Clayton Hanmer for The Globe and Mail
If you want to get ahead at the office, shaking some salt on your pappardelle may be hurting you more than you think.
According to Frances Cole Jones, it's little details like your business-lunch habits, the state of your desk and grammatical miscues - and what those things say about you - that could be holding you back.
The New York-based communication consultant and principal of Cole Media Management wrote her recent book The Wow Factor: The 33 Things You Must (And Must Not) Do to Guarantee Your Edge in Today's Business World as a manual for executives looking to reinvent themselves, job seekers looking for a leg up and anyone reeling from the recession.
Ms. Jones explained to The Globe and Mail why you should always accept a glass of water, change your homepage every week and mention your Ultimate team on your CV.
A great deal of your book focuses on etiquette. How much does having an edge in business mean having good manners?
It's more than good manners. It's just being able to read people and know how you're going to make them comfortable. It's so inadvertently easy to make people feel like you're not listening to them or you don't respect their opinion. So it's just about those really small courtesies.
One of those courtesies you suggest is accepting food and drinks when they're offered. Why?
If someone's making the effort to offer you something, it's nice to say, "Oh, yes, I'll have coffee" or water or whatever. I mean, you don't want to go to [the extent of saying]"Oh, I'll have a no-fat, no-foam, mocha, skim cappuccino," but it does kind of give a little bit of a camaraderie to a group session.
You also say that salting your food before tasting it during a business lunch not only insults the chef, it sends another message altogether.
This was something that was told to me that's more prevalent in the financial community, but they see it as poor impulse control. You haven't assessed the situation before making a decision about it.
What other unexpected signs might others be looking for?
One of the other things that I've heard, based on the amount of clients I have in that [financial]world, they find it very reassuring to have you mention team sports on your résumé or on your website or on your bio. They like the idea that you have worked on a team.
Why is keeping a clean desk so important?
That [section of the book]is called "Don't work in a goat's stomach." And the idea is we've all heard of the phrase "look good, feel good," and that's great, but if your office or your cubicle looks like a goat exploded, then it really undermines your credibility. I've had the experience with a lot of CEO clients of walking down the hall, and we'll walk past three or four offices and they'll get into their offices, and they'll be just fuming. And they'll say "Did they think I just didn't notice?" So you can never assume that people aren't watching everything. They might not say why they're not promoting you, but there may be that kind of a reason. If you look like your work area has been stirred up by a stick, then you're going to get passed over.
You raise the idea that we should strive to be "renaissance men" - that "specialization is for insects." Can you explain?
Studies show that the people who move most fluidly through the world are the ones who have a grasp on a number of different topics. It's one of these things that on the surface looks like good manners - "So-and-so can talk to anybody about anything" - but it's about finding a way into a conversation, no matter who you're having it with. Sometimes you need your CEO to be paying attention to you, but sometimes you need the guy who parks your car to do what you need him to do, as quickly as possible. So you need to have that broad range of styles and pieces of information. I find it also helps with problem-solving. Just having an understanding of a number of industries can be very helpful in a problem-solving situation.
So how do you become a renaissance man?
One of the things I recommend is changing your homepage on your computer at least once a week. Everybody spends 10 minutes there every morning anyway. Just make a point of saying, "This week, I'm going to pick the Metropolitan Museum. That's going to be my homepage," and then next week you can pick [a website about]artificial intelligence. Just changing your homepage makes a big, big difference because you'll come up with different ideas and you will broaden your thinking. I'm not asking you to be an expert on every subject, but you want a cultural suntan.
You mention that getting ahead also involves asking for favours. How should you go about asking?
I highly recommend asking for favours, not in a blood-sucking, parasitical kind of way. But you have to set it up. You don't want to do it on the fly. I think it's very disconcerting to pick of the phone, thinking you're having a conversation about where to meet for coffee and [have someone say] "Oh, by the way, I need a favour." I think it's important to maybe send an e-mail ahead of time to say, "I'm looking forward to seeing you for coffee. By the way, I wanted to ask you a favour when we meet. I'll give you more detail then." And nobody wants to be seen as a blank cheque. You need to be able to say to them, "I wanted to talk to you about this because I know you've had an enormous amount of success in this arena." As long as you're clear with people why you're asking, with exactly what you need, what I've found is the majority of the time people are really flattered and excited that you asked.
This interview has been condensed and edited.