3/15/2009
3/14/2009
3/05/2009
Corporate Survival Guide: The Performance Review
On the real battlefield, advancement happens through attrition. On the Corporate Battlefield, it happens through the annual Performance Review.
The performance review is the process by which, through the phases of peer feedback, self-evaluation, and one-on-one meetings with management, we can lie through our teeth to get what we want.
There are several steps to the review process. Let's examine how you can use every one of them to improve your career:
1) Peer Reviews of You
The typical review cycle begins with your manager gathering names of your peers that have worked with you and who may be able to provide input on your performance. Sometimes, the manager will know some names to start with. But your manager may solicit names from you since they have been focused so much on their own career that they really haven't paid much attention to their team. This is where your plan begins.
First of all, give your manager some names of executives of the company whom you have supposedly worked closely with. Your manager will be surprised and impressed, and will gladly add those names to the list because it gives your manager a chance to get his own name in front of them. Of course, you have never met these people, but you know for a fact that they're way too busy in executive meetings, golf games, and SEC depositions to take the time to respond to a performance review request for some employee they've never heard of. But the idea was not to actually get a review, but instead to score points with your manager for supposedly having worked with these people enough to request a review.
Next, give you manager names of people in other departments, preferably with important-sounding titles. Then, find a way to intercept communications to these people so that you can field the review requests and respond on your own. If intercepting proves too difficult (this strategy was far easier in the days of inter-office memos and smoke signals), come prepared with letters from these people to simply give to your manager. Explain that they are too busy to be bothered with a review, but took the time this past weekend to jot down some thoughts on your major contributions to the company. Be sure to avoid using the personal pronoun "I", and don't sign your own name to these letters.
Finally, your manager will probably insist on names of some people in your group. Give names of the people whom know you the least in the group. What you're looking for is a vague acknowledgement that you have worked on the team, but no real in-depth review of what you have done. Save those more personal reviews for the fake letters from others (see above). It is critical to not let people with close knowledge of your accomplishments into the review process. After all, if you have been fighting the Corporate Battle successfully in the past year, you have been focused solely on your own career, and the poor slobs that have had to bear the burden of your unfinished tasks may not react kindly when asked about your performance.
2) Your Review of Peers
Your manager may ask you for reviews of some of your peers. At this time, you should also send him reviews of any of the star performers in the group; these people are your competition.
Success on the Corporate Battlefield s not an absolute measure, but a relative one. It is not just how you are doing, but how others are doing in comparison to you. So it is just as important to tear others down as it is to build up your own accomplishments to godlike quality.
Your actual reviews should take many forms, but in general should start out with something like this:
3) Self Evaluation
Although your review of peers, if well done, are thinly-veiled autobiographies, your self evaluation is really your chance to shine. This is the time when the manacles come off and you can brag to your fullest ability. No superlative is too great, no description too verbose, and no way you should stop at less than 50 pages. I have even seen some leather-bound books submitted as self-evaluations, which probably made for good night-time reading for the managers. The important thing here is to bury your manager so deeply in details and explanations that they won't have time to check any of the facts. Make any claim you want here, because it's all free.
One tip: when you turn your copy into your manager, apologize for not getting it to him sooner, but explain that some of the executives had asked for it and you had to run those copies off at the same time.
4) Manager Meeting
The review process climaxes in a one-on-one meeting with your manager. They have compiled all of the data above and may have even read some of it. They will then come to some conclusions about your performance that they wish to discuss with you.
This is your final chance. Remember: your manager's conclusions are not set until the end of this meeting. So do whatever you can to improve their impression of you even more.
Suck up.
Start the meeting, before they've even started to speak, with something like:
"I just wanted to tell you that it's been a real pleasure working for you. As I was telling [some executive's name], were it not for such strong management support, I would not have been able to perform at the peak I achieved in the past year. This is my dream job, and you are my dream boss. No matter what the rest of the folks on the team may say about you, I really like working for you."
5) Goals
Finally, after the performance review is over, you may be asked to come up with goals for the next year which you can then be judged upon for the next review.
Only one tip here: keep them vague.
Now get out onto that battlefield and charge forth into the next year.
Remember: in Corporate War, it's not about how well you're doing your job, but how well people think you're doing it. The performance review is a perfect opportunity for you to tell them exactly what to think.
The performance review is the process by which, through the phases of peer feedback, self-evaluation, and one-on-one meetings with management, we can lie through our teeth to get what we want.
There are several steps to the review process. Let's examine how you can use every one of them to improve your career:
1) Peer Reviews of You
The typical review cycle begins with your manager gathering names of your peers that have worked with you and who may be able to provide input on your performance. Sometimes, the manager will know some names to start with. But your manager may solicit names from you since they have been focused so much on their own career that they really haven't paid much attention to their team. This is where your plan begins.
First of all, give your manager some names of executives of the company whom you have supposedly worked closely with. Your manager will be surprised and impressed, and will gladly add those names to the list because it gives your manager a chance to get his own name in front of them. Of course, you have never met these people, but you know for a fact that they're way too busy in executive meetings, golf games, and SEC depositions to take the time to respond to a performance review request for some employee they've never heard of. But the idea was not to actually get a review, but instead to score points with your manager for supposedly having worked with these people enough to request a review.
Next, give you manager names of people in other departments, preferably with important-sounding titles. Then, find a way to intercept communications to these people so that you can field the review requests and respond on your own. If intercepting proves too difficult (this strategy was far easier in the days of inter-office memos and smoke signals), come prepared with letters from these people to simply give to your manager. Explain that they are too busy to be bothered with a review, but took the time this past weekend to jot down some thoughts on your major contributions to the company. Be sure to avoid using the personal pronoun "I", and don't sign your own name to these letters.
Finally, your manager will probably insist on names of some people in your group. Give names of the people whom know you the least in the group. What you're looking for is a vague acknowledgement that you have worked on the team, but no real in-depth review of what you have done. Save those more personal reviews for the fake letters from others (see above). It is critical to not let people with close knowledge of your accomplishments into the review process. After all, if you have been fighting the Corporate Battle successfully in the past year, you have been focused solely on your own career, and the poor slobs that have had to bear the burden of your unfinished tasks may not react kindly when asked about your performance.
2) Your Review of Peers
Your manager may ask you for reviews of some of your peers. At this time, you should also send him reviews of any of the star performers in the group; these people are your competition.
Success on the Corporate Battlefield s not an absolute measure, but a relative one. It is not just how you are doing, but how others are doing in comparison to you. So it is just as important to tear others down as it is to build up your own accomplishments to godlike quality.
Your actual reviews should take many forms, but in general should start out with something like this:
"I have enjoyed mentoring [peer] for the past year, despite [his|her] obvious limitations and inability to execute on even the simplest tasks. Compared to my own work on our shared projects this year, their work was shoddy and unfinished, but of course they are still quite junior and may be able to improve some day. For example, on the Fenster Account, I was able to secure commitments from 7 other department heads to proceed forthwith....."Note how the review starts out positive, saying something nice about your co-worker before completely savaging them. Also, note how even when you discuss others on your team, you should mention your own stellar performance; tossing in words like "mentoring," "leading," or in some cases "tolerating" will do nicely. Finally, notice how you can eventually turn the conversation entirely to a description of your performance. Make your manager know that you are really the only person that counts on the team.
3) Self Evaluation
Although your review of peers, if well done, are thinly-veiled autobiographies, your self evaluation is really your chance to shine. This is the time when the manacles come off and you can brag to your fullest ability. No superlative is too great, no description too verbose, and no way you should stop at less than 50 pages. I have even seen some leather-bound books submitted as self-evaluations, which probably made for good night-time reading for the managers. The important thing here is to bury your manager so deeply in details and explanations that they won't have time to check any of the facts. Make any claim you want here, because it's all free.
One tip: when you turn your copy into your manager, apologize for not getting it to him sooner, but explain that some of the executives had asked for it and you had to run those copies off at the same time.
4) Manager Meeting
The review process climaxes in a one-on-one meeting with your manager. They have compiled all of the data above and may have even read some of it. They will then come to some conclusions about your performance that they wish to discuss with you.
This is your final chance. Remember: your manager's conclusions are not set until the end of this meeting. So do whatever you can to improve their impression of you even more.
Suck up.
Start the meeting, before they've even started to speak, with something like:
"I just wanted to tell you that it's been a real pleasure working for you. As I was telling [some executive's name], were it not for such strong management support, I would not have been able to perform at the peak I achieved in the past year. This is my dream job, and you are my dream boss. No matter what the rest of the folks on the team may say about you, I really like working for you."
5) Goals
Finally, after the performance review is over, you may be asked to come up with goals for the next year which you can then be judged upon for the next review.
Only one tip here: keep them vague.
Now get out onto that battlefield and charge forth into the next year.
Remember: in Corporate War, it's not about how well you're doing your job, but how well people think you're doing it. The performance review is a perfect opportunity for you to tell them exactly what to think.
3/01/2009
Mirror, Mirror (Video Remix)
Here's a dramatic reading of last week's Mirror, Mirror piece. You can think of it as a startling reinterpretation of an older work in different media. Or perhaps as a reimagination of poetry through video, creating a striking work of performance art. Some of the more cynical viewers may instead see it as a way to get more content for the blog without going to the trouble of writing new material. You choose.
2/27/2009
Mirror, Mirror
The vanity mirror
Thought of perfection,
And knew that he had it,
Upon some reflection.
He was clean and quite smooth,
Without scratch or dent,
Much better, by far,
Than a sack of cement.
Better than people,
All bumpy and rough,
And covered in hair
And more ugly stuff.
Much better, in fact,
Than windows en masse;
Transparent and stupid,
Real panes in the glass.
He knew his conceit
Was not merely whim;
Not a person walked by
Without gazing at him.
His only regret
As he sat on his shelf,
Was that he could never
Just look at himself.
Thought of perfection,
And knew that he had it,
Upon some reflection.
He was clean and quite smooth,
Without scratch or dent,
Much better, by far,
Than a sack of cement.
Better than people,
All bumpy and rough,
And covered in hair
And more ugly stuff.
Much better, in fact,
Than windows en masse;
Transparent and stupid,
Real panes in the glass.
He knew his conceit
Was not merely whim;
Not a person walked by
Without gazing at him.
His only regret
As he sat on his shelf,
Was that he could never
Just look at himself.
2/25/2009
Happy Thought for Wednesday
When it's pouring outside, gray and dreary, I like to think that it's not rain, but all of the angels in heaven, spitting on us. Over and over and over.
2/20/2009
Geek L0ve
As today is Geek Valentine's Day (February 0x14), a love poem seemed appropriate. Thanks to Kevin for starting this one.
Geek L0ve
Roses are 0xFF0000
Violets are 0x0000FF
This poem's in hex
And in binary 0010
My feelings for you
Are more than a bit,
And a byte or a short
Will still not quite fit.
Words can not say
What is stuck in my head,
So I'll try longs, doubles,
And arrays instead.
My passion for you
Recurses so deep
My stack runneth over:
I'm all out of heap.
Geek L0ve
Roses are 0xFF0000
Violets are 0x0000FF
This poem's in hex
And in binary 0010
My feelings for you
Are more than a bit,
And a byte or a short
Will still not quite fit.
Words can not say
What is stuck in my head,
So I'll try longs, doubles,
And arrays instead.
My passion for you
Recurses so deep
My stack runneth over:
I'm all out of heap.
2/17/2009
Geek Jokes 0111
I wonder:
Are dead security programmers encrypted?
Are native programmers given burials at C?
Are dead VM programmers garbage collected?
Are programmer graveyards full of hackin' and coffin?
Are programming cowboys buried on Reboot Hill?
2/14/2009
Valentime Again
It is once again that time of year when we should think about the ones we love and forget to send them a card. Rather than send any cards myself, I offer up the following happy thoughts that might have been in some cards that I should have sent.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
So is my heart,
Bled dry over you.
Love is a squirrel, flitting feverishly from tree to tree, looking for acorns, only to slip and fall into the street to be squashed by a truck carrying nuts.
My love is a red, red rose, covered in my blood. Damn thorns.
Violets are blue.
So is my heart,
Bled dry over you.
Love is a squirrel, flitting feverishly from tree to tree, looking for acorns, only to slip and fall into the street to be squashed by a truck carrying nuts.
My love is a red, red rose, covered in my blood. Damn thorns.
2/09/2009
Corporate Survival Guide: Girding for Battle
Any warrior knows that you don’t go into battle without appropriate weaponry, and Corporate Warriors are no exception. But the tools of bygone armies aren’t sufficient for the needs of today’s Corporate Warrior. It turns out that management frowns on swords in a meeting, catapults don’t even fit onto the elevator, and bagpipes are laughed out the door.
So what should today’s Corporate Warrior bring to ensure victory and glorious bathing in the blood of the enemy after a full day on the Bureaucratic Battlefield?
If there is one thing that man has perfected, besides molded plastic packaging on kids toys that is impervious to all attempts to open it shy of nuclear explosion, it’s a set of weaponry designed to reduce an enemy to a thenemy. Although the weapons themselves differ between the real battlefield and the much harsher corporate battlefield, the fundamentals of weapons haven’t changed since the first monkey carved his toothbrush into a shiv and offed his buddy at the watering hole for mocking his enunciation. Weaponry basically boils down to: sword, shield, armor, and an optional decorative cup device for the men who‘d like to stay that way. Let’s step through each of the required three and see how they work in today’s corporate wars.
Sword: This is clearly the most important weapon at your disposal; it’s your weapon of attack and defense, and also serves as a suicide device for warriors that completely screw up and are afraid to ’fess up about the debacle. Who can forget that heart-warming scene in Julius Caesar when Marc Antony falls on his own sword, apparently mistaking it for a fluffy bed?
Obviously, swords simply will not do in today’s environment. It has been tried and it just sets off alarms on the way into the building. Also, the things are just plain awkward, and cause you to constantly bump into things simply making your way to your cube. And while it is useful as a pointer in meetings, it tends to reduce the live attendance.
Someone once said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” A ridiculous statement to be sure; that author obviously never went up against a crazy Scot swinging a broadsword. And pens are so passé in today’s corporate environment that it wouldn’t get you any more than a chuckle in a meeting. No, today’s warrior carries a cup of coffee in his hand. Apart from the sustenance that it provides, a large cup in your hand can serve to emphasize points you’re making. In defensive mode, a quick ‘accidental spill’ can distract the opposition long enough for you to find a way around the impasse. And in extreme situations, you can always throw the contents at your opponent, probably doing no physical damage, but the stains on their clothes will damage their image for the rest of the day. Finally, when all goes horribly wrong in a project, you can always save face by drowning yourself in your latte.
Shield: The shield was crucial to yesterday’s warrior in parrying blows while they readied their counter-attack. Also, shields served as handy stretchers for bearing home the wounded, the dead, or the extra donuts from the battle. The corporate warrior also needs a good defensive weapon like this.
Your laptop is your shield. Not only is it similarly shaped (initial laptop designs were actually derived directly from full-body shields of the middle ages, while modern laptops resemble the smaller shields used by famous heroes so that the local portrait artists could depict more of their body), but it is also an object that you can endlessly hide behind when being attacked from all corners of the room. Imagine: someone attacks your conclusions on a recent project, and your laptop can quickly come up with full-color, animated slide presentations that can refute their points or, even better, completely distract the audience. And if everyone in a meeting is attacking you or undercutting some point, you can go into ‘focus’ mode and simply start typing on your laptop, pretending that you didn’t hear their points because you had something more important on your machine to attend to. Finally, if you upset your enemy enough for them to launch their cup of coffee at you (see the earlier discussion on this strategy), a well-wielded laptop can easily deflect the spray, or even bat it back at the attacker.
Armor: Finally, a warrior needs armor to protect those vulnerable spots that can be pierced by your enemy if they succeed in getting past your sword or shield. In the olden days, armor would consist of anything from a leather vest (for the disposable cannon-fodder: “Here, wear this vest. Now, march over to that big pile of bodies wearing leather vests and attack!”) to chain mail shirts (for those that didn’t quite understand the concept of “holes”) to large plates of metal covering every bare patch of skin. Although the leather approach can work in a pinch in today’s company, the general approach of a suit of armor just doesn’t cut it. For one thing, the metal suits are so loud that it is difficult to overhear the speaker in a meeting. Also, the helmets make it difficult to hear anything anyway, and answering calls from golfing buddies is nearly impossible.
Obviously, the corporate warrior’s armor is the “power suit,” designed to strike fear into everyone as you stalk around the department. But I have found it helpful to add some nuances to this basic clothing, to ensure that the armor is more effective. For one thing, nobody can harm you if they cannot get within striking distance, so it’s usually a good idea to avoid showering for the day or two before an important battle. This invisible barrier will form a force field around you that both prevents others from getting close and causes physical damage to those that attempt it. Also, carry several personal devices, one for each pocket of the suit. How many times have we heard the anecdote about someone’s life being saved by the object in their pocket because it stopped the bullet? By putting a mobile device (phone, PDA, laptop battery) in every pocket, you increase the likelihood of stopping whatever attacks they throw at you. Finally, cover your suit completely in plastic wrap. Not only will this make the suit more shiny and noticeable, it will also provide nearly perfect protection from any coffee attacks from those who would bring you down.
Remember: the clothes make the person, and this is particularly true for today’s Corporate Warrior. After all, how do you think the word ‘wardrobe’ originated?
So what should today’s Corporate Warrior bring to ensure victory and glorious bathing in the blood of the enemy after a full day on the Bureaucratic Battlefield?
If there is one thing that man has perfected, besides molded plastic packaging on kids toys that is impervious to all attempts to open it shy of nuclear explosion, it’s a set of weaponry designed to reduce an enemy to a thenemy. Although the weapons themselves differ between the real battlefield and the much harsher corporate battlefield, the fundamentals of weapons haven’t changed since the first monkey carved his toothbrush into a shiv and offed his buddy at the watering hole for mocking his enunciation. Weaponry basically boils down to: sword, shield, armor, and an optional decorative cup device for the men who‘d like to stay that way. Let’s step through each of the required three and see how they work in today’s corporate wars.
Sword: This is clearly the most important weapon at your disposal; it’s your weapon of attack and defense, and also serves as a suicide device for warriors that completely screw up and are afraid to ’fess up about the debacle. Who can forget that heart-warming scene in Julius Caesar when Marc Antony falls on his own sword, apparently mistaking it for a fluffy bed?
Obviously, swords simply will not do in today’s environment. It has been tried and it just sets off alarms on the way into the building. Also, the things are just plain awkward, and cause you to constantly bump into things simply making your way to your cube. And while it is useful as a pointer in meetings, it tends to reduce the live attendance.
Someone once said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” A ridiculous statement to be sure; that author obviously never went up against a crazy Scot swinging a broadsword. And pens are so passé in today’s corporate environment that it wouldn’t get you any more than a chuckle in a meeting. No, today’s warrior carries a cup of coffee in his hand. Apart from the sustenance that it provides, a large cup in your hand can serve to emphasize points you’re making. In defensive mode, a quick ‘accidental spill’ can distract the opposition long enough for you to find a way around the impasse. And in extreme situations, you can always throw the contents at your opponent, probably doing no physical damage, but the stains on their clothes will damage their image for the rest of the day. Finally, when all goes horribly wrong in a project, you can always save face by drowning yourself in your latte.
Shield: The shield was crucial to yesterday’s warrior in parrying blows while they readied their counter-attack. Also, shields served as handy stretchers for bearing home the wounded, the dead, or the extra donuts from the battle. The corporate warrior also needs a good defensive weapon like this.
Your laptop is your shield. Not only is it similarly shaped (initial laptop designs were actually derived directly from full-body shields of the middle ages, while modern laptops resemble the smaller shields used by famous heroes so that the local portrait artists could depict more of their body), but it is also an object that you can endlessly hide behind when being attacked from all corners of the room. Imagine: someone attacks your conclusions on a recent project, and your laptop can quickly come up with full-color, animated slide presentations that can refute their points or, even better, completely distract the audience. And if everyone in a meeting is attacking you or undercutting some point, you can go into ‘focus’ mode and simply start typing on your laptop, pretending that you didn’t hear their points because you had something more important on your machine to attend to. Finally, if you upset your enemy enough for them to launch their cup of coffee at you (see the earlier discussion on this strategy), a well-wielded laptop can easily deflect the spray, or even bat it back at the attacker.
Armor: Finally, a warrior needs armor to protect those vulnerable spots that can be pierced by your enemy if they succeed in getting past your sword or shield. In the olden days, armor would consist of anything from a leather vest (for the disposable cannon-fodder: “Here, wear this vest. Now, march over to that big pile of bodies wearing leather vests and attack!”) to chain mail shirts (for those that didn’t quite understand the concept of “holes”) to large plates of metal covering every bare patch of skin. Although the leather approach can work in a pinch in today’s company, the general approach of a suit of armor just doesn’t cut it. For one thing, the metal suits are so loud that it is difficult to overhear the speaker in a meeting. Also, the helmets make it difficult to hear anything anyway, and answering calls from golfing buddies is nearly impossible.
Obviously, the corporate warrior’s armor is the “power suit,” designed to strike fear into everyone as you stalk around the department. But I have found it helpful to add some nuances to this basic clothing, to ensure that the armor is more effective. For one thing, nobody can harm you if they cannot get within striking distance, so it’s usually a good idea to avoid showering for the day or two before an important battle. This invisible barrier will form a force field around you that both prevents others from getting close and causes physical damage to those that attempt it. Also, carry several personal devices, one for each pocket of the suit. How many times have we heard the anecdote about someone’s life being saved by the object in their pocket because it stopped the bullet? By putting a mobile device (phone, PDA, laptop battery) in every pocket, you increase the likelihood of stopping whatever attacks they throw at you. Finally, cover your suit completely in plastic wrap. Not only will this make the suit more shiny and noticeable, it will also provide nearly perfect protection from any coffee attacks from those who would bring you down.
Remember: the clothes make the person, and this is particularly true for today’s Corporate Warrior. After all, how do you think the word ‘wardrobe’ originated?
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