Increasing Efficiency is Your Best Route to Employment Security
The cheapening of any article in common use almost immediately results in a largely increased demand for that article. Take the case of shoes, for instance. The introduction of machinery for doing every element of the work which was formerly done by hand has resulted in making shoes at a fraction of their former labor cost. Now almost every man, woman, and child in the working classes buys one or two pairs of shoes per year, and they wear shoes all the time. Formerly, each workman bought perhaps one pair of shoes every five years, and went barefoot most of the time, wearing shoes only as a luxury or as a matter of the sternest necessity. In spite of the enormously increased output of shoes per workman, which has come with shoe machinery, the demand for shoes has so increased that there are relatively more men working in the shoe industry now than ever before.
The workmen in almost every trade have before them an object lesson of this kind, and yet, because they are ignorant of the history of their own trade, they still firmly believe, as their fathers did before them, that it is against their best interests for each man to turn out each day as much work as possible.
Under this fallacious idea, a large proportion of workmen deliberately work slowly so as to curtail their output. Almost every labor union has made, or is contemplating making, rules which have for their object curtailing the output of their members. Those men who have the greatest influence with the working people, the labor leaders, as well as many people with philanthropic feelings who are helping them, are daily spreading this fallacy and at the same time telling them that they are overworked.
-Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)
From the time I was 18 until I was about 27, I spent most of my summers working as an asphalt sealant and maintenance contractor around Detroit, Michigan. One of the main jobs I did involved putting an asphalt sealant on parking lots and driveways. At the beginning of my first summer doing this work, I used to purchase the sealant in five-gallon pails. Then I starting purchasing the sealant in 55-gallon drums and installing a pipe on the drums to drain the sealant out. After a few years, I did so much asphalt sealing work I had a trailer custom made to hold 550 gallons of the sealant.
From the beginning of my second summer through my third, I had two people working for me whose job was to assist me in putting down the sealant. Their names were Larry and Jake. Larry was Jake’s father. Jake was mentally disabled but not overly so. He understood what was going on and followed instructions. He never really said much, however.
Neither Larry nor Jake cared much for the work they were doing. While they had decent work ethics and put up with me literally walking into their homes and getting them up for work each day, they were not extremely concerned with the quality of the work they were doing. They frequently cut corners and I needed to watch them pretty carefully. Larry was a guy I remember and respect a great deal because I think deep down he was a really good person. On Sundays, I used to have to wait in front of his house until he got back from church with his wife and children. Larry was a smart man who had made some mistakes throughout his life but worked when he could. He was hungover every day, and I bought him Gatorade after Gatorade at convenience shops to keep him going.
We would fill up five-gallon pails from the barrels and then walk the sealant over to an area of the asphalt we wanted to seal. Then, we would spread it around on the asphalt with either squeegees or a large brush. Without going into a lot of detail, this was excruciatingly difficult work because the sealant gets on your skin and burns. You are also outside, and the sun burns you because you are on black asphalt all day, and the sealant is a very heavy tar liquid that you need to pull off your skin at the end of each day. It often takes layers of your skin off when you remove it and needs to be removed with gasoline and a steel wool-like material.
As this business grew, I started getting better and better equipment for it. I will never forget the moment I purchased and installed a pumping system and sprayer on the tank. With this new pumping system I was able to pull up to any parking lot or house and, after blowing all the debris off the driveway or parking lot, turn on this spray machine and complete sealing the asphalt without hardly getting dirty at all. Best of all, I did not need to fill up the five-gallon buckets. I simply needed to turn on my sprayer and walk up and down the driveway.
One day I pulled up to a driveway that Jake and Larry were working on around 5:30 in the afternoon and turned on the sprayer. They were in the middle of working on the driveway and, by the looks of it, would be working for at least another 35 to 40 minutes. I told them to stop. Then, wearing khaki pants and a fresh shirt from the dry cleaner, I completed the entire job in less than five minutes.
I could see they both looked somewhat astonished. They also looked frightened because I think they believed this new sprayer was going to put them out of a job.
“This thing does not give as good of a coat as doing it by hand,” Jake said. This was the first time I had ever heard Jake say anything about the quality of the work we were doing.
“Yeah, it does not look as good,” said Larry.
The strangest thing happened over the next few weeks. Weird things started going wrong with the pump and we never made it through a full day. Belts would suddenly fail. Start switches would break off and disappear. I began to suspect after a week or so of this Larry and Jake were sabotaging the pump because they knew it could put them out of a job. After a few weeks of this I insisted I be the only one allowed to operate the machine, and I made sure I was. While I still have no proof of it to this day, I think Larry and Jake were sabotaging the machine.
Change is something that creeps into every single business, and the objective of every business is to lower costs because lower costs mean more profits. This means they are always looking for ways to eliminate your job. That’s right. Your very job is a threat to your company and its profits.
When I started in the Internet business in the year 1999, the world was a far different place. One of the most interesting things I witnessed involved computer programmers. In the late 1990s through 2001, computer programmers were like gods to companies in the United States. They could demand six-figure salaries and jumped around between companies at an alarming rate. Everyone wanted to hire them because there were so many Internet companies and businesses believed the Internet was the next great frontier.
At our small company we practically needed to beg programmers to work for us. We would offer them pizza and other incentives when they were not on other projects. In some cases, we would pay them as much as $100 an hour to do the work, and then they would stop working after four or five hours because they thought the work was “boring.” Some of the programmers I interviewed even requested stock options just to show up for work. I was baffled by the programmers I worked with and my inability to get the programmers to do any work really held me back.
Due to the difficulty surrounding this issue, we started building an office in India. We had no problem getting people to do the work there. In fact, people were enthusiastic about getting the work and wanted more of it. While there were lower costs associated with the work, the real reason for getting the work done abroad was that people were enthusiastic about doing the work. All we wanted was to get the work done.
After the dot com crash and the events of September 11, 2001, all of a sudden those American programmers were out of work. Tens of thousands of American programmers were let go in a very short time, and Internet companies dropped like flies.
I remember putting an ad out in late 2001 for an in-house programmer and getting overwhelmed with applications. I received so many applications, literally, one every few seconds, that I had to make changes to the settings in my Microsoft Outlook. I ended up hiring one person to work in our Los Angeles office who had just received a PhD from Caltech. I practically could have hired anyone I wanted in the world. There was simply no work for programmers. It had all dried up.
The economy did eventually recover. However, I still did not grow our base of programmers in the United States. I had such a bad experience the first time and, in the interim, had built a large group of programmers in our company in India. This was all I needed. I cannot imagine how many jobs went to India due to this.
Our company is not alone. Many companies do all their programming in other countries now. It simply makes more sense for them from a financial standpoint. They are not interested in doing work in the United States anymore due to the cost, hassles, and the fact the people are not as enthusiastic about doing the work.
There are tons of jobs in the United States and around the world right now that are under fire and are likely to disappear in the near future. There are many reasons jobs disappear, but the main one is because they can be done cheaper elsewhere. Every company and organization is constantly striving for greater efficiency. If your employers can do your job cheaply elsewhere, then they will.
There is no reason for them not to. The more cheaply they can produce a product or service, the more they can potentially sell of that product or service. The more of the product or service that’s sold, the more the company will grow and expand.
What does this mean for you and your job? It means the best use of your time and skill is finding jobs and employers where your role is one of increasing the efficiency of the company’s work. You always need to embrace efficiency and increase the output of the company at the lowest cost possible. If you fight efficiency, you will be seen as an enemy of the company and its growth. If this happens, you will most likely be looking for a new job shortly.
In the past there have been a number of phenomena I’ve watched with great interest:
-The emergence of China as a major economic power
-The massive decline of the American automobile industry
-The rise and massive success of various American companies like Intel, eBay, and Oracle
-The huge rise of jobs in places like India
China emerged as a force to be reckoned with because they can produce goods more cheaply. People will work for less money in China, and this makes it cheaper to produce products there. Incredibly, it is still cheaper to produce products in China even after accounting for shipping the products on boats all the way to the United States. All over the United States, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared due to the emergence of China as an economic power. If you are someone working in a factory in the present economy, you need to realize your job could be replaced very, very easily.
The American automobile industry has experienced a long and steady decline. Cars can be produced more cheaply elsewhere. American unions have set wages and benefits higher for American workers than for competitors. This has given competitors a huge advantage and also given American automobile companies less money to invest in improving their products. The products have continually gotten worse and worse. The companies able to produce the product at the lowest cost are winning.
The companies that have done the best in the United States over the past several decades are the companies that are increasing efficiency. While I could go into considerable detail about this, companies like Oracle, for example, creates database software which allows companies to save money by operating more efficiently. The efficient operation of these companies creates huge value. A company like eBay creates efficiencies by allowing people to trade goods without having to travel or do extensive research. This, too, creates efficiency. Companies like Intel make microchips that have not only aided the rapid spread of personal computers, but have also enabled companies to use computers which allow them to operate more efficiently.
India has been absorbing many American jobs for decades. They have call centers, programmers, and even legal work is being done there. The country has a lot more people than the United States and a corresponding level of talent. There is another advantage: people are willing to work more cheaply there for most jobs. It only makes sense for American companies to hire people there.
These are all examples of efficiency in action. You need to understand the world and your job are constantly being pushed to be more efficient. When you take a job at any company, you are entering an environment where you are at war. You are at war with the fact your employers are doing everything within their power to make their businesses more efficient. That means they want to save money on you and your work to the maximum extent they can.
The smartest thing you can do in your career is find companies that are increasing efficiency in the market and go to work for them, or find a company where you can increase the efficiency of what is being done. You need to embrace efficiency. If you fight efficiency, you will ultimately lose your job. We are not secure in our jobs and cannot be secure if we don’t embrace efficiency. The war for and against efficiency is something that is going on in every company and every organization. The employees and people who win this war are the ones who fight to make things more efficient.
Can You Be Trusted?
Can you be trusted?
This is more important than any other single question. Regardless of how motivated you are, regardless of where you went to school, regardless of your work history, if you slip up in this area, you might as well forget about a good career in any profession.
Certainly, there are many people who rise quickly by playing fast and loose with the rules. I’ve seen this more times than I can count during my career. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, no matter how far an individual gets, they almost always come crashing down if they are not trustworthy. When this happens, it’s major. Careers end.
I used to teach professional responsibility at a law school. In this class, like in most professional responsibility classes, we spent a lot of time going over the rules and debating various ethical questions. Personally, when I took this class in law school, I believed it was somewhat of a blow-off, just like most of my fellow students. However, this article is about the consequences of dishonesty, not a blow-off discussion of professional responsibility.
As a legal recruiter I have seen far too many careers stall out or end due to credibility lapses. This is more common than you might think. In fact, I would estimate at least five to ten percent of all careers in the legal sector experience long term, negative results because an attorney has done something dishonest, or not credible. When you probe the reasons why top attorneys from exceptional backgrounds do not get interviews or hired, it is most often because when their references are checked others believe they cannot be trusted. While some credibility lapses are obvious – for example, stealing client money or lying in court – most often the issues are far subtler. If an attorney shades the truth with superiors or does not make important information known to a client, the results can be disastrous to his or her career.
In the organizations in which I’ve been involved or run, the most persistent cause of failure is someone losing credibility. Once this happens, a person’s career within an organization usually ends, and their lack of credibility ends up following them to their next job, and the next one after that, because people remember and people talk. I do not care if you screw up in a law firm in Chicago and then move to New York or Florida, wherever you go, the chances are very good that your past will follow you.
Can you be trusted? Once there is any doubt, you have lost a great deal.
Fortunes can be lost and rebuilt. Being fired for wrongdoings wherein your credibility was not an issue can eventually be forgotten. If you lose your credibility however, you may never regain it.
Credibility encompasses far more than you may realize. Paradoxically, it is almost always the most accomplished, aggressive, and talented people who seem to lose their credibility. Years of achievement can be ruined by one moment of poor judgment.
Credibility can be defined in many ways, but at its simplest, it means the following: (1) never being dishonest or lying, (2) never failing to make someone aware of the truth behind circumstances when you should, and (3) not cutting corners, and doing what you say you are going to do, and when you say you are going to do it.
You must never be dishonest or lie. If you lie then you are toast. This is the most direct cause of loss of credibility. Most liars are exposed, and people stop trusting them. People do not want to give liars work or do business with them.
Lying is all too common. When it occurs, careers quite often end. You simply cannot be good at any job and lie to others. It does not work.
Never fail to make someone aware of the truth. This area can be particularly problematic, because not disclosing the full truth is something many people do not consider as being dishonest. Why, I don’t know.
A common example of this is the prosecutor who does not turn over exculpatory evidence, simply because he is not asked for it. These sorts of prosecutors can become pariahs in the legal community. More importantly, when you are an attorney working for someone else, you are expected to make your superiors aware of information they should be aware of. If you have failed to do something, or have done something, you need to make others aware of it.
Others will trust you if you make them aware of information they should know about. Keeping silent is often tantamount to lying. There are numerous examples I could get into here, but basically, if you do this you are hurting yourself and putting yourself in a situation wherein you might not be trusted in the future.
Do what you say you are going to do. This is probably the most common lapse of credibility out there. In fact, I would say this is the single largest credibility failure for an attorney.
First, if you say you are going to do something, then you should do it. No questions asked. If you cannot be trusted to get something done, then you are sending all sorts of negative messages to your employer. There are always excuses for not completing work or not doing this or that. However, there are always people who manage to get things done, and then there are people who always make excuses. You need to be trusted as someone who will get things done if you say you are going to do them.
Second, you should never cut corners when you work. This also is a credibility issue. If you are going to do something, you should do it in a professional and serious manner. This sort of performance will win you a great deal of credibility. In addition, people who carry out assignments this way are the ones who are most likely to get future work from clients and superiors. There are far too many people who do things half way, and do not complete work the way it should be done.
When I was about 20 years old, I met a man who ran a giant steel factory. He was an uneducated German immigrant who was competing in my hometown of Detroit against some of the world’s major steel factories. One day I met the president of a major automotive company, to which this man supplied a lot of steel. I told the president I could not understand how this man was so successful, because he appeared to lack business sense, and certainly could not hobnob with other important executives. The president told me one thing I will never forget: “He does what he says he is going to do, and does it well. That’s all he does. It’s very rare.”
Far too many people out there are out for a fast buck or a quick transaction. My career advice is to become someone of integrity, and you will be trusted and thrive.
It is important to be credible for a number of reasons: (1) it makes you human and therefore more likable and appreciated, (2) if you are not credible, people will fear that dealings with you will lead to negative repercussions for them, and (3) if you are dishonest you will constantly be reminded of your lack of credibility, no matter where you turn.
Everyone has probably seen a comedian perform at some point. Typically, the comedian will talk frankly about topics that most of us can relate to, but would never speak of publicly – sex, bathroom habits, or strange things they do. Most people laugh at comedians and enjoy them. I believe this is true is because comedians let us see who they are. We like people when we can really see who they are.
The work environment is extremely competitive. Many people spend a great deal of time trying to cover up their weaknesses. They do this by avoiding talking about what they cannot do. They don’t tell clients they have never worked on a certain type of project; they do not speak about negative performance reviews to peers; they try not to let superiors know an assignment did not get done in a timely manner because they were out having fun over the weekend.
The most successful individuals I’ve known do not approach others with a tremendous degree of arrogance or confidence. Instead, they are always careful to point out what they know, what they can do, what their limitations are, and what they need in order to do whatever is being asked of them. This is an explicitly honest approach. It is also an approach that makes the person preferable to deal with.
If you think about it, the reasons you probably like people who act this way are not much different from the reasons you like comedians. When you like someone more, you are not only more forgiving, you trust they will ask the correct questions when carrying out assignments and doing work. You also identify with them because you know you too have limitations. When you identify with someone, it creates a bond of sorts, which makes your relationship stronger. In addition, when you let people know your limitations, they are more likely to award a “job well done”.
I am not suggesting you should not be self-confident. You need to be. The issue is how you let people know your limitations and how honest you are with those around you. When you are honest with those around you, they will also be likely to open up to you more. You will learn more from the world around you and grow more.
If you are not credible, people will avoid dealing with you. Twice in the past two years I have come across attorneys who were terminated from their law firms for reasons related to a single credibility issue. What happened in each of these cases was so remarkable in its simplicity and stupidity it’s hard to believe. The attorneys were asked by a partner if they had completed an assignment and although the attorneys said yes, they hadn’t, and were fired as a result. In one case, the attorney was terminated only a couple of weeks before he was going to be formally installed as a partner in an AmLaw 100 law firm. In each case, I do not think the attorney found a new job for a long time, if at all. Certainly, no good recruiter would continue to represent someone who was dishonest like this.
The reason this simplistic bit of dishonesty, like most dishonesty, resulted in such a drastic outcome is because it has the capacity to hurt other people. If people tell their employer they did something when they did not, this will affect the employer’s dealings with the client. The result is the employer could lose a client, which is bad for everyone involved.
Time after time, attorneys engage in one stupid episode of dishonesty after another. In the above example, the rationale may have been to appear competent for a moment or two in the partner’s eyes. Who knows? Regardless, these sorts of lies ultimately harm people, and are seldom worth any perceived short term gain.
Everyone is certainly familiar with the trials of Martha Stewart, Dennis Kowalski and others regarding various sorts of fraud and insider trading charges. Each of these episodes looks harmless enough on the surface. Nevertheless, these people ultimately hurt investors and others who relied upon the dishonest representations of the individuals in question.
When you are dishonest with others, you put them in the position of not knowing if up is up or down is down when they are dealing with you. People will actually fear doing business with you.
This is something I have noticed over and over again in the attorney placement business. When a recruiting firm decides to cut corners and be dishonest in one respect or another, law firms and others in the legal community quickly learn of the dishonesty. As a consequence, they do not know if what the recruiter is saying is right or wrong. They do not trust the recruiter and opt to cease doing business with them completely. Because it is a small industry, other law firms and employers quickly learn about the recruiter’s dishonest ways. Very shortly, the recruiter may be out of business.
A lot of times people who do something dishonest are under the impression they can do one dishonest thing, get away with it, and then come out ahead. This is rarely the case. When you lack credibility, you will be constantly reminded of it. This is the case whether you do one, or many things wrong.
One of the most common forms of dishonesty is the lie. There are different categories of lies. It can be something as benign as calling in sick when one is not really sick. On another level, there are things like lying about whether an assignment was completed, or lying about what a law means, so that you can do something you want to do. The issue with these sorts of lies is that you may often have to tell many additional lies to cover up for your original one. The more lies you tell, the more you have to keep telling. Pretty soon, lying becomes a near full-time occupation, and the lies just continue to build upon themselves. This is almost always disastrous.
In addition, a lot of people think if they are dishonest with someone, they can confine their dishonesty to that one person and be okay. This, too, is rarely true. If you upset one person through your dishonesty, chances are you will see them again and again and again. How you deal with the guilt of upsetting them is up to you. You need to understand, however, you will likely carry that guilt for a long time.
Your credibility is one of the most important aspects of your career. For many, credibility comes naturally. Others are always looking for a way to cut corners, or are simply dishonest. Those who cut corners and lack credibility never come out on top. In fact, their failure and mediocrity are all but assured.
Job seekers often don’t understand their reputations are fragile. The most important thing you can do for your reputation is to approach your work with credibility in mind. Always err on the side of credibility.
Add Value at Every Turn
What You Will Learn
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At the start of my career in the employment industry, I worked primarily with attorneys who’d come from some of America’s top law firms, and who were seeking the highest-paying jobs at the best firms. In working with these individuals, many of whom held top credentials from prestigious law schools, I very quickly identified two types of people: (1) people who worked hard to get where they were, and who would continue to do so because of their work ethic, and (2) people who believed that, because of what they’d already achieved – admission to a top school, securing a job in a top law firm – they were owed success.
Over the years I became very astute at identifying these different types of people. Generally, people who feel they’re owed success often act as though they don’t need to impress their superiors, or work as hard. Their careers tend to be marginal and organizations often eventually cast them aside.
Before I go any further, I want to let you in on what I feel is the best, and perhaps the oldest, career advice I know. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what work you’ve done in the past, it’s something everyone should know, but few understand: you will never arrive at a place where you will be treated with massive deference, all due to your past achievements.
This situation simply does not exist. At each stage of the game you will be called upon to prove yourself even more than before. By realizing this, you will become aware of opportunities to improve, and therefore, to advance your career and life.
One needs only to observe how the media treats presidential candidates, movie stars, and other celebrities. As they become more successful, the scrutiny they undergo becomes tougher and tougher. The price for past success is greater, and expectations for further achievement become increasingly higher. People’s generosity tends to diminish in relation to others’ success. Successful people get less of a break as compared to others. Each of their subsequent endeavors is expected to surpass the prior achievement. Therefore, as a successful individual, you never ultimately arrive. The journey simply continues.
The primary purpose of any job is to add greater value than the cost for which you were hired. The same premise applies to every business, service and industry. In the course of your job, you are selling your skills, and your employer tries to make money from those skills. Just like a retail product that is sold for a profit, your services are goods from which your employer needs to make a profit.
To give an example, when I bought my last car, I had two choices – one American made, the other German manufactured. The predicted resale value of the German car convinced me to purchase it. Incredibly, after two years of ownership, I ended up selling it for only $2,000 less than it had cost me to purchase it new. Had I purchased the American car, I would have lost $10,000 or more in resale value over those two years. Clearly, the German automaker provided more value in its product than the American automaker–on many levels.
This concept is relevant to employment as well. At work, I’m sure you know people who work diligently and don’t waste time on the job. I’m also sure you know people who are clock watchers, and who perform marginally. Companies want to surround themselves with people who work hard and who are willing to give more than they take. The worst thing you can do at any job is to focus on performing at the minimum level for what you are earning.
I have heard salaried employees talk about how much they make per hour. These employees obsess over how much they are getting paid for each hour of work, and they only do the absolute minimum. When you’re paid a salary, you should think in terms of being part of a team – a team which values and rewards you for your efforts by providing you with a steady paycheck.
Your goal in every job should be to add as much value as you can to your employer’s business, and to the customers whom your employer services. Essentially, if you do not add value, you may not keep your job. If your team does not add value, everyone on the team could get laid off. If your profession does not provide value in the marketplace, your entire industry could cease to exist altogether.
No matter what your job, service, or industry is, it must always be about adding value beyond all expectations.
Your Job is a Game: Make Your Opponents External
What You Will Learn
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After being in the workforce for many years, I’ve come to realize that all of our jobs are, quite simply, games. In every job you have ever had you are part of a game. Your ability to play the game and be part of the team will determine your success or failure. The ability of your employer to externalize the game and the opponent will determine the success or failure of the enterprise. Games consist of rules, freedoms, barriers, and opponents.
Every organization has a certain set of rules by which it operates. These rules determine how you should do your work. If you violate these rules, you can be kicked out of the game (fired) much like a soccer player can be ejected from a game for doing something improper. Your employer will typically have a set of rules for when you are supposed to be at work, how the work is to be done, and the number of tasks you are required to complete (in a sport we might call these points).
Every organization and business also has a series of freedoms and barriers. The freedoms are the actions you can take and the things you are allowed to do. The barriers are the things you cannot do. The freedoms are given much like a sport assigns different freedoms. For example, in soccer the goalie is the only one allowed to touch the ball with his hands (a specially designated freedom), while the other players are not allowed to do so (a barrier). In corporations, different people typically have different rights, depending on their given position within the corporation.
The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. If you don’t have an opponent, it’s not a game. It’s just practice.
One of the most interesting things I have seen in the workforce is that organizations tend to have opponents who are both external and, unfortunately, internal. A business and its people are “fired-up” and motivated primarily by the presence of outside opponents, and the need to overcome them. Businesses and their people also become more cohesive by coming together against their opponents. If this does not occur, the organization most often fails.
Most companies have a series of external opponents. For example, Yahoo!’s external opponent would be Google and vice versa. Amazon’s would be Barnes & Noble. Apple’s is Microsoft. The presence of external opponents serves to bring people within corporations together to fight for a common purpose, and to motivate the people in the company to work hard and believe in what they are doing. Fighting the good fight helps motivate people to get up in the morning and to get excited about going to work.
Organizations generally operate under the belief there is an external opponent to be fought (i.e., the “established company”) in a given space. However, if there is no established force for the organization to fight against, problems often develop.
Another issue that develops in virtually all companies – especially companies with no external opponent – is that people inside the company start manufacturing internal opponents instead of external ones. This most often occurs in companies without well-defined external competitors. In my opinion, the internal opponent phenomenon is among the more important things to understand when it comes to work and your success in both getting and keeping a job.
Several years ago, I started getting calls from associates in a large law firm in Los Angeles that, at the time, was called Troop Meisinger. This was a very successful law firm that was also considered a very good place to work in Los Angeles. While I am not aware of the specifics of how the firm was run, many parts of the firm had been pieced together from numerous other law firms (i.e., groups had joined from other firms or through mergers). When these groups joined, they were often viewed as competitors for the firm’s work and profits, and were treated as outsiders by the senior staff attorneys. Eventually, the firm became a group of numerous factions that were all working against one another. Instead of competing against outside law firms, all of these factions were competing against one another.
The calls that came to me from the firm’s associates were always about a different internal opponent within the firm. With so many internal opponents, the firm eventually imploded. When many of these groups found new jobs at other firms, they started creating the same sort of problems out of habit and did a lot of damage to the firms they joined.
As the old adage states, “Two is company and three is a crowd.” This is often true. A group of two people often collaborates better than a group of three. I think what tends to happen in a group of three is two of the people will find a slight to major degree of fault with the third person and, as a consequence, will come together to exclude the third person in some way.
The same thing happens in many organizations. Someone always seems to be on “the outs.” When someone is on “the outs”, they become an opponent to the group. It is like an athlete who is playing badly. The team members start talking about how this player is harming the team’s overall chances for success. The team may make the decision to sideline the player unless he or she changes and rises to the occasion.
I read somewhere that every year General Electric ranks its employees, and that the employees in the bottom 10 percent each year are given one year to improve. If they fall into the same bottom 10 percent the next year, they are dismissed. This is a method by which the company ensures that people who are not performers are eventually excluded from the team.
Unhealthy organizations can also find opponents in a paranoid way from time to time. These organizations allow rumors to flourish and enemies proliferate. If a manager arbitrarily fires people (regardless of whether or not they have been playing by the rules), people in the organization may start manufacturing internal opponents, often for no reason at all. No one knows who can be trusted in unhealthy organizations, and the process can get out of control.
This brings us back to you, and how you can find success in your career. You do not want to imagine the people you are working with as opponents, but as teammates. Externalize the opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. You want to ensure you are playing by the rules in your company, and that you are always seen as part of the team. If you’re not, then the team will quickly turn against you.
When you are interviewing for a position, you need to stress you’ll be part of the team, not someone who will be excluded from the team. When you are doing a job, you need to do everything within your power to ensure you’re always winning favor with the team, and that you are an asset. This means you should be doing things publicly that demonstrate you’re trying to help the team. You should also never speak negatively of your team members.
One of the best ways to tell if someone will be good at a job is to look at their employment stability. This is even more important than where someone went to school, how well they did in school, or even how prestigious their last employer was. Employment stability shows the ability to be a successful team player. Working successfully with most employers is like avoiding a hot ball that is always moving around. If the ball touches you, you will lose favor with the team, and you’ll be ejected from the game. The best workers are always the people who have the most stability, and who are able to consistently avoid the hot ball. I think this has a lot to do with the simple fact they’re able to work well with a team.
The people who have the most employment stability have very similar profiles. These people join “teams” rather than get jobs. When they are looking for a new job, it is usually because the owner of the company retired, or due to some other factor beyond their control. When they are hired, it is almost like their presence alone brings positivity to the organization they are joining. I have seen the résumés of people who have joined one company after another that failed. I’ve hired people like this and it’s almost as if they’ve brought a cancer to our company. They are negative and polarizing. I wonder sometimes if extremely negative people inside a corporation can actually cause that company to fail.
When I observe people who’ve had a lot of employment stability, I notice they never participate when people start speaking negatively of others. They simply do not get involved. I’m amazed at how well they navigate the waters and stay employed when others around them do not. It is also worth noting the people who tend to do well are also the people who consistently work hard and play by the rules. The team always views them as valuable players.
In order to become employed and stay employed you want to be part of the team. You do not want to be on the outs with the team. Instead of talking about internal opponents, find external ones to concentrate on. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work toward a common goal. In order for your company to succeed it’s important it has an external opponent to drive it towards victory.
My career advice is to leave it to other people to get involved in the political innuendos and other negative goings-on in your company. Work hard and do not participate in the politics. This is a sure way for you to score big in your career.
Your Ultimate Goal: How You Can Find Job Security
What You Will Learn
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One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice whatsoever. It can be devastating to lose your source of income unexpectedly, especially in a contracting economy. Losing a job can color our perspective on the world and our future. Going forward, we have a difficult time allowing ourselves to ever feel secure again. We believe that things can change in an instant and that we might be suddenly out of a job again. This fear of sudden job loss is something that many people who have been terminated from jobs carry with them throughout their careers. The goal for all of us is to be in positions where we are secure, and to keep that security. Recently, I saw the movie American Beauty again. When I first saw the movie I was younger; I didn’t really understand the importance of what was going on, and how it applies to everyone in the working world. In the movie, the protagonist is fired from his job. In response to this, he decides he wants to simplify his life and he takes a position in a fast food restaurant–which is far beneath the sort of job he had been fired from. He takes this job, the viewer is led to believe, because he wants to go back to a simpler, happier time in his life, and have again that feeling of empowerment and security from his youth. His goal is to find that stability in a world that had grown dark and uncertain around him.
Stability and certainty are so important to many of us that we often settle for far less than we could have simply because we want that security. We settle for worse jobs than we could get, we settle for less pay than we could earn. Simply stated, we settle because our cost benefit analysis of the world tells us security is more important than pay, job satisfaction, or status.
Several weeks ago, I wandered into an impossibly expensive bed store in Beverly Hills with my wife (where some beds cost as much as $50,000) and when I asked why someone would spend so much on a bed the salesperson told me that we spend one third of our lives there. However, we spend far more than one third of our lives at work–or thinking about it. Furthermore, if we do not work we cannot even afford a bed! Therefore, work is one of the most important aspects of our existence.
When you add up everything we do in our lives, whether it is participating in a church or synagogue, spending time with friends or family, or engaging in various hobbies-you will quickly discover that most of our time is spent working. Work may be the predominant activity in our lives, whether we want to admit it or not, and, more importantly, if we do not like our work, we are probably not enjoying life.
Have you ever spent time with people who hate their jobs? This is practically all they talk about. Not liking their jobs makes people depressed or angry. Being around people who hate their jobs is a miserable experience. I remember growing up in Detroit, where many of my friends’ parents would come home at the end of the day from jobs they hated. They would walk straight to the liquor cabinet, pour a drink, and, after 20 minutes or so, begin complaining to their spouses about how much they hated work, or about some slight they received from their boss that day. Several hours later, a loud argument might even break out between the parents. This process would be repeated day after day. Even at the age of seven or eight, watching this process taught me that not liking one’s job was a huge problem.
Sometimes it takes a child’s mind to see what is really going on in the world. I remember writing reports about Russia when I was around seven or eight. The major conflict in the world that existed up until the 1990s was the threat of communist Russia against the United States. We were afraid of communism, but, in reality, communism is nothing more than an economic system wherein people are given jobs and told exactly what to do. They are paid less by the state but, in exchange, they receive security. In the United States, capitalism is built on a lack of security. You have your choice of jobs, but it is up to you to find security within the capitalist system. Entire civilizations have been built on the quest for security.
In the United States, a giant strike was going on in late 2008 between the machinist union at Boeing and the company. The company was demanding the right to outsource certain work, and the workers were demanding security in their jobs. This fight cost the company $100 million a day. At the same time, similar conflicts between unions and automobile companies were having far-reaching implications for the American auto industry.
The fight for security is all around us.
When a man loses his job, you will usually find him in a bad mental state. Sometimes the man will stop shaving. He may look confused. He will fight with his wife more and snap at people around him. The stress of not having a job, or feeling a lack of purpose, can quickly bring on emotional problems. When people are having emotional problems, a psychologist or doctor may prescribe drugs or treatment, maybe wanting to talk about the person’s parents, for example. Most often a better solution would be to look at how the person’s job is going-or how their lack of a job is affecting them. Fix a person’s career and most other things often quickly fall into place.
If security is so important, how does one go about finding it in a job? People get college educations, professional degrees, and do everything within their power to make themselves attractive to employers so they will have security. People rehearse interviewing so they can get a job. People attempt to go into industries or work in sectors with presumed security, whether they are in government, real estate, medicine, or law. Every industry out there has been presumed to be secure at one time or another. However, all of them involve some level of instability.
After studying the employment market for some time, I believe there are several ways to look for security. There is a push and pull between finding security and making a great deal of money. The question is, what do you want and how much are you willing to risk? Since I am a former attorney, I will draw from my experience to give you some career advice, and an indication of how the employment process works in the legal industry.
When attorneys graduate from law school, they typically try their hardest to get the highest-paying jobs they can. The highest-paying jobs are with large law firms and they typically pay around $160,000 a year. Due to the massive amount of money these attorneys make, they are expected to work extremely hard; they are also very quickly let go if they are not billing as expected or if there are issues with their work. These jobs typically do not have a lot of long-term security, and if young attorneys believe they may lose their jobs they will usually try to find another job at another high-paying firm. They will likely keep doing this until they either become a partner at a high-paying firm, or they end up changing careers.
Once attorneys get a few years of experience at a high-paying law firm, they generally start wanting to leave the law firm to work for a corporation. Jobs with corporations are very much in demand. In most cases, corporate jobs pay at least 50 percent less than jobs at law firms. The reason attorneys want to work for corporations, though, is due to the security factor. Security appeals to some attorneys far more than money (jobs with corporations typically also require less work).
Most (over 95 percent) attorneys do not end up with jobs in the highest-paying law firms. These attorneys typically do not change jobs as often and, in my experience, have a lot more long-term security. As an example, almost all of the attorneys I personally know who started practicing law with large firms that paid large salaries are no longer practicing law ten years later. The attorneys I know who went to small law firms or took positions with the government, on the other hand, are still practicing law. This phenomenon bears some examination, and I think there are reasons behind it.
I believe that the attorneys who went to large firms saw so many people lose their jobs (and may have lost their own jobs) that they simply became disillusioned with practicing law because they saw no security in it. Conversely, smaller firms, which typically pay less, do not let people go as aggressively; the attorneys working there experience far more security within the practice of law and therefore continue their legal careers.
Generally, the higher paid or more competitive the job you take, the more insecurity that job will involve. Think about investment banks letting go of thousands of people. You will rarely find an investment banker in his mid-30s even who has been with the same firm his entire career.
I also want to note that the more complex the organization you are in is, the less security you will generally have in your job. For example, giant companies like Yahoo! might suddenly decide to let go of 10 percent of their staff to save money. A larger organization is, in many respects, more impersonal and, due to its complexity, there are forces involved that are simply beyond the control of the people working there.
A few months ago, I went to the dentist and, as I started speaking with the dentist and his staff of four, they told me that they had all been working together for over 20 years! I thought about how rare this is in today’s society, where people move around so frequently between jobs. In considering this, however, I quickly realized the reason. A dental office is not a complex institution. If it is set up in the right area (an economically stable one) and the dentist is respectable (this dentist was also a professor of dentistry at USC), the operation should continue going indefinitely. In this case, the lack of complexity in the dentist’s operation, and the presumed stability of the business, made it a secure work environment. Working in a small dental office is a secure job, it would seem, and in that sense, not much different from the job that the protagonist in American Beauty found working in a fast food restaurant.
There is one last point I want to make that is crucial and involves the people or person you will be working for. I am sure you have heard stories of the crazy boss in a given company who randomly lets people go, or who is altogether unbalanced. If you make your choice of employer based on one thing alone, make sure you are working for a stable person. You can detect a stable boss by many factors, such as the length of time certain employees have worked directly for him or her. Being around stable people is very important in your work environment, and so is feeling comfortable around the people you work with. You need to feel comfortable or you will have reason to doubt your security.
Security in a job is one of the more fundamental issues in all societies and is a basis for conflict between nations and people. Realize that you need to seek security and find it at all costs. This is the most important aspect of any job.
Watching for Waste in Your Job
What You Will Learn
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Several years ago I was moving from one house to another, and I hired three day laborers from outside of a U-Haul branch, where I had rented a truck. One of the workers was a man with a strong European accent, who seemed very intense. He worked as fast as he could–practically running as he moved things out of my house and into the truck. He also frequently burst out in a paranoid type of shouting at the other two men, talking about how they needed to be more careful or they might scratch or dent a piece of furniture. In a nutshell, this man was trying to save me money by working faster and trying to prevent damage to the furniture. At the end of the day, I paid him much more than the other men. I also knew that I would hire this man again for any future work, given the chance. I appreciated that he wanted to save me money by working efficiently, and that he was willing to protect me. This is the same thing your employers are looking for.
In a tough economy there are many forces acting upon us, and most companies are forced to cut back. Businesses often start by cutting advertising and other non-essentials, such as company lunches and expense accounts. Finally, companies start looking towards your job. Employees cost lots of money, which means that eliminating jobs can save a company a substantial amount of money. This is why unemployment numbers rise whenever the economy gets tough.
I know the owner of an answering service, who also worked on phone systems during his spare time. I was speaking with him after September 11, 2001, when the U.S. economy was starting to slow down severely. I asked him about the status of his business. My estimate was that his answering service would be experiencing a dramatic slowdown due to the stress on the economy, believing that in a rough economy people would simply no longer have a use for answering services and would cut back.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “My business is going through the roof. Every business owner that walks by a receptionist and sees her filing her nails instead of working quickly realizes that’s not money well spent. If he gets rid of her and transfers all of the calls to an answering service, he’ll see savings very soon.”
This is the sort of thing I have been seeing in companies across the country, as we go into another economic contraction. This has a real relevance to your job, and it is career advice you need to understand. It is the difference between people who survive in recessions, who do well and stay employed, and those who end up being cut.
I want to digress for a moment and share with you a quick image. If you have ever been to Germany and watched workers in factories, you know that it is an amazing sight. As you may be aware, German factory workers are among the highest (if not the highest) paid workers in the world. What is so interesting about German factory workers is the incredible intensity they bring to their work. They are so serious in their day-to-day work that the difference between them and the typical American factory line is staggering.
However, the Germans also charge more for their work.
When a recession is at hand, or when an industry is experiencing a contraction, companies very quickly look to start saving as much money as possible. They look around to see who is working hard and adding value, and who is not. When my parents were in their prime, working in the late 1960s through the 1980s, most people would join a company and stay there for their entire careers. The United States at some point grew very arrogant, and its manufacturing, agricultural, and information technology sectors were pretty well isolated from the rest of the world–and from serious competition. Other countries in Europe and Asia still had a lot of catching up to do, while this country was awash in wealth and major waste.
My grandfather used to say that you should only buy cars made on Friday because the men on the line were typically still hung over from the weekend on Tuesday. This is literally something people used to request when purchasing cars made in the United States. This is an indication of how fat the United States had allowed itself to become during this time period. It is hard to believe, but true.
My parents lived in a world in which it was almost impossible to get fired from a job. When you joined a company, you typically had major employment security. There was a ton of money going around the United States, and it was obviously just a different time and place.
With the Internet, computer programming can be done anywhere in the world. Phones can be answered anywhere in the world. Designs can be done anywhere in the world. Engineering can be done anywhere in the world. Legal work, incredibly, is now being done everywhere in the world. This country is no longer isolated from the rest; it is now forced to compete with people from areas of the world where there are drastically lower cost structures. Americans’ jobs have become expendable in many respects.
This brings me to your career. In your job, you need to ensure that you are always providing as much value as possible. If you see waste occurring in your job, and you know the work you or others are doing can be done in a more efficient way, you need to point this out to your superiors. If you come to a realization that there is no way your employer can make money from the work you are doing, you should be concerned. This is not something that is in your best interest, especially when you think long-term.
In my career, I have seen plenty of people who have managed to constantly force themselves out of jobs. People who talk their bosses into one raise after another when times are good may find that, when the economy turns and the company realizes it can hire someone at half the cost, they will be out of a job. People who do not put in extra effort, or who create lots of waste in the company, may find themselves out of a job when a recession or restructuring hits. You need to ensure that you are always creating value–far more value than you are worth.
I once spoke with someone once who was telling me how everyone who did a certain type of recruiting received an annual salary of $80,000, plus a commission. When I did the math, I realized that it would be impossible for any recruiting company to make money while paying recruiters that much. Absolutely impossible! Why would any firm do that? However, assuming the firm did actually pay its recruiters that much money, it was certain that these would be some of the first jobs to go when times eventually got tough.
The people who become most impressive during downturns and who grow within companies are the people who point out cost-saving measures and capitalize on financial opportunities that benefit the company, not just themselves. I would encourage you to be one of these people. If you are a manager, you need to ask yourself if you can get more work done with fewer people. This will make your supervisors happy. If you are an extremely successful salesperson, you need to ask yourself if you can show other salespeople in your organization how to sell like you, and how to be more successful.
If you look around at your workplace, I’ll bet you can see numerous ways you could increase efficiency and save your company money. This is exactly what your employer needs to see you doing.
Watching waste and being vigilant about efficiency impresses employers and justifies your continuing, successful role in the company.
To Succeed in Any Job You Need to Create Work
What You Will Learn
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To be denied the right to work is to be denied the right to participate in the society in which we live. It is for this reason that having the opportunity to work is probably the most important part of your existence. Work is not something to be detested; instead, it is a path to mental and economic stability, happiness, and purpose in our lives. To be around people who think otherwise is never in your best interest. To associate work with something negative is also never in your best interest. The most important of all of your career skills is the ability to create productive work. The ability to create productive work is something that will change your career for the better, and it can also take you further than you might have ever believed in your chosen path.
Perhaps you know how to create work in your chosen profession and are doing it already. Perhaps you are not creating work in your chosen profession, or you detest work. Regardless of your current attitude towards work, you need to understand how to create work. The people who create work in our society are the ones who are the happiest, the ones who rarely lose their jobs, the ones who make the most money, and the ones who are the most stable in all respects throughout their lives. You need to know how to create work. Creating work is essential to your existence.
As a manager and also as someone who works very hard at my job, one of the most distressing things that I see is people who fail to create work in their jobs, or who look for ways to avoid work. I am a firm believer in the importance of work, not just from the standpoint that work provides us money with which to live, but also because the act of work is how we participate in society.
One of my jobs is managing a legal recruiting firm called BCG Attorney Search. As part of this job, I have had the opportunity to work with numerous recruiters throughout the years. Some of these recruiters have been absolutely exceptional, and others have been quite marginal. It is very easy for me to tell an outstanding legal recruiter from an average one. My conclusions are based on the recruiter’s ability to create work. Regardless of your profession, understanding the key behind this observation and what it means will be of great assistance to you.
A legal recruiter’s job typically involves (1) working with candidates who approach the legal recruiting firm seeking placement and (2) finding new candidates to work with. I have always sat in an office with legal recruiters and have had the pleasure of watching them very closely. Several years ago I remember having a recruiter who would come in at 8 a.m. every day and would generally leave by around 12 to 1 p.m. most days. When I would ask him why he was leaving so early he would generally say something to the effect of “there are no new candidates today.” What he was saying was that he had done all of the work that had been presented to him–no more and no less. My obvious question for him was along the lines of, “Why not go out and look for new candidates?”
There is always plenty of work for anyone in sales to do beyond the tasks that are immediately presented to them. They can call old leads. They can send letters to old clients, trying to reactivate some old accounts. They can call old sales and see how the product is working out. They can look for new sources of sales. They can socialize to meet new potential clients. The list of work you can do to find more work and be good at your job is almost endless.
In my career, I have run across all sorts of people. I have met countless people who I know have jobs making $500,000 a year or more. By simply examining their work ethics, I always know if they will last at this income level over the long-term. The ones who fail my observational test are never on top for long. The only thing I am looking for is whether this person knows how to create work in his or her job. When you create work you always have something to do and you are always adding value.
Work is most often not something that jumps right into our line of sight. In any job you have it is important to realize that someone created the job you are doing. It is up to you to maintain this job, ensuring that this job continues to create value for your employer. You should also take the initiative to add tasks to this job that continue to make it as effective and profitable for your employer as possible.
For example, a secretary’s main job may be to answer the phone. While waiting for the phone to ring, there should also be other jobs that the secretary is working on, to be more productive. The ability to create work will give the secretary more value to her employer, and will gain the secretary more appreciation. Few sane employers would ever let someone like her go.
In my job I have managed hundreds of employees. I have had the opportunity to work with some truly exceptional people. I would estimate that, in terms of people who are truly exceptional and indispensable in good times and in bad, the proportion of exceptional performers to average performers is around one in 10. That is, only one in 10 people are really, truly exceptional performers. The exceptional performers are the people whom employers rely upon and try to hang on to in all economic climates. The poor to average performers are not as important to the organization. In fact, unless a job is extremely well defined and measured, the poor to average performers will in many cases drag the company down to some degree. What I have noticed from all truly stellar performers is that they have the ability to consistently create work that the company values.
These workers tend to appear to have the happiest personal lives and make the most money in their jobs. I have seen this pattern enough times in my career that I really believe there is something to it. These same individuals also typically have the most employment stability. When they come to work at our company they may have been with their previous employer 10 years or more. They always have good references. They are the sorts of people companies and groups want to keep around.
One of the most infuriating things for me as a manager is when I walk around the office and see people screwing around, not really doing any work. As our organization grew several years ago I wanted to ensure that our employees were always working on productive tasks, so I started giving managers weekly tasks to do. I would write these tasks up on a Sunday night and then speak with our managers in a one-on-one meeting each week to gauge the tasks. The meetings tended to follow two sorts of tracks (and generally still do to this day):
One type of manager would come into the meeting, his team having accomplished most of the tasks, and he would be very familiar with the status of each of the tasks. He would be excited to report on his progress, and would be aware of the exact amount of work required to complete each task, and would provide me with an estimated date of completion. This manager might also suggest new tasks in addition to the existing tasks that needed to be done, for the organization’s benefit. In addition, ongoing tasks that were started would always be brought to completion, and never stopped once they were underway. Before ever requesting additional staff, this type of manager would always ensure that their people were fully utilized and were doing their work as efficiently as possible.
The other type of manager would come into the meeting and would have accomplished few of the tasks. He might even be slightly annoyed at having to report on the status of the tasks. He would state that certain tasks had not been completed or started, for reasons that were very trivial–and only served to help him avoid starting the tasks. This manager would go on to complain about his workload, and would request more staff. In subsequent meetings, I would find that tasks that the manager had started had, for some reason, suddenly been abandoned. The manager would never suggest new work that could be done.
While I hate to make the distinction between managers in such a black and white manner, this is something I have seen over and over and over again. It goes without saying that the people I want on my team are the managers who are proactive. You do not need to be a manager to be proactive, however. Everyone needs to be proactive in his or her job in order to create work.
You need to be working for companies and people who are proactive in creating work. Young companies are generally hungrier and know how to create work better than older ones. Companies that are expanding and not contracting generally know how to create work. You need to be creating work inside your organization. I believe that entrepreneurs are the engines of our society, because they are constantly trying to create work and, in the process, they create new jobs.
In the movie About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson plays an actuary in Omaha who retires from his job after a long career. In the movie we see Nicholson go back to the office weeks after retirement in an effort to give the organization some sort of information he had been working on prior to his retirement. He speaks to his replacement in the job he once held, and is politely told that he is no longer needed. Nicholson is crushed and the audience realizes that the fact that he is no longer needed by the company, to him, almost means he is no longer part of society.
People who cannot work in society are the most unhappy and troubled. To work is to be part of society, an active participant. To be prohibited from working is to be cast out by society. There is nothing more crushing to people than being prohibited from working.
After taking vacations most of us are happy to get back to work. Work defines our psyche and our sense of purpose. People with no sense of purpose often go mad.
You need to create work in your job, and to continue to create work. You should also stay away from people in your job who are critical of the act of work. While I believe unions have their place, they can be very dangerous in many respects because their goal is often to protect you from doing too much work. Work is healthy for you and it gives you purpose. If anything, you should have more work rather than less. People who try to give you distaste for work are extremely dangerous because your identity and life, for the most part, revolve around work.
You have a more wonderful and productive life and existence the closer you are to work. The more productive work you create, the better you will do in your job. Cherishing your work and creating more work will change your career and life.
How to Survive and Succeed in Your Job
What You Will Learn
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Working in a company or any organization is often competitive and scary. The reason that it can be so scary is because around you there are so many unknowns, and there is so much information that you do not have access to. Having access to information, both about how to perform your job and also about the state of the company you work for, is crucial to your survival. I love to read the business section of the paper each day. While I am not an investor, I think someone who is familiar with the field could make a lot of money just by what they are reading in the paper each day, by looking at what the people who have information inside various companies are doing with (1) their careers and (2) their money. I am certainly not mentioning anything that others have not; however, the information I am sharing with you is relevant to your career and is solid career advice.
Every week in the paper there is a story about the CFO of one company or another resigning from his or her job. Often these CFOs resign when their companies appear to be in trouble. If the CFO has been in the position for several years and is resigning without another job lined up, it is generally an indication that the company is in some sort of serious financial trouble. Throughout the years while I have been observing this pattern, the companies in question have generally filed for bankruptcy, undergone mass layoffs, or experienced something of the sort not too long after the CFO’s departure. I have seen this pattern over and over again.
You need to understand that the CFOs are most often leaving their jobs because they have information about the company that they believe is extremely relevant to whether or not they should stay with the company. In leaving the company, these CFOs are often saving themselves from being laid off or being held accountable when the company goes down later. Information is the key to your survival and ability to do a good job in any company or organization that you join and want to remain part of. You absolutely need access to information.
I would like to walk you through the process of how to get access to information when you start a job, and how to use information to keep your job. If you follow this advice, you will be suited to do well in just about any work environment.
Over the years I have had the opportunity and privilege to work with some very intelligent people, people who went to the very best schools and have gotten jobs with the very best employers. A lot of this has to do with the fact that my main career has been working as a recruiter in the legal field and also as an interviewer for a top college. In the legal field, I have worked with people who were among the top five students in their graduating class at places like Harvard Law School. In working with people like these, I have noticed some commonalities among people who do exceptionally well in the schools that they attend and people who are able to get excellent jobs; the two are not always one and the same.
I want to add first of all that I think intelligence is overrated. I have seen people who scored in the 50th percentile on standardized tests be among the top students in colleges. I know of many happy and successful people who never even finished high school or who barely speak English, who came to the United States from other countries and have become extraordinarily successful. I think virtually anyone can be successful if they follow certain rules and develop certain habits. Success leaves clues.
What I have noticed almost universally about the most successful people is that they are very good listeners. These listeners find the right people and ask the right questions so they know exactly what they should be doing, whom they should stay close to, and whom they should stay away from. In an academic setting, the good listeners will listen to their teachers so they know what is expected of them and what information is most important. In a business setting, these listeners will know what work is expected of them, who to avoid, and what their employer likes best.
Listening and getting information from your employer or potential employer are crucial.
When you are researching a firm, it is important for you to know exactly what the firm is looking for. The company has a job available and, in order to do the job, you need to understand exactly what that job entails. When you interview for the job, you need to be very clear that you are willing to do the job. I know that this sounds like a very basic piece of advice; however, believe it or not, I have seen many people completely blow their interviews, based on doing very poorly in this category during an interview. Below are a couple examples of this:
Several years ago, I was interviewing a senior copywriter for a marketing position with our company. The copywriter had a résumé that was excellent in all respects, and he did quite well in his interviews with various people inside the corporation. After his interviews, I took him out to lunch. I was prepared to make him an offer either at lunch or, at latest, the next day.
The job of the copywriter was going to be to simply writing letters and emails that we could send out about our various products to potential users. This was something for which I needed someone with relevant expertise, since at the time most of the work in this category was being executed by people whose only prior experience had been writing résumés. I was very excited to have someone with this man’s level of expertise to assist with this task.
Having so much experience, the copywriter actually came across as arrogant during lunch. I suddenly got the impression that he would be very difficult to manage. None of this was fatal, however, until he said something along the lines of the following:
“I have so much experience at this point that I am not really so interested in writing anymore. Instead, I see myself more as someone who will walk around and supervise the younger writers in the company, and provide them with solid management and input on their writing.”
This was actually the last thing that I needed someone to do. I needed someone who would sit down and write emails and letters–nothing less and nothing more.
With this statement the man immediately painted himself as someone who wanted to be a manager and did not want to do the work he was being interviewed for. The man had actually been out of work for several months, and I knew the job we had open was very important to him. Despite this fact, he ended up saying something that was fatal to his obtaining the position. I did not offer him the job and learned a valuable lesson in hiring that day: never hire someone for a job who does not take the time to understand what the job actually is.
When you are interviewing for a job, it is extremely important that you understand exactly what the job entails. You need to be very good at asking questions early on in your interviews so that you can tell your interviewer and future interviewers exactly what they want to hear, and avoid saying what they do not want to hear. It is important that you do everything you can to get the job when you are being interviewed (but always be honest), including shading your information towards what the employers want to hear.
At the interview stage you can gather this information from the advertisement you saw for the job; incidentally, your résumé and cover letter should be geared towards exactly what the employer is seeking. When you get into the interview you should be asking lots of questions about what the job requires, if at all possible, until your interviewers start asking questions of their own.
Remember: good listeners always end up doing the best and getting ahead. Excellent listening is absolutely crucial.
With the information you gain, you can then go on to perform up to par in interview after interview. Let other people do as much talking as possible.
Once you are hired you need to continue being good at getting access to information. When you are hired in a new job, you will never know anything about your expectations and what is required of you until you get access to information. Knowing what each employer requires is absolutely crucial to your survival in the company. I want to tell you a quick story about one of my first jobs and how I was able to learn by getting access to information in the company.
My first job as an attorney was with a law firm that has since gone out of business in New York City. I write about this firm in a negative way only because it no longer exists; (here’s another word of advice: never say anything negative about a past employer if they are still in business). It was a summer job between my second and third years of law school. Specifically, it was a 10-week job that required me to do various legal tasks and then report on the work I had done via a billing system. Essentially, I was given various types of assignments and then needed to bill my time for each assignment to the firm’s clients, by writing down the client number and documenting the hours I had worked on each task.
After five weeks on the job, I was given a formal review. I had worked very hard on my tasks but none of them had taken very much time. I was billing on average about 7-8 hours a day to the clients. When the partners and others who assigned me tasks received my work, they were almost all pleased with the quality. However, when I got into my review it went terribly. I was told that I was not working hard enough on tasks. I was told that I did not produce enough work and so forth. It was very crushing to me because I thought I had been doing an excellent job. The firm told me that I had done so poorly that it was unlikely that I would receive an offer from the law firm at the end of the summer to work there after graduation.
I knew an attorney in the law firm who had been practicing for around four years and was a really nice guy. I had become friendly with him throughout the summer and he had taken a liking to me as a younger attorney. I remember telling him about the horrible experience, and as I told him this he began smiling.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said. “I know how to solve this. All you need to do is start turning in your time sheets and working at least 12-15 hours every day. Just bill whatever you possibly can and they will beg you to come to the firm. This is 10 times more important here than even your work quality.”
Since this was the only information that I had to go on, I followed it. Sure enough, in my final review at the end of the summer, I received absolutely stunning and glowing recommendations. I was told I had a future at the firm, was loved by the management, and all sorts of other positive things. I was even taken out for a few drinks by a partner, and the most important partner in the firm ended up taking me on a trip with him to Washington, DC to watch a congressional testimony in my last week. I was one of the only people in the summer program whom the firm wanted to return after my summer there.
This was all because I had access to information about what was required at this firm. Sure, the quality of my work did matter; however, foremost on the employers’ minds was the number of hours I billed, and how hard I worked.
If I had not had access to this information about what the job required, I would have failed. I am 100 percent sure of this. I would not have gotten a position at the end of the summer, and I would have had issues with my legal career and getting other jobs for years to come.
Your job, no matter where you work, also has a set of rules that can result in you succeeding or failing. There are also people inside your company or organization who know exactly what you need to do to succeed, and they might tell you if you just get close to them and ask. When you are doing your job, you need to ask lots of questions. You need to find out what your predecessor did, and what did or did not make that person successful. You need to understand every piece of information about your job that you can.
Getting access to information is important in good times and in bad. Knowing where your company is making money can allow you to apply your efforts in this direction. Knowing who is about to lose their job can potentially save you from “guilt by association”, and knowing who is succeeding can also help you.
You need information to get a job and to succeed in your current job. Be information conscious!
Communicate Your Value: How to Get a Job and Keep It
What You Will Learn
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One of the best ways to realize the importance of communication is through simple services, such as getting a shoeshine, ordering hotel room service, or taking advantage of valet parking. In these situations the people providing the service must act quickly to show their value and win a large tip. If they fail to show their value, they risk selling themselves short and losing out on the extra cash. You can always tell how good someone is at these sorts of jobs because they communicate their value, or lack thereof, usually early on in their interactions.
Several years ago I was getting my shoes shined at a Washington, DC airport.
As the shine progressed, I noticed I was being treated to a ridiculous amount of attention. The man used a modified common contractor’s drill to buff my shoes, in addition to other specialized tools. He painted the heels with what appeared to be an artist’s brush and, as the shine progressed, it was one thing after another like this. Finally, towards the end of the shine, he sprayed something on my shoes, took out a match, and very briefly lit them on fire! It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. He put out the fire in less than a second and made a statement about how this would really make a major difference in the shine. The shoes ended up looking fantastic and I gave the man a giant tip. I’m sure he got tips like that all day long. The shoeshine man did everything he could to communicate his value.
Communicating our value is something we all must do to keep our jobs. We must also do the same in order to get jobs. Imagine if this man interviewed for a shoeshine position and described his approach to the job. Imagine an average shoeshine man doing the same. Who would you hire?
One of the biggest mistakes people often make when interviewing for jobs (or in their current jobs) is failing to communicate their value frequently and in detail. This kind of communication is one of the most important things in our careers. If you go above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis, or have become aware of cost-saving measures or new sources of revenue, you owe it to yourself and the company to communicate this. It is extremely important that you communicate with your company and supervisors at all times.
If you were an employer, you would expect nothing less from your employees, right?
Why? Because the company you work for, or want to work for, cannot possibly know the multitude of ways in which you can or already contribute. The company cannot know all the improvements you can or already make to its bottom line. You need to make the people around you aware of who you are and what you can do. If people don’t know this information, you are doing yourself a disservice. People lose jobs all the time because their superiors do not know who they are or how they are helping the company. Don’t let this happen to you!
Earlier this week, I saw an employee (who works as a driver) sitting outside my office, using a computer. Sitting next to him was a manager. The driver appeared to be surfing the Internet and not doing much else. I watched this go on for a couple of hours as I passed by now and then. Later in the day, I called the manager into my office. I was very close to firing either the manager or the driver–or both. I could not believe that someone was being paid to sit there and surf the Internet.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He says his finger hurts,” the manager said.
I proceeded to question the manager about whether the driver could work or not. The manager said, “I assume he cannot.” I knew the driver had cut his finger earlier in the week, but I also knew it was not serious. I met with the driver to discuss the situation as well. What essentially happened in this exchange cast a very bad light on both of the employees.
First, the manager assumed the driver could not do any other work, because he had a hurt finger. The manager did not communicate with the driver further to see if there might be any other type of work he could do; He simply decided to end the conversation there, without giving the driver any other work to do.
Second, the driver did not ask for any more work. The driver simply decided that, since he was not given any more work to do, he would just sit there and do nothing. I know this driver quite well and he is very talented. He knows about carpentry and has many other useful skills. Obviously the driver’s wounded finger did not preclude him from playing around on the computer.
In many companies, both of these men would have lost their jobs that day. The driver should have spoken up and stated that he did not have anything to do. The manager should have spoken up and either found another task for him to do, or sent him home. Both men should have handled this situation much differently. They both failed to act as responsible employees.
It is like this with your job too–regardless of what you do. All employers want things done efficiently. No one wants to waste time or money. By communicating clearly you are able to avoid the appearance of inefficiency. For this reason, nothing is more important than effective communication.
Communication goes much further than this simple example. Communication is important in the highest levels of executive suites. Communication is needed to ensure that businesses are healthy and that you are preserving your job through positive efforts, and through garnering appreciation for those efforts. Effective communication can help you to know exactly where you are going and what is going to happen in your career. Most importantly, communication can help you ensure that you are always in a good position with your company–and if you are not, you can usually get out while there’s still time.
A couple of years ago, one of our businesses at Career Mission dealt primarily with student loans (and it still does, although much less so than in the past). In running this business I was always a little circumspect about its long-term prospects, mostly because a lot of the business was dependent upon major forces that were outside our control: (1) government programs to subsidize student loans from private lenders, and (2) the value of those loans as securities on Wall Street. Both of these eventually went away, and following this the student loan business suffered a great deal.
Had I been an employee at the time, I certainly could have benefited from knowing this information. I could have asked to be given work in other departments or divisions of Career Mission, which were not as dependent upon student loans. For example, I might have asked to work in an employment-based business as well. In short, I could have communicated with my superiors, relaying my value and how it could translate to other, healthier areas of the company.
The mortgage business in the United States was also built on the value of being able to sell securities (i.e., packaging loans into bundles and selling them as a group). Imagine if you worked for one of these mortgage companies two years ago. Down the street from our office in Pasadena is the shell of IndyMac, a former giant bank that did tons of these mortgages. The mortgage business of IndyMac is now completely gone. What if you had worked in this bank a couple of years ago? Would you have been asking questions about the bank’s long-term viability? What would you have done for the company and for yourself as the tide began to shift?
The ability to communicate your value is part of the big picture. You need to communicate your value but also understand where you and the value of your work fits into the grand scheme. Is your value to the organization dependent upon forces outside of your control? Is your job dependent upon the government like the student loans were? You need to understand these things well in order to assess the viability of your company and your employment.
Once you interview with a company–or even send in a résumé, you do not have anything to lose by communicating your value. A little-known job search secret is that a significant percentage of people get jobs each year using non-traditional methods to communicate with potential employers. For example, calling before sending a résumé is a great way to get the employer’s attention. Calling after an interview to reaffirm your interest is another great way to get an employer’s attention. Making sure you remain on the employer’s radar with a series of notes (even if you end up getting the job six months from now) is also a great way to get an employer’s attention. Remember, communication is key.
Communication means letting people know you are there. Let people know you are interested in working for them. Let people know you care. When you communicate with a potential employer, you make yourself stand out. Excellent communication can get you a job when you might not have otherwise succeeded.
What makes you special? What makes you different? Why are you a good employee? Communicate who you are and what you do well. This is what all potential employers want to hear, and it is what you need them to know.
Concentrate on Your Product
What You Will Learn
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When I was growing up I used to spend most weekends with my father. Like most fathers I knew, my dad loved to watch sports. Football was always on during the season, and he always seemed most interested in college sports. I have always been quite amazed by college football because of the high level of enthusiasm that students, alumni and others have for it. My mother went to the University of Michigan, my father attended law school there for some time, my grandfather went there, and my grandmother got a masters degree there as well. My grandparents liked the school so much that they both donated their bodies to the school when they died. We had a secondary small memorial ceremony for them six months after they died, to bury the ashes that were returned to us by the medical school.
Because my family was so excited about the University of Michigan, I was always hearing about Michigan football during the season. I even went to a few games at the giant stadium in Ann Arbor. Michigan, and football fans get really out of control. People drive around with flags on their cars, bars get packed with people during each game, and there is overall a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and support for all the Michigan teams. Our next door neighbors used to hang a giant Michigan flag on their house.
When I moved to California, I still could not escape Michigan football. I moved to Pasadena and since Michigan seemed to be playing in every Rose bowl, I would again see the crazed fans driving by my office and home with flags on their cars. And of course I went to the Rose Bowl to watch my home team play ball. Before each game stealth bombers would fly over the stadium, which was extremely thrilling to watch.
In all my years of working in the legal industry in California I have actually only met a few people who went to Michigan. It is a great school with an awesome law school and many other great programs; however, when I think of the University of Michigan what first comes to mind is football.
For people who grow up in Michigan, attending the University of Michigan is a wonderful thing. Typically attendees have proven themselves as top performing and exceedingly dedicated students. The most spirited new students typically move to a suburb of Detroit and hang a giant flag in front of their house, outfit their car with little flags and then travel to Ann Arbor to go to all of the football games each weekend.
When I got into Michigan, I was excited, but not nearly as excited as I was about getting into the University of Chicago. You see, I had played football in high school but was not that good of a player. In fact, I sat on the sidelines virtually the entire season. The thought of being reminded of football every day really did not appeal to me; it struck me as a depressing reminder of my years as a benchwarmer.
You are probably wondering what any of this has to do with your career and your life. In reality, this has just about everything to do with your career and life. Michigan, like any institution, has a variety of products that it could be known for. It could be known for how smart its students are. It could be known for its strength in math and sciences. It could be known as a school that spawns a lot of important politicians–like Harvard does. It could be known as a place where offbeat humanities types attend–like Reed College. However, what most people think of when they think about the University of Michigan is football. Just football.
Football is so important to a school like Michigan that the donations from its alumni actually increase dramatically when the school does well in the football season. Therefore, the school goes to great lengths to recruit for its football team.
I chose to go to the University of Chicago largely because when I thought about the school, I thought about academics–learning and studying. These were things I was much better at than football, and that appealed to me much more. A funny thing about the University of Chicago is that it had once had one of the greatest teams in college football–until the President of the school, Robert Maynard Hutchins, abolished the team:
Not only did Hutchins buck the dominant trends in philosophy and instruction, he also challenged higher education’s emphasis on intercollegiate football. Hutchins abolished the university’s football team in 1939 because he believed students needed to focus on scholarship and Chicago should play football only if it could remain competitive with major athletic programs. This was a momentous decision as the Maroons were a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and once a national powerhouse under the famed coaching of Amos Alonzo Stagg. In fact, Stagg, who had retired from Chicago in 1933, had been the first coach in the nation to be a tenured professor, and his large athletics’ budget was exempted from normal institutional review. Even as late as 1935, Chicago’s Jay Berwanger became the first Heisman Trophy winner, but by 1939 Chicago’s scoreboard indicated that the glory days had passed, including a 61–0 loss to Harvard. Therefore, despite the legacies, and partly because of them, after much debate the university dropped football. http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2520/University-Chicago.html
Today, there are few people who would think of the University of Chicago and not think of academics and scholarship. This happened because President Hutchins looked at the school and what its product and image should be, and decided that the emphasis needed to be on academics rather than sports. Every school produces a certain sort of product. For example, there is a high proportion of professors and others that come out of the University of Chicago. Michigan’s product is almost certainly more likely to be a football fan, or great athlete, than a professor. Because Michigan’s predominant product is football, a lot of the school’s reputation rests upon having a solid and good football product.
- What would happen if Michigan suddenly had no football team?
- What would happen if Michigan’s football team started losing all of its games?
- What would happen if there were a huge ethical controversy surrounding Michigan football?
If Michigan football went to hell a lot of things would change within the school. There would probably be decreased alumni contributions and all sorts of other issues. The school would no longer be known for the same sort of product, which would have a corresponding impact on the school. Similarly, imagine if Chicago decided it were going to have the best football team out of any college in the United States, and went to extraordinary lengths to recruit players and promote this goal? What sort of effect do you think this would have on the school? I am pretty sure that the academic people at the institution, as well as all the alumni would be pretty upset about this. It would not go over well.
The reason I use this example is because every company, every person and most schools have a particular product that is very strong, for which they are known. Companies and other organizations thrive on their ability to have a strong, defined product. In most instances the successful organization becomes known for one specific thing, and for doing this one specific thing especially well. When an organization tries to have multiple products that are beyond their sphere of influence, things usually end up going badly.
For example, what if Apple, the maker of the IPhone, MacBooks and so forth suddenly decided that it wanted to get into the business of manufacturing All Terrain Vehicles with the Apple logo on them. Say, in addition, that Apple decided that ATVs were where its future was, and that it was going to put a lot of energy into manufacturing ATVs from this day forward.
First of all, the ATVs would probably not be very good because Apple does not have decades of experience manufacturing these machines, like it does making computer devices. In addition, its core customers would suddenly be quite alienated, and would likely stop buying many of its core products, so the company would suffer in this way. Apple would be guilty of manufacturing the wrong product and forgetting what business it was in.
When I was in college I had a girlfriend who was one class year ahead of me. She was exceptionally creative, smart and funny, and had a great overall personality. In her final year of college she interviewed with major advertising agencies and did very well. It was difficult to secure these interviews and call backs with major advertising agencies, but she was able to easily pull it off. The advertising agencies loved her. She ended up taking a job with CBS in the summer, instead of a job with an advertising agency. What the advertising agencies saw in this woman was her creativity, sincerity and the ability to relate to all sorts of people, while being nonjudgmental, and constantly coming up with useful new ideas.
At the same time, she was also interviewing with investment banks and other similar employers. Her friends were all getting jobs with investment banks, and she was getting the cold shoulder from the investment banks. The interviewers would come in very well dressed, professional and so forth–and always be rude to her. The advertising agencies, on the other hand, were very nice to her, and they would come in much less judgmental and even a bit frumpy.
- The advertising agencies did not like my girlfriend’s friends, who secured jobs with investment banks–but they really liked my girlfriend.
- The investment banks really liked my girlfriend’s friends–but they did not like my girlfriend.
“They do not like me because I am too vulnerable and not bitchy enough,” my girlfriend told me one day. “I need to change,” she said.
She was visibly upset about the fact that the banks would not even invite her back for an interview. I knew why this was occurring: She was too much of a free spirit, and too likable. She did not project the sort of authority and confidence that a banker needs to project. A banker is just a different person and a different product than my girlfriend was. She was perfect for advertising because she was flexible, creative, fun loving, and the sort of person who would come up with all sorts of creative ideas and concepts for the advertising agency. Her friends were the exact opposite. They were uptight, inflexible and suspicious of creative thinking. They would have been horrible fits for an advertising firm.
My girlfriend did decide to try and change. She turned from one of the nicest people I had ever known into a “bitch” virtually overnight. It did not suit her at all because deep down she was not the sort of person she was trying to be. She was trying to be a different product–and more like her friends who got jobs in the investment banks. When she tried to be bitchy it just did not work out right. Because it was not part of her natural personality, she was often incredibly rude to people and burned bridges. Unfortunately this whole transformation ended up alienating me too, and a wonderful relationship that had looked like it was headed for marriage was soon over. All because she tried to change her product–and who she was.
The worst thing a person or a company can do is lose sight of what its product is. My girlfriend, for example, decided that she wanted to be a different product and it simply did not work. Organizations and people lose sight of what their product is all the time. The idea of what is your product is something that is of profound significance to your career and life, and losing sight of your product is one of the greatest causes of failure.
For several years I have run a legal recruiting firm, and I have hired and managed close to if not more than 100 recruiters over the years. In the legal recruiting field the product is the candidates that the recruiters represent and send out to law firms. There is really no other product besides the people that the recruiting firm represents. Due to this product being a person, in order for the recruiters to earn money they need to:
- have good products and
- have a lot of high quality products and
- have customers (in this case the customers are law firms who are willing to hire the candidates)
In order to be a successful recruiter, the recruiter needs to have a product, and to have many products they can sell. As long as the recruiter ensures this, and nothing more, he or she will generally be in good shape. However, it is very common for recruiters to forget what their product is. They may spend their days talking on the phone, and not sending candidates out to law firms. Or they may go out to numerous lunches and have all sorts of meetings with attorneys and others, but never send out a product. None of what they are doing is really related to what their business is really about–even though they may think so. They get incredibly distracted and stop concentrating on their product. It is very easy for me to tell when a recruiter is going to fail. All I need to do is examine how many products they have (i.e., candidates), and whether or not they are doing anything with these products (i.e., sending the candidates out to law firms). Assuming the recruiter is doing this, the person will rarely have problems making placements–and a good living. It is as simple as this.
One of the most unusual cases of a recruiter failing I ever observed was of an extremely talented recruiter at our firm several years ago. He related well to the people and candidates, who liked him very much. However, this recruiter never sent a candidate out to a law firm unless he was nearly 100% confident that the law firm would interview his candidate. He did not want to get rejected by the law firm. Because of this one characteristic the recruiter probably only made 20% of the placements he could have made. In this case, the recruiter’s failure to produce was more related to his ego (his not wanting get rejected) than anything else. Because the product of his efforts was so strongly tied to his ego, this particular recruiter did far worse in his job than he could have done.
You need to keep your product in clear view at all times. There is nothing more important than the product you are offering and you need to know what that product is. Imagine, for example, if you were a professional rock star and then you decided that your true calling was also to be a painter and a public speaker. The odds are that these other products would unnecessarily occupy your time and also make your original, highly valued product (a rock star) suffer. This exact sort of thing is extremely common and happens more often than you might think.
You need to know what your product is. You also need to be working for an organization that has a product and knows what it is. I personally have made a number of mistakes in terms of not understanding our companies’ products in the past, and this has hurt me and the people inside the organization. Several years ago our company was doing incredibly well in the student loan business and I hired all sorts of people for money losing products that were unrelated to student loans, such as educational seminars and other things. The new products were unrelated to what the company’s strength was at the time, and they did not endure. Every company and organization needs to know exactly what its product is and make sure it is promoting the right product. Our strong product in this instance was “student loans”–and we should have stuck to promoting this only.
An organization, or person, cannot be strong when it is trying to promote the wrong product. Random products or a lack of concentration on the right products leads nowhere. Everything is about supply and demand: What products can be exchanged that have economic value? The money coming into a company generally comes in due to some sort of product or service being offered, which must be of some value. The money does not flow in due to the gossip at the water cooler, the long lunches, the screwing around with ideas that the company will never use, the Internet surfing and so forth. The product itself comes from something that is important–a need that people have, which the company can fulfill in a unique way.
You cannot succeed without a product, or without offering a product that people want. Never lose sight of what product you are offering, what your strength is, and what makes you unique. Concentrate your efforts on delivering the product, and delivering it effectively–not the distractions that will inevitably emerge along the way.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars. 
