Buffalo, Funerals and Assumptions

I spent the past three weeks in Indonesia and got an amazing reminder that what is important to someone else might just not be obvious to me.  We stopped in on a two-week funeral ceremony in Tana Toraja on the island of Sulawesi.

The event had taken two years to plan since the death. The hundreds of extended family and friends had come from far and wide, taking big chunks of time off work. That itself had taken a while to get together, but most of all they had needed time to find the appropriate buffaloes to slaughter (about 30 in all were required for this ceremony - also countless pigs): one with extra long horns, a white one, a spotted one, one with one horn up and one horn down and so on.  The deceased had remained in the house for the duration of this planning, with food and cigarettes being provided daily. 

This all made perfect sense to our guide, a wonderful man with whom outwardly we had seemed to have so much in common. 

Note to self (and to you dear reader) it always behoves us to open our minds to what could be important to those with whom we have dealings.  We should not make assumptions, it might not be what we expect.  Even if we know they need a buffalo - did we really understand that they were holding out for one with blue eyes?

A bit of a stretch, do I hear you say? Well maybe. But the idea is valid and how many other blogs do you read with buffalo pix in them?  Here is your correspondent at the weekly Rantepau buffalo market - where the deals get done.

Q+A: How to approach an interview

Cynopsis: Classified Advantage
11.30.10

~ ASK THE EXPERTS ~
Questions from our Readers
Answered by Michael Pollock

Q: I enjoy your contributions to Cynopsis and I have a question for you or your experts on the interview itself, three times I've had what I thought were great interviews with the potential employer saying to me "You're perfect, sounds great and we'll contact you" and then I hear crickets. The only feedback I've gotten is that they know I have the job skills, experience, etc but they didn't get to "know me." I am not certain what I'm doing wrong since I doubt they really want to hear about how I have two kids, two mortgages, blah blah blah and I also am not certain why they don't just thank me for coming in instead of going out of their way to say I'm "perfect" and "love your energy" and then nothing. Perhaps some advice on the best way to wrap up an interview or to leave a good impression?

A: You are right; they don't want to hear about your mortgages.  My suspicion is that you are presenting the right information about yourself but not in a sufficiently personal and engaging manner. They want to know how you'll fit in, how you'll go about what you have to do.

Try telling little stories about the projects you have done and use them to illustrate your obsessiveness, or passion or how well you led a particular team or how you overcame some specific set of obstacles.  Think about these stories as something that only you could tell.  They should demonstrate something about how you approach your work and your co-workers. These are the things that help them to get to know you.  Having the qualifications and experience is only half the battle:  do you have a sense of humor, are you curious, do you pay attention to detail and so on?  These are qualities that fall into the "knowing you" category. 

As you leave, you could say "I really enjoyed this interview, and I learned a lot from it ... in fact I am going to follow up on such and such a thing and will get back to you with what I discover."  This is not a script, but an attitude that says so much about you.  But of course  make it your own, otherwise it won't work.

Defining Career Goals and Making Choices

Having a goal is critical to your career.  Not just the short termism of getting through today’s to-do list or the default goal of not getting fired.  But the longer term vision of where you would like to find yourself in five years or so. Would you like to be working for yourself?  Would you like to be traveling the world?  Would you like to own the company you work for?  Would you like to have your boss’s job?

If you have a long list of dreams and are confused, I recommend using the prioritizer: http://tinyurl.com/rx2o7 to help you see which ones rise to the top.

Once you have settled on something, then every day think about what you can do in the next 24 hours to advance towards your chosen goal. If travel is your dream, be investigating which overseas offices or clients.  If promotion is your goal then figure out who is in charge of that decision and what you think they might be looking for in their next upgrade.  If a career change is on your mind, then do the research, learn about the new business, build your network, polish your chops, get the qualification to get you moving in the right direction.

Clarity about your goal will make many things easier for you.  When you are faced with more than one option, you have a basis for deciding: by considering which one moves you further in the direction you want to go.  Having a goal will help you from the moment you get up in the morning to decide what is important and which choice to make.

If you have a job that isn’t challenging you, challenge yourself.  Even if your client or boss is not demanding, you can surely come up with some spin on your work that will make it more relevant to where your interests lie and move you closer to your goal.  Pick challenges that will make you smarter, more marketable, more relevantly experienced.  All with an eye on where you want to get to.

So here is the actionable part of this column where I ask you to write down your goal.  Your  “What-do-I-want-to-be-doing-in-five-years” goal.  Yes, write it down.  Interesting how it changes and focuses itself when you aren’t just holding it somewhere in the back of your mind, where it never quite formed into anything beyond “I want to be happy and in charge of my destiny”. And don’t panic, it can change  – don’t feel you are going to be trapped by it.

If you are always working towards your goal, then you will find satisfaction and maintain your drive. If you are just trying to stay afloat each day, then that is the best you can hope for.  Get yourself a goal and work yourself towards it.  It is fun, productive and so very much more satisfying than drifting.

The importance of listening

~ ACTIONABLE EXPERT ADVICE ~
First Published in Cynopsis Classified Advantage


One of the most important skills you should use in your job search is listening carefully, both literally and metaphorically. You have to listen to your friends when they tell you about opportunities. You have to listen to your bosses and clients to learn about your strengths and weaknesses. You have to listen to your heart to know what you really want to pursue.

You especially have to listen to the wording of the job ad. What does it actually say they are looking for? You have to listen closely to the recruiter and to your interviewer.

You will already have invested large chunks of time developing your own unique positioning to separate you from the pack. You have probably crafted yourself a script for your elevator meetings, a template for your cover letter, a set of anecdotes for your interview. And all this as it should be. If you have thought it all through and internalized it and what it means, it will do its magic for you. But if you are determined to stick to your script willy-nilly this investment might all be for nought.

Listen carefully to what is said and also between the lines to what is unsaid. And that means listening not only in the moment of the interview, but it means listening to the research you will have done in advance. Listen to what the company says on the website. Listen to the story the recruiter tells you about the job. Listen to the LinkedIn profile of your interviewer. Take it all in and frame your responses and approaches accordingly.

If you are safely in a job but aspire to a promotion or a new assignment, listen to your boss, to your co-workers, to the press so that you can create the opportunity and be there as the obvious person to fill it. This comes not just from wanting it  and telling your boss "I want the bigger title," but from asking the right questions of the right people and listening to what is needed, so you can tell them you will provide just that.

People like to be listened to. They like to be heard. They do not like to be ignored. So tell them you heard them by responding directly and positively to something they said. Don' t stick to a script  be ready to improvise. If they feel you have not listened to them, or worse yet responded with a " No, " they will shut down and they will not listen to you. Listening keeps you relevant and smart. Their awareness of your listening to them keeps them engaged with you. I can' t stress this enough.

Successful job hunt

I received this today from a recent Coaching client and thought I would share it.

Dear Michael,

I did it -- got a job!!!!  I can hardly believe it.  Never would have happened without your coaching, seriously.

In a tough market this experienced professional had almost given up hope of working again, so this news is especially welcome. 

Q+A: LinkedIn profiles and personality

As published in Cynopsis Classified Advantage
~ ASK THE EXPERTS ~
Questions from our Readers
Answered by Michael Pollock

Q: Recently, I lost my job due to my company's financial state. Downsizing was a must, and I, unfortunately, got the cut. The thing is, it was almost a blessing in disguise. After leaving, I was happier, not something you'd expect after losing one's job. After re- evaluating my industry and the role I played, in the pursuit of happiness, I have decided to career change. It's not been easy, as the unstructured freedom during the work-week has lost a little bit of it's glitter, but I still think I'm heading in the right direction. I have chosen a new career path, but my question is this: how can I make my Linkedin profile reflect my career change? I of course want to put down all of my prior work experience, however, I also want to prove that I can do another job and that my skills translate. If I post my past experience, won't a potential employer think, why would I hire this person from X industry, when we're looking for someone who has experience in Y industry? Does that make sense? Please let me know what you would recommend.

A: I suggest you think very carefully about the skills and experience that will be desirable in your new career. Consider the needs of your potential new employer and find the angle on your past that could be relevant and persuasive. Make the fact of the change and your prior experience an added value. Use the summary section to express this  emphasizing the relevant and unique strengths that come from your rich background in other fields that makes you a stronger candidate than the pack of straight-liners you'll be competing with. Reframe the skills section as well as the details on all your prior positions to support your new positioning. Certain things that were awesome in your old field may have to be dropped because they are no longer relevant, or worse, contradict your new story. With a strong but unusual background, you are most likely to appeal to a smart employer who thinks outside the envelope, and that is likely to be someone you would want to work for.


Q: I find that LinkedIn is so business oriented, that it doesn't have much opportunity for one's personality to come through. Is this a good thing? Or is there something I can do with my account to make it seem less like a cover letter and resume, and reflect other aspects of my life?

A: LinkedIn is primarily a source for business connections. If you really want to express your entire personality in a social media setting, Facebook may be a better vehicle for you.

That said, on LinkedIn, the writing style you use for your summary section is an important way to let your personality shine through. Casual, jargony, straightforward, insightful  all these attributes will tell your reader something important. Different employers and industries have different codes and standards. The formal, passive writing style that appeals to academe is anathema to media people.

Another way to express your personality is through the updates you can post near the top of your profile, though do bear your target audience in mind when you update and remember what qualities they are looking for. By all means if it supports your business case you can mention your hobbies or other interests. If you are an ex-Marine, or a nonprofit board member for example these could certainly be important to include.

But do be sure not to make it look as if your eye will always be on the clock and your mind not on the job.

Don't forget LinkedIn for your job search

This article first appeared in Cynopsis Classified Advantage

~ ACTIONABLE EXPERT ADVICE ~
By Michael Pollock


I am sure you are well established on LinkedIn, but are you using it effectively in your job search? It is just too easy for us to let it sit there passively in the background, but there are some simple and effective ways to extract value.

Start by connecting to as many people as you can think of. Duh! But I am sure there are some you have missed. Don' t just think of people who might hire you...connect to people you once worked with. Connect to people who worked for you. Connect to people who might know someone who could help you in the future. Look closely at who is connected to your connections; I know you will have several, " Oh, yes. I had forgotten about her!" moments.

I was working today with a filmmaker who has been specializing in medical topics. He is going to see his dentist in a couple of weeks. This dentist goes to medical conferences and knows lots of people who might need film. What if he was on LinkedIn? What if some of his professional connections wanted film made for their professional associations? What if they worked for pharmaceutical companies? Sounds like a valuable connection for this filmmaker. Who are the equivalents in your field?

Another excellent use: as you look at job ads on Cynopsis Classified Advantage or other boards, note the companies who seem to have good opportunities for you. Then search those companies on LinkedIn  there is a drop down menu on the search field that lets you search for people or for companies. See if anyone from those firms knows anyone that you know. Then email your friend and ask to be introduced. I recommend not using the automated LinkedIn introduction tool  make the request something more personal. So now you can network your way into the hiring company and do your research and make the connections you need to get you in there.

Does your LinkedIn headline clearly indicate your value to a hirer? As with all communications  each piece needs to make the reader want more. Does your summary give a clear expression of what you offer and engagingly differentiate you from all the others? Does your chronology include experience and specifics that support and flesh out your summary? Does your specialty list include all the keywords that recruiters might use in a job search?

As with so many of these online systems there are depths that I never plumb, and I' m not taking you there. But start with the easy-to-use pieces; get them working together guided by your constant attention and research and insight. It really is an adventure, a voyage of exploration. Keep poking around and you will find valuable connections you never knew you had and see more and more ways to get your carefully constructed message into the right hands.

Read This!

I was asked by another media business newsletter to put together a reading list for the end of summer.  I share it with you here - as the summer draws on and all those things we have put off until after Labor Day are starting to loom! 

Summer reading is a wonderful thing. I have read in tents high up in Yosemite, on a cruise from Venice, on the beach at Bridgehampton, and on a bench in Central Park. Out of your routine, your mind is attuned to pay extra attention and reap fresh insights. Here are some ideas for the last precious days of this summer.

1. How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. Perhaps this is the first book you should pick up as it delves fascinatingly into the processes our minds go through when we are - for example – deciding which book to pick up next. It tells you that in an MIT test, a group of stock investors with less information have ended up earning more than twice as much as a well-informed group.

2. A must-read for all creative thinkers is James Webb Youngʼs classic: A Technique For Producing Ideas. First published in 1965 this small but important work has helped countless ad guys and painters, poets and engineers to break the deadly jam of the blank page and let their creativity do what itʼs supposed to do. To me this is not an optional book.

3. Innovate Like Edison by Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott. This account of Thomas Edisonʼs life and methods tells us that apparently he invented everything: integrated marketing, smart hiring practices, networking, oh yes the light bulb, methods for innovation, even for thinking. This book will leave you bursting with ideas and annoying your family with his famous quotes.

4. John Steinbeck's delightful book Sea of Cortez. This is a great travel and science book all in one. Wonderfully written, it is exceptionally joyful reading. He tells of an expedition made around the coast of Baja California. It's witty, humane and most charming. Itʼs about survival and biology and exploration and discovery and politics and "civilization". And drinking. One of its most vivid characters is the Sea-Cow: his willful outboard motor!

5. For lovers of history and politics, David Kynastonʼs account of the rise of the welfare state in Austerity Britain gives us much to think about as we review our own political system. This is a story full of anecdotes about activist government - and how the British felt about it.

6. The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years, by Sonia Shah, is a page turner. We learn how the Plasmodium parasite carried by mosquitoes, constantly adapting to outflank our attacks, has controlled so much of our history. This might be a fight we canʼt win. The book is spellbinding investigative reporting.

7. This is a controversial pick, but we are grown-ups here and can understand and interpret. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell is a novel about a man who worked for an organization. He had to deal with tedious bureaucracy and arrogant bosses. (Sound familiar?) He was measured by his success at the task with no thought as to whether the task was right. His job? He worked for the SS and his assignment was to ensure that killing was done as efficiently as possible. The book is violent and nasty. It was hugely successful in France, Germany and England, winning two major French literary awards. It is not for the squeamish. But this book will surely jolt us into reflection on the value of our own work.

8. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis brings him back to his early “bad boy” style. His 21 year old hero is inching toward a stunning 20-year-old blonde called Sheherazade, with whom heʼs sharing a summer in an Italian castle, along with several friends including his semi-platonic and semi-liberated girlfriend, Lily. Itʼs the summer of 1970, with all that that entails!

9. Stefan Sagmeisterʼs Things I Learned In My Life So Far is really 15 small booklets. Shuffle them and youʼll drastically change the look of your book. Itʼs a series of design projects spelling out personal truths that he identified in his diary: “Worrying solves nothing," "Trying to look good limits my life," “Complaining is silly: either act or forget” and so on. It is visually stimulating, provocative and fun.

8. I just finished the third of Stieg Larssonʼs Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked Over The Hornets Nest. I couldnʼt put it down. There is plotting and hackers and politics and murder and bikers and shady dealings on all fronts. See the Swedish film versions and tell me what you think. A friend, seeing that David Fincher is slated to direct a US version, wondered why another one was needed. For myself, I canʼt wait to see what he does with it.

Michael Pollock is President of Pollock Spark (www.pollockspark.com). He is an Executive Coach and Consultant to Creative and Media professionals. He works with people in film, TV, journalism, advertising, design, marketing, music and the Internet, bringing them the experience, techniques and inspiration to take their businesses and careers to new levels of success.

© 2010 Pollock Spark

Changing technology, storytelling and evolving skills.

I was in a conversation today about the importance of evolving our skillsets as media technology changes, and was reminded of this story from early Hollywood.  What follows is excerpted from a book which has been lost to me; it was given to me by a wonderful production assistant many years ago.

Ernst Lubitsch - Film Director

Lubitsch had a habit of crooking his forefinger over that enormous nose of his, and he said, “Junge, I want you never to forget this - what I am about to tell you. When the decision was made to change from silent films to talking films, the producers called together the greatest stars they had - this was in each studio. And the producers said, ‘You ladies and gentlemen who are the stars of the great silent screen, you must now learn to talk. You can no longer make faces and look camera left, camera right, up, down, what the director tells you to do, and then hope that he can put it together into a performance. You’ve got to learn to talk dialogue and play it. Those of you who can - you'll be greater than ever. Those of you who can't - overnight, no matter how great you are, you’ll be finished .’

“Then,” said Lubitsch, “they called together all the great directors. And they said, ‘All you directors of the silent screen, no more running out in the morning with that box, a camera and an assistant, you shoot something here and you shoot something there, and then you bring it back . . . No, no. You gentlemen have got to learn to read scripts, to digest characterization, pace and how to tell a story that is written - and those of you who don’t - overnight, you’ll be forgotten .’

“And then,” said Lubitsch, “they called together all the great title writers, those who’d been the biggest of the silent screen, and they said, ‘You writers, no longer is it going to be something that you can bring in on the back of an envelope, - you have to become dramatists - you have to learn how to write dialogue, conflict, and so forth. And those of you who can’t - you’re finished .’

“And,” said Lubitsch, “that really happened, as you know. You could name the great stars of the silent screen who were finished - the great directors, gone - the great title writers who were washed up - but, boy, remember this as long as you live: The producers didn’t lose a man. They all made the switch! That’s where the great talent is. Remember this.”

Basic Presentation Tips

It never hurts to restate the things that we all know but don't always remember to do.  I recently turned up these old notes from an Edward Tufte presentation. 

Tufte's Presentation Tips
1. Show up early.
2. Early on in the presentation, tell your audience what to expect from you.
3. Give everyone in the room a piece of paper, such as detailed evidence of a point you are going to make.
4. AVOID OVERHEADS.  (Today = Powerpoint?)  Use them only if you are showing very complex information.
5. Never apologize.
6. Practice and rehearse.  (do both I guess!)
7. If you use humor, it should be directly relevant to the target at hand.
8. Don't use the singular male as universal; use the plural "they/them" instead.
9. Finish early.
10. Be very careful when answering questions. You're often judged solely on Q & A.   If a question requires a long answer, you may be better off answering it privately, after the presentation.
11. Don't be afraid to show pride in what you've done (often accomplished thought your gestures)
12. Drink a lot of water. (Public speaking and flying are the 2 most dehydrating things you can do.)

 Here is more Tufte