Heed that Recommendation

When I started my second job out of college, Brett Hurt, the CEO and Founder of Bazaarvoice recommended I read Call To Action by Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg.  He lent me the book from his personal collection and yet I didn’t read it.  In fact, it took me almost a year to even open the book cover.  It collected dust and wasn’t even used as a paper weight.

It took me two years to actually read the book, but after reading it, I immediately understood WHY he wanted me to read it.  In short, he thought I would benefit immensely from it.  He knew I was new to the e-commerce industry, and Call To Action is a great introduction into the terminology and mind-set of e-commerce executives.

I still don’t know why it took me so long to read the book, after all, I tend to read at least a book a week.  It only dawned on me recently after reading Winning, by Jack Welch that a recommendation is given for a good reason.  The person who gives the recommendation, does so because a) they thought you’d benefit from it, and b) they thought you’d enjoy it.  I was reminded again by that because David Cohen recently recommended I read  Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure – Larry Smith.

Well, it’s officially in my Amazon shopping cart, and I will give it a read.  I’m sure I will enjoy it.

Brevity

Get to the point.

1.  Leave short voice mails and emails.

2.  Write shorter blog posts, the point is to leave people with a good idea or two.

3.   Ask questions.  Let others talk, and then pack a punch when you do talk.

4.  Non-Verbal communication is a skill.  How do you look?  How’s your posture?  Are you making eye contact?

5.  Limit lists to 5 or 6 points.  Any more and people will start to forget the big picture.

Just Be Candid

My grandmother is one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. How I could I ever forget the time I went to Hebrew School with my grandmother and heard her ask one of my friend’s mom if she was pregnant. She wasn’t.

Honesty can be brutal

Candor is one of the lost arts of Generation Y. Understandably, our lives are indexed by Google and we live in an era of sound bytes, but our generation is one of the most quiet generations in history. We are quiet when when we don’t get what we want, we are quiet when Bush goes and screws up our country, and we are often quiet when we simply disagree. We were taught to be way too nice. As Jack Welch would say, you don’t tell your Mom she makes bad Matzo Ball Soup.

In the book Winning, Jack Welch remarks that candor leads to efficiency. There’s no mulling around with bad employees, ideas, or numbers. If you’re candid, a bad idea gets washed out fast. Politically, it may be hard to be honest at first, but once people get thoughts in then open air and discuss them, a bad idea will get thrown out when it comes up rather than 6 months down the road when that idea you knew would fail has now cost your company lost dollars and hours.

Honesty is honest

Honesty is authentic. If you think about it, the most authentic people that you’ve ever met, are simply honest. They don’t hide their emotions and you can tell what they’re truly thinking.

Being honest also makes you confident. You’re willing to point out what sucks, what you like, and what is stupid, without having to worry. If the truth doesn’t scare you, then you really don’t care what other people think.

Isn’t that what true leadership needs? Generation Y leadership is a hot topic of discussion, but like I mentioned earlier, our generation is far too reserved. The majority are too politically correct and overly worried about what happens if you stick out. However, if we want true Generation Y leadership, then we have to have the confidence to tell it like it is.

It’s refreshing to meet honest people my own age, and I have no doubt in my mind, they will rise as the leaders. They are the ones to stand up with ideas. Isn’t that what leadership has been about throughout all of history? No matter how smart you are and how accomplished, the real leaders of tomorrow are going to be the ones who can be honest about the state of the world and are confident to speak their minds.

Challenge For Generation Y

My question to you is, do you have the guts to be honest?

While I’m not suggesting we should ban white lies, I’m saying we should use white lies few and far between. I gurantee, by being more honest, you will walk more confidently and meet more people. You will be more authentic and will get to the point of issues much quicker. I’m truly not saying to be mean, but hey, maybe my friend’s mom in Hebrew School did put on a few pounds here and there.

Seeding and Harvesting

You reap what you sow.

There’s a reason that phrase has been around since biblical times. It’s a universal truth that will always hold true. It doesn’t matter that you’re not a farmer either, because no matter what you do, career or personal life, what you put in is what you’ll get out.

Every farmer knows at least one important fact; in order to have a good harvest season, you must do your due diligence and seed. The problem with seeding is that you don’t see the fruits of your labor until some time after the hard work has been done. In fact, during a harvesting season, it’s easy to find comfort in reaping the benefits and not having to worry about your next harvest. Good farmers know that the seeding process is the most important part of the growing cycle. Why do you think metaphors like “you reap what you sow” have come to fruition?

When you start perfecting the art of Personal Branding, the truth of seeding and harvesting becomes much more apparent. Anyone in sales knows intuitively that they must make the cold calls if they’re to ever benefit from a client signing. Are you looking for a new job? Don’t be satisfied with the harvest of a couple interviews. Keep planting the seeds and get more interviews. Open up more opportunities and knock on more doors.

Because seeding is so labor intensive, most people don’t have the guts to keep at it. But if you continue to seed, you harvest will start compounding. Keep at it and don’t let up.

Brazencareerist.com Launch

With Generation Y starting to enter the workforce, people are introduced to views about the world that they’ve never heard. Generation Y is marked as a generation that has grown up with social connectivity and technologies like the internet and IM’ing. We’ve seen those technologies evolve and have come to expect the world to evolve just as quickly.

Penelope Trunk, a member of Generation X, and author bestseller Brazen Careerist, launched Brazencareerist.com today. Penelope Trunk runs her own blog where she helps navigate today’s young professionals through the corporate world filled with backwards tendencies and strict heirarchical structures. Given that there is so much content written on the web today, it is difficult to get a good feel about our generation, specifically as it has to deal with our careers and passions.

Brazencareerist.com wants to be the destination to help carve out our generation’s leading voices about career and life. It is also a way to help those not in our generation get a pulse on our lives and the way we view our world. I am proud to say that I am a featured writer on the Brazen Careerist network and am looking forward to the opportunities that the destination will provide to all it’s authors. I hope you will join the community, because I am positive you will get some great insight into some of the great voices of our generation.

Cheers!