I’m teaching myself how to program.  A colleague of mine, who has been programming for decades, comes over and asks me how it’s going.  I try to (naively) show off how much I’ve learned by demonstrating a script I wrote, which abruptly fails as soon as I run it.

“Hmm,” I say, and try to step through the code to see if I can catch what I did wrong.

My colleague immediately start throwing his hands on my screen and telling me I’ve probably made a mistake here, here and/or here.

“I know,” I admit. “That is why I’m trying to figure out where exactly I’ve made it.”

“WHY?” He yells. “Just type these characters after this line right here [hand in front of my face, on the screen]: ‘E’, ‘R’, ‘R’ –”

“Wait a second. Why am I doing this? What am I writing?”

“An error output code! Why would you possibly waste your time looking for the error when the script can just tell you what it is??” He was getting visibly agitated…

“Well,” I try naively to defend myself, “I want to test myself on whether or not I remember the syntax well enough to see the error by myself.”

“That’s stupid.”

“…Well then, I’m stupid.  …Was there something else you needed?”

Being an expert means that you are used to dealing with very complex issues, not silly ones.  That is why experts take all measures to fix those silly issues in as easy a manner as possible (so they can go back to focusing on the big ones).  As a result, they see other people’s focus on those small problems as a total waste of time (as it is, for them).  However, as a novice at something, trying to do things manually is sometimes the best way to learn, and relying on the easy way out is a last resort (for when deadlines are approaching and your solution is not…).

Therefore, experts/experienced professionals, don’t invalidate the learning process of the peons.  You may actually shortchange their progress.  Let us struggle a little bit with it, because if we struggle and come out on top, we’ll know immeasurably more about the problem and the system than had we just taken a cop out.

If you want to help, ask if you can be helpful first.  Some people may feel embarrassed about not understanding something and may not want to admit it or ask for advice (just yet.  If this is carrying on too long, kindly insist on helping).  Those who do will probably proactively approach you.

And, just so you know, just because we don’t (or can’t) do it your way initially, doesn’t mean we’re stupid.

Also, using that word to describe us makes us want to plan your eminent demise… so…

Walking up to my building today, I encountered a man and his 3-4 year old daughter standing in my path towards the door.  I tried to make eye contact and smile at the man, who, conversely, tried everything possible to pretend he doesn’t see me.  His daughter, not yet old enough to engage in such deception, simply stared at me.  Giving up my attempt at courtesy with the man, I turned, smiled at her, and said, “well hello there.”  She just continued to stare, quite rudely I thought.  Shrugging, I just continued to walk towards the door.  The girl ran after me, in order to hold the door open for her dad.  I gently gave her the door to hold and said, “here you go,”  hoping to incite at least a mild “thanks.”  Instead, she just kept looking at me.

Manners are a vicious cycle–if your parents don’t have them, chances are you won’t either, and that will detrimentally effect how people perceive and interact with you.

If and/or when your parents insisted on your using good manners, chances are they didn’t give you a reason why you should.  As you matured, however, you probably noticed that people behaved differently towards you depending on whether you were courteous or not.

Unfortunately, something as simple as manners matters dramatically in the corporate world.  Your levels of courtesy towards your peers, subordinates and superiors can mean the difference between whether you get a promotion, whether your employees are productive, and much more.  In a 2007 survey, 95% of executives and managers stated that good manners matter when it comes to advancing a person’s career in their company, and that is especially true in smaller organizations, where interpersonal relations are both more frequent and more crucial to the success of the business.

Simple choices of words and subtle gestures make a huge difference.  Some examples are:

• Adding “please” at the end of a request. Doing so makes the person you are asking feel like she’s doing you a favor by obliging, and that makes her feel all important, which translates into a higher likelihood that whatever you asked for will be done and done well.
• Adding “so much” to your usual “thank you.” In this day and age, a thank you is kind of expected (which means that if you don’t even say that, you’re going to have some co-workers feeling mighty unappreciated).  Therefore, to get a similar outcome as that in the above point, add a little extra oomph.
• Smiling.  Grinning at someone conveys that seeing him/her is something positive for you.  It also signals recognition and acknowledgement.  All good things.
• Looking up from your desk/computer/documents as soon as someone addresses you. You’re busy; everyone knows that.  However, giving someone your undivided attention is an important signal.  It means that what the other person is saying is important and worthy of your attention.  And don’t wait to finish what you’re reading before looking up, either.  That sentence/email/etc. will be there in a couple of minutes.  If you are honestly slammed with work, close your door.  That way people will know not to bother you.

The overarching theme here is that good manners in the workplace are actually extremely motivating.  They are also a source of self esteem for anyone who comes in contact with you.  Dale Carnegie is famous for saying that if what you do and say makes a person like himself more, he will instinctively like you more.

The real difference between the two is the internal self-image you have of yourself as a manager and how it manifests itself in your behavior towards your team.

Confidence = setting yourself up in the mind of your team as a reference for when any of them have questions or make mistakes; making yourself available but generally not imposing your expertise; having your people want to come to you.

Arrogance = micromanaging your team and intruding your knowledge on them, regardless of whether you were asked to or not; checking up on others and consistently proffering advice; having your team choose struggle and head-banging-against-wall rather than coming to talk to you.

A confident manager feels comfortable in his professional and managerial skills.  It’s a quiet and internal confidence, one which doesn’t require you to flaunt your abilities.  An arrogant manager, on the other hand, feels the need to constantly reiterate his/her skills to others, likely out of insecurity.  The difference in behavior that results from the difference in your self-worth is often compounded by the reaction your team has towards you.  A confident manager gains respect of his team, reinforcing his/her sense of self; an arrogant manager incurs behind-the-back ridicule and frustration, reinforcing his/her insecurity.  Additionally, the team dynamic created by a confident manager is one that promotes reaching out for help whenever necessary—as opposed to prematurely or after having wasted too much time attempting to solve the problem—and therefore creates a more efficient and effective work environment.

Break the vicious cycle.  Get yourself to a place where external affirmation and education is not necessary to your self-image.

In an era in which time is money and “fast” is almost always better than “thorough”, it seems everyone is talking more and thinking about what they say less.  The problem is that while our priorities may have evolved, people’s interpretation skills and emotional needs haven’t exactly kept up.  Though on a logical level we may understand that something seemingly offensive that you said may have just come across that way, logic (and a logical evaluation of your intentions) is not most peoples’ primary response.

Disagreements and hurt feelings can therefore arise not from what you say as much as how you say it.  I would even tend to argue that these kind of misunderstandings happen more in the digital age than ever before because an email or instant message doesn’t transmit emotion and tone particularly effectively.  It leaves the recipient to interpret what you said any way they please or anyway their mood at the time sways him.

So in this increasingly fast-based business world, how do you make sure you get across what you need to say quickly but without upsetting your co-workers or subordinates?

1. Think of the goal of what you’re trying to say and the way you want to say it before your mouth opens. Phrase it in your head (or in an email draft) what you want to say.
2. Ask yourself whether what you’ve just come up with can possibly be interpreted in a different way and whether that’s detrimental to your goal. Always look at what you’re trying to communicate from the perspective of the recipient.  Is it ambiguous?  Could it be taken out of context?
3. Forget what you composed for a second and reread it from scratch, checking for tone. If you were to receive what you’ve just thought of objectively, how would you interpret the writer’s intentions, as symbolized by tone.

Tone is everything.  Having a calm and positive tone, no matter whether your message is positive or not, changes the reception of your message.  Tone comes across in everything, even if you don’t intend it to.

A brief demonstration:

A: I want everyone to come up with 50 ideas each for tomorrow.

B: Let’s be ambitious about this and try to come up with a crazy number of different ideas as possible.   How does 50 sound to everyone?  I know we can do it.

(I am the boss of you and you will hate me vs. I’m your motivator and just a part of your group.)

A: I’m horrified that after all the work I put in, you would throw me under the bus like that.

B: At the last meeting, you told the VP that nothing had been done on the project.  However, I have actually completed it last week.  Can I fill you and the VP in on the status so we’re all on the same page?

(I’m a drama queen vs. I’m going to assume you’re not an a-hole and that there was just a miscommunication somewhere… even though that may not be true, you’ll get my drift.)

The message in each one of these sets of examples is the same.  However, the way your recipients accept your message in each case is very different.  The reaction they will have to your message and the opinion they will have of you as a boss, colleague, or person will be very different.  It may not be necessary to change the way you communicate, but it is absolutely necessary to be aware of it.

Everyone pretty much agrees that there aren’t enough women leaders in the business world and there is a never-ending argument as to why.  Many companies, colleges, and organizations, in a well-meaning effort to attempt to resolve this problem, hold a fair number of “Women in Business” events each year.  The goal is to create a supportive and inclusive environment for women to discuss, open up, and share their struggles, tips and accomplishments.

Whenever I get an email to attend one of these events, I promptly delete it.  If any of the planners of these functions would actually ask any of the women who are the target of such events, we would resoundingly say in unison that we hate them and are actually a little embarrassed by them.

Why?

Women’s conferences only segregate women further

I thought the whole point was to make the business world indiscriminate — to say that women are no different or special or deserving of any extra attention than men.  Unfortunately, that is the very opposite of a what a Women in Business conference does.  It’s very existence says that women need their own separate event – to be segregated – because we’re different in some way.

One of the largest examples of this is the fact that the most widely-used discussion topic at women’s conferences are work-life balance.  Can you picture a man-only conference (if there are such things) discussing this? Probably not.  Though work-life balance is indeed a huge issue, it should be a huge issue for family women and men, but the fact that only women still discuss it unfortunately makes it a women-only problem.   Furthermore, it continues the stereotype and actually hinders women in getting a fair break in the workplace.  Most employers who are hesitant about hiring young women are hesitant for that particular reason – they expect that women won’t be able to work as long of hours or will have to quit unexpectedly in order to have a family.

Therefore, if you insist on holding women-only conferences, have them be about either common problems in a field of interest or dissemination of information critical to success in business.  The value is then that women can get access to the same information and participate in the same activities as men do, which would actually help level the playing field, but do it perhaps in a more welcoming environment.

Email has gotten a lot of flack for making phone and face-to-face conversations, which are naturally more “personal”, obsolete.  I strongly believe, however, that each still has its own place in the business world, and each is used to accomplish very different things.  I would even go on to argue that email has singlehandedly made business more polite and efficient.

When you are sent a professional email, you’re really being done a favor.  The sender is basically saying, “I could call you and you would have to talk to me NOW or you can look at this email, react however you want to, gather your thoughts, and respond on your own time.”  Additionally, what an email does, as opposed to a phone call or a meeting, is allow you to make better decisions without wasting people’s time.  Back in the day, when someone had to call you with a problem, you’d have to give an answer to that person immediately or ask them to hold or to call back.  There’s something very unsatisfying about that to the caller.  Now, if that person were to send you an email instead, you can do your homework and respond once with an educated answer. And, since the sender accepts that he’s sending you an email that he has no control over after its left his outbox, he’s not going to be disappointed if you don’t respond within the next 10 seconds (unless he’s one of those people that hit “refresh” on their inbox every 5 seconds…).

For those and many more reasons, people feel insulted when you simply ignore their emails (that are actually waiting on your reply).  The thought that goes through the sender’s mind is, “dammit, I was trying to not waste your time in scheduling a meeting because I know you’re busy but now you’re forcing my hand.  #Lose.”  So, when you think you’re too busy to answer a solitary email, just think of how much busier you’re going to get when that person stops being respectful of your time and starts demanding answers.

Therefore, do yourself and everyone a favor and answer your G-damn email.

Many managers actually forget the “group” part of “group project” seemingly often.  They pay a lot of lip service to “teamwork” without actually knowing what it means.  Teamwork on a time-set, clear-goaled project is oftentimes quite different than teamwork in an organization at large.

Step#1: Understand what being staffed on a group project is like for a peon?

• It’s a change from your ordinary duties.  Most managers don’t realize the psychological effect of this fact on an employee.  After doing a particular job for an extended period of time, a change of scenery–no matter what that change is–is often a welcome respite from the monotony.  This change of responsibilities, perspectives, etc. has the effect of raising employees’ productivity and motivation to do good work.
• It makes one feel a little special. While it’s not true in some cases, being pulled in on a special project usually an unofficial pat on the back, saying to employees, “we value you and therefore would appreciate your input on this initiative.”  That makes an employee feel pretty damn good from the outset.  However, what it also creates is an expectation that one’s opinions are going to then be heard and appreciated.

Step#2: Run your team project accordingly.

• Keep everyone involved (beyond the brainstorming phase).  What tends to happen is that the group meets up and spends a bunch of time discussing options, strategies, and perspectives.  Then comes the time for action and all of a sudden a only subset of the group (if not just the group leader) is responsible for taking the next steps.  Contrary to popular belief, it’s not enough to just listen to an opinion; you have to let people act on them.  Otherwise, they’ll always just be opinions.  As stated above, people are willing to get work done and considering you picked them (or someone in the know did), those people are generally trustworthy.
• Make sure all members participate in the major decision making and know of external decisions affecting their work before the rest of the company does.  One of the worst feelings of betrayal I’ve had as an employee is when I, with my assigned project group, met with a larger group of employees and managers and witnessed the project leader get up and say that the group had accomplished such-and-such, and that was the first time I, as well as most everyone else in the group, had heard of anything being final.  This partly goes back to my point about not pretending other people have control over decisions when they don’t.  However, it is sometimes embedded in the corporate structure and culture that only project leaders report to higher ups and serve as liaisons.  But, this does not mean that the project leader doesn’t pull the group aside first thing after he hears the news to give them the primary heads up (so that a. they know and b. don’t sit in these types of meetings with deer-in-headlights expressions).  Additionally, by keeping them in the dark like this, you make your group members feel anything but special.
• Allow all group members to take turns presenting and taking credit for group achievements. It’s easy for the project leader to take credit — he is clearly responsible for the actions of the team.  What separates a good leader from a bad one, however, is his ability to share the credit and allow others to bask in its glory.  Allowing each member of the team to be a representative of the group at some point in the group’s life makes each person feel like the team leader, which obviously makes him or her more satisfied with the group experience, regardless of how it turned out practically.

Fear, to take Shrek’s example, is like an onion.  The fear that you observe in others is just the outer covering and a culmination of much more deep-rooted fears.  People are also not particularly keen on revealing to you their deepest, darkest insecurities.  Therefore, in order to manage (and manage away) fear, you have to strip back the layers to find out what is at the root of a frightened person’s (often irrational) thought process.

The goal is to keep asking questions to figure out the core fear.

Sandra is afraid to put her name in for a promotion or transfer.

You ask, why?

She says it’s because she’s afraid she might not get it, obviously.

You ask what she is afraid will happen if she doesn’t.

She says she’s afraid it will put her current position at risk.

You ask why she thinks it is at risk.

She says she is afraid her boss doesn’t like her and would take the chance to be rid of her.

You ask why she thinks her boss would be that petty.

She says it’s because she’s afraid she hasn’t been working up to his standards.

This conversation can go on and on but what I want to illustrate here is that her fear of applying for a new job doesn’t lie in the fear of not getting that job but in the performance of her current one.  Fear is therefore not what you think it is – it’s usually much deeper.

How deep? Fear of anything external lies in very personal issues and insecurities, which we all have, whether it be commitment issues, lack of self-esteem, performance anxiety.  The goal of talking to a person experiencing any kind of fear is to make them become conscious of what is causing the fear and trying to address that core directly.  In the above example, Sandra’s issue is that she’s not confident in her work product in her current job, which inhibits her from ever progressing.  You need to work with people like Sandra to either a) make her proud of her work or b) get her to improve her work.  If you attack the core, which is likely responsible for multiple other fears, you can not only cure the fear but also prevent fear going forward.

Dictators are insecure

Larry David, who I’m sure is not hurting for money, drives a Toyota Prius.  Most skinny girls don’t actually wear skin-tight clothing.  Contrary to the popular idiom, when you got it, you don’t feel the need to flaunt it.  It is therefore also true that managers who are confident about their authority do not feel the need to viciously and continuously remind you of it.  Dictators are just insecure about their leadership and their command of your respect.  Therefore, another way to cool a dictator is to stroke his or her ego (regardless of how distasteful that may seem to you).  If you complement your dictator’s handling of the last meeting (sincerely) or support his proposal, he will cool down.  He will assume you already appreciate him and his awesomeness and he no longer needs to put the fear of G-d in you to achieve those results.

Dictators don’t trust people

If you look closely, you will probably notice that your dictator is not exactly a people person.  The command and control mechanism comes about because of a dictator’s innate distrust of other people.  The lack of trust can stem from a variety of reasons, which a psychologist would better be able to identify, but all are equally damaging to his leadership style.  The way to deal with this is to purposely work on gaining the dictator’s trust.  Go above and beyond her requirements for projects, anticipate her needs, and support her when you notice her getting ragged on.  Becoming an ally and a friend of the dictator may seem repulsive and fake, but it’s important to train yourself to believe—truly believe—that each person is interesting and worth knowing, including your dictator, if you are to ever succeed in the business world.  I say that because fakeness is the worst tactic.  You can’t butter up to a dictator—she’s way too smart for that and will see right through you.  Find commonalities to start relating to her instead.

Dictators.  Every company has them.  They are the managers that make your life a living hell.  They are the ones that give you superhuman workloads and scoff at your need for food and sleep. They are the ones that pass down their will to you and are disgusted by your need for discussion and consensus.  They have a short temper, a shorter attention span and a practically non-existent tolerance for what they perceive to be ineptitude.  Organizational behaviorists attempt to make dictators sound less menacing by labeling them “Drivers,” but it’s mostly a ploy to avoid being accused of criticizing.

The reason why people have so much trouble dealing with these dictators is because they’re afraid.  Dictators are menacing and sometimes bullying.  It is much easier to build rapport with your coworkers by complaining about a mutually despised boss than to do anything about it.  Because a dictator is also incredibly stubborn, fixing the situation seems like an impossible task.  However, all the fear, all the hesitancy and all the barriers fall away once you get into the dictator’s head.

Managers become dictators when they’re worried about task completion.

It’s not necessarily that dictators don’t care about people; it’s that they care about tasks more.  Dictators are goal driven.  They see goal achievement as the only measure of their “success.”  Once you realize this, it seems logical that dictators get on their pulpit when they are worried about the team’s ability to complete the task to the satisfaction of higher-ups.  As such, everything else—including your feelings—take a back seat.   You can turn Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll by giving him tangible assurances that everything is on track.  If you are working on schedule and are making progress, provide the dictator with status updates regularly without being asked.  If you are falling behind, give the non-fluffy reasons why you are (i.e. that there is 40 hours of work and 2 days with 24 hours in each to do it in versus you’re tired and overworked).  What you’ll see is that the dictator will become a little more relieved and if he is relieved, he’s not going to ride you.