Truth is beauty, wrote John Keats. Oh, really? No wonder Keats was a poet and not a corporate executive. The truth about truth is that-in the business world, anyway-it can be very ugly indeed. Particularly the truths that emerge about ourselves when we're stressed or angry or tipsy.
Bottom line: You must ration out personal revelations with care and thought. The self you present to your work world should be carefully constructed. Not unreal. Just a selective collection of your greatest hits. It's made up of several components:
• The way you dress
• The way you keep your hair
• The way you conduct yourself in meetings
• The way you use email
• The way you blow off steam with colleagues
All of these constructions, added together, create a self that can help you succeed and make more money. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? But here's a point you need to pay attention to: you don't want to construct a personality that's even a little bit phoney. Your goal is to display a version of yourself that helps you win people's esteem but that doesn't stifle the real you under a layer of other people's expectations.
It's not hard. You just need to avoid revealing the sides of yourself that only your mom, girlfriend or drinking buddies should see. To that end, here's your Book of No Revelation.
1. How much you had to drink last night
Or any night, for that matter. It's good to have a reputation as a partygoer, for sure. But watch out for the dreaded frat-boy tag. Here's the difference: A party-going dude is always the life of the party. A frat boy, however, thinks life is a party.
Amit is the guy at the office who everybody loves. He goes out at dinnertime, comes back at breakfast. However, he got left out of an off-site strategic-mission soiree because the big bosses found him "an overgrown kid in a man's body."
2. How much your shoes cost
...or how much your stock portfolio is worth, or how big your last raise was, or how much that new house by the beach in Goa is going to cost you.
Ugh. Is there anything more odious than somebody who constantly tells you how rich he is, or how fantastic his new BMW is?
At the same time, nobody wants to hear how poor you are. There's nothing more pathetic than the man who bitches all day about the cost of his kid's school fees. Everybody faces financial burdens. A little straight talk between friends-preferably over lunch or a cocktail-is permissible. But crying the blues isn't. It makes people see you as a loser. And people who are seen to be losers, are.
3. Who you sleep with, and how often
This is a no-win situation: You'll be seen as either a man-slut or a liar. And nobody wants to work with a liar.
Alternatively, if your conquests are with your beloved soulmate or your wife (who if you're lucky is the same person), then you're seen as an outlandish boor for kissing and telling. Also bad.
Jabbering about how you got on with that hot woman at the party also forces your colleagues to imagine you naked. Unless you are very handsome, this will do you no good.
4. How you ripped off the system on your last business trip
You'd be amazed at the number of people who brag about this kind of stuff. Only morons cheat on their expense accounts, so moronic follow-up behaviour is consistent.
But there are dark corners of everybody's career. Nights on the road that you can't quite remember. Activities with peers that wouldn't stand up to personal or professional scrutiny. A job is like a road show. What happens there really should stay there.
The problem is that people deal with darkness in different ways. Some keep it to themselves. Others take it for a walk around the park. The point is this: Not all colleagues, peers and bosses can deal with subversive information in a discreet way. There are those who happen to take their roles as friends of the court very seriously. And they will hose you down if they feel it's necessary and proper to do so.
5. How sick you're of the job
A little cribbing is not always out of line. We all like to share our pipe dreams over a beer after work. But select your audience well. The business world is filled with stooges (as well as really great guys you're going to love). A misplaced word to the wrong person could end up as a quiet comment to somebody who thought you were loyal-or who already had your number and was looking for a reason to pull the trigger.
Arun once dropped by his boss's office and told him that the place was badly run, that it was overstaffed with dimwads, that their processes and procedures were 10 years out of date, and blah blah blah. He thought he was earning his keep by telling the boss what he really thought. The boss said, "Thanks, but if you hate it around here so much, you can leave, okay?" It wasn't really a question, either.
6. How much you despise the boss
The world is filled with crazy people who articulate negative opinions for all to hear about the person who runs the place.
A former boss of Ajit's became demented in his job, growing to despise his own boss so much that he could no longer keep his animus to himself. He'd talk about her boss at lunch. Or drop emails loathing her to Ajit and others. Then one day, instead of typing Ajit's name into the "To" field, he typed his own boss'. He was fired later that day.
7. How excited you're about all the things God is telling you
You may believe that the Lord is coming to bring down fire and brimstone to earth. That alien DNA is driving all humanity crazy. Keep it to yourself. There's a place for politics and religion, and it's not at work. You'll freak people out if you tell them what's on your mind on those fronts. But if you want to be perceived as a successful businessman, walk the walk, talk the talk, and keep it on planet Earth.
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