5 Things to Consider Before Becoming a Business Application Freelancer/Independent Consultant

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, 36% of the American workforce participates in the freelance market. This can include the Uber drivers, tutors, and other side hustle. A big portion of the percentage are full-timers. I know from my experience, in the business application space there is a good number of independent/freelancers working implementation projects. If you are thinking about becoming one of these individuals, I have put together a list of 5 things to consider:

1. Your Subject Matter Expertise - I've connected with a lot of freelance and independents over the last couple of years. I think every business application has its share of independent consultants. For the area you consult or implement in (SCM, HR, Finance, Manufacturing, CRM, BI, etc.) are you experienced or seasoned enough to know the difficult portions? Would you be able to get through a challenging scenario without connecting with a teammate? Make sure you understand your knowledge area, so you can present yourself and your skills appropriately. Stretch assignments are good to take… heck, you know if you were working for a consulting company, they would put you into that position. Think about your industry knowledge as well. If you go into a new industry, would you be able to perform at a high-quality level?


2. The Finances – Do you have savings to get you through the initial phase and the non-project phases? You should have at least 6 months of living expenses ready to go. If you have more than 6 months, you are in good shape. Keep in mind, you might need to fund yourself for the first month while on an engagement. Since this is a contract, you will be sending your invoices to another company. Their payment policy might be a factor. You may need to wait 30 to 45 days after you send the invoice before you see actual income. If you need to travel, you will need to have a credit card with a large available balance as well. This will be another aspect of sending your specific client an invoice to be reimbursed for travel expenses. Plan for your financial situation.

3. Organizational Discipline – You are your boss working for your client. You will need to be very organized with your work and your administrative tasks. You'll need to keep good notes and time tracking. Your time will convert to your invoicing, and it will need to be done in a timely manner (as well as your travel expenses). Additionally, you will be wearing many hats. You will need to be good at sales, contracts, marketing, finance, and of course your delivery activities. You'll need to have good organizational skills.

4. Your Mindset – If you have been an employee your entire career then you are going to need to change your mindset from being an employee to a business owner. Business owners have an ability to have a vision of what they are working towards so when times get tough, they can make something happen to keep the business and themselves going. Do not take this mind shift lightly. Being a business owner is completely different than being an employee. Prepare your mental game for a tough and unknown battle.

5. A Support Community – As an independent consultant, you are on your own team. There will be many days that you feel like you are by yourself, and you'll need to get through these times. This goes along the lines of having a good mindset. A support community can help you work through different situations, can allow you to vent when you need vent, and can encourage you to keep going when you need that too. Your support community can include other freelancers or independents, trusted friends, a spouse, or a mentor/coach.

There are other areas to consider when making the jump. For example, what rate do you charge, do you start as a subcontractor, or can you go straight to the end-user. Do you need official contracts, an attorney, do you need a CPA, and business insurance? These are a few topics to consider. Before you make the leap, do some deep thinking, check with others, and develop a solid action plan.
Next level!

Do you know your next level? Did you know most businesses run on a 3-to-5-year business plan? In some cases, longer strategy plans are put together. What I find interesting is that when I was interviewing to bring new team members on my team, I would ask what their short-term and long-term goals were. Many would struggle with these questions. The short-term goals were usually to get the next new job. I always thought that was a shallow answer. Rare did I come across someone who could articulate where they wanted to be in 3 to 5 years. I wondered why this person would take this job, if they did not know if it would add value to their long-term plan. Do you know where you want to go with your career or are you letting the winds of life and the demands of your job bounce you around?

Leading Off (essentials for leaders and those they lead)

Source: https://tinyurl.com/yw5ey52s

Edited by Rama Ramaswami, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Stamford, Connecticut, office

As the US celebrates its independence on July 4, references to freedom are everywhere. It might be worthwhile to reflect that while freedom is a privilege to be grateful for, it also comes with checks and balances. This tension is apparent in the postpandemic workplace, where many leaders support employees’ growing demands for autonomy—the ability to control how, when, where, and, increasingly, if they work—but struggle to set parameters around it. Finding the right balance between employee autonomy and management oversight is an enduring challenge: as McKinsey’s Bryan Hancock puts it, “What drives me crazy is when I hear an executive say, ‘This is just a near-term employee power thing.’ No, it’s not.” This week, let’s explore the issue of employee autonomy—and how best to approach it.

AN IDEA

Flexible work is for (almost) everyone

Not all work is remote, but more of it is than you might think. That’s one of the notable findings of McKinsey’s latest American Opportunity Survey. At first viewed as a temporary pandemic response, hybrid or remote work has become an enduring feature of the modern world across most industries, occupations, and regions—58 percent of Americans can work from home at least one day a week, 87 percent would work flexibly if offered the chance to do so, and flexible work is one of the top three motivators to find a new job. Flexible work options are available even in traditionally labeled “blue collar” jobs that might be expected to require on-site labor. As new working models evolve, leaders will need to explore which roles can and cannot be performed remotely, how much day-to-day flexibility their teams expect, strategies to integrate on- and off-site workers, and—perhaps most important—ways to measure how well their chosen models are working.

A BIG NUMBER

$200 billion

That’s how much employers pay every year in healthcare costs for workplace stress, much of which results from limited job control—the amount of discretion that employees have to determine what they do and how they do it. Research shows that people in roles with more autonomy experience less physical or mental stress in the workplace even if they face greater job demands. Leaders who are challenged to define flexible work options may want to consider the negative impact of restricted job control and the positive impact of employee autonomy: workers who have more control over their jobs are healthier, more engaged, and better motivated, thereby boosting organizational effectiveness.

A QUOTE

“For leaders to facilitate flexibility and succeed in hybrid work, enabling employee autonomy will be paramount.”

That’s one of the conclusions of a study of hybrid work published in the Harvard Business Review. According to the researchers, what employees really mean by wanting “flexibility” is wanting autonomy, or the ability to be the primary decision makers of where and when they do their work. By directly blocking this ability, mandates such as requiring a certain number of days in the office are likely doomed to fail. Instead, establish principles, not policies: for example, rather than dictating three days a week in the office, you may want to encourage employees to decide which locations best enable them to carry out certain tasks. Also, consider investing in tools and training to build the skills that employees need to work autonomously.

A SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

Giving his teams a high degree of autonomy has paid off for Prashant Gandhi, managing director and head of digital payments at JPMorgan Chase. But it didn’t happen at the expense of structure. “While autonomy is celebrated and talked about frequently, I find that what’s often missing is a careful discussion on the management systems needed to support it,” he says in this interview with McKinsey. “Otherwise you get chaos.” Gandhi’s organization uses a shared culture and guiding principles—in this case, centered on customer satisfaction—to set up a management system that rewards independence and initiative. “If you lay out principles, give people autonomy to deliver on those principles, and provide a system of reviews that’s fair and rigorous, people get it and rally around it,” he says.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Flexibility has its downsides. Employees who work remotely report burnout, alienation from colleagues, feeling invisible to management, and a host of other ill effects. For employers, the implications are different but no less dire. There is often a lingering fear that remote workers may slack off during business hours, moonlight, leak confidential information, or otherwise abuse their flexibility. Using remote monitoring tools without disclosure may raise legal risks. Ultimately, creating a culture of trust and transparency may be the best way for leaders to ensure autonomy—within necessary limits.

Lead flexibly.

— Edited by Rama Ramaswami, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Stamford, Connecticut, office

Re-balancing life and living purposefully!

Re-balancing life and living purposefully! Soledad Tanner Consulting Founder will share her story. 

“After 26 years of a successful Global Finance Corporate career where, I traveled the world, lived in various countries, received my Masters in International Business, reached and exceeded all my professional goals. Despite all of this success, I realized my health had suffered and needed to re-balance and make changes” 

REGISTER: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/social-share-meetup-tickets-43295880143 

New CEOs need fortitude, curiosity and savvy to succeed

Written by: Karen Talley

Source: https://goo.gl/a2vNaC

Quite a few CEOs are just stepping in to their positions, or in their first year or so, and while degrees and business experience are valuable, they don’t give the full picture of what’s needed—and not—to run a company.

Dealing with personnel and organizational issues, as well as stakeholders, customers and products are just a few of the hurdles many will face. It’s a time of trial by fire that demands a deft touch, inquisitiveness, patience and fortitude. 

Fortunately, many experienced CEOs are willing to give advice.

“The first, and best piece of advice I can pass on to a new CEO is the one most people already know but can easily lose sight of in the onslaught of day-to-day tasks: It’s all about your people,” said Todd Piett, CEO of Rave Mobile Safety. “The only way you can scale yourself and your organization is by encouraging an atmosphere of respect and trust, where across all levels of the organization people are empowered to make decisions, be comfortable making mistakes and willing to challenge the status quo.”

Consistency counts

Also, be consistent. “A great mentor told me not to try and be someone you aren’t,” Piett said. “While we all have areas to improve upon, don’t put on an artificial mantel just because you took on a new title. It’s not sustainable and others will see the inconsistencies in your behavior, frustrating themselves as they try to guess your intent.”

To be successful, a new CEOs should focus on identifying and building collaboration within their organizations and across other industries that impact their customer base, said Tracy Duberman, CEO of The Leadership Development Group. This will require the following, she said:

• Envisioning the future. New CEOs must have a clear vision of the direction their organization is heading and what it hopes to achieve.
• Aligning stakeholders. As organizations bring stakeholders from other sectors into the conversation, new CEOs must allow these stakeholders to build on their original vision and incorporate their inputs and interests to develop a shared solution.
• Managing boundaries and obstacles. Along the way toward developing collaborative solutions, the partnership will likely be faced with some bumps along the road. To overcome these obstacles, it’s important that new CEOs focus on opportunity, and remind themselves why the partnership was developed in the first place.
• Act and learn. It is critical to be open to giving and receiving feedback in the interest of evolving that vision to the benefit of all parties. 

As a new CEO, “if you want to become a better leader, the one skill to improve above all others is communication,” said Art Coombs, CEO of KomBea Corp. “The ability to enthusiastically convey an idea, direction and vision to others is critical. And this critical skill is the one skill that truly separates ho-hum management from motivating leadership.”

It is imperative that a new CEO hold strengths in both strategy formulation and execution said Howard Seidel, senior partner at Essex Partners.

A cohesive unit

Development of the executive team into a cohesive unit is essential and CEOs' need to have or develop strong political instincts, Seidel said. “They need to effectively manage their relationships among board members and understand the sometimes unspoken commitments that exist inside an organizational culture. New CEO’s needs to understand how much board and team support they have for certain initiatives.”

In terms of personal traits, “new CEOs are best served combining confidence with some humility and curiosity,” Seidel said. “Projecting confidence is important but that is not mutually exclusive from a new CEO acknowledging that he or she doesn’t know everything, and benefiting from the point of view of older employees in the organization.”

But, “seeking input doesn’t absolve CEOs from understanding that they are ultimately responsible for final decisions,” Seidel said. “New CEOs often can relate to the adage that ‘it’s lonely at the top.’ Similarly, because not all executive decisions will be applauded by everyone in an organization, new CEOs need to have a thick skin, or have the capacity to develop it quickly.”

The unexpected

“You can prepare best by expecting the unexpected,” said Tom Axbey, CEO of CloudHealth. “What you think you know doesn't matter; the question is: have you done your due diligence, and do you have a 100-day plan? The brochure is always different from the resort. Be prepared to listen. To do that, you have to invest from day one in the people.”

Kelley Knutson, president of Netspend, advises new CEOs to use their initial period of time as an outsider to observe, listen and learn how an organization operates and ask a lot of questions beginning with “why” or “what.”

This relates to “sales practices, customer engagement, product development/delivery, operational processes and the competitive landscape,” Knutson said. “Use the things you have two of (eyes and ears) often, and only use your mouth after you’ve objectively understood the situation at hand and can add real value.” 

At the same time, “Ask the right questions, at the right time, to extract real insight and show people you’re listening and care about what they’ve said and what they know about their business,” Knutson said. “This is critically important when leading a group of seasoned, and experienced, leaders who will know the details of the business better than you.”

Openness matters

To do the best job, “be open, engaging, passionate, supportive, humble, inquisitive, and make the journey rewarding for everyone,” Knutson said. “That’s what true leadership is about.”

When Kathleen Savio, CEO of Zurich North America, took the CEO spot, “the first thing I did was focus on my strengths—the contributions I can make to the job. Authentic leadership is where it all begins. For me, I’m inspired by the power of words and use them as a tool to inspire others. My favorite quote is an African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

“That’s the real purpose of a CEO-–to bring everyone together, united in action, with a common purpose. So, I gathered our leaders together to listen to their insights and to emphasize we are o CEOs can get so occupied with running the business that they don’t spend time directly with their customers. I’m making time with our customers a priority for me. In my first 100 days, I’m on the road meeting with customers and listen to their needs. In the end, it’s all about being there for our customers.”

Stay healthy

“As a new CEO, you will quickly notice that operating in a high-stress environment can take its toll physically, mentally and emotionally,” said Lowinn Kibbey, ‎global head, Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute. “This can carry over from the office to all areas of life. While you may be fully equipped to take on a new leadership role, you may not realize just how important it is to stay healthy and resilient, and to continue to develop and improve your character.”

“As you establish yourself in your new role, don’t lose sight of your purpose,” Kibbey said. “Continue to ask yourself: What are you chasing? Why are you chasing it? Who are you becoming as you’re chasing it? Ensuring your decisions align with your character and values can significantly impact your work and quality of life.”

"Making Cents of Finance" a practical approach to budgeting, savings, credit and entrepreneurship

Soledad Tanner, MIB Founder and CEO of Soledad Tanner Consulting, LLC speaking at Fort Bend ISD Global Studies Academy; Nelly Akhmadikina 's "Life Smarts" series.

Created with flickr slideshow.

The CEO of a global management consulting firm explains the secret to being an effective leader

Trust, integrity, knowledge and expertise are key factors on the success of many business including consulting. Effective leaders shouldn’t hide who they are. Customers have to emotionally trust and connect. Interesting article!

Soledad Tanner, MIB

Johan Aurik, CEO of A.T. Kearney.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com

By: Peter Vanham, Contributor

It’s considered one of the cornerstones of a successful life and career: You separate your work life from your personal life.

But one executive begs to differ — and advises you to do the same.

That man is Johan Aurik, the CEO of A.T. Kearney, a worldwide management consulting firm with over $1 billion in revenue.

"You can’t hide your personal life at work," he says. "You can only be effective as a leader if you’re also able to share your life with others." 

Originally from the Netherlands, Aurik moved to the U.S. in his early 20s to pursue degrees in American studies at Smith College in Northampton, MA, and economics and international relations at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

After graduating, he started working for the Chicago-based A.T. Kearney in Europe and North America, eventually ascending the ranks to become its global managing partner and chairman in 2012.

During those years, he said, he learned to "open up" to his employees.

"I’m pretty open about my personal life," he told me in Brussels, Belgium, as I interviewed him for my upcoming book, "Before I Was CEO." That openness goes both ways: He’ll sometimes let his personal life enter his professional life, and he and his family have had to accept the high toll his professional life sometimes takes on his family life.

For example, Aurik went through a difficult period when his father passed away a few years ago. He made no efforts to hide that at work. "I had tears in my eyes, and people could see it. But why would I try to hide that?" he asked.

It’s a human reaction. And showing those is "a sign of strength, not weakness," Aurik said.

Letting the boundaries between work and life erode helps to make work with others more authentic and to create an emotional bond, he said.

"In a business like consulting, you don’t produce a physical object. You offer your advice, that’s what people pay for. But you can’t get people to rationally trust your advice and pay for it unless they emotionally trust you as well. That’s where the personal aspect comes in." 

That trust factor plays in his relations with his own employees as well — even at the highest level. His experience in a nationwide partner meeting in Colorado Springs in 2013 is testimony of that. "It was the first time I led such a partner meeting as global managing partner," he said. "I had an important role to play. But at the same time as the meeting, my daughter had her high school graduation."

Aurik felt he couldn’t miss the graduation, and did what many would consider to be the "unthinkable": A day into the meeting, after his remarks, he stood up and announced he was leaving the meeting, and left.

How did that go down? "A few people mumbled, of course," Aurik said. "But in the end, the prevailing talk now is that I set a positive example when I did that." People appreciated his honesty and respected his priorities.

Why could Aurik leave such an important meeting? "Because I was upfront about it," he told me. "I stood up during a plenary session and explained my decision to leave. That was crucial. There was no hiding. That’s what I mean when I say you can’t hide your personal life from your professional life."

Things would have been different, Aurik argues, had he left in silence and sent an email to his colleagues.

In this case, Aurik wouldn’t have left his daughter’s graduation for anything in the world. But that doesn’t mean he would leave important meetings for any personal reason. Rather, he believes the combination of life and career can succeed more often through another recipe: meticulous planning.

"I start planning my agenda a year and a half in advance," he said. "That way, I can set aside enough time for a family vacation or dinner."

Long-term planning allowed him to join his daughter for a week as she went on a U.S. road trip to visit colleges throughout Massachusetts and New York, for example.

However, Aurik’s plans don’t stay limited to week-long family vacations: Even a lazy night on the couch at home gets planned in advance, he says. "Those are the choices you need to make."

And what goes around, comes around. Just as he sometimes lets his personal priorities prevail on his work duties, he often has to let his work duties prevail over his personal life.

As an example, Aurik cites the management buyout A.T. Kearney went through in 2005. As the business went through precarious times, the partners of the company decided to buy out the shares in the company from its then-shareholders, EDS.

During a cold December night in 2005, as the deadline approached, Aurik says he and his colleagues sat in a London hotel, waiting eagerly for confirmation faxes that their colleagues had paid for the buyout.

Aurik had invested his own money in the buyout, "without having a guarantee, and without having an under-limit to my losses." Luckily, the confirmations of his colleagues came, and in the years following, Aurik and his colleagues could rebuild the 80-year old company "as if it was a century-old startup."

Those long hours, days, and years at the job meant he had to sacrifice a lot of time with his family. When you don’t clearly demarcate the line between personal and professional life, it requires giving as well as taking.

Are such sacrifices worth it? Aurik says they are. "You have to get everything out of life that you possibly can. That’s my leitmotiv, my constant motivation."

Peter Vanham is a media strategist at the World Economic Forum and a freelance business writer. He is currently writing "Before I Was CEO," a book on the lessons from leaders before they reached the top.

11 Surefire Ways For Women To Get Power And Make A Ton Of Money

Written by: Denisse Restaury

Source: www.forbes.com

Cindy Gallop’s Twitter profile says it all, “I like to blow sh*t up. I am the Michael Bay of business.” And this quote from Gallop is one of my favorites: “You’ll never own the future if you care what other people think.”

How did Gallop get the confidence to say what she thinks? To ask for what she wants? That’s what I asked her when she joined me on my Mentoring Moments podcast. Here are 11 takeaways, surefire ways for women to get power and make as much money as humanly possible (all in Gallop’s words, edited and condensed).

1. I urge women not to look for just mentors, but even more importantly to find champions. There can be a tendency for the word mentor to sound very advisory, a lot of talking. I am a naturally action-oriented person who feels there is far too much talking in the world and too little doing. So I urge women to find champions because champions are people who make sh*t happen for you.

2. Never give anything away for free. What you have to offer any workplace (or any person) is your personal point of view, your hard-won lessons through experience. If I responded to every request I get to pick my brain for free, I would have no time to support myself and I’d be personally bankrupt.

3.Be totally unashamed about wanting to make a sh*t ton of money. Women are not brought up to think about money the way men are. To be taken seriously, women need to make as much money as humanly possible. Negotiate and argue for money, like all the men around you are doing. There’s a bigger point here. When C-suite men (and women) look at the spread sheet with all the company’s salaries, when they see that women earn less than men, in their minds they think, “Women are not as good as men.”

4. One of the quickest ways for women to make money is to invest. So please women, make as much money as you can and fund other women because that’s how we will all become billionaires. There was a whole bro network (white guys talking to white guys) who got tipped-off early on to things like Uber. That network doesn’t operate for women. Women, consciously get your ear to the ground and invest.

5. Do not let anybody tell you what to do with your own f*cking money. I’ve seen this happen (friends have similar experiences): A woman who has the money to invest, tells her husband/partner that she is going to invest in MakeLoveNotPorn and he responds: “Oh no darling you don’t want to do that” and the woman capitulates.

6. Social sharing can make sh*t happen for women. Social media is a whole new methodology to do what women have been doing since the beginning of time – sharing the sh*t out of everything. We make sh*t happen when we share.

7. If you are working at a place that does not welcome and celebrate your talent, somewhere that does not allow you to disrupt and innovate in the way that you want to, get the f*ck out, get another job. There’s no point in being there.

8. Manage your own mind. Mind management tip: of all the things that stress you out every day, pick one thing and address only that one stress that day.

9. There is always a way over, around, under or through every obstacle. You just need to be creative about what that is. Take micro-actions.

10. The fear of what other people will think is the single most paralyzing dynamic in business and life. You will never own the future if you care what other people think.

11. The only person who can make things happen for you is you. People can help you (i.e., champions), but you need to make it happen.

The Most Common Practices Of Super-Achievers

Written by: Tanya Prive
Source: www.forbes.com

How Super-Achievers Do What They Do

For their new book The Art of Doing, Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield interviewed 36 super-achievers at the tops of their fields. They started seeing patterns emerge. These are the 10 most common practices of the highly successful.

1.Practicing Patience

Co-authors Sweeney and Gosfield heard again and again the importance of patience–whether it’s strategically waiting for the best time to take action or continuing to pursue a larger vision without receiving immediate rewards. Jill Tarter, director of SETI research, has been searching for life on other planets for the last 50 years without any guarantee of success.

2. Managing Emotions

Super-achievers know how to manage their own emotions and those of the people around them. Gary Noesner, former FBI hostage negotiator, would listen and find out what the person’s needs were in order to gain their trust and diffuse the intense emotions.

3. Constantly Evolving

Successful people maintain success by consistently learning and adapting to the environment around them. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova realized this when her game suddenly started sliding. She decided to transform her training routine and diet, and soon was back on track to become an all-star athlete.

4. Fostering A Community

Success cannot be achieved alone. Achievers galvanize a group of people around their idea or goal. Jessica Watson, who sailed around the world at age 16, sought the help of mentors, experts and friends to support and prepare her for the journey.

5. Testing Ideas In The Market

“Everybody has a bias to think their own idea is brilliant,” says co-author Gosfield. “[Achievers] roll it out in an environment that’s as close as possible to the market.” Bill Gross, the head of Idealab and a mega-successful entrepreneur, always tests his business ideas first to better understand consumer interest before he launches them.

6. Intelligent Persistence

Super-achievers are intelligently persistent—meaning they know when to pivot. When faced with setbacks, instead of doggedly using the same tactics that aren’t working, they examine the problem and figure out what will work. Opera superstar Anna Netrebko was initially discouraged from being a solo singer. However, she took a job as an opera-house janitor, got the chance to audition and eventually got a shot at the lead role.

7. Pursuing Happiness

Success fuels happiness, and happiness in turn fuels greater success. Game show champion Ken Jennings said his passion for the game helped him win, and every win gave him more confidence for the next round.

8. Listening And Remaining Open

Successful people practice the art of listening to learn what they need to know about the world around them. They may listen in the tradition sense, but it’s also about being open more generally. Actress Laura Linney does this with every script. She never takes a part unless she has read and reread the script so many times that it has opened up to her.

9. Dedication To A Vision

Super-achievers are dedicated to their vision day in and day out. Philippe Petit, famous for his high-wire walk between New York City’s Twin Towers, dedicated himself to the feat before he was even an accomplished wire-walker. He stuck with it until he’d accomplished his goal.

10. Good Storytelling

Stories have the ability to transport people to your world, so they’re more likely to invest in you and your brand. Instead of million-dollar ads, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh wanted each customer interaction to sell the brand. With positive word of mouth, every customer was telling the story of the company.

The Science of Sounding Smart

Writen by: Juliana Schroeder and Nicholas Epley.  

Source: Harvard Business Review

When you’re trying to convey the quality of your mind to your boss, or to a company that’s considering you for a job, your best ally may be your own voice.

Although some people may assume that their ideas and intellect would come across much better in written form, it turns out that using your voice can make you sound smarter.

This insight comes out of our broader research investigating how people discern what’s going on in others’ minds despite the fundamental human inability to directly observe another’s thoughts, beliefs, or motivations. We’ve learned that spoken language is a highly effective tool for this. It’s the communication form that most clearly reveals not only what people are thinking but also their thinking ability.

That’s an insight worth pondering. After all, a significant part of your success in life depends on how you are evaluated by others. You may be smart and competent, but if your boss fails to realize it, you will not get your well-deserved raise. You may be the best candidate for an intellectually demanding job, but you won’t get hired unless your interviewer recognizes your ability.

We discovered this through a series of experiments. One of them consisted of asking each of 18 MBA students in the middle of recruiting season to prepare a spoken pitch to their preferred employers explaining why they should be hired. (We also asked them to prepare a separate written pitch, which we used for a subsequent experiment.) We gave them as much time as they wanted to make their pitches as compelling as possible, and we videotaped the presentations so that we could evaluate the effect of both hearing and seeing the candidates.

We then asked 162 evaluators to watch one video, listen to one audio pitch, or read a transcript (with filler words like “um” removed). The evaluators assessed the candidates’ competence, thoughtfulness, and intelligence and reported how much they liked them and how positive an impression they had made. Judgments like these are of fundamental importance for hiring decisions in sectors such as service, in which employers are searching for intelligent employees. Finally, the evaluators reported on how interested they would be in hiring the candidates if they were considering them for positions.

In comparison with those who read the transcripts, the evaluators who heard pitches judged the candidates to have greater intellect (to be more rational, thoughtful, and intelligent), on average. They also liked the individuals more, had a more positive overall impression, and — perhaps most important — were more interested in hiring the candidates. Evaluators who saw the videos appeared to be even more favorably impressed, but there was no statistically significant difference between the evaluations of video and audio.

Find this and other HBR graphics in our VISUAL LIBRARY 

Results like these may come as a surprise to many people. When we asked samples of MBA students, master’s degree students, local (Chicago) community members, and online participants to predict whether their intelligence would be judged more positively in speech or text, they expected no meaningful difference between the two. Faced with the question of how best to convey their intellect to a recruiter, providing a short typed pitch or an audio of the same words, roughly half (50 out of 112) of the MBA students we surveyed said they would prefer to provide a written pitch.

Granted, a transcription of a spoken pitch might make for a less-than-compelling text, so we conducted another experiment to test whether the results of a written pitch would be similar to those of a transcript. This experiment confirmed that a person’s mind is indeed conveyed through the voice: In comparison with either a transcript or a student’s carefully written pitch, a spoken pitch led to more positive impressions of candidates’ intellect and more hiring interest.

You might wonder whether people who actually hire candidates for a living would show the same preference for candidates who speak. For ethical reasons, we could not manipulate real hiring decisions, but we could conduct our experiments with professional recruiters. After a conference, we asked 39 recruiters from companies such as Microsoft and Goldman Sachs either to listen to a candidate’s pitch or to read a transcript. On average, they too judged a candidate to be more intelligent, likable, and employable if they heard, rather than read, a pitch.

Obviously there are many situations in which providing written text is the only option for communicating with superiors or recruiters. But it’s worth making the effort to bring your voice into the mix, and we believe it’s a good idea, when people are about to make decisions about you, to look for opportunities to chat on the phone or in person.

Although there may be some advantages to putting thoughts in writing — it allows for revisions, for example — written passages lack critical paralinguistic cues that provide critical information about a speaker’s intelligence and thoughtfulness. Your voice is a tool that has been honed over the course of human evolution to communicate what’s on your mind to others. Without even thinking about it, you naturally flood your listener with cues to your thinking through subtle modulations in tone, pace, volume, and pitch. The listener, attuned to those modulations, naturally decodes these cues. That’s why if you claim to be passionate about your prospective job, for example, hearing your passion may be more convincing than reading your passion. Written text may not convey the same impression as your voice, because it lacks a critical feature: the sound of intellect.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's Top Five Ways for Women to Support Women

By: People Staff
Source: www.people.com

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer and founder of the Lean In Foundation, has dedicated much of her focus to helping women succeed. Now, as one of PEOPLE’s 25 Women Changing the World, the tech mogul offers five easy ways women can support one another in their personal and professional lives in an exclusive piece for PEOPLE.

We’ve all heard the myth that women don’t support each other — but it’s not true. Women are incredible allies, and we accomplish amazing things when we support each other. 

Here are five simple things — backed by social science research — that we can do every day to advocate for the women in our lives (and these tips work great for the men who want to support the women in their lives, too).

1. Challenge the Likability Penalty.

Women face a double standard that men don’t. Men are expected to be assertive and confident, while women are expected to be nurturing and collaborative. When women take the lead and assert ourselves, we go against expectations — and often face pushback from men and women. According to our 2016 Women in the Workplace study, women who negotiate are far more likely to receive feedback that they are “intimidating,” “too aggressive,” or “bossy” than men who do the same thing. 

So when you hear a woman called “aggressive” or “bossy,” request a specific example of what she did and then ask, “Would you have the same reaction if a man did the same thing?” In many cases, the answer will be no.

2. Celebrate Women’s Accomplishments.

Women are often given less credit for successful outcomes and blamed more for failures. And when we celebrate our accomplishments, we are often penalized for self-promotion. As a result, women’s contributions can go unnoticed.

In meetings, performance reviews, and everyday conversations, call out women for their achievements and point out when they are being blamed unfairly for mistakes. When women celebrate one another’s accomplishments, we’re all lifted up. 

3. Make Sure Women’s Ideas Are Heard.

Women often get less airtime in group discussions than men and are interrupted more — by both men and women. 

Look for ways to shape the conversation and invite other women to participate. When a woman is interrupted, interject and say you’d like to hear her finish. Speaking up is a win-win: when you advocate for other women, they benefit — and you’re seen as a leader.

4. Become a Mentor.

Mentorship and sponsorship are key drivers of success, but women typically get less access to both. The women who participated in our Women in the Workplace study reported fewer substantive interactions with senior leaders than their male counterparts.

You can help fix this by committing time and energy to mentoring other women. If you’re further along in your career, pay it forward by investing in a woman who’s just starting out. And if you’re early in your career, find a woman who’s coming up behind you or a student who’s interested in your field.

5. Join a Lean In Circle.

Peers can be powerful advocates and advisors. Earlier in my career, my older mentors advised me against taking a job at Google, and then again against Facebook. But almost all of my peers understood the potential of these companies. Their counsel was a valuable resource for me then and continues to be now.

You can tap into that power of peer support by joining a Lean In Circle, a small group that meets regularly to learn and grow together. Go to leanin.org/Circles to get started.