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| Step one: Put your glasses on. |
Some people are indeed born smarter than others — it's genetics.
But that doesn't mean you can't appear to look more intelligent.
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
If you’re someone who works in an office environment, or even someone who’s always in and out of meetings for one reason or the other, you know how hard it is to schedule meetings. You probably email or message back and forth to decide the date, venue, and time. Along the way there’s some miscommunication and you end up jumping around like you’re trying to put out a fire.
Image via Shutterstock.
When I think about how difficult it is for some people to do a simple thing like scheduling a meeting, this scene from Up in the Air comes to mind.
Opening up your calendar, checking and rechecking, sending messages, this might be all too familiar to you.
All this unnecessary back and forth, and for what? Better to avoid the awkward conversations and use computers to do the dirty business for us. Pleasantries are optional.
So today we’ll talk about tools that make this a bit easier for you.
1. Sunrise Meet
Sunrise is already one of the best calendar apps out there. They now have a new keyboard (via an update in the Sunrise app) that’s going to make scheduling easy for you. Yes, a keyboard. The premise is that using a custom keyboard that you can pull up anywhere is immensely helpful. And it is.
Just open the app on which you’re going to contact the person, whether chat or email, bring up the Sunrise Meet keyboard on iOS or Android and select time slots favorable to you. The default is 1-hour chunks, but you can change that. Pick a venue and the app will generate a link for you.
Send this link to the person you’re meeting and they’ll be able to reply to you even if they don’t use Sunrise. All they need to do is select one of the times you suggested, or suggest another time. Once that’s done, the event will be added to your calendar. Easy peasy.
2. Pick
Pick is a process-based iOS app that currently only supports Gmail (iCloud and Exchange support is incoming). You start out by picking a contact, the time length, day, and then send the invitation with the venue details.
3. Mixmax Chrome Extension for Gmail
Mixmax is a Chrome extension for Gmail’s web interface that everyone who’s working their asses off should be using. It’s just going to make your life so much better. One of the features in Mixmax is the Availability section. You block off a time frame, select a venue, give it a title, and send the link to the opposite party. They’ll see the link, and when they agree with the time, the event will be added to your calendar.
4. Calendly
Calendly is a web app with Gmail integration that takes scheduling a meeting to a whole new level. You can specify the time, select different time frames, and even ask custom questions to the person you’re inviting.
Also, check out Meekan.
How Do You Manage Your Time?
How do you juggle things every day? Share with us in the comments below.
LinkedIn Influencer John Byrne published this post originally on LinkedIn.
Operations? That sounds like a lot of work.
Sure is. It isn't as glamorous as leadership. You're not psychoanalyzing the customer to death like marketing. Unlike finance, operations people aren't heralded as company saviors. In fact, you're often taken for granted in operations. I mean, isn't closing the sale the hard part?
Afraid not. In reality, getting a product from point A to point B is the real work. It seems simple enough. You just call "the guy" and he picks up the order. And you can wipe your hands of it, right? Not exactly.
For starters, you need to know the metrics to staff your operations. And there are so many questions. How many orders do you get each day? When does demand spike — and how you deploy resources to absorb that? What steps are required to fulfill an order —and can you configure your location to maximize speed and efficiency? How much stock should you maintain — and where?
Yes, operations is the science of juggling variables, containing costs, and mitigating risk. It can encompass production, modeling, storage, logistics, and service. Like any science, there is also an art to creating systems that eliminate bottlenecks and redundancies. And that's particularly true when designing an operation for scale.
In a new MOOC, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management integrates the science and art of operations. It's also co-taught by a master teacher, Gad Allon, who is among Poets&Quants' Top 40 Professors Under 40. On March 30th, it launches "Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution."
Here, students can master that elusive and intricate balancing act that is the foundation of operations. Scale too fast and you could skyrocket costs without an accompanying return. Scale too slow and you'll quickly be outflanked by more nimble competitors.
Forget stale PowerPoints. Unlike many MOOCs, the course will be driven by case studies, no different than a Kellogg MBA course. Even more, students will receive data from Kellogg's corporate partners, so they can develop models and make decisions based on what they'd encounter in the world. With the boundaries between operations and c-suite functions fading, it pays for leaders to learn exactly how operations can become a true differentiator in their firm.
And that's not all. This month, MIT will also apply the case study method to help learners understand how data analytics can help them better understand their customers and potential gaps and opportunities. For aspiring bankers, the University of Chicago is launching the second half of its asset pricing course, giving students a taste of what it's like to study at one of the premier finance schools in the world. This is a chance to study for six weeks under one of Booth's superstar professors, John Cochrane, who literally wrote the book on asset pricing.
For a more international perspective, Italy's best business school, SDA Bocconi, is offering a free MOOC on international leadership and organizational behavior, to help student navigate cultural minefields. And the University of Strathclyde provides a futurist perspective on business, examining how the knowledge economy, technology, ethics, and globalization are re-shaping the roles and challenges facing organizations.
And if you have never tried out a MOOC and would like to sample one this next month without having to do demanding statistics or accounting, check out Cornell University's American Capitalism: A History.
Over the eight-week course, which requires about four hours a week, two of Cornell's historians teach the early beginnings of capitalism and how it has been shaped by favorable global trends, technological innovations, unique cultural values, millions of success individual stories…and dumb luck. As one reviewer put it: "It is a history not just of American capitalism but a history of America. The profs themselves were fun and easy to listen to and discussed history with an enthusiasm that was inspiring."
In addition, you'll find courses covering content strategy, entrepreneurship and job hunting this March. To learn more about these courses — and register for them — click on the links below.
Sitting all day at work is dangerous. So if you're like me, stubbornly refusing to try a trendy standing desk (or treadmill desk!), then you may as well sit properly.
Fortunately, there are some science-backed tweaks to your desk set-up and posture that can dramatically improve your health and happiness. Though to ease your eyes and back, remember to still get up and walk around every so often.
Even though the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator personality test is controversial, it’s still extremely popular in today’s business world.
It tests four behavioral binaries to come up with 16 distinctive personality types. To give you an idea of how important it is, 80% of the Fortune 500 companies and 89 of the Fortune 100 companies use it to analyze their employees.
The Career Assessment Site created a helpful infographic to show what the strengths and weaknesses of each type as well as how common your personality type is and average household income.
First take the test to see which type you get, and then check out the infographic below.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/traits-of-every-myers-brigg-personality-2015-2#ixzz3RkgXJNKj
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| A resume that shows why every accomplishment matters will help you land more interviews. |
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how keenly we believe there’s no such thing as a generic or one-size-fits-all resume. We’ve seen how such a resume has an almost zero chance of getting you that job search holy grail: a job interview.
If your resume is to be powerfully persuasive, it must speak directly to its intended reader. Its effectiveness hinges on how well it answers the following critical concern: What are the positive results of your work performance? Put more plainly: Why do your professional accomplishments matter?
Note that:
- It doesn’t matter if you led a global team of 50 sales professionals… if said team missed its sales goals.
- It doesn’t matter if you designed and built a website for a Fortune 500 client… if it generated no additional site traffic or sales leads.
- It doesn’t matter if you wrote up 400 pages of business requirements… if no one used them.
- It doesn’t matter if you trained new hires… if those new hires were unable to do their jobs properly.
Don’t let your potential employers have any reason to doubt your competence.
Here is a “before and after” example that demonstrates the importance of emphasizing the positive in your resume. Consider this resume bullet point:
Oversaw purchase and organization-wide training/adoption of a client-management system.
Sure, it’s impressive that you were responsible for purchasing the system and getting everyone to use it, but nothing in this bullet shows why it matters.
Instead, how about this:
Oversaw purchase and organization-wide training/adoption of a client-management system that realized 90% adoption (from among 10,000 employees) and a full return-on-investment within nine months of procurement; system resulted in a 20% increase in repeat business and a 50% increase in productivity.
This is the information your reader needs to see to properly evaluate your prowess. It shows them not only what you did, but how well you did it.
Job seekers tend to assume that if you insert a rudimentary list of tasks on a resume, the recipient will automatically fill in the blanks — and in your favor. But how would the reader do that? Why should the reader do that?
Without putting too fine a point on it, it’s better to assume that any hiring person you contact has the innocence of a five-year-old child. (Click here to tweet this thought.) Pretend you’re relating a story and you’re its hero. You wouldn’t tell the story of Superman by simply pointing out that the guy can fly and see through walls. You’d also describe the evil villains he brought to justice and the potential earth-wide catastrophes he was able to prevent. You likewise need to describe your past glories in jaw-dropping detail (without, of course, stretching too far from the truth).
Such a recounting will not only make your reader’s eyes light up, but will distinguish you from the hundreds of blasé resumes sent from third-tier superheroes.
Pay your bills, respect your neighbors, and please hide your weed. Please.
Sometimes the landlord/tenant relationship can be a difficult one. But it does not have to be that way, and it certainly does not have to start out that way. As landlords, we try to get this relationship off to a good start and keep it that way by taking care of our properties and tenant concerns.
But some tenants, perhaps due to past experiences, prepare for the worst and thus approach the relationship ready for a fight. Maybe they have never had a decent landlord. Maybe some just do not know how to act. Whatever the reason, here are 14 tips from our 12 years as landlords to tenants everywhere for a decent landlord/tenant relationship.
1. Pay your bills on time. Seems fairly obvious, I know, but many tenants believe they can pay every other bill before they pay the rent. Want to stay on our good side? Please pay your rent on time.
2. Always try to be polite. I will, too. Being polite and calm really does go a long way. You would not like it if I left you snarky or angry screaming messages on your voicemail. I know sometimes issues can seem to linger on and on, but we really are doing our best to get things resolved.
3. Listen to our instructions. We tell you things for a reason. If we show you how to trip a breaker or turn a gas valve off, listen. It may just save your butt. If we tell you there will be a hard freeze tonight and to please let your faucet drip, don’t call us the next day and complain that your pipes have frozen and you need to do laundry. I can’t control the weather, so you will just have to wait until it warms up.
4. Help us. We try to take care of our properties, but we can’t be everywhere all the time. Is there something we need to know about? Tell us. Is something broken? Let us know. Help us by being our eyes and ears.
5. Tell the truth. Did you or your kid flush something down the toilet and stop it up? Then tell us the truth so we can get the problem resolved as quickly as possible. After a dozen years in this business, we can almost always determine the culprit anyway.
6. Please just leave me a message. If we do not answer your call, do not hang up and call over and over again. There are times we simply cannot take your call. How do you think we are going to feel when we finally answer you after you have called five times in a row? It had better be a matter of life or death.
7. Understand that we have a lot going on. Sometimes other tenant’s issues may take priority. We know about your issue, and we will get to it just as soon as we can. We might for example need to make sure everyone has heat before taking care of your dripping bathroom sink.
8. If you get in a bind, talk to us. Communication is key! Tell us what is going on. Did you lose your job? Has your roommate gone off the deep end? We have been there before, and we know what it is like. But if you do not talk to us, there is no way we can help you. Please do not put your head in the sand and hope whatever problem you are having will go away. It will not, and things will only get worse.
9. Treat my property and the people who do work for me with respect. You would not believe how many people are just plain rude to the people we send over to try and fix their problems. Plus, how do you think we are going to react if we see that your place is a mess or that you are causing damage? Disrespecting our properties or our help is a sure way to create an adversarial relationship.
10. Work with me. We know you have a busy schedule. So do we, and trust us, we want your issue resolved as quickly as possible too because we have a dozen or so more to deal with. It all goes much easier if you work with us on times and arrangements. You might have to put up your dog for a day or allow us into your apartment on your day off. We hate to disturb you, but we will be done and out of your hair just as soon as we can.
11. Trust me. We are not going to steal your stuff or try and stiff you. Yes, we know some landlords might, but not us. If we say we need to get into your home, it is for a legitimate reason.
12. Follow the rules. They are there for a reason. They were explained to you when you moved in, and you agreed to follow them. It just makes life harder for all of us if you choose to ignore them. If you could not live with the rules, then you should not have moved in.
13. Respect your neighbors. Would you appreciate a loud party the night before you need to make a major presentation at work or before your final exams? No, you would not. Remember that you live in an apartment building, and you have neighbors — sometimes very close neighbors. Think about how your actions might affect them. I’m not saying do not have any fun; just try to be considerate.
14. Hide your weed. Just please do this. It is technically against your lease, and you really never know when there will be an emergency and who will need to access your place.
A lot of the above is just common courtesy and common sense. But for those few — and you know who you are — please review and follow the above and let’s make your stay with us as pleasant as possible.
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| Bill Gates. |
I blew the mind of one of my Babson College students this morning.
Like most people, he believes that success is measured by how much money you have and how much money you make. By that measure, no single individual is the world's most successful.
After all, Bill Gates — who has an estimated net worth of $79 billion, according to Forbes — probably has the most money, but I sincerely doubt he makes the most money every year.
That title probably goes to a hedge fund manager. For example, Ray Dalio — who runs the $120 billion (assets under management) Bridgewater Associates — pulled in a cool $3 billion in personal earnings last year, according to Forbes.
But if you believe success means both having the highest net worth and getting paid the most every year, then neither Gates nor Dalio is successful.
That's because the pursuit of the most wealth or the highest annual income is success only if you keep winning every year. Otherwise, you are going to spend time trying to figure out how you can get to be No. 1 — rather than taking pleasure in what you have achieved.
Simply put, unless you're top dog, the unpleasant view never changes.
It is for this reason that somewhere along the way, I figured out a different definition of success — success is controlling how you spend your time — that blew the mind of my student this morning.
Just to be clear: I am not declaring a vow of poverty. In fact, I believe that for many people, controlling how to spend their time is the kind of success they can achieve only after they have earned enough money that they no longer have to worry about paying their bills.
Many people never achieve that level of financial security. But I do not believe that a net worth of $80 billion is necessary to get to the point where you can cover your likely future obligations.
If you get there by doing what you want to be doing and it makes you happy, then I consider you successful.
But if you get there by working a grinding job that pays well but makes you miserable, then you need to stop and ask yourself whether you should get off the hamster wheel and figure out what you really want to be doing with your life.
My advice to the student was to think about what he has enjoyed doing in the past and what has been less interesting to him. Based on that self-assessment, I suggested that he should make some guesses about what he would like to do.
He should then apply three tests to those hypotheses:
- Am I passionate about the work?
- Am I one of the world's best at doing this work?
- Will the market compensate me well enough for it?
Generally, people do not know whether, say, investment banking, consulting, running a startup, or asset management will satisfy all these tests.
Therefore, I advise students to seek out informational interviews with people in those fields. The networking practice they get in trying to set up these interviews will be inherently valuable.
Once they set up such interviews, I advise them to ask people how they would answer the three above questions.
For example, in the informational interviews, students might ask the following:
- In your company, are there people who are really passionate about their work? What do they do differently than those who are mostly there to pay their bills?
- In your field, what are the key things that the most talented people do that differ from the ones who are merely competent?
- Is the compensation that people receive in this field satisfying or frustrating? What is the difference between people in your company who feel fairly compensated and the rest?
If students conduct 10 to 15 such interviews, they should be able to assess whether they would be happy working with people in that field.
And it would be even better for them if those informational interviews led to internships that would allow them to immerse themselves more fully in those fields.
To my mind, my students will achieve success only when they are happy in their work — and to do that, they must be passionate about it, excel in their field, and receive positive recognition from the market.
I don't know Gates or Dalio, but it seems to me that they control how they spend their time — and the money is just a nice thing that comes along with that.
Don't hold a beer.
People often do idiotic things after they've had too many drinks.
No wonder that even holding a beer makes you look less intelligent, according to a joint study by the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania.
"People who hold an alcoholic beverage are perceived to be less intelligent than those who do not, a mistake we term the imbibing idiot bias," write authors Scott Rick and Maurice Schweitzer.
Walk at the same speed as everybody else.
A study led by Boston University marketing professor Carey Morewedge found that "people use speed of movement to infer the presence of mind ... in other persons."
So if you walk faster — or slower — than the people around you, they think you're stupid.
Put on thick glasses.
Research suggests that if you're wearing glasses, you'll appear less attractive but more intelligent.
Moreover, the kind of glasses matters: Thick, blocky frames make you look smarter than thin ones.
Go hipster, look smart.
Use a middle initial.
It'll make you seem intellectual.
"People's middle initials have a particular and powerful effect on how people are perceived by others," say psychologists Wijnand A.P. Van Tilburg of the University of Southampton and Eric R. Igou of the University of Limerick.
"The display of middle initials increases the perceived social status of these people," they write in the European Journal of Social Psychology, and it "positively biases inferences about their intellectual capacity and performance."
Write simply.
Showing off your vocabulary has long been a go-to tactic for looking smart.
But verbosity backfires.
A 2012 Princeton study — with the fitting title "Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly" — found that clumsily using big words causes people to think you're less intelligent.
Use graphs.
A 2014 study by Cornell researchers Aner Tal and Brian Wansink suggests that people are more likely to believe a claim if it "looks and smells" scientific, such as if it's accompanied by a graph.
"The prestige of science appears to grant persuasive power even to such trivial science-related elements as graphs," Tal and Wansink write.
Speak expressively.
Monotone sounds dull.
"If two speakers utter exactly the same words, but one speaks a little faster and louder and with fewer pauses and greater variation in volume, that speaker will be judged to be more energetic, knowledgeable, and intelligent," writes Leonard Mlodinow, author of "Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior." "Expressive speech, with modulation in pitch and volume, and a minimum of noticeable pauses, boosts credibility and enhances the impression of intelligence."
Look people in the eye.
A 2007 study lead by Loyola Marymount University professor Nora A. Murphy found that looking your conversation partner in the eye was huge for your perceived smartness.
"Looking while speaking was a key behavior," she wrote. "It significantly correlated with IQ, was successfully manipulated by impression-managing targets, and contributed to higher perceived intelligence ratings."
Dress smartly.
Studies have found that the clothes we wear shape others' perceptions of our capability:
Plus, a 2012 Northwestern study found that people wearing white lab coats — as scientists and doctors are known to do — score higher on tests requiring lots of concentration.
"The clothes we wear have power not only over others," write authors Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky, "but also over ourselves."
Now that you're smart, get impressive.
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| David Beckham knows how to present himself. Do you? |
If you're going to get anywhere in business, you need people to take you seriously.
According to the research, you can increase your credibility with the right presentation, knowledge, and people skills.
Let people talk about themselves.
Here's a secret to making a good impression: Let people talk about themselves.
According to Harvard research, talking about yourself stimulates the same brain regions as sex or a good meal.
"Activation of this system when discussing the self suggests that self-disclosure ... may be inherently pleasurable," Scientific American reports.
And when people talk about their experiences, they become more vulnerable to one another, and when they become more vulnerable to one another, they form social bonds and coinvest in one another's welfare.
Dress the part.
"Appearance is our first filter," says Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of the book "Executive Presence." "And it's happening all the time."
Princeton researchers have found that it takes about 100 milliseconds to register a first impression, or as long as a hummingbird flaps its wings.
"The really good news here is that it's about polish, grooming, and being put together," Hewlett says. "It's not about the precise shape of your body, texture of your hair, or the designer you wear."
You don't have to wear a gray suit all the time, she says. Instead, pay attention to how the best-dressed people in your organization and industry put themselves together, then pattern after them.
Master the handshake.
A strong handshake isn't a matter of squeezing somebody's paw.
It's a matter of presence.
Esquire's Tom Chiarella details how to exude it:
On the street, in the lobby, square your shoulders to people you meet. Make a handshake matter — eye contact, good grip, elbow erring toward a right angle. Do not pump the hand, unless the other person is insistent on just that. Then pump the hell out of their hand. Smile. If you can't smile, you can't be gracious. You aren't some dopey English butler. You are you.
A handshake like that shows that you're paying respect to the person you're talking to, and as science has confirmed, giving respect gets respect.
Keep your posture expansive.
Your posture has a huge effect on the way you feel, the way you present yourself, and how other people receive your presence.
For instance, if you do the standard "power pose" of keeping your shoulders open and arms wide, that will tell your hormone system to release the chemicals needed to make you look and feel more confident.
"If you take an expansive pose, it can actually lead to power," MIT professor Andy Yap tells Business Insider.
Know what's going on in the world.
The best-selling game developer Valve likes to hire "T-shaped" employees, meaning they have deep expertise in one area coupled with interest across a range of subjects.
That pattern can be expanded to anybody's career.
If you work in business, then "be up to speed on changes in your industry so you can speak about them intelligently," says Roberta Matuson. The "Suddenly in Charge" author recommends reading business news daily "so you can speak intelligently on business matters."
But you need a broad base of knowledge, too — so keep up with science, tech, and popular culture.
To improve your reading habits, read this.
Be ridiculously prepared.
"Ignorance is one of the professional world's least respectable traits — if not the worst," Roberto Rocha writes at AskMen. "If you want your ideas to count, be better informed than everyone else."
In other words, you need to develop a ridiculously deep knowledge of your subject area.
Executives like Marissa Mayer and Elon Musk are known for pulling apart any idea that gets pitched their way. Count on the pitches you make to be scrutinized, and have your arguments prepared ahead of time.
It's a matter of "embodying your intellectual horsepower," says Hewlett.
Tell people stories.
Numbers impress — but they're not enough to connect with people.
Take it from TED Talks: The most successful presentations are about 65% stories and 25% figures, with the remainder an explanation of your credibility.
Sheryl Sandberg realized this just before giving her groundbreaking TED Talk in 2010.
"I was planning to give a speech chock full of facts and figures, and nothing personal," she said in an interview.
But before she went on stage, a friend stopped her, saying that she looked out of sorts. Sandberg said that as she was leaving home that day, her daughter was tugging at her leg, asking her not to go.
Why not tell that story, her friend asked her. Sandberg listened — and launched a movement.
Watch your tone.
If you say a statement with the intonation of a question, that's called "upspeak."
If you're ending your sentences with a higher tone than you began with, then you'll sound unsure of what you're saying — even if you're really not.
In a recent survey, 57% of 700 professionals said that they think that upspeak makes people sound less credible.
"The numbers speak for themselves," says strategy consultant Bernard Marr. "Upspeak has no place at work. If you would like a thriving career, then simply don't do it!"
Stay confident — and humble.
Venture capitalist and "Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck: What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur and Build a Great Business" coauthor Anthony K. Tjan says that garnering respect requires marrying humility to confidence.
"You need enough self-confidence to command the respect of others, but that needs to be counter-balanced with knowing that there is much you simply don't know," he writes. "Humility is the path towards earning respect, while self-confidence is the path towards commanding it."
Bonus: The more you know what you don't know, the more eager you'll be to learn.
