I used to know a man who always used his middle initial. Even a quick note would be signed with his name & that middle initial. After a while, it started being a bit of a joke, but it isn’t a bad idea to use your middle initial professionally because middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance according to a research study in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
That study found that people think an author is more intelligent if there is a middle initial; more middle initials in an author’s name look smarter still. How does this play out in the working world?
Think About The Impact Of Your Name
Your name affects your brand — the overall impression people have of who you are. Think of this name: William Henry Gates III. He sounds like a different guy than W.H. Gates, who sounds like a different guy than William H. Gates, who sounds like a different guy than Bill Gates. One of the richest guys in the world doesn’t need to use his middle initial because he has achieved a brand recognition for his ‘everyday’ label. But should you?
One of the advantages of using a middle initial is the clarification of who you are. When you are applying for that job and your name is John Smith, using a middle initial helps identify which John Smith, John Q. or John W. It also can help when you set up your professional email address. On your resume, using your professional name — with that middle initial — has been proven to make you look smarter according to that study mentioned above.
Saving the nicknames for a more casual setting in the workplace is usually a good idea because here you are developing a different sort of network. There’s usually a dynamic in each workplace that will determine how casual your name can be without losing the impact you hope to have. Names create images, and your brand is nothing but image if you think about it.
What if your name is not as professional-sounding as you’d like? Here’s where those initials can be career-savers. If your name is Pinky Baby Johnston and you want to be taken seriously as an account manager, P.B. Johnston sounds a lot more like someone a client would trust. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the way our minds work.
How To Move On In Your Career Without Burning Bridges
One of the more important things you learn as you move up the career ladder is that it has all kinds of crazy switchbacks putting you back in contact with the people you used to work with. This is particularly true when you stay in the same industry, but it happens for all of us no matter where we move in our job path. Think of all the “old friends” you have on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean. Who knew you’d be in contact again?
Burning Bridges Usually Is A Bad Idea
It’s very tempting to tell an annoying co-worker or aggravating boss exactly what you think of them when you hand in your resignation. After all, you are quitting so you don’t have to live with the consequences, right?
Wrong.
These are the people who give you references, and who will be talking about you in the months ahead. Nowadays that gossip goes online in moments and is there for a potential employer to find. We all have to work on reputation management, when you think about it. So what should you do instead when you have been looking for another job and finally can move out of your old one?
Leave Your Connections Intact
You can’t make everybody like you, but you can be responsible and professional up to the end of the job. Many ask how much notice should be given when leaving a job. The standard two weeks notice is probably the best idea. One young professional had been looking for a new position with her manager’s encouragement since attempts to move up in the company continually fizzled. When offered a position in a new field, she was asked if she could start right away. This is how she told the story:
I knew that my manager would be okay with the idea of me leaving right away, but it would be leaving them in the lurch as they tried to fill my position. I told my new boss that I really thought I should give them at least two weeks notice and asked if he was okay with that. He said that he would get back to me.
When he spoke to me again, he said that the more he thought about it, the more he liked that I respected my previous employer’s need for the full two weeks and that he would hope his employees offer him the same respect. So I start in two weeks.
This young woman has the right idea. Her last two weeks at her old job will be good ones, and she hasn’t burned any bridges if someday she wants to come back.
The Muse is a good site for workplace advice and recently gave us 8 Communication Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making. It’s a compilation of suggestions from various sources and, really, it’s common sense. Here’s the quick list of these common mistakes:
Keeping an old subject line for a new topic — start a new subject line if you change the topic in an email chain.
Emailing when the issue is urgent — call, text, or talk directly to someone you need an immediate response from.
Using big hand gestures when speaking — makes you seem less powerful.
Using buzzwords & phrases — just say it in plain language.
Only speaking to a group one way — use a variety of styles to get the point across.
Asking questions that get a short answer — get past “yes” and “no” to the real stuff.
Apologizing when it’s not your fault — express sympathy without taking the blame.
Finishing other people’s sentences — it’s rude.
These mistakes are easy to make when you are busy or thinking about a project instead of the people around you. But if there are too many instances where you make these types of mistakes, you may be creating a reputation you don’t want. Reputation management and your career are intertwined. he way others in the workplace view your ability to communicate will affect everything from being on the next team project to getting a promotion. It also affects the references you are given.
It isn’t difficult to make mistakes in communication, but it also is easy to fix them. All it takes is being mindful of the ways you express yourself and aware of the way your communication efforts are being received. If you suddenly realized you do something on the list, start working to change that and see what happens in your workplace dynamics. Good things happen when communication is good.
It was interesting to see the comments on Anna Akbari’s DailyWorth post. “Don’t Dress for the Job You Want” is a statement that seems to fly in the face of the general consensus on working wardrobes. But she does make some good points to consider when dressing to express yourself instead of your position:
demonstrate that you get it
connect with your audience
exude confidence
Context is Everything
Those first two points are a reminder that we work with other people. The way we dress does affect how others react to us, and it’s naive to insist it doesn’t matter. To quote Ms. Akbari, “demonstrating that you understand the unwritten dress codes and larger ethos of any given context is the first rule of successful self-presentation.”
You have to connect before you can communicate, and if everyone around you is wearing a “uniform”, it shows they are all part of the same group culture. Wearing at least part of that uniform, or wearing the uniform in an acceptably unique way, will be a signal that you belong even though you are a bit different. If you don’t care about the group, you don’t try to connect or get what they are about — and at that point, why are you working there? In an interview situation, why are you saying you want to work where you don’t get the group’s culture?
There are times when a unique status symbol is an investment tool, but it entirely depends on the group you are in. Cowboy boots communicate one thing in Dallas and a different thing in D.C., but there is more to the symbolism than identity. If those boots are high-quality and well-kept, the wearer is signalling confidence even if everyone else is in tied-up Oxfords. That confidence is important, because you need it however you dress. If wearing a unique item makes you feel more like “yourself” and gives you confidence, that’s good. But make sure you are respecting the context of your surroundings.
3 Reasons To Track The Numbers In Your Job Performance
Some of us liked math class, and some of us did not (I am in the latter group). But like it or not, numbers are essential in your career, from resume to retirement and everywhere in between. Job performance numbers are particularly useful for at least three reasons:
they look good on your resume
they help with salary negotiations
and they give you confidence
Performance Numbers Validate Your Resume
When you can state that your work for a past employer resulted in a 15% increase in sales, that is an authoritative statement. It had better be a true statement that you can back up with more information, too! The fact is. illustrating your success with hard numbers always gets a good ROI on your resume because it is specific proof of your worth. Employers looking for a good return on their investment in hiring you will be impressed.
Performance Numbers Bolster Your Salary
When you come into a salary negotiation equipped with the numbers showing your worth, you have a powerful argument for getting a raise or added benefits. You have provided the company with more profit and are worthy of a bigger wage. Again, the numbers need to be backed with additional information so it can be verified if questions come up. If you are due for a salary increase, be prepared to bolster your claims with the numbers to prove it.
Performance Numbers Boost Your Confidence
When you are keeping track of what you do at work and the difference that it makes, there’s a record of your valuable input. Even something as simple as attendance means you were on the job — and if you are tracking all the numbers of your particular job you should see which numbers will be valuable for your resume and salary negotiations. You will also begin to see indications and trends in your personal work habits and opportunities that will help you establish goals. Keeping track of your own job performance numbers puts you in control of your own career.
Why do the powerful prefer to look obviously different than the rest of us?
Power symbols — those accessories that indicate status and authority — do vary according to the context. A number of years ago at a Presidential Inauguration it was striking to see that Republicans and Democrats clearly had preferred outerwear, but the wool dress coats and cowboy hats of the one party were just as expensive as the down parkas and accessories of the other. Equal in price, quality, and impressiveness but different in look and definitely different than the rest of the crowd standing in the streets for the ceremonies.
Today, questions like “are tiaras the new power scrunchies?” show up in the New York Times. In that particular article, the jeweled/metallic headband/tiara is a confidence booster that female executives are embracing in some circles. The idea that people of power have always worn a symbol of that power on their head is as old as time. Queens wear crowns, and when the women wear their versions of the crown they feel powerful.
Symbols Need To Have Context
The challenge in any career is to understand the way the corporate culture thinks. A status symbol can be an investment tool, but only if you are communicating effectively to those around you. Part of that communication is the confidence it gives to be wearing the status symbol, and part of the communication is the message the symbol itself sends.
As the wearable tech trends come available there will definitely be some new players in the status symbol arena. Smartwatches will join the smartphones and luxury watches already being sported in the C-level suites. But like all symbols, the context is everything.
When you are selecting your wardrobe and accessories for an interview or for the workplace, make sure your status symbols are appropriate for the context. You want to look different and powerful, not just different.
Some industries tolerate a lot more colorful language than others. But even in fields known for cursing, having a foul mouth can cost you big time. Pro football’s Rex Ryan, coach of the Jets, was recently “stunned” that the NFL fined him $100,000 for profanity toward an official. He says he didn’t expect what he thought was a private conversation to result in such a big penalty.
The Things You Say Have An Effect
Probably the language Rex Ryan used was to emphasize what he wanted to say. Then again, maybe he talks like that all the time because he hears it all the time. That old saying, “garbage in, garbage out” definitely comes into play when it comes to our words. So how do we discern when the cost of letting it fly is too high?
Figure out if you have a tendency to use words like the F-bomb without thinking about it. If you don’t realize what your language is like, you already have a problem because your brain isn’t in gear when your mouth is in motion. While it can be argued that an occasional curse word will emphasize a point, that same word littering your sentences is meaningless pollution.
Listen to the way upper level management speaks. If your industry doesn’t condone salty language, your saltiness will keep you from advancing. Swearing around the boss is far more offensive when the boss doesn’t ever swear at work. There might be lots of it tossed around the cubicles, but if management doesn’t do it, then you shouldn’t either.
How do you express frustration or anger to a colleague? A raging rant full of expletives might be a venting mechanism, but it isn’t solving any problems. If all you do is curse the darkness, your contribution is negative. But lighting a candle — working on a solution — shows you have something valuable to offer.
The language we use is part of who we are, but it can give the hearer a negative impression of how you will be in a higher-level position. That false impression is why the language of our lifestyle can ruin a career opportunity. It would be a shame to let it happen to you.
Are you one of the people they were talking about on NPR recently?Please Do Not Leave A Message: Why Millennials Hate Voice Mail is taking a look at the way that leaving a message is fast falling out of favor as a communication mode. You don’t have to be part of the Millennials to hate voice mail because it can be a sudden challenge you don’t do well. But there’s a problem with refusing to deal with voice mail because it is used in business all the time.
If you are searching for a job, there’s a good chance you will need to leave a voice message. If you are contacting your manager or a client, there’s an equally good chance that voicemail will be involved. The game of Phone Tag came about because of the way busy people can’t always pick up the phone and being able to text doesn’t exactly replace it.
Deal With It & Do It Right
If you know you struggle with sounding professional at the sound of the recording beep, you can learn how to deal with it and do it right. Think about the goal of your call and have a message prepared if you have to leave a voice mail. If you have to write it down before you make the call, that’s practice for the next time you need to use the skill.
The same basic rules that apply to a phone interview apply to a business call, and therefore also apply to a business voice mail.
Don’t make a call from a noisy environment. Go to a spot that is quiet and allows your voice to be heard.
It should be obvious that nothing is in your mouth, right?
Be prepared to state your name, phone number, the reason for the call, and repeat the name & number. Keep it short.
Speak clearly and don’t try to cram too much into the message. You can tell them more when they call you back.
Whether you are leaving a message for business or as part of your job search, this is one business skill that you really do need to make sure you can do even if you hate voice mail.
