It’s an inevitable and sometimes uncomfortable situation.  You’re in a meeting or on a conference call and not everyone has arrived, requiring you to banter with the client/boss/partner mano y mano.  How do you engage in small talk and build rapport?  If you get nervous and start to stammer, what do you do?  Do people even care about small talk in today’s fast-paced business world?

Whether we like it or not, small talk is a necessary skill for corporate survival.  But there is a distinct difference between thoughtful engagement and outright BS (believe me, I’ve done both).  There are endless sources available on this topic but here are my four tips for leaving a positive impression:

1. Do Your Homework.  If you arrive empty handed to the situation, you are likely to stumble.  Gather nominal information on the person’s location, interests, family situation, etc.  The goal is to find something relevant to discuss.  Did they just take a vacation or are they planning one?  Did some major news/weather event just occur in their geography?  Are they an aficionado of writing?…sports?…movies?…dogs?  A little legwork can go a long way.
2. Make It About Them.  The temptation to bring the conversation back to you is often irresistible.  The goal here is not to demonstrate your Renaissance-like expertise but instead to show genuine interest in the other party.  This is done through a series of open ended questions (i.e., not ”yes”/”no”) that get them engaged in a topic they are experts in - themselves and their lives.  
3. Be Genuine.  This is the easiest for me to write and often the most difficult to execute.  Just remember that people can be absolutely fascinating, so pay attention, maintain eye contact (if in person), provide verbal reinforcement and repeat a portion of what they conveyed as you segue into the next question.  Pretend you had to write an essay about this person’s life and you really want to figure out what makes them tick.
4. Know When to Put the Shovel Down.  If you are digging a hole and things go south, stop the small talk immediately.  As desperation and anxiety build, the smell of BS tends to get stronger.  Immediately cut to something related to the meeting or, if necessary, excuse yourself for a moment to grab a cup of coffee or ask where the restrooms are located.  They will appreciate your level of situational awareness and you will want a small window to regroup.

My colleagues who read this blog all have an example of where I’ve failed miserably in this area.  In fact, most have seen me crash and burn with seemingly endless stories and outright humiliating behavior.  If the strongest lessons in life come from failure, I am an expert on small talk.  

One quick example is the time a new executive was moving into his office and I examined a framed portrait on his desk.  ”Great picture of you and your brother Jim!”, I proclaimed with a smile.  ”That’s my wife.” said Jim morosely, snatching the picture from my hands.  I backed out of his office slowly.  For some reason Jim and I never got along from that point forward.

Let’s keep the conversation small talk going.   

A female friend of mine was having a conversation with her female colleague the other day and they were discussing the etiquette and courtesy associated with men holding doors for women.  The colleague saw clear and distinct geographical differences in the answer to this question, with Southern men trained as automatic door holders while Northern (particularly Northeastern) men seemed less inclined to notice or care.  Both agreed that this was a polite gesture, particularly if one’s hands were full, and were irritated with those men who did not have the slightest inclination to help.

Cut to a conversation with a male colleague who went to a university heralded for it’s human resources program.  The professor of one HR course went so far as to convey that it is sexist and inappropriate for a man to hold a door for a woman, and that in the workplace, one needs to be overtly aware of how such actions can cause offense.  The conclusion?  Avoid door-holding at all costs.

In her book The Etiquette Edge, Beverly Langford posed the following question to test your courtesy quotient.  Which answers would you choose?

When you reach the doorway at the same time as a person of the opposite sex, the following rules apply: (pg. 13)

(a) Whoever arrives first should open it and hold it for those who are following.
(b) Men should still open doors for women.
(c) Women should open doors for men to prove they are no longer oppressed.
(d) Always open and hold the door for someone of either sex if that person has his or her hands full.

According to Landford, the answer is both (a) and (d), and I tend to agree.  

That’s right - I say with pride that I am an unabashed door holder.  As for geography, I was mostly raised in the Midwest, went to school in the South, lived in the West and now live in the East.  I have never had anyone of either sex scoff at the idea of me holding the door.  (If anything, I tend to get a little pissy with people who don’t say thank you, but that’s for another post.)  For me, holding doors is just polite, regardless of ones sex.  And sometimes, in today’s busy and impersonal world, one simple gesture can go a long way.  Let’s keep the conversation (and door holding) going.

It all began when I was a young boy growing up in the suburbs of Milwaukee. My older brother and I would turn on the sprinklers at dusk, sipping on Kool-Aid as we waited for the sun to drop and the grass to fully saturate. Grabbing our flashlights, we’d slosh onto the soggy lawn to stalk the objects of our desire - Nightcrawlers. These are the big, fat, juicy earthworms that are the lifeblood of a Midwestern fisherman. Squirming and diving, the faceless creatures would be collected en masse, dropped by the dozen onto a dirt bed within cheap styrofoam containers.  We had an enterprise, and signs all over town pointed to our house, where “M & M Worms” (Mike and Mark…very creative, I know) was headquartered.

In the very early morning, the alarm would ring, the garage was opened and the fishermen would come.  We sold a lot of worms and had a very good client base.  But even at the age of eight, I had a sense that the worm business may not the right long-term strategy for me.  I had learned a lot about marketing, product management, packaging and operations, so I took those lessons, found a new and growing trade (recycling cans & bottles), and pushed my career forward.  Almost thirty years later - and with the benefit of hindsight - I can easily count over twenty such instances where I shapeshifted my career into something new.  

Business humorist Tom Stern writes about this is his Fast Company article, “The Skills Portability Factor“.  Stern speaks to the fact that employees are consciously taking jobs to add specific skills which allow them to be more marketable somewhere else.  They tend to drop in, learn something on your watch, and then jump.  Stern chalks this up (with a smirk) to today’s job reality:

“We all want to make sure we are ready for every eventuality the shrinking job market might throw at us. It’s all about survival. Corporations once owned us and kept us dancing to their tune. Now a new crop of skill-set hustlers, who strut into the metaphorical pool hall of their workforce and clean up on a sucker bet, are challenging them. Today’s job market is doing double time as the University of Turnover. And you know us Americans. Between our denial and our tenacity, eventually we will begin to feel that we really can fill any position that might come our way.”

I think that when push comes to shove, most employees are opportunistic, searching for those elusive characteristics that can fill the happiness-gap in their careers and lives.  And once they land that next job, the cycle repeats until it’s time to move onto greener pastures.  A lot of the people I know in this situation either bore easily, want the challenge of something new, or can only tolerate the inevitable frustrations they encounter for a fixed period of time.  

Regardless of the reason, employers will be challenged by the shapeshifters.  They will take any form you’d like, learn on the job, and then leave you scratching your head wondering what ever happened to them.  As a former worm salesman, I know it can be done.  Let’s keep the conversation going. 

In watching coverage of the games last evening, my wife and I were discussing the overwhelming complexity involved in managing and deploying the Olympics.  With so many nations each carrying such unique agendas and goals, what overarching principles are applied to such a multifaceted assembly?  What procedures are in place to ensure proper philosophical governance of an event with such global implications?  

After a simple search, I came upon the site of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a place teeming with information and history.  What caught my eye was not the obvious data on site selection, symbolism or management, but instead the Olympic Charter.  The Charter is 104 pages in length and contains every conceivable rule and regulation associated with the Olympics.  

What stopped me in my tracks were The Fundamental Principles of Olympism (pg. 11).  I read these through and immediate wished that employers could convey such a simple set of ideals to their employees.  In replacing the word “sport” with “work”, I think you’ll see my point:

Most employees walk around every day with a ready supply of hand grenades.  Some are thrown at coworkers during times of duress.  Others get rolled into the boss’ office when credit is taken for something you worked weekends to complete.  But the most explosive, destructive and damaging we save for ourselves.  This is the overarching point of Gen Xer Jason Seiden’s sarcastic book, “How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career“.

How to Self-Destruct provides a useful thought-exercise when considering the frustrations of your own career trajectory.  So many of us are concerned about what we should be doing to succeed in the workplace.  Seiden takes the opposite approach – what should you do if you were trying to ruin your career?   Shockingly, the behaviors that could ruin your career are identical to the “play it safe” strategy most of us use to advance and protect our careers – being defensive, not taking risks and making sure that blame falls on someone else.  

Recognizing behaviors to avoid can be equally, if not more, useful to career advancement than focusing on behaviors to adopt.  It will take several pages to get used to the reverse language in the book.  And sadly, I’m convinced there are some readers who won’t get the point and may actually employ Seiden’s advice literally.  Flame on brother, flame on….

If you want an entertaining snapshot, take a look at Seiden’s “explosive trailer” below.  Let’s keep those grenades at the ready and the conversation going.

Since Monday’s post entitled, “Outsourcers - Let’s Get Ready to Rumble“, much has occurred in the great debate surrounding those who list and rank the best in the industry.  One particular development has caused me tremendous concern.  

As many of you are aware, Phil Fersht of AMR Research had posted a simple survey asking buyers, providers and influencers to “rate the raters”.  This morning, Phil announced that the findings of the survey were tainted by false respondents claiming to be Fortune 500 organizations.  Per Phil’s Horses for Sources blog:

“Unfortunately, I received a very large number of suspicious survey responses from a host of “FORTUNE 500 buyers”, whose IP addresses - for some reason - all seemed to emanate from the couple of locations. I received a very large number of these survey submissions clustered within a short time-frame, and they had no names or email addresses attached. They also all had selected one particular list-maker as “highly credible”, while simultaneously describing the same 2 others as having “poor credibility”.”

As someone who has been in this industry for some time now, I am terribly saddened and disappointed to see such a simple attempt at an open information capture to be fraudulently tainted.  Unfortunately, this type of behavior simply perpetuates an area of the industry wrought with increasing distrust.  It seems to me that once again things will have to get worse before they get better.  

Let’s keep the conversation going and our integrity intact.  

Michael Buffer is well known for this catch phrase, a statement that precedes a typically bloody exchange between the world’s most renowned boxers.  Well strap on your mouth-guards and prepare for the body blows, uppercuts and jabs being thrown on Phil Fersht’s Horses for Sources.  Fersht, Research Director for Sourcing at AMR Research, has a regular brawl on his hands over the extremely controversial issue of industry lists and rankings.  

Although concern surrounding certain list-makers’ methodologies has been brewing for some time, a frenzy erupted when BusinessWeek’s Steve Hamm wrote a very compelling article questioning the practices of Black Book of Outsourcing creators Brown & Wilson.  Per Hamm’s article:

“Claes G. Fornell, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business who specializes in customer satisfaction surveying, says Brown & Wilson’s methods aren’t sound. First, he says, the firm can’t be sure all the people who respond are qualified. Second, the results could be tilted in favor of companies that urge their customers to participate. ‘You’d be better off not doing anything than doing a survey like this,’ says Fornell.”

Picking up on these concerns, Deborah Kops (CMO for WNS Global Services) repurposed her May 2006 article (”The Book of Lists”) for Fersht’s audience.  Among many insightful statements, Kops questions the value of lists and what they don’t tell us:

“A key component of editorial calendars and other sponsorships in the outsourcing industry, rankings and lists can provide a service to communities by identifying players and trends. But let’s not delude ourselves; they are also a business imperative for publishers, associations and pundits to build membership and/or circulation and sell adverts, publications and reprints, playing on the sell side’s need for recognition. They generally make someone money! This is not necessarily a negative, but is rather the way the world goes around. What’s critical is that that which is editorial and that which is financial should be kept completely independent at all costs. Pay for play in any form must not be the modus operandi.”

I believe Deborah was very gracious by not explicitly referring to those entities whose lists, rankings and awards have tainted the perceived or real value of the industry’s providers.  Those of us who have been in the market for sometime now can easily identify the organizations who have handsomely profited from such point in time, pay-to-play assignments of value.

The Catch-22 of our current industry state is this: In lieu of an attractive alternative, provider marketing organizations will continue to pour precious funding into the pre-existing ranking and rating processes. Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself.  We don’t like the lists yet many are afraid to not be on them.  However, until there is a collective halting of such spend, we can’t expect the system to self-correct. In the interim, we can hold out hope that a better mechanism will emerge that is truly transparent, unbiased and effective. Let’s keep the conversation going.

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It you want to voice your thoughts on these issues, place your votes by judging the judges.