Cool Down (26 page)

 

 

David Bowie is a rock musician whose longevity is due partly to his chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself every few years. He is also the namesake of the “Bowie Theory,” coined by Princeton University economist, Alan Krueger. Bowie, he said, had told the
New York Times
in 2002 that “music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,” which was a far-sighted reference to its current ubiquity and accessibility via the Internet. Professor Krueger's theory points out how the increase in concert ticket prices can be directly attributed to the new methods by which consumers can access their favorite tunes. Rather than purchase LPs or CDs from a store as in previous decades, most people are now likely to download, often for free or for a very small fee, just a selected song or two from numerous artists.

With the revenue stream from record sales now substantially diminished, many musicians are recognizing the apparent reversal. Instead of cheap concerts fueling a demand for record sales, the tunes now must fuel a demand for the live show, for a live show experience cannot be reproduced digitally and that is where the big money is now to be found. In other words, the human contact experience has become a matchless commodity. As Bowie said to his fellow performers, “You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring, because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left.”
¹

For those of us who are not rock stars, a similar Bowie effect exists. Many components of our professional offerings are being affected by new technologies: Hotel operators have to compete against teleconferencing and web casting; package tour operators must compete against online travel websites. Physicians must deal with patients who arrive armed with a great deal of medical information (and misinformation) gleaned from the Internet. Book retailers must take on
Amazon.com
and all the great media giants now recognize that consumers can find alternate sources of entertainment wherever and whenever they want. As discussed in Chapter 1, accountants, lawyers, consultants, and other professionals are seeing a growing trend of their “bread and butter” work being transferred offshore. Yet we soldier on, nose to the grindstone, moving from task to task, meeting to meeting, email to email, seldom looking up. Parkinson's Law swoops in to fill every second with busy-ness, leaving no room for the future. We live, time-wise, hand to mouth. The future doesn't have an appointment. The schedule is full.

In Chapter 2, in the case study of Bruno, Karen, Vern, and Lisa, we observed how a full 50 minutes or more could have been made available through the use of clear, direct communication rather than email badminton. Now it's time to consider what could have been done with that block of 50 minutes of lost time. Four separate opportunities spring to mind, all of which do indeed belong to your future.

What are you doing to consciously and consistently build the anchor points of your future? Are you giving yourself time to
cool down
and connect with the right people inside your company or your industry who can help you:

This is an example of how knowledge, which becomes power, is available to anyone who consciously chooses to seek it. By making sure you are closely tied to the grapevine rather than just being pressed constantly to the grindstone, you become more politically connected and your chances of thriving increase. Kathleen Reardon, author of
The Secret Handshake,
highlights how much of the information about project success, for example, who the key power-holders are, and how they might impact your own plans, comes from the ability to “read between the lines of politics and conversation.”
²
You've already seen this in some simple examples mentioned throughout this book. Consider the importance of:

A well-maintained network may make the vital difference between staying employed and losing your position. It may be the element that determines whether you stay where you are in an organization or whether you will be able to move up. Those who are too busy to see which way the wind is blowing may not see storm clouds—or favorable breezes approaching—until it is too late.

More subtle, perhaps, but equally important are the personal talents that grow out of such connections. One of Reardon's key strategies for political sophistication as it applies to career management is that of improving your powers of observation. “Listening for informational or emotional content isn't enough,” she says, “… effective listening means not just hearing what your boss or peer said … but determining what he or she
meant
as well … it's important to be able to tell when you're being sent a message of encouragement.”
³

Have you ever passed up on an opportunity to network or to have lunch because it seems like there's no place in your schedule for it?

What are you doing to ensure you have access to 50 minutes with someone who's “been there and done that” already; someone who can give you the fruit of 20 years or more of his experience? Do you have time in your schedule to find a mentor, schedule time with him, and actually see this person? Richard Branson's mentor was Sir Freddie Laker. Alexander the Great was mentored by Aristotle. No doubt your manager also had someone she turned to for advice and hard-won wisdom. In any area of business—sales, management, strategy, you name it—most successful people not merely had a mentor, they had the presence of mind to seek one out.

There are many types of mentors that can be approached for help:

Equally important to having a mentor is being one. Successful people from all stripes have learned the importance of giving, not just with their checkbook, but with something far more valuable: their time. Some actually refer to the time they give to others as tithing, since it carries the same types of importance and reward as those who tithe to their church. The act of giving is an essential component in the creation of a successful person, not merely in the altruistic sense in terms of what is given to someone else, but also in the personal development of a person as both a human being and a professional.

Every mentoring relationship in which I have been involved as well as those that I have talked about with others has proven to be of mutual benefit. Every mentor learns something about herself at the same time as she shares her wisdom with her student. That is what is so great about mentoring. There's really no sacrifice, just double profit. I've already discussed the value of hearing yourself speak ideas as an exercise in personal proofing (Chapter 7). Cognitive psychologists will tell you that such activities serve as an act of mental programming, which firms up ideas much more strongly than if they stay sloshing about in your short-term memory. When you hear yourself dispense your own advice to a student, you become your own audience. Your own words and thoughts re-enter your mind through your ears and are vetted, assessed, and reinforced.

Can you find 50 minutes a month to be available to others in the business who can learn from you? Altruism aside, these people's lives are as rich with promise and potential as your own. You never know where a mentored individual might end up and what mutual benefits might accrue in the future. Can anyone afford not to
cool down
enough to include at least one mentor in her network?

We saw in Chapter 7 that “managing up” refers to the art of managing your manager. Now there's a scary thought. One of the single greatest disconnects in corporate life is the inability for managers and their people to communicate effectively. When either side is always too busy, misunderstandings can quickly grow into larger, less productive relationships. Managing up is not about being confrontational, of course. It's about informing your manager of your state of busy-ness and the projects you are working on; it's about heading off surprises or crises before they happen.

Managing up is not unidirectional. Many times the onus may be on you to find out what your manager is up to, for instance, what travel plans she has made, what projects she is working on. Of course this takes tact and discretion, but overall, those who are able to manage up get more from their day and their career than those who keep their heads down.

Often I will be called in to a company to work with employees who say that fighting fires is a central component of their work. Not literal fires, of course, but crises: unexpected problems and short-term, urgent issues, usually involving a customer or a supplier. Though these staff members consider firefighting to be fundamental to their job, they also admit that it is a prime source of stress.