BY Geoffrey James
Seven timeless techniques you need in your corporate toolkit.
In a previous post, I provided a common sense "cheat sheet" with the 7 most useful things for
managers to know. Here's another set of shortcuts that are useful for
managers and non-manager alike:
1. How to Earn Respect
- Be yourself rather than your role.
- Show interest in other people.
- Always share the limelight.
- Dress and groom to match your ambitions.
- Pause before speaking to mentally frame your thoughts.
- Speak from your chest without verbal tics or end-of-sentence rises in pitch.
2. How to Play Clean Office Politics
- Find out what other people need and want.
- Build mutually useful alliances with those you can trust.
- Keep track of the favors you owe and the ones owed you.
- Use your alliances at key points to help achieve your goals.
3. How to Recruit a Mentor
- Forget official mentoring programs; they're like arranged marriages.
- Mentors crave to teach people what they have learned.
- Seek out mentors who have experience and skills you lack.
- Ask for advice and let the relationship develop naturally.
- Be kind when you outgrow the relationship (as you will eventually).
4. How to Handle Annoying Coworkers
- Wafflers can't decide so force the issue.
- Conquerors must win so make them team leader.
- Dramatists crave attention so ignore them.
- Iconoclasts break rules needlessly so avoid them.
- Droners are boring so find something else to do.
- Frenemies sabotage so keep them at arm's length.
- Toadies mean you must either leave the firm or become a toady yourself.
- Vampires leach energy unless you stay upbeat.
- Parasites steal credit so track who's contributed.
- Geniuses are all talk so pester them until they deliver.
5. How to Handle Corporate Lawyers
- When risk is minimal, leave lawyers out of the loop.
- Lawyers are not decision-makers they only give advice.
- Insist that legal gibberish be simplified into plain language.
- Never rush a lawyer because it will result in even more delay.
- If you've got a corporate legal group, find somebody in it to befriend.
6. How to Build a Personal Brand
- Your personal brand will define how people see you.
- Get a professional portrait and expunge unprofessional ones.
- Customize your resume to match your career goals.
- Solicit recommendations that are realistic and relevant.
- Avoid blogging unless you're being paid to do so.
- Keep your irrelevant opinions off the Internet.
7. How to Shine in a Meeting
- Treat every meetings as a possible way to advance your own agenda.
- Decide whether each meeting will be useful or useless.
- Don't attend the useless ones; prepare well for the useful ones.
- Take notes so you can speak coherently when it's your turn.
- Speak confidently and, if appropriate, segue into your own agenda.
Source: www.inc.com
