The Dilbert Boss

This is the clueless boss. He has no idea what you do, and he is more concerned with his position than with the success of the company. He is more than willing to sacrifice one of his employees to make himself look good. This is the type to take credit for everything you do right and blame you for everything that goes wrong. First, do the best job you can. Your boss’s own self-interest will keep you around if you are a valuable employee. Second, look for opportunities where others in management can see your skills. This will counter the fact that your boss tries to hide you away. Transfer out of this group if you can, since it will be difficult to get far with this boss.⁴

Negotiator Boss

This is the salesman type, the supreme negotiator. He will always set the goal beyond any reasonable point, figuring that somehow this will encourage you to go further than you think you can. First, don’t be discouraged by these requests. After that, you have two approaches you can take. Be a negotiator yourself—overestimate the time and money it will take to get the job done so that you have room to negotiate (like Scotty does for Captain Kirk on Star Trek). The other option is to say what you can do and stick by your guns. Don’t underestimate with the negotiator, though—he will be disappointed when you don’t meet the goal you said you would. The negotiator is not necessarily a bad boss to have. You could do much worse. “Better to aim for the sun and miss than aim for a cow pie and hit it,” is the creed of this boss.

The “Yes Man” Boss

The “yes man” is the submissive boss. He tells his boss anything he wants to hear and will often not defend his employees. It is not unusual for this boss to commit you to impossible deadlines and tasks. Don’t make the mistake of being a yes man to a yes man, though—that is a disastrous combination. Let this type of boss know what it is really going to take to get the job done. If you have a strong personality, you can help this boss by standing up for him if he does say what it’s going to take to get the job done to his boss. Generally this boss will give you the credit for both your successes and failures.

The Micro Manager

The micro manager tries to manage every detail. Try to handle his status report requests and required updates as quickly as possible so that you can get back to business. He might even be so obstinate as to be upset when you try to make a decision for yourself.

I think the best way to deal with this type is to simply make sure you get those reports and updates in on time. Try to be so reliable that this boss will gain trust in you. Often you can talk to this boss easily (there will certainly be enough meetings with this guy). Talk to him about your priorities often, and stay in sync with his goals for the department. As long as he doesn’t carry it to extremes, you are better off with this guy than the Dilbert boss. So don’t feel too bad for yourself.

The Macro Manager

The opposite of the micro manager, the macro manager is the boss who is never there when you really need some help. He is hard to get hold of and often difficult to talk to. This leaves you making a lot of decisions that you might not feel comfortable with. You might even be criticized for decisions you’ve made after you asked repetitively for some feedback on that particular issue without response.

The best thing to do in this situation is to take advantage of the opportunity to learn to make decisions on your own. You might screw up, but that is a risk you take in any decision situation, so don’t be afraid of making a mistake. If your boss does question your reasoning, try to explain your decision process. Remember, he wasn’t there for all the things that led to your choice. Don’t assume that he has the background on the issue that you do. The best thing about this boss is the opportunity you will have to shine. You will be given plenty of rope; try not to hang yourself!

The Perfect Boss

The best boss gives you some credit while buffering you against mistakes, giving you a chance to learn and grow. If you have this type of boss, do your best to succeed and you will! You should hang on for the ride. Often he will give you plenty of leeway to succeed. He will recognize that his success depends on yours, and he will help you succeed. Don’t be upset if this boss gets some credit for something you did. If he is a good boss, he created the environment that allowed you to be a success and deserves a nod for that. Often, as this boss succeeds, you will as well because he will bring you along with him.

Your Boss’s Boss

You might not get a lot of interaction with your boss’s boss, but take care when you do. This is the most visible you will get as an employee. Try not to be too nervous. I remember one time I was dealing with the CEO of the first company I worked for. Our production line was shut down because of an electronic power problem. I was a lowly part-time student tech in the QC department. I had just figured out the problem when he came to the line to see what was up. I was shaking in my shoes as I showed him the cause of failure. He didn’t believe me at first, so I showed him a broken one, fixed it, then broke it again. He was satisfied, and production started back up. It only took two or three more of those situations and the CEO knew my name. If I had panicked in that position, no matter how right I had been, the results for me would have been a lot worse.

Those Over You Summary

A point to consider with these categories is that it is possible to find variations of these types. After all, as we said originally, this people stuff isn’t an exact science. If your boss is a blend of these types, you will probably have to blend your response as well. If it helps, make up your own boss type; figure out his or her attributes and what seems to make him tick.⁵ Use what you figure out to guide your choices.

The Sneak

Watch out for the sneak. He is always trying to see what he can get away with. He will only work hard when the boss is watching. Don’t get caught in any of his schemes to take advantage of the company. That usually turns out badly and gets you branded as a sneak as well.

The Power Monger

A true political figure at work, for the power monger it is very important to build power and reputation. What is sad is that he might try to make you look bad to make himself look good. Try not to give him any ammunition that he can use to prove how badly you are doing, thus making him look better. You can make alliances with this guy pretty reliably, but it will be an “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” type of relationship. If you make deals with this person, you will need to hold up your end of the bargain, since you will be relying on his self-interest to hold up his end.

The Badger

The badger will tend to respond emotionally to situations. If she feels she is being attacked, she will likely get defensive and angry like a badger when cornered. The best thing to do is back down and give her a chance to calm down. If you can help this person get past the emotion (or just wait it out), you can usually reason with her. It is not unusual that the badger is also a workaholic. Maybe that is why badgers are so ornery.

The Average Joe (or Jane)

Companies are filled with average Joes. These people do a decent job, nothing stellar, but are fairly reliable. I believe that if it weren’t for average Joes, companies could never be formed and kept together. These people like the security of someone else making the tough decisions. They will often ask you what they should do. Average Joes like to look to a leader. If you can gain their respect, others will notice and it could lead to a promotion.

The Shooting Star

These are the guys (or gals) who get it. They work hard but don’t make themselves into badgers. They are reliable and often correct in their decisions. True shooting stars possess integrity and a desire for the company to succeed. They often get promoted as these skills are recognized. This is a good friend to have in a company, but hopefully after reading this book you will be the shooting star that everyone else wants as a compatriot!

Often the shooting star is a leader and a true mentor; even if the organization chart doesn’t show it, you should listen to the star’s advice whenever you can.

Those at Your Level Summary

One of the most important things to have at this level is respect, for yourself and for the others you deal with. You gain respect for yourself by following through with what you say you will do. Stick to your word. If you make a mistake, say so, correct it, and move on. Give others a chance to build respect at the same time as you. This mutual respect is a way to build a network of contacts that is synergistic in nature. Here is where you and your colleagues can help each other out, do each other favors, and be more successful than you would be on your own.

The Smart Slacker

Smart slackers are usually pretty smart and can get a job done more quickly than most others in the group. For this reason they might get some free time when others don’t. But they don’t go looking for any more work—they goof off or spend the time surfing the ‘Net or other such things. Usually they are quick enough on the keyboard to get back to looking busy when you walk by. Keep their plates loaded to the brim. If their slacking becomes a big problem, you might need to call them in and discuss it.

The Praise Deprived

Praise-deprived employees often need daily feedback on how they are doing. They are looking for positive reinforcement and need a little praise. Be sure to let them know when they are doing a good job. Don’t be afraid to be constructive if they make a mistake or should try a different approach. They will usually let you know if they are done with a task and need more to do.

Sometimes as a boss, you will wish they would just leave you alone, since they can seem a little needy. If they are valuable employees, spend a few minutes with them as needed. They will be very loyal for that little time you spend. If they aren’t so good, ignore them and they will find a job elsewhere, solving the problem for you.

The Dud

The dud is the person who doesn’t bring a lot to the table. You have to put more work into him than you are getting out of him. That said, I am a firm believer that people can change and improve. I prefer to give them a chance, but be firm in laying out the expectations. Let him know what is needed from him to keep him employed.

This, however, is not a situation that you can keep dealing with forever without draining resources from the company. If he doesn’t change, this is the person that you have to make a hard choice with, the one you have to let go. Don’t run your group with a drain on resources indefinitely. It will hurt all of you in the long run.

The Average Joe (or Jane)

This is the same guy we talked about earlier. Be a leader for him, show him how to excel, and you just might turn him into a shooting star.

The Shooting Star

The shooting star is the same kind of person we already discussed. Most important: The more of these you have in your group, the better you will perform! Don’t be afraid of giving him or her credit, and don’t try to suppress any one of them into being your peons. It will backfire on you. Share the credit and hook your wagon to these people; they will get you to the finish line!

Finally

Can a truly effective manager get an average Joe or Jane to become a shooting star? Or make a dud into something more? I think so, and I believe it is the mark of a good manager to do just that. Anyone can yell and intimidate people into doing what they want. The manager who persuades and edifies is much rarer and also more valuable. His or her team will be more efficient, have less turnover, and just get more stuff done. It doesn’t mean you should be an old softy. You might need to be firm at times, but if you truly care about your employees, it will show and make a difference.

The Peon Point of View

The decisions and directions of management are often as undecipherable to the typical engineering peon as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics are to the average person. Here are some insights into the thoughts that go through a typical EE’s head when dealing with a pointy hair: “Why in the world is this the most important thing now when just yesterday it was the last thing on the list?” Or maybe, “Why can’t you understand things like the word impossible?”

In my early years as a peon I coined the phrase, “Management is an unnecessary evil.” It accurately summed up my thoughts on the topic. If your manager couldn’t help you with fixing that circuit that wouldn’t work right or the code that just didn’t execute the way it should, what good was he? I mean, sure, he could keep buggin’ me all the time about status reports and the like, but couldn’t I manage my own time?

Even if you find engineers with a manager that they like and think is very helpful, they are still at a loss to understand management decisions. This is often due to a lack of background on the decision process. Good managers will often help this situation with some explanation as to the way they came to the decision. Engineers, though usually a little underdeveloped in the social skills area, still understand numbers and reasons. It helps them to know why.

There is a natural angst in the role of the engineer vs. the manager. After all, he is the peon in the relationship. At the end of the day the manager is his boss, not the other way around. Remember, engineers spend their whole lives asking themselves, “Why this?” and “Why that?” It is what they are trained to do; it makes them good engineers. Help them answer that question if you are a manager!

The Pointy-Hair Point of View

First, understand the first and foremost goal of a manager: It is to make the business successful. It’s either that or to make the department he is managing look good, which coincides with the first unless it is sacrificed for the second. (This can happen with bad managers. Hopefully their bosses will notice and correct that before it is too late.)

The good manager wants a successful company; how do you do that? It is pretty simple really; you make more money than you spend.

Where the engineer is more focused on accomplishing the task at hand, the pointy hair worries about getting it done on time and on budget. This often puts the peon and the pointy hair on opposite sides of the fence. It is difficult for a manager to understand that unknown things can come up that mess up the estimated schedule the peon gave him. Here’s an actual quote from a manager: “We need to figure out a way to predict unknown problems from happening and avoid them.” He was completely serious.⁸ To him, that is how to get from point A to point B. To the engineer who is trained to think logically, this phrase will cause his brain to strip a few gears, leaving him generally speechless and unable to respond.

It is not a bad thing to think so far out of the box.⁹ If the engineer can shift his head back into gear after such a phrase and look at it as a problem to solve, you will be surprised at what you think up. It is logically true that you can’t predict things you don’t know. However, you might come up with a way to find out some things you didn’t know before, and avoid those. Which is what that “pointy speak” really means.

When two engineers start talking, you will often see pointy-hair eyes glaze over as if you were speaking a language they don’t understand, which you are. To keep them interested, use words like schedule and budget a lot. Managers like to speak in absolutes, as in “This will be done in such and such time and cost so much.” Engineers like to have some fudge factor. They have seen too many failed lab experiments to believe it will always go right the first time.

In my experience, if you tell the pointy hair it will cost between 10 and 15 bucks, the only price he hears is 10 bucks. This being the case, if you aren’t sure you can get to the low price, you’d better not say it, no matter how often he tells you not to sandbag your numbers. If you have some confidence, though, go for it—it is also the mark of a good engineer to get to the committed price and schedule, even if it takes some extra effort. Take caution, however—you don’t want to sandbag a number so high that you never build anything because it is always too expensive. Remember, the goal of a business is to make money, and you can’t do that unless you make stuff and sell it.¹⁰

Talk It Out

If the engineer makes an effort to lay off the acronyms and the manager tries to explain some of the reasons behind his decisions, it will do wonders for your mutual understanding. The most important thing you need is a desire to understand each other. We’ll get into the skills a little later.

Watch for Body Language

Some say as much as 90 percent of what we communicate in a verbal conversation is in fact not verbal at all. If you really want to get deep into it, there are whole books on this topic that tell you the meaning of things like glancing right or left, up or down, and all sorts of looks. Most of the time, however, I believe that if you simply pay attention, you can get a lot out of how a person presents himself and the way he acts. You have been doing this from a very young age and it comes naturally if you give it a chance. Too often we get so rushed or distracted that we don’t notice simple signs. For example, let’s say that a person on your staff looks uncomfortable when he agrees to a deadline. If you don’t notice and dig deeper, you could have a nasty surprise coming later.

Consider Who You Are Talking To

The background of the person you are talking to should be considered as you communicate. Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to explain details of quantum theory to the CEO who has an MBA. You should try to distill what you are communicating to the points that matter to the person you are talking to. Take note of one important point, though: Don’t ever treat the person like he is dumb! You can distill information without talking down to a person. If invited to, you can elaborate. You might be surprised at what your boss can understand—especially if he has read this book!

If you are dealing with a person from a different culture or who speaks a different first language, it helps to simplify your phrases to be sure you are understood. Don’t get into vocabulary words that they might not know without being sure they understand what you are referring to. This particularly applies to words that have meaning only in your corporate culture. Everyone perceives the world through experiences they have based on the culture they come from. You don’t need to speak louder. It doesn’t help. Try to enunciate your words, though; if you are like me, you are probably carrying some hick accent that would cause you communication problems in your own native tongue.

Should You Get Angry?

Sometimes getting angry is a correct response. There are occasions when that is what it takes for the person or people to whom you are talking to understand the seriousness of the point you are trying to communicate. You might have no other resort to get the point across. However, it should be rare, and if it is rare, it will carry a lot more weight than if you are someone who pops a cork every time something goes wrong.

Reflective Listening

A great way to improve verbal communication is to use a technique called reflective listening. The idea behind this type of communication is to further your understanding of what is being said by repeating it back to the person you are talking to. Take care, however, not to be annoying. No one likes a copy cat. The trick is to rephrase it in terms you understand and see if the other party agrees with you. This is particularly useful in dealing with persons from a different culture, say, a guy from engineering talking to a guy from management, for example.

Read

I believe that the single best way to improve your verbal skills is by reading. When you read, you experience how others communicate. It works with spy novels to white papers—the more you read, the better you will communicate with others. You will add to your vocabulary, you will understand cultural differences, and you will be able to order your thoughts in a way that is easier for others to understand.

Proofread It

Writing has one distinct advantage over verbal communication:You can look it over before you print it, send it, post it, or publish it. You should proof every written communication you create. The only question is how much. If it is short and you are going to follow up verbally, a quick glance will be enough. On the contrary, if it is going to be read by a superior or someone who might have reason to pick it apart, go over it a few times.

The most basic skill that I think should be used to proof writing is to read it out loud to yourself to see how it sounds. Don’t forget to pause at commas and stop at periods, as you were told to in grade school. This technique will help you root out all sorts of odd-sounding phrases.

If you are particularly concerned, try it out on someone else and see whether they understand it. Make sure the person has a similar background to the audience for which the document is intended.

Use Appropriate Emphasis

In written communication you lose the ability to create inflection with your voice, and you can’t tie body language to what you are saying. This can be compensated for by emphasizing what you are saying with fonts, capitals, italics, boldface, bullet points, and numerous other options. If you SAY SOMETHING IN CAPS, you create the idea of yelling or raising your voice. Boldface words can imply importance, and italics can help you draw attention to something in particular.

There is, of course, a whole world of winks, smiles, and other punctuation types of communication out there, but I believe, although most will get the smile, the rest is a code that is known to only a few.

Note that I said appropriate emphasis. It is easy to get carried away. Don’t cause death by bullets. Use too many bullet points and they no longer have meaning; too much boldface and it does no good; too many caps and people will think you are always angry. The trick is to be skillful in applying these skills.

Use Verbal Skills in Writing

Some of these verbal skills are a great way to improve your writing skills. Things such as considering your audience and reflective listening (or reading/writing in this case) can help you understand and get your point across.

Email Specifics

Watch out for flame-mail. In the realm of email, it is very easy to be misunderstood, and people often respond with less tact than they might have in person. If you see a flame war starting, I think the best thing to do is talk to the person in person.

Watch the CC list on your emails, take care to whom you forward what, and always consider that what you have written can be easily forwarded to an unintended audience.

Use Analogy

One of the most powerful methods of communication is the use of analogy. This works well for trying to explain a problem, concept, or theory. Analogy helps the person receiving information visualize what is being talked about. For example, analogy can help a person understand the details of a topic the same way that a telescope can help you see details of the moon. (Or maybe the apartment next door.)

There you go. I just used an analogy to explain analogy, and possibly a little humor too. Analogy is the art of comparing the new idea to something already known. It works very well.

Sketch a Picture

You’ve all heard the phrase “A picture is worth 1000 words.” Engineers typically get this; after all, they use schematics, which are simply pictures to represent ideas. In the world of email, however, we often ignore what we know so well. We will spend three paragraphs trying to explain what we want when a simple sketch will get the point across. Get yourself a scanner and use it to send a sketch with that email!

Watch Out for Corporate Culture Code Words

Every conglomeration of people will develop code words to speed their communication. In a corporation, everyday words will take on completely different meanings. When you are dealing with people outside the company, be sure you don’t assume that they know what you’re talking about if you use a corporate word or phrase.

Weasel Room

Engineers need a little weasel room. Have you ever asked an engineer if he is 100% confident he has the solution? If you have, you were likely treated to a look of complete loss. It is not possible for an engineer to be 100% confident in anything. In this discipline you are constantly assaulted with the fact that you don’t and can’t know everything. You discover new ways for things to go wrong daily and are constantly working to fix and prevent them from happening. If an engineer gives you a range, take the conservative number for your estimate. Give the guy a little weasel room. Try to pin him down too hard and it could backfire on you.

The Eternal Optimist

I haven’t met a good engineer yet who didn’t regularly underestimate how long it takes to do something. This is simply a fact: Good engineers by nature are optimistic, and the really great engineers will push themselves so hard that they will meet the optimistic schedules they set for themselves. I heard a rule of thumb once about writing software that I have found to be true: Take the engineering estimate of time a job will take and multiply by three.

Desire to Grow

The better you understand the “sparky” viewpoint, the more successful you will be at managing engineers. If you take this to the next level you can help your engineers take on more and more, literally turning an average Joe into a shooting star or even possibly rescuing someone from dudsville.¹² Most engineers want to grow and become better at what they do, but they need a little encouragement, a chance, and maybe a bit of a buffer against failure.

Dress

Don’t put a lot of value on how a person is dressed. Casual attire is the norm where I work, so unless someone comes in with serious hygiene problems, I don’t chalk up any negative points. Once, however, a potential employee asked what the dress code was. His consideration impressed me. However, it is of minor importance. Our company is interested in results and product, neither of which is significantly affected by the dress of R&D employees.¹⁴

Fundamental Knowledge

This is very important to me as a manager. There are some skills I don’t want to have to teach you, skills I expect you to know for this position. A degree or some type of schooling tips the scale favorably, but I do not consider it a shoe-in. I have seen too many college graduates who got through school by the “assimilate and regurgitate” method. They passed all their tests with great grades, but they didn’t focus on retaining the knowledge. I weed these people out with questions such as the one shown in Figure 7.1.

You might laugh, but being located right next to a major university with a reputation as a good engineering school, I constantly interview fresh graduates who should know this stuff. Fully half the applicants I see get this wrong! The basics are important. If you don’t have them, you are just guessing when you design. Worse yet is if you think you know them and you really don’t. After all the hammering on basics at the beginning of this book, I hope the importance of this concept is understood. I’d rather hire someone with the basics down pat and a 2.9 grade point average than the person that has a 4.0 and stumbles on basic understanding.

Can You Learn?

I have yet to see any employee get into a new job and not need to learn. Sometime during the interview, I will intentionally teach the candidate something new, and then hit the subject later in the interview, to see if he or she has picked it up. This ability to learn quickly and have it stick is important to the success of any engineering group. Technology will quickly outstrip those who can’t learn.

Are You Willing to Learn?

You might think this was covered in the preceding question, but I consider it a separate point. I will often ask interviewees a question that I am fairly sure they do not know the answer to, simply to see how they respond. Do they try to BS their way through it? Or are they willing to admit that they don’t know and ask for help? In the rapid design cycles of today, there isn’t time to play games. That means “I don’t know, but I will find out” is an appropriate answer. You can take this to a higher level, too. On call-back interviews, ask a question again that stumped them the first time to see if they were interested enough to figure out the answer.

People Skills

Is there a job out there that requires zero contact with other human beings? I doubt it. The best engineering teams get along well, which is why I value people skills significantly. How do you handle pressure? Can you get along with people you don’t care for? This is a fairly tough item to evaluate in an interview. I invite my leads to fire questions at the candidate and watch how he or she responds under pressure.

Attitude/Motivation

A positive attitude always impresses me. I quote my father: “Can’t is a sucker too lazy¹⁵ to try.” I think it is important to believe that something can be done. Look for signs of giving up on a problem. Is the candidate persistent? Does he or she complain during the interview? Does he moan about his last job? I have seen all types. Whiners don’t get hired.

Common Sense

This is all about getting the job done in the least amount of time. Too often a person can be “book smart” but not be able to apply what he or she has learned. If you don’t have common sense you will struggle with applying the knowledge you have. Here is a brain teaser¹⁶ I often use to determine a person’s level of common sense:

In General

Should you be looking for the person who can do differential equations in his head? I don’t think so. I will buy Mathcad for that. I want to know if the candidate has the fundamentals and if he can and will learn the rest.

Remember, great managers are rare; mediocre managers are commonplace. You don’t have to be a great manager for a company to be successful. Why stop there, though? Great managers are huge assets to any company; great managers can turn average Joes into shooting stars can make incredible things happen.

Being a great manager isn’t all that hard. Listen, look, and learn until you are right most of the time. Then you won’t be unnecessary or evil!

Don’t Be Condescending

Be careful how you come across to your potential employer. One candidate I interviewed seemed to really disdain coming to us for a job. It was as though he would work for us if he really had to, but he sure wasn’t going to like it. The “you don’t have anything to teach me” vibe was very strong. Being an engineer who believes the ratio of what we know to what we don’t know is extremely small, I have a tough time with that. This is especially disconcerting when some simple circuit diagrams are requested and you get the response, “Everyone knows that,” a little hand waving, and then nothing is written down and no answer is forthcoming. I immediately think you don’t actually know it, and this is all an act to cover up the lack of knowledge.

Don’t Worry About Saying “I Don’t Know”

The stress of an interview might make it the toughest place to say “I don’t know,” but that is not a bad answer. Especially if you follow up with, “I’ll find out, though.” One of the best impressions I had from a potential employee was when he sent me an email afterward that explained the answer to one of our questions in the interview that he didn’t know at the time. The fact that he took the effort to look it up showed perseverance and a desire to learn. That alone will many times make up for a current lack in knowledge.

Don’t Lose Your Cool

One person I interviewed was clearly thrown a bit off balance by some of the questions I asked. What really put marks in the cons column was when he got so upset trying to solve the problem that he threw down his pencil and repeatedly smacked the table. Our work environment can be much more stressful than an interview; I really don’t want to worry about someone going mental on the job.

Don’t Give Up Easily

If you don’t know the answer to a particular problem, try to figure it out if you can. I will often ask questions that I know the candidate won’t know, just to see how he or she handles it. Someone who takes one look and walks away has never impressed me. Remember, while someone is standing there saying it can’t be done, someone else is out there doing it.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions

Along with the preceding point, you are not expected to know it all. If a person asks a question about a particular task or problem I’ve given him or her in an interview, it usually shows that a person who doesn’t know is willing to find out. That is a very important trait in the engineering world. Also use the interview as a chance to find out about your respective workplace.

Don’t Lay Your Head on the Table

Yep, it really happened and I have witnesses to prove it. This potential employee laid his head on the table several times during the interview. I couldn’t figure out whether he was tired or just listening for some type of table vibration that might indicate how well the interview was going. This would never be my only reason for not hiring someone. (I get some of my best ideas in that twilight between almost asleep and almost awake.) However, this was coupled with some other blatant problems. I just knew it wouldn’t work. Let’s just say this particular interviewee will have plenty of time to nap now.

Don’t Call Yourself Stupid

I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t happened to me. One applicant we had got a little flustered with a couple of basic questions, but that wasn’t what did him in. The first time he said “Man, I am stupid,” I didn’t think much of it; however, as the interview wore on, I heard, “Oh, I’m an idiot” and “I am soooo stupid” probably a dozen times or more. By the end of the interview, I was sure of one thing: I definitely didn’t want to hire an idiot, especially one so stupid.

A Final Thought

There are a lot of guides out there on getting an interview and getting through an interview. They are even a bit more conventional than my seven don’ts. It can’t hurt to study up on some of these pointers. I also think it helps to know a bit about the company you are interviewing with. Take advantage of today’s ability to look up anything on the Internet. It will help you decide where you want to be, and it also doesn’t hurt to have a little background before going into an interview.

Value

Here’s a Thumb Rule: Companies exist to make money. Even nonprofit companies need to bring in money to cover their salaries and expenses. When your employers start reviewing you and your coworkers, you need to realize that this is foremost in their mind.

This is the question the manager must ask himself: If I had to start all over with just one employee, who would it be? Or in other words, who would most likely make this company a success? In my analysis, this person is the “shooting star.” He or she works hard, has great talent, can handle pressure, and works well with others. If you ask him for something you get it. You don’t have to keep checking up on him. You know she is going places. He very directly affects the profitability of the company.

Therefore, you must remember that your total value is of top importance. What if you add value, though, and no one notices? This can happen, especially in larger companies. My answer is this: It is not bad to toot your own horn a bit. A good way to do this, both for you and your employer, is to do a regular self-evaluation. List the things you accomplished last year and compare them to what you did this year. Do you show improvement? If not, commit yourself until you do. Then give that to your boss. He’ll appreciate that you look at yourself critically and it’s a good chance for him to see what you have done for the company.

Position

Repeat the thumb rule we just learned: Companies exist to make money. They don’t do that without a product. So the most important job you can have is one that is directly related to the product. Don’t get stuck in a one-off job. What is a one-off job, you ask? A one-off job is one you can eliminate and still sell product. It is one level removed from delivering a product to the customer. The ISO 9000 “Corporate Coordinator” might sound like a pretty neat title, but when you get right down to it, the company could do without it. If you find yourself in a one-off job, it’s time to start looking for a transfer.

Loyalty

It’s human nature to complain. Because of that, an easy yet subtle trap to fall into is right by the water cooler. In this trap you discuss the latest smack about the boss. Every leader I have ever met appreciates loyalty. If you succumb to spreading rumors, whether true or false, you put yourself on shaky ground. I am not saying the pointy hairs don’t make mistakes. In fact, I believe that a manager only needs to be right 51% of the time to be successful, as you already know. So remember this: They might have their faults, but so do you. If you have a serious issue with your boss that you can’t overlook and can’t help talking about, you’d better start looking for a new job, because in today’s market, you soon will be.

Effort

Effort is important for two reasons. First, a great effort can compensate for a lack of skill. Remember that the guy who tinkers in the lab for hours on end can get to the finish line faster than the brilliant engineer who spent the morning surfing the ‘Net. It’s all about getting to the market the fastest these days. It is the entire reason that MAMA¹⁸ exists. All the pointy hairs want to do is to deliver product, make the sale—in general, to do business. So a supreme effort is usually noticed. Remember, the same rumor mill you should avoid yourself can have a tremendous effect on you. You can be known for hard work, or you can be known as a slacker. The choice is up to you.

If the Worst Happens

It is possible that no matter what you do, you still get laid off. At times when a company has to cut deep, there is nothing that can be done. I suggest you take this as best you can and leave on a good note. If things pick up again, it is a lot easier for a boss to rehire someone he knows will do a good job rather than any Joe off the street. So don’t burn any bridges.