Having Fun At Work (With People Who Aren't Fun)

A few start ups ago, I had to work with a person that everyone in the building, to be blunt, dreaded. 

They were essential to the enterprise -- the way that everyone like this is. They knew way more about lots of things that other people didn't know. They didn't have people report to them directly, because of a number of reasons that everyone involved probably didn't want to admit, which may have contributed to their unprofessional attitude. And they dealt in 100% Candor and telling it like it is, and going into the details of how things worked, regardless of whether you had any interest in those details. 

Giving them feedback about how any of that came off was pointless. Either they accepted it with grace and then fell back into old habits, or they regarded the submission as a personal attack. To be fair, it's hard for adults, especially ones that have achieved some things in their lives, to change their ways. Especially when they have very good reasons to think they are right about something.

The overwhelming feeling that you got from working with them was, well, fatigue. Changing anything was going to be too hard, so what constitutional lawyers refer to as a cooling effect came into play. You either did as little as possible to limit your exposure to them, or you did new initiatives without their knowledge, and crossed your fingers that the land mine would stay buried. If you did have to interact with them, you did so with as much prep as possible, in the hope that they'd see your data or your work and just back off.

They have their reasons for being this way. Maybe even really good ones. I'm also sure that life was an unending slog of underperforming co-workers that aren't up to their standards. That also must suck. 

But if the only thing in life that is important is who gets to be right, and never ever doing the wrong thing... 

Well, you aren't going to learn very much. Or do very much, really.

 Or seem very happy about anything, because...

The human sensation of Fun comes from a twist in pattern recognition in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. If something seems like something you recognize but with a novel (but not threatening) variation, your hippocampus sends some dopamine along to the amygdala. Everyone loves that dopamine, and hey presto, Fun. For a little while.

If you find that you are having No Fun at work -- because no one is doing things your way, because your attempts at collaborating are either unsuccessful or unwanted, and everyone involved seems like they'd rather just do it themselves...

Well, there's a chance that you are becoming the problem co-worker for them.

And really may need need to try new things, or ways to work.

Because, well, changing yourself has a hell of a lot more chance to work than changing anyone else...

Hiring Red Flags, or why Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank is a Likely Asshat

Beware the Omniscient

I saw this headline this morning.

"When Kevin O'Leary sees this resume red flag, 'I simply put it into the garbage'

What's the red flag for this bit of clickbait? 

When the applicant has held a number of jobs over the previous two years.

Ya see, ol' Kev is too smart to commit to People Like That. Companies that hire people are making Commitments, you see, and anyone who has a number of positions on their resume is simply a Job Hopper, devoid of personal loyalty, and just not A Good Person. Do Not Hire. Let 'em starve.

Leading to the following thought.

Hey, Kev, how long have you been omniscient?

Or, failing that, someone who practices in generalizations and avoids thought and due diligence?

If there is one thing that I've learned in 20+ years in marketing and advertising, at a number of start ups and for hundreds and hundreds of corporate and personal clients, it's this: 

There is (almost) never (just) one thing. In anything. 

Yes, I'm sure that many people with short stops on their resume were job hopping for reasons that a future employer might not love. Or an unwillingness to start a potential new position with a lack of integrity. 

Others had medical issues. Or family complications that required an exit. Or found themselves in a situation where their employer had a sudden downturn, or a particularly awful incident, that was in no way the responsibility of the applicant. 

There's going to be a lot of these people, what with the pandemic.

You know, the one you just summarily dismissed, rather than do any goddamned work. Or considered anything but the most negative possibility, because You're Too Busy or Smart or Picky or Whatever.

In my distant past, I took a job with an employer that I was super excited about. I did my due diligence to the best of my ability, won the role, and found myself in the CEO's office late on a Friday afternoon just a few weeks after I started.

Which is when he decided to close the door so that just the two of us could have a very serious and heartfelt conversation about Jesus. (Spoiler Alert! That role did not last long or end well.)

Leading to a situation where, in Kevin O'Leary's World Of Red Flags and Red Flags Only, I was a (sting music!) JOB HOPPER. Leper Outcast Unclean! 

(And yes, I should have done better research about this guy and that place, but show of hands -- who has ever had this happen to them as well?)

Oh, and it turns out that O'Leary has also bounced from gigs in his past life, and subscribes to political views that make him, shall we say, highly suspect in certain circles. 

So I can probably pull the Likely from the header of this post... but won't. 

Because, you see, I'm not omniscient. Or an asshat. (Hopefully.)

So if you have an applicant that you like with a number of positions on their resume, you *can* throw that in the garbage. It's a free country.

Or you could, I dunno, ASK THE APPLICANT ABOUT IT. See if they put your fears to rest. Consider the entirety of the candidate. 

Because in the new World of Work, where applicants have options and labor is tight?

You just might need to look past your Red Flag.

That might not even be a flag.

The Trends In Our Stars

I was reading a trends report (not going to say whose) the other day, and it triggered a few thoughts. In no particular order...

> Brands that never touch political issues are projecting fear and/or complicity. They also could easily lose out on marketing to young buyers who aren't purely focused on price (i.e., the buyers they want). The math for high growth is with the brave, folks.

Perhaps you think corporations that beat their chest about sustainability are just virtue signaling. Maybe you are skeptical about eco-first products as just different items in the landfill, or that privacy is a myth in the current era. But the reality is those views aren't going to help you with new to market in beauty, banking, or a host of other categories where younger consumers are forming buying trends that will last a lifetime. 

> High-growth brands stand for things. Consider the doom saying for Nike when they took on Colin Kaepernick; hasn't hurt the brand at all. (Massive understatement.) Or Patagonia and the North Face on opposing the climate policies of the previous administration. You'll likely see the same thing with vaccine mandates moving forward. Whether this relates to, say, a talent walkout at Tesla for moving to Texas despite (or because of?) the actions of the Texas Governor and Legislature, or people opting out of Florida travel, is a wait and see moment. But once again, safe decisions may not be, well, all that safe. Stand for nothing? Fall for anything.

> Diversity isn't optional. (Even in small teams.) I've worked at companies that failed on this mark, and, well, they weren't good places to work. It's becoming increasingly uncomfortable when a workspace is behind the times on this, and teams that aren't diverse are just more likely to miss points (or, maybe even worse, veer deeply into cautionary tactics and go too slow). 

> There's going to be math. More and more businesses are looking at creative with a need to know how they performed, which can be problematic for a host of reasons... but the core of the idea is sound, even if the execution isn't always nuanced enough. I can tell you from personal experience that when you used to talk stat sig with creative personnel, many of them looked at you as if you were scary and in the wrong room. Now, they are interested (and, well, still scared). Besides, once you take the math toothpaste out of the tube, it's not going back in.

> You probably should stop thinking about linear customer journeys. The idea that you can roll out a campaign by channel and "know" that such and such a piece is going to close the deal... well, I get that the Old World has its charms, but it's not coming back, folks. Your prospect is going to mix and match channels and platforms to their taste (some social, some search, some email, some will see display, broadcast, podcast, etc.), and that dumb thing you were doing with last-click gets all the credit... well, it's even dumber now. Measure everything, but know that nuance and brand development likely exist outside your spreadsheet.

> Marketing people are being forced to collaborate (whether they want to or not). This has been accelerated by remote work, which is lonely and harder to QA. 

Point of order: during the writing of this piece, I wound up having to drop everything for an hour to deal with laundry, pets, a cleaning project and food prep. No wonder the QA's harder, yes?

It's also harder to work this way, since you can't read body language to go softer or harder on decisions. This could also be a factor in the Great Resignation trends among junior levels. But the plain and simple is, as it's always been -- great, fast, cheap. Pick two, and collaborate accordingly. 

> It's all getting faster. I'd say more about this, but, well... is anyone really disagreeing?