By the authors of Knowledge Leadership
The ThomasGroup
KL@TG: This may seem to be an odd question but here it is. Are not a number of personnel decisions (e.g., hiring or promoting people) based on how well someone has "sold" or "positioned" herself or himself to the given decision-maker -- rather than on merit, job performance, qualifications, etc.?
HB: Initially, sure. People make bad judgments.
But I would suggest to everyone reading that they've had our experience. Fifteen years ago I can recall a circle of acquaintances, almost every one of whom had risen fast and seemed destined for big offices and lots of mentions in the local Business sections. And today, not one of those people has achieved what everyone assumed they would. These young novas talked a good game and looked the right part, but somewhere and sometime, they failed to learn the lessons of being You, Inc.
I think that's sad. Most of these people had only one major flaw, but few people addressed it with them and virtually all of them ignored it. The key to success is optimizing your strengths and neutralizing your weaknesses. Those people accomplished only the first step.
Now, let me address your question, and perhaps a question of some readers, with a compelling story. It's the story of two men who should have been Presidents of the United States.
In the late 1950s, if you found yourself on the Yale University campus and surveyed students at random with the question "Who do you think one day will be President of the United States?" you'd consistently get one answer: Denny Hansen. He was the golden boy -- the smiling California athlete, gifted student, hero to all. Life magazine even wrote about him as the iconic student of his age.
The closest Denny ever got to the Oval Office was a professorship in public policy at a university not far from there.
Why did he fall so short of his expectations, and those of others? Among other mistakes, he niched himself badly from the beginning. He chose to go to the State Department, but made his area of focus U.S.-South American and Mexican relations. Few things are of less importance to American foreign policy, then and now, than what diplomats call those "North-South issues."
If you read Calvin Trillin's excellent book Remembering Denny, you can spot some other career errors, and "selling yourself" mistakes, that he made.
Flash forward 15 years, and go to Providence, Rhode Island, and the campus of Brown University. Not long after you arrive, you will notice some graffiti on a stone wall. It says "Magaziner is God." And at Brown at that time, Ira Magaziner held that exalted status -- so much so that Time magazine wrote about him, too, while he was still in college. He, virtually by himself, reformed how students were taught at Brown.
Ira Magaziner was destined to become President. But the closest he got was heading Hillary Clinton's Health Task Force -- a bad career move, a nearly catastrophic one, in retrospect. And while his ideas may've been good, Magaziner angered most of Sweden with his proposals for Swedish industrial growth, and not long after proposed a Greenhouse Compact for the state of Rhode Island that state voters rejected overwhelmingly.
He's had what appears to be an interesting life, and maybe a personally rewarding one. But if Ira had learned to sell and package his ideas as well as he conceived them, and if he'd plotted his career path, he'd enjoy far more power and influence today than he has. And I'm confident that he would welcome that.
Even future Presidents need "selling yourself" counsel -- or maybe, they especially need it!
KL@TG: You, Inc. offers a wealth of practical suggestions anchored in real-world situations. So much of the advice offered seems to derive from lessons learned not from success, but from failure. Is that an accurate assessment?
HB: Without question, as those two previous stories suggest.
When people succeed, they tend to assume that everything that they did contributed to that success, so they continue to do precisely what they did -- good and bad. Soon the bad undermines them.
Failure shakes us from our complacency and makes us examine our strengths and weaknesses. It's like a gun pointed at your head: it tends to focus your attention on the crisis at hand.
KL@TG: Those who will derive the greatest benefit from this book will probably be those who are preparing for or have only recently embarked on a career. What about supervisors who are heavily involved with mentoring or coaching those for whom they are responsible?
HB: Everyone can learn, everyone can grow, at every age and stage. If you think you've nothing left to learn, you have made yourself vulnerable.
When I wrote The Invisible Touch, I highlighted as one of the traits of enormously successful people the quality of Humble Openness. I was deeply gratified when several years later, Jim Collins wrote in Good to Great that this indeed was the vivid quality of the great leaders of great companies. I think Collins used almost the same words.
So supervisors can benefit from continuing education, even if it may include lessons they've heard before. Sometimes, you need to hear the lesson at the moment you're ready to embrace it.
And supervisors can benefit from giving these lessons -- this book -- to their staffs. Among other things, it's better than handing down a dictate. Give them a book with their three key action areas highlighted and a nice note. And watch if those people don't start work, and soon start improving.
KL@TG: One final question. Of all that you have learned during your own career thus far, what has proven to be the single most important lesson you have learned and continue to apply?
HB: Life is a miracle, lived in a blink. Go live it.
Find out how to get a newsletter for your own company.
 | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Harry Beckwith is the Director of Beckwith Partners, an internationally regarded branding
and marketing firm. His classic trilogy on marketing a service -- Selling the Invisible,
The Invisible Touch, and What Clients Love -- has sold over 900,000 copies
in 22 translations, and the first book has been named one of the ten best business and
management books of all time. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association convention, and has made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is cited regularly in |
|
national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis with his wife Christine Clifford Beckwith. He is the father of six children. Beckwith Partners' clients include Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft and Target as well as many venture-capitalized startups worldwide. |
|
| ||||
| ||||
Logos Success Stories Project Gallery Request an Evaluation Contact Us
E-mail questions and comments for Harry Beckwith to invisble@bitstream.net.