The difference between today’s workplace and the “dress for success” era is that the range of options is so much broader. Norms have evolved and fragmented. In some settings, red sneakers or dress t-shirts can convey status; in others not so much. The desired professional image for a 50-something executive at a manufacturing company in China may be completely different for a young ad agency CEO in New York City. Plus, whatever image we present is magnified by social-media services like LinkedIn. Chances are, your headshots are seen much more often now than a decade or two ago. Millennials, it seems, face the paradox of being the least formal generation yet the most conscious of style and personal branding. It can be confusing.

So how do we navigate this? How do we know when to invest in an upgrade? And what’s the best way to pull off one that enhances our goals? Here are some tips:

Decide if the time is right.

As an executive coach, I’ve seen image upgrades be particularly helpful during transitions -- when looking for a new job, stepping into a new or more public role, or changing work environments. If you’re in a period of change or just feeling stuck and in a rut, now may be a good time. If you’re not sure, ask for honest feedback from trusted friends, colleagues and professionals. Look for cues about how others perceive you. Maybe there’s no need for an upgrade and that’s OK.

Know your goals.

Get clear on what impact you’re hoping to have. Are you looking to refresh your image or pivot it? For one person, the goal may be to be taken more seriously and enhance their professional image. For another, it may be to be perceived as more approachable, or more modern and stylish. For someone moving from finance to advertising, maybe they want to look more “SoHo.” (It’s OK to use characterizations like that.)

Understand the context.

Look at your work environment like an anthropologist. What are the norms of your environment? What conveys status? Who are your most important audiences? How do the people you respect and look up to present themselves? The better you understand the cultural context, the more control you can have over your impact.

Work with professionals.

Enlist the support of professionals and share with them your goals and context. Hire a personal stylist, or use the free styling service of a store like J.Crew. Try a hair stylist instead of a barber. Work with a professional photographer instead of your spouse or friend. It’s not as expensive as you might think.

Make it efficient.

The point of a style upgrade isn’t to become more vain or to spend more time fussing over what to wear. Instead, use it as an opportunity to reduce decision fatigue. Pick a standard work uniform or a few go-to options. Buy all your clothes at once with a stylist instead of shopping alone, one article of clothing at a time.

If you doubt the impact, consider Tim Williams, the Berlin-based pitchman for the travel website Trivago. In a matter of months, the consensus on "The Trivago Guy" has gone from creepy to crush-worthy. The Twittersphere remains abuzz. Who would've thought a man's style would become central to the marketing of a travel website?

Or consider my experience. I hate pictures of myself but decided to up my image about a year and a half ago. I hired a professional photographer, who then referred me to a stylist at a J.Crew Men's Store.

Working with a stylist was a game changer and didn't cost as much as you might think. Seeing my "new self" reflected back to me boosted my confidence and self-image. The photographer made the most of a snowy, grey day. For men, another place to look is the Alpha M makeover videos on YouTube.

As superficial as it may seem, the impact of an image upgrade isn’t just how others perceive us but how we see ourselves. It’s worth bringing some consciousness and intentionality to style to grow your impact as an executive and leader.

]]> http://www.productivepeople.org/tips/2268/feed/ 0 http://www.productivepeople.org/tips/make-negotiations-less-painful/ http://www.productivepeople.org/tips/make-negotiations-less-painful/#respond Tue, 21 Jul 2015 10:34:53 +0000 http://www.productivepeople.org/?p=2264 Continue Reading]]> From making job offers to closing deals, building a business can feel like a never-ending sequence of negotiations. But for most of us, the thought of being in "negotiating mode" all the time, like some pinstriped character from an ‘80s business movie, isn’t very appealing. Even the word causes stress. How can we negotiate like a pro without it feeling so adversarial?

In my executive coaching practice, I often help entrepreneurs and executives navigate challenging business negotiations. In the course of doing this, I frequently refer them to the work of Victoria Medvec, a professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. Her approach to negotiation is not only backed up by academic research, it tends to feel a lot less stressful in high-stakes negotiations.

Medvec is a proponent of a negotiation technique called MESOs, orMultiple Simultaneous Equivalent Offers. The idea behind MESOs is to give the other party multiple options to choose from that are equivalent from your standpoint.

For instance, say you’re the CEO of a growing startup and you’re making a job offer to a VP of sales candidate. You could do it the standard way with a single offer, or you could try giving the candidate multiple options, or MESOs.

Here's how you would create the MESOs:

1. Create a list.

Make a list of all the issues that matter to both parties. For the job offer, let’s say the variables that matter to both sides are salary, commission, equity and vacation time. (There may be other variables, like the size of the sales team budget, but let’s keep this simple for the sake of this example.)

2. Weigh each option.

Estimate how important these issues are for each party. From your interviews, you gather that the VP of sales candidate really values “upside” from equity and commission but also supports a family and needs a healthy salary. You're guessing they're less concerned with vacation time. On your end, let's say you care about managing cash (i.e. needs to keep a lid on salary), maintaining a "work hard" culture (i.e. has a bias against too much vacation) and achieving valuation milestones for investors (i.e. is open to being generous with commission and equity if it’s tied to results).

3. Think about alternatives.

Identify realistic possible alternatives for each issue. Given these preferences, let’s imagine the realistic alternatives for equity are 1 percent, 2 percent or 3 percent of company shares (with four-year vesting of course) depending on the rest of the package. For vacation time, the alternatives are the standard two weeks vacation, with the possibility for three or four weeks if that were important to the candidate, which it isn’t in this case. Let’s say there are a two or three alternative salaries and commission structures, too.

4. Narrow down the choices.

Finally, create three alternative offers that would be compelling to the other party and are mutually equivalent from your standpoint. For example, one compensation package might include 3 percent equity but with a lower salary, standard vacation time, and moderated commission structure. Another might include 2 percent equity with a medium salary, standard vacation time and a generous commission structure. The third might include 1 percent equity with standard vacation time, as rich a salary as you can afford, and a generous commission plan.

Voila, you've created your MESOs!

This might seem belabored, but there are a number of benefits to this approach. According to Medvec’s research, the MESO technique makes you appear more flexible, increases the overall odds of reaching an agreement and makes it easier to collect information about the other side’s preferences. By offering three alternatives instead of one, you powerfully frame where there are trade-offs. Plus, the process of creating MESOs forces you to do your homework in evaluating and prioritizing all the issues.

For me personally, I like the multiple-offer approach, because it gets me out of an adversarial mindset and focuses me on optimizing outcomes for both parties. There’s also something powerfully disarming about giving someone a selection of choices.

While I don’t recommend using MESOs in every negotiation you encounter, it’s a useful strategy to keep in mind when you face a high-stakes negotiation with many component parts.

]]> http://www.productivepeople.org/tips/make-negotiations-less-painful/feed/ 0 http://www.productivepeople.org/incididunt-ut-labore/excepteur-sint-occaecat-cupidatat-non-proident-sunt-in-culpa/ http://www.productivepeople.org/incididunt-ut-labore/excepteur-sint-occaecat-cupidatat-non-proident-sunt-in-culpa/#respond Tue, 27 May 2014 06:31:56 +0000 http://productivepeople.org/?p=1910 Continue Reading]]> WE ARE LOOKING FOR THE BEST

As experts across 10 different industry sectors, we have a deep and broad understanding of our markets and the people within them. Everyone at Productive People shares their knowledge with clients and candidates across our expanding network.

We are looking to develop staffing specialist's who can:

• Demonstrate an awareness of the nature of the industry and the commercial reality of achieving business outcomes
• Communicate succinctly to achieve the desired result
• Persuasively communicate a valid point of view
• Display confidence when interacting with people
• Accept responsibility regardless of outcome
• Identify business opportunities

Passionate about people

Recruitment is a people business and we put the creation of valuable, lasting relationships at the top of our priorities. It’s the only way to find the right person for the right job. We want to help people fulfil their potential and be all that they can be. We fundamentally believe that the right move can transform lives and careers.

We are looking for people who are passionate about people by:

• Building strong, lasting relationships and engages people
• Working effectively as part of a team
• Demonstrating a strong results focus to transform lives and business
• Showing pride in and commitment to delivering a high quality of service on behalf of PP

Inquisitive

Excelling in recruitment is all about being curious about people and about the worlds in which they work

We are looking for personalities who:

• Demonstrate a keen curiosity to learn more about people and business
• Ask effective questions and listen attentively
• Commit to growing commercial recruitment knowledge
• Seek and take feedback on board to improve performance
• Show a willingness to learn from mistakes

Ambitious

We are a results-orientated business, which means we're incredibly driven.  We have energy and dynamism and we're ambitious for clients, candidates and our team.  We truly believe that the right kind of recruitment can have positive impact on everyone's lives.

We are looking for ambitious individuals who exhibit: 

• An unquestionable desire to achieve results and operate in a high performance culture
• A commercial and proactive commitment to winning business
• An ability to present a persuasive argument to achieve a win/win situation
• A persistent approach when under pressure
• An unquestionable initiative to achieve results
• Resilience to working in a challenging environment
• Strong sales drive to achieve the best and become number one

If this sounds like you, send us your CV.

You could be called for an interview to the job of your dreams.

1. Busy people want to look like they have a mission. Productive people have a mission for their lives.

Busy people hide their doubt about the destination of their lives by acting confident in their little steps.

Productive people allow others to see the doubt in their little steps because they are clear on the destination.

2. Busy people have many priorities. Productive people have few priorities

Nobody is ever too busy, if they care they will make time. Life is a question of priorities. If you have 3 priorities, you have priorities. If you have 25 priorities, you have a mess.

The pareto priniciple is that 80% of your desired results come from 20% of your activity. Henry Ford built a fortune not by building better cars, but by building a better system for making cars. Busy people try to make better cars, productive people develop better systems for making cars.

3. Busy people say yes quickly. Productive people say yes slowly

Warren Buffet’s definition of integrity is: “You say no to most things”.

If you don’t say “no” to most things, you are diving your life up into millions of little pieces spread out amongst other people’s priorities. Integrity is that your values are clear and that your time is going to serve those values.

4. Busy people focus on action. Productive people focus on clarity before action

To focus on the top 20% of activities, you must gain clarity about what those activities are for yourself. The greatest resource you will ever have to guide you to live a good life is your own personal experience – if well documented. Sadly, most people only document their life in facebook status updates. Keep a diary and take 5 minutes every day to reflect on the past day, on what worked, on what didn’t work; and some time on what inspires you.

5. Busy people keep all doors open. Productive people close doors

As a young person it is good to open options. It is good to want to travel, to learn languages, to climb mountains, to go to university, to work in tech, to live in another country. However, there comes a point in life where one must let go of most options and focus. If my goal this year is to learn spanish – I will speak spanish at the end of the year. If my goal this year is to speak spanish, earn 30% more, travel to 10 countries, get fit, find a girlfriend, go to all the concerts… I will not speak spanish at the end of this year.

6. Busy people talk about how busy they are. Productive people let their results do the talking

Stephen King says: “A writer is a producer of words. Produce words: you are a writer. Don’t produce words: you are not a writer”.

It is a clear binary thing. Talking about writing is not writing. Published authors don’t talk about their next book – they are focussed on producing it. I have grown to have less and less interest in what people tell me that they are going to do – I ask them what they have already done. Past performance is the only good indicator of future performance.

Feeling productive is not the same as being productive. This is important. I can feel productive while I’m playing minecraft. I can feel unproductive while I’m producing an excellent blog post that will help others take better actions.

7. Busy people talk about how little time they have. Productive people make time for what is important

Any time we spend on excuses is time not spent on creation. If you allow yourself to practice excuses, you will get better and better at excuses. Productive people don’t use time as an excuse. An action either supports their highest values and mission, or it does not. If it does not, they don’t do it – even if they have a whole day off.

There is an Irish saying: “It is better to do something than nothing”.

This is a lie! It is better to do nothing than to do an action that doesn’t connect with your highest values. Sit still.

8. Busy people multitask. Productive people focus

Productive people know about focus.

Do you know about the Pomodoro technique? It is brutal, but it is effective. Identify a task to be done (for instance, write this blog post). Set a timer to 20 minutes. Work on the task until the time sounds. Any distraction (I must check email, I must get some water, I must go to the bathroom) and you reset the timer to 20. How many pomodoros can you complete in a day?

9. Busy people respond quickly to emails. Productive people take their time

Email is a handy list of priorities. The problem: they are other people’s priorities, not yours. If you respond to every email, you are dividing up your life into a thousand tiny bits that serve other people’s priorities.

There are 3 choices when you first review your email inbox: Delete, Do, Defer. This is not a post on email management, here are a few on managing email overload from Gigaom, Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur.

10. Busy people want other people to be busy. Productive people want others to be effective

Busy managers measure hours of activity, productive managers measure output. Busy managers are frustrated by others looking relaxed, looking like they have time, looking like they are enjoying their work. Productive managers love seeing others enjoy their work, love creating an environment in which others can excel.

Busy people are frustrated. They want to be valued for their effort, not for their results.

There is a Hindu saying: “We have a right to our labour, not to the fruits of our labour”.

We have a right to enjoy being excellent at our work, not a right to enjoy the car, the house, the money that comes from doing good work. Productivity is about valuing the journey towards excellence, not any moment of activity.

11. Busy people talk about how they will change. Productive people are making those changes.

Kilian Jornet doesn’t spend much time talking about what he will do. He talks about what he has done, what he has learnt, what inspires him.

Spend less time talking about what you will do and dedicate that time to creating the first step. What can you do now that requires the approval of nobody else? What can you do with the resources, knowledge and support that you have now? Do that. It is amazing how the universe rewards the person who stops talking and begins.

We are born with incredible potential. At the age of 20, the best compliment that can be paid is that you have a lot of potential. At the age of 30, it is still ok. At 40, you have a lot of potential is becoming an insult. At 60, telling someone that they have a lot of potential is probably the cruelest insult that can be made about their life.

Don’t let your potential go to waste.

Create something amazing. This is its own reward.

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