go out to lunch with them now and then. Sometimes include those above you, for you can learn much from them. They will give you greater insight into the whole business operation.
Be Modest
Don't let the president introduce you to your new associates as a superman or near genius. I know of a man who was introduced in just that manner. It proved to be an insurmountable barrier between his fellow executives and him. Be modest and friendly, but be very wary about mentioning your schools, your social and golf clubs, etc. Don't throw your weight around or tell anyone how good you are. If you are good, it will be known soon enough.
Your Long-Range Objective
What do you expect to be doing ten years from now? This is the time to assume a long-range objective. Set it high enough and then focus all your endeavors toward that goal. This will mean that both you and your family may have to make sacrifices. Be sure to talk this over with your family so that they will be understanding about your longer working hours, and you’re having to attend conventions and conferences. Make the decision now that you want to be one of the top people in your field. At the same time, plan that you will be picked for that top job and will not go seeking it. Any time you are offered a job from the outside-whether you take it or not-your prestige will have been enhanced.
Prepare For That Next Job
Keep preparing yourself for that next job, whether it is with your present company or with another. However, if you should find that you have made a mistake in joining a new company, do not prolong the error. Get out as soon as it is economically possible. You can't make a peach out of a lemon. When you are in an established position, the one thing you should do, in addition to doing a good job, is to set up a financial reserve. This might be in the form of savings accounts, bonds, or life insurance. Getting another job may take from one to six months. Build this reserve up conscientiously month by month. Do this and you release yourself from the fear of making a change.
The job-getting techniques which you learned in this book can be put to work for you over and over again. In your last campaign, if you had a difficult time getting your saleable merchandise together, i.e., your accomplishments, and your concrete "for instances," you can make it easier in the future. Keep a notebook or diary about your business activity. Re view and record, at least once a month, some report, study, or suggestion for which you can claim credit. Put down figures so you will have a measure of your achievements. Put them down even though you think of them as being insignificant. Some future employer may think otherwise.
Profit is the ultimate goal of every business. It is the basis on which the president of your company is judged. It will be the basis on which you, too, will be judged. If your measurable results reflect this theme, you are well prepared for the next job campaign.
Project Your Image
If the company you are joining has a public-relations department, get them to prepare a release for the newspapers. This should include your picture, your new title, the name of the company, and the name of its product. You will be amazed that almost the day following the press release, you will hear from recruiters, offering you their services should you need assistance, etc. You will also be told that your re lease has been placed in their permanent file, which means that sometime they may call you to fill a position.
If your new company does not have a public-relations department, you may find it a bit more difficult to get any publicity. In this case, you might suggest that the company is losing chances for valuable advertising, that periodic information should be released about the company and its officers (and incidentally about you).
Merely keeping your nose to the grindstone and being engrossed in your work will not guarantee your advancement. You must at the same time build recognition for yourself. This will not only benefit your company but will make you more attractive to recruiters and competitors. There are many ways to do this. One of the best ways is to accept every opportunity to read a paper or give a speech about your specialty before any group that makes such a request. Make certain that your boss has been asked to give his permission.
He will be complimented and will have no reason to feel that you are a "publicity hound." Get reprints of your speech made so you can distribute them where it counts. Keep in mind that most people do not go to the bother of doing these things through sheer inertia. Your efforts here may be worth thousands of dollars to you.
Another good way to project your image is to write articles for publication. Your trade or association magazines are hungry for articles. Write about any interesting incident that has happened in connection with your specialty. Show it to the editors. If they are interested, have them get permission from your boss to print the article.
Conferences and Meetings
Many executives attend conference without any advance preparation. Sometimes even the chairman has laid no foundation for the meeting. If you know what is going to be discussed, do a little advance thinking about the matter. Have a memorandum ready showing that you have your ideas well in hand. You will benefit both yourself and your company by your preparation.
Do not monopolize the meeting. Try to keep your remarks confined to only one of the subjects discussed. Do not try to force your ideas, and show no irritation if your ideas are not adopted. Ask one or two questions at every meeting, trying with each question to bring out a point for discussion. If the meeting went unusually well, don't hesitate to compliment the chairman.
Assume Responsibility
Be willing and ready to assume responsibility whenever you can, for most people shun it. If a special problem needs to be studied and reported on, volunteer to take it over. You may delegate some of the work to others, but you are the one who must pull the reports together, write the conclusions, and de liver them at the next meeting. If the boss wants the report sooner than that, get it to him. Have a copy made for each person it concerns and sign your name to your handiwork.
Often at a meeting, no one wants to be the conference secretary. Here is another chance for you to take on a job that no one wants. Draw up the notes and review the accomplishments of the meeting. Your secretary can do the work, but you should sign your name to the report.
Association Work and Public Speaking
Get into association work with your own professional organization-there are different ones for each field, i.e., controllers, sales managers, corporate secretaries, and purchasing agents. Take on committee work. Remember, it is always the busy man who can do more.
If you volunteer to serve on minor committees and do more than the minimum amount of work, you will probably be asked to be on the executive committee. Sooner or later you will be prevailed on to talk about the organization or about some part of it that is in your field. Few executives are willing, or able, to speak in public. Many of them will turn down all such requests-but not you. When it is discovered that you are willing to speak, you will have many opportunities to do so. Take every one of them, for there is nothing that will give you more credit and recognition than making a speech in public. You may gradually become a spokesperson for the industry before government authorities and legislative committees. See that your name is always connected with that of your company; after all, you are doing this on company time.
The formula for success used to be: "Learn your job, stick to it, work hard, and you will get to the top." In these days of fierce competition, this is no longer all that is necessary. In order for other people to find out about you, you must have the ability to communicate your ideas.
Public speaking will come very hard at first, but you can develop competency in this gradually. At first, you may even have to write in advance the questions you plan to ask in meetings. Then, step by step, you will find that it gets easier as you meet with one success after another, until you are finally ready to progress from giving a short report to making a brief speech. You are now on your way. It takes both effort and application to be that one person in a hundred.
Prepare For Promotion
All too frequently executives are fearful of training an assistant to be strong enough to take over. Don't adopt that attitude. If you are an executive, you should make your assistant so strong that he or she will push you right up the ladder.
The development of executive leaders should be one of your conscious objectives. The most effective way of bringing out executive ability in others is to give them more and more responsibility. There is no surer way to ferret out competence. You must, of course, recognize that a person who makes decisions will also make mistakes. However, if your assistant makes the same mistake too often, it would suggest that you are giving him or her too much responsibility. Try to get your assistant, in turn, to pass responsibility on down to the next echelon. It will not be long before your division or section will be outstanding. Give praise where it is deserved and correction where necessary. General Patton is supposed to have said, "All men need a pat on the back once in a while; some need it high and some need it low." In teaching someone to replace you, you will be doing as much for yourself as you will do for him or her, for you must clarify your own responsibility and authority in the company. This will force you to achieve an understanding of the interdependence of your sector and the rest of the organization.
When You Are Offered another Job
When you are offered another job, you will be forced to make a difficult decision. Some of the questions you will have to ask yourself are:
- Does this job further my long-range objective? Don't let yourself be hypnotized into thinking you will necessarily be broadening your experience. Is someone painting the mirage of a greener pasture? This may be just another way station that lengthens the road to your ultimate goal.
- Will the extra salary compensate you for switching from the known to the unknown?
- Is someone offering you more money so that he can pick your brain and then throw you out? Are you being hired to do a very special "dirty" job that your new boss hasn't the guts to do himself? This might be closing a plant, moving a plant out of a community, or weeding out old employees on account of a merger. If you are being hired for this sort of "piece-work," find out what place there is for you in the organization when your project is completed.
- Have you been offered a job in a family-owned business and been told that the boss (owner) is over sixty or seventy and wants to retire? He wants you to be trained to take over. Investigate this sort of situation very carefully. Try to find out whether others before you had been promised the same opportunity and had quit in frustration some time later. Consider carefully whether or not you will actually get the chance to take over. Too often the owner of a family concern won't let go his hold, even though he says he will. He con siders the business his baby and he refuses to have it weaned. Insist upon a definite time for the take-over or turn down the job.
- Are you taking another job because you want to get away from internal politics and squabbles? Have you ever heard of an organization that wasn't steeped in them?
- Are you changing positions because you feel that your present boss is not giving you enough responsibility, that he is hanging on to you so that you won't get promoted out from under him? How do you know that the next boss is going to be more amenable?
- Do you feel that you are a galley slave and want to get rid of your chains? Consider that your next set of chains may be shorter and heavier.
When you do move to another job, do it with your eyes wide open. Be sure it is a step toward your long-range goal. Try to get a title, even though it may be only that of an assistant to the controller, sales manager, or manufacturing manager. Get your responsibilities and duties outlined. Find out what authority you are going to have to do the job. If you are being taken in to succeed someone else after a period of time, find out whether he or she has been told about this and if that person is agreeable to having you as an understudy. If not, you may find yourself the fifth wheel on the wagon.
Belong to the Team
You cannot be a "loner" in an organization. Belong to the group, but avoid total commitment. Do not get so involved that you lose the ability to think independently. Keep asking yourself why a thing is being done a certain way and whether there might not be a more economical and efficient method.
Do not ask your superiors these questions, for they may resent them. Opposition to your doing anything a new way will come from two groups: (1) those that will fight new ideas unless they originate them, and (2) the status quo preservers who dislike the bother of doing anything different. The first group will be more amenable to change if they are led to think that they originated the idea. You can do this by asking questions such as, "What would you think about trying to do it this way?"
Stimulate your assistants to think by subjecting them to questions such as, "Why are we doing it this way?" This will activate them into doing things a better way. Your department can ultimately become an outstanding example of cohesion and profitability, thus paving the way for your advancement.
Be Enthusiastic-Success Is Yours
Think and work for success and you will win it. Associate yourself with the optimists. Shun those who are always finding fault and blaming others for their own shortcomings. Exposing yourself to the enthusiasts will help you to remain enthusiastic. People like to be with people who exude confidence and who see the good side of life. Marshal Foch once said, "How is it that an army of 90,000 men can defeat an army of 90,000 men? The difference is that one of them believes in victory."
Job Security
I would like to think that there is such a thing as job security-so many people strive for it. The search for security has been more important than ever to men since the Great Depression. This attitude has affected the younger generation, who have no doubt been influenced by their teachers and their elders.
There is no such thing as job security. Time and again I have noted well-known companies being merged or even liquidated. Their employees who thought of themselves as ''sitting pretty" found themselves among the unemployed. No one should worry about the security of his job. A desire for security, somehow, turns out to be one of the great inhibitors which keep you from standing up to your full height. It makes for "yes" men who dare not make decisions for fear of being wrong. Your full growth potential comes from making decisions, both right and wrong ones-particularly wrong ones. An intelligent person learns from mistakes. They contribute to growth. Do not hesitate to make decisions. Remember: the live trout always swims upstream; it's only the dead one that floats with the current.
There is no such thing as perfect security. A new process, a different technique, a substitute, cheaper labor, newer imports, etc., will close up companies even a hundred or more years old. There is no security in either government or military jobs. Whole sections or bureaus can be lopped off or abolished overnight.
Your only security is in yourself. You create it through your own attitudes and abilities. You create your own security by making and keeping yourself a wanted commodity. If you do this, you need never worry about security. There will always be a job. There are many jobs. There are better jobs.
