Peggy Klaus Read Free Page B

meetings upon meetings. They have little-to-no time or any real need to pay special attention to you.
    Planting for the Future
    As important as those on the inside of your company are for your survival, those on the outside are just as significant: recruiters, industry associates, personal friends and acquaintances, even your competitors. Even seemingly stable companies can collapse overnight. Just look at Enron and Arthur Andersen, among many others.
    Good self-promoters know this: They’re always planting seeds for the future. Karen, forty-two, a division head for a major global food corporation, is a good example. At an informal gathering, when asked how long she had been in the business and what she did, instead of the typical “I’ve worked with my company for fifteen years and run its dairy division,” she responded:
    Who ever thought I’d be in the food industry, especially after my mom forced me all those years to eat Cheez Whiz? [Everyone at the table erupted with laughter.] It must have been fate, but after I graduated with my MBA from Columbia, I got a call from a friend who told me about a few interesting openings. I began working for my company in 1985 in brand management, working my way up to marketing director. Two years ago, one of the company’s other divisions was really in the hole and they gave me the assignment of turning it around. I didn’t really know where to start, so I began talking to people on the floor. A lot of them had great ideas. From there, I got everyone involved and formed teams to pull in the various disciplines and put together a strategic vision. Today, I am the proud head of a dairy division that is number two in profitability worldwide.
    Smart self-promoters show up prepared. They value face time with others and are always ready with stories about themselves that break through the verbal clutter. They know that positive regard from others isn’t going to “just happen” on job interviews, at performance appraisals, during presentations, or at networking functions. And it’s unlikely to “just happen” by marching into the CEO’s office and asking for an appointment to discuss how wonderful you are. It’s not going to happen unless you make it happen, and the crème-de-la-crème opportunities to self-promote are going to come your way when you least expect them.
    Myth #2: BRAGGING IS SOMETHING YOU DO DURING PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
    April 5, 2002: I am on a plane bound from New York to San Francisco and the thirty-something guy sitting next to me just blew it: He missed a golden opportunity to sell himself and his company.
    We had struck up a conversation and were happily chatting away about living in San Francisco when I asked him, “So what is it that you do?” “I’m a management consultant,” he replied. He didn’t continue, so I tried to engage him more by asking, “What’s your specialty in management consulting?” “Telecommunications,” he responded, followed again by dead silence. I took on the exercise of seeing if I could pull out some more information asking, “Who do you do it for?” He named one of the top five management-consulting firms, then stopped cold. I was just about to ask another question when something inside me snapped. I thought to myself, I’m not asking a fourth question. I’ve done enough digging. He’s not making it interesting or fun for me to talk with him.
    Missed Opportunities
    The first response from many clients hearing about this casual airplane encounter is to rattle off possible reasons why this fellow wasn’t more forthcoming. Maybe he was tired, or reluctant to start tooting his own horn on an airplane, afraid that he might divulge sensitive information to prying ears, possibly a competitor’s.
    “But … in my culture bragging is a big no-no.”
    I understand and truly respect your cultural mores and traditions. Yet I think there is some wiggle room in all cultures. I’m not asking you to talk about yourself like