Peggy Klaus (14 page)

“But … I met my numbers. What else matters?”

Numbers aren’t enough! Colleagues and bosses want to know how you got there, not just what you’ve got.

The worse thing you can do is turn up the heat in a performance review by getting defensive and emotional. So here are my brag nags for staying calm and collected in a difficult
situation
: Take a deep breath, count to ten, accept your shortcomings, offer thanks for the constructive feedback, gently focus on your strong points, and help your manager see the bigger picture. Be sure to ask for specific and measurable goals to improve your performance, so that next time you can brag about having achieved them.

LEARN TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT YOURSELF

“The last thing I want to do in a performance review is call attention to my weak points.”

Is getting no bad news in your performance review good news? Many managers dread performance reviews and having to tell employees how their work either fit the bill or didn’t. They fear the conflict and worry about damaging work relationships. Afraid of offending, many dance around the real issues and the areas of needed improvement. Preferring to stay in the safe zone, they focus the appraisal on an employee’s strengths rather than weaknesses. So what’s so bad about that? Well, if you shy away from finding out what’s really on their minds, you might miss the chance to correct their misconceptions or to develop steps for improving the situation.

Leah, a real estate broker for a nationwide firm, has received positive performance reviews for the last year. Her promotion to head of office is considered a sure thing. So you can imagine her surprise when she hears she has been passed over for the promotion. She marches into her boss’ office and he proceeds to tell her that, when it came down to the final decision, the executive committee called her leadership and interpersonal skills into question. Leah was completely dumbfounded. These issues hadn’t even come up in her performance review. Since she assumed her promotion was on track, Leah hadn’t bothered to keep her boss up to speed on her latest initiatives. So she proceeded to describe to him how she had gotten involved in the company’s mentoring program three months ago, completely taking on two new hires, walking them through the company listing process, introducing them to agents from competing firms, bringing them with her to closings, and providing them with a list of amenities in each area. Leah had also recently volunteered to work on the firm’s growth-opportunity committee. Once she had reminded her boss of her accomplishments, he readily offered a sincere apology for overlooking them and promised to bring them to the attention of the executive committee the next time around.

As for her interpersonal skills, Leah claimed she had never been told of any problems in this area. Later, however, she admitted to me, “Okay, I’ve run into a few rough spots with people in the customer-relations department, but my boss never brought them up and I didn’t want to mention them either. I mean, who wants to underscore their weak points in a performance review? It’s up to the boss.” I pointed out to Leah that it was their mutual responsibility to talk about areas needing improvement, and the fact that they weren’t brought up in the review preceding a possible promotion to a management position was a huge oversight on both their parts. Actually, when you’re deficient in an area but can demonstrate with a well-thought-out bragologue how you have improved, even your weak points can add up to a plus!

A few days later Leah called her boss and asked for a
real
performance review. Now that the cat was out of the bag, her boss discussed honestly how her directness was sometimes perceived as overly aggressive and was a turnoff to others. They agreed that Leah would enroll in a management training class and they would strategize together about other high-visibility opportunities she should pursue within the company to showcase her leadership abilities and newfound management skills. In the end, even with the good, the bad, and the ugly, it turned out to be the most constructive performance review she had ever received.

CHAPTER 7

When You Don’t Have a “Real Job

•  “So, what do
YOU
do?”

•  “I don’t know what to say about myself because I’m not sure what I want to do.”

•  “I may be retired, but don’t count me out.”

•  “The truth is, I’m not doing anything that would impress anyone.”

•  “I had a hard time getting her past the cupcakes.”

When you don’t have a “real” job, whether by choice or default, it’s easy to feel like there’s nothing exciting about you that’s worth bragging about.

More than most of us will admit, our identities are tied up in our jobs and careers. For proof, just go to a cocktail party or friendly neighborhood barbecue. When meeting someone new, the first question typically asked is, “What do you do?” which, loosely translated, means, “How do you get the money to support yourself or family?” If you are unemployed, without a snappy bragologue comeback, watch how quickly the conversation disintegrates and the other party starts looking over your shoulder, ready to move on to someone more interesting. Without an up-to-date brag bag, your self-esteem and confidence hang precariously in the balance, leaving you with that uneasy feeling of being undervalued, boring, invisible, and disconnected.

Careers today are no longer set in stone. More professionals than ever before are stepping out of the workforce for a variety of reasons. For some it’s permanent, but for many others it’s a hiatus that can last anywhere from a few months to a few years or even more. You might be a mom or dad jumping off the fast track to care for the kiddies, planning to return one day; a retiree not altogether sure you are really ready to call it quits; an “in-betweener,” looking for a job without a current one, fighting postlay-off blues; or a “corporate dropout,” taking time off to smell the roses while considering your next move. Whatever your situation, whatever your timetable, whatever your plans (and especially if you don’t have any yet!), you must overcome the tendency to remove yourself from the bragging loop. Regardless what direction your life is taking, continue to self-promote. You can never be sure what’s around the next bend or where the next opportunity might come from.

The first step in rebuilding a brag campaign is to refresh your memory of “what’s so good about you” by reviewing your answers to the “Take 12” survey. Remind yourself that not having a “real” job doesn’t erase your entire past or diminish what you are doing now. Look at how your past accomplishments and your current situation might tie in to future goals. Begin to formulate catchy bragologues and brag bites that can strategically plant seeds for future growth opportunities. Whether or not you know what the next move is, everyone needs an upbeat “act as if everything is going great” story about the current stage of life. Think of interesting and exciting ways to describe what you are up to now that are appealing to different mindsets. The last thing people want to hear is doom-and-gloom stories filled with self-doubt, unless of course they’re your best friend, or a therapist who gets paid to listen! You don’t want people to feel sorry for you; you want them to get excited about you.

KNOW WHAT TO LEAVE OUT

“So what do?
YOU
do?”

It’s difficult to respond to this seemingly simple question when there is no simple answer. Fewer and fewer career paths proceed in a linear fashion. They can be as complex as they are colorful. It takes preparation and focus to determine which hot buttons to hit and which ones to ignore when you’ve got thirty seconds to answer that what-do-you-do question.

My mind was wandering to the buffet table and refills on the guacamole. I had been standing for almost ten minutes, unable to politely break away from the conversation for reasons that will become evident in a minute, and along with my growing impatience, my stomach was beginning to growl. I was at a friend’s engagement party in New York, and I’d made the mistake of asking Jeri, a friend of the bride’s, what she did for a living. I had heard she was quite accomplished, at one point having been the public affairs director for one of the boroughs. I thought she would be interesting to talk to, but our conversation was proving otherwise. Ten sentences into her bragologue—if you can call it that—I completely lost track of the story. Her vague and rambling description was making it challenging for me to stay attentive. The only thing coming through loud and clear was that she was unhappily in between jobs. Jeri knew I was an executive coach, which people often assume is a green light to tell all, as if they were talking to their hairdresser or therapist. I tried not to rudely cut into her one-way snoreologue, now going into what felt like the eleventh inning of a baseball game with no end in sight. I was beginning to wonder if the communication field was really her true calling.

A pause in the conversation allowed me to excuse myself and make a beeline for the buffet. About an hour later, however, Jeri was fast approaching me again, saying, “You didn’t tell me that you were writing a book on bragging.” With my tummy now satisfied, I was ready to help this accomplished woman overcome her bragging blocks and to build a better case for herself.

When I told her more about the concepts in this book, Jeri practically broke down in tears. She started to describe her humiliation at having multiple interviews, even being one of two finalists at several, and then never snagging the job. Rejection after rejection had undermined her confidence, and she worried that her determination was now coming across as desperation. “At first I thought it was nice that one guy called and apologized for not hiring me, but now several others have done the same thing. I think they feel sorry for me, and it stinks!” Then it hit her. Maybe she was still jobless because she didn’t know how to promote herself. It was hard to disagree. “I was raised to never talk about myself, and I still have a hard time with it,” Jeri said, explaining, “I’m the first person in my family to go to college, so I tend to be very self-conscious about looking like a show-off.”

I said, “Jeri, I’ve heard from everyone that you’ve done incredible things in your career, but I’ve got to be frank. When I first asked you to tell me about yourself you were all over the map and completely lost me. Can you just distill a few of the highlights of your career?” Here is some of what she told me (what I had to pull out of her is in parentheses):

“Most recently I worked for a nonprofit (as national manager of communication!). I used to work in public affairs (as the director!), and then I decided to go back to school (for a master’s degree!).” She added, “I’m looking for a new job, but no one wants to hire me.” (I recommended, of course, that she quickly lose that last line!)

Realizing that she had her work cut out for her, we agreed to get together a few days later for coffee to look at her bragologue. This is what she finally came up with:

I started my career as a journalist, which eventually landed me a position as public affairs director for one of the boroughs, a job I held for eight years. I decided from that experience to return to school for my master’s in public administration. It “wasn’t easy, given that I was raising my daughter as a single mom at the same time, but now I am very proud to be the first person in my family with not only a BA, but a master’s degree as well! Following graduate school, I served in various positions with increasing responsibility for several leading nonprofit organizations, working my way up to a senior position for a national educational foundation. When my mother developed cancer I took a year off to help her, but now I am pursuing my next opportunity. Unfortunately I started looking just before 9/11, and now with the economy in a slump it hasn’t been the best time to be job hunting. I know it’s far harder lately than usual to find exactly the right thing, but with my background and persistence I am expecting something great to work out soon!

Ah, much better. And it didn’t take a half-hour to explain! I know it’s difficult to synopsize your life into a thirty-second brag bite or even a two-minute bragologue, but it’s essential to create a
coherent summary
of where you have been, where you are at, and where you are going. Often your collection of experiences will necessitate more than one bragologue for a variety of occasions, depending on your audience and the message you want to send. Whatever the situation, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to get to know you and your story so they will keep you in mind when they hear of that perfect opportunity. When you tell a fuzzy or disjointed story, your audience loses interest and your bragging bombs.

SAY IT ANYHOW

“I don’t know what to say about myself because I’m not sure what I want to do.”

“I was really sick and so I had to quit my job as a bookkeeper, and since then I haven’t really been doing much of anything, except gardening. I’m well now, but I don’t know what to do next and am really kind of worried about it all.”

“But … when people brag it makes others feel bad.”

Yes, it can have that effect if you are condescending or trying to one-up others. So be just as sensitive when you brag as you are with everything else in life.

The speaker, an attractive forty-something woman named Robin, was responding to my question “So tell me what you’ve been up to lately” with this rather dreary assessment of her situation. Robin had come to me through a dear friend, and I had agreed to advise her on sorting out her next career move. Probing for details, I found out that she had spent nearly ten years working for a large plumbing-supply company as a bookkeeper, had an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Michigan, and was a single mom who was raising a teenage son. Yes, she’d had a mysterious illness for months, later determined to be a noncancerous brain tumor, which had been successfully removed. Now she was in the process of reassessing her life and deciding what to do next. One thing she was unsure about was whether to return to bookkeeping. “It’s dry and boring, and to be honest, my boss drove me crazy for years. It’s stressful, and stress is the last thing I need,” she said. One thing was sure: Robin’s bragologue was clearly in need of a pep talk.