Does How You Dress and Look Impact Your Career? Sadly, Yes

Ada artikel bagus tentang istilah : DRESS FOR SUCCESS.. :
Years ago I worked on the shop floor of a manufacturing plant. I had worked my way through school at another plant so I definitely identified more with the hourly workers than the "suits." (Even though most of the guys referred to me as "college boy.")
One day the department manager stopped by. He asked about my background. He asked about my education. He asked about my career aspirations.

"I'd like to be a supervisor," I answered, "and then someday I'd like your job."

He smiled and said, "Good for you. I like a guy with dreams." Then he paused.

"But if that's what you really want," he said, looking me in the eyes, "first you need to start looking the part."

I knew what he was saying but decided to play dumb. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"Look around," he said. "How do supervisors dress? How does their hair look? How do they act? No one will think of you as supervisor material until they can actually see you as a supervisor -- and right now you look nothing like a supervisor."

He was right. I was wearing ratty jeans with a couple of holes. (Why wouldn't I? I worked around oil and grease all day.) I was wearing a cut-off t-shirt. (Why wouldn't I? It was the middle of the summer and the air wheezing through the overhead vents was far from conditioned.) And my hair was pretty long, even for the day. (No excuse for that one, as is obvious from the photo above.)

"But shouldn't how well I do my job matter more than how I look?" I asked.

"In a perfect world your performance is all that would matter," he said. "But we don't live in a perfect world. Take my advice: if you want to be promoted into a certain position... make sure you look like the people in that position."

I've thought about that conversation a lot over the years.

I've hired and promoted people who looked the part... and they turned out to be all show and no go. I've hired and promoted people who didn't look the part at all... and they turned out to be superstars. I'm convinced that how you look and, at least to a large degree how you act, has nothing to do with your skill and talent and fit for a job.

Still, he's right: the world isn't perfect. People still make assumptions about us based on irrelevant things like clothing and mannerisms... and height and weight and age and gender and ethnicity and tons of other qualities and attributes that have absolutely no bearing on a person's performance.

So are you better off trying to conform?

Unfortunately, probably so. The people doing the hiring and promoting are people -- and people tend to be biased towards the comfortable and the familiar. People tend to hire and promote people who are much like themselves. (If you remind me of me... then you must be awesome, right?)

Besides, highly diverse teams are like unicorns -- we all know what one should look like, but unless you're NPH you rarely encounter one in the wild.

And don't forget that hiring or promoting someone who conforms, even if only in dress and deportment, makes a high percentage of the people making those decisions feel like they're taking a little bit less of a risk. I know I was viewed -- admittedly with good reason -- as a wild card, and I'm sure that impacted my promotability.

But still: are you better off being yourself and trusting that people will value your skills, experience, talent... and uniqueness?

Sadly I think that's a move fraught with professional peril. If your goal is to get hired or promoted then expressing your individuality could make that goal much harder to accomplish. (Of course if being yourself in all ways is what is most important to you, by all means let your freak flag fly. Seriously.)

I have no way of knowing for sure, but changing how I dressed -- and in a larger sense, tempering some of the attitude I displayed -- would likely have helped me get promoted sooner. For a long time I didn't look the part, didn't act the part... and I'm sure that made me a less attractive candidate.

Forgive your enemis, but never forget their names…

Patience is between courage and stupidity. Patience in office is more than stupidity but it’s a courage act and an act in showing us how mature we are.

Not so many person have a great and inspiring supervisor, and it becomes the one of best reason that most workers quit their jobs. Once, i asked to some of my good friends this question “..will you quit your jobs if you have a stubborn, annoying, an intense hard headed supervisor and he/she always looking for some ridiculous mistakes/faults as her/his excuse to fire you?..”

Mengapa Aku Tak Mendapatkan Apa yang Aku Inginkan?

Saya sering mendengar ucapan tersebut ketika seseorang mengharapkan sesuatu yang ia idam-idamkan menjadi kenyataan namun tidak terwujud. How hard you try it never comes to you. Lain lagi dengan seorang teman baik saya yang sudah puluhan tahun berprofesi sebagai pengelola sumber daya manusia di suatu Perusahaan di Jakarta. Ia sering bercerita bahwa hampir setiap minggu-nya beberapa karyawan datang untuk berkeluh-kesah mengenai pekerjaan dan Perusahaan.

Anti Korupsi

Pagi tadi saya menerima satu surat dari satu Komite Pusat Gerakan Masyarakat Anti Korupsi (KP-GEMAK) yang berisi mengenai permohonan pendanaan pencetakan buku (cetakan kedua) dengan judul : “Korupsi Kejahatan Kemanusiaan Yang Luar Biasa”. Intinya, mereka memohon bantuan kepada perusahaan – perusahaan swasta yang ada untuk membantu menyediakan sejumlah dana agar dapat melakukan pencetakan buku yang dimaksud.

Saya coba mencermati isi dari surat tersebut dan lampiran-lampiran yang disertakan oleh mereka. Ada satu lampiran yang menarik perhatian saya, yakni sebuah buku dengan judul “Korupsi Kejahatan Kemanusiaan Yang Luar Biasa”. Pada halaman pertama terdapat slogan : “Menjadikan Indonesia Terbebas Dari Korupsi” dan terdapat foto para pengurus KP-GEMAK. Sejujurnya saya tidak membaca buku tersebut halaman per halaman karena secara umum hanya berisikan mengenai aturan dan beberapa ilustrasi kasus korupsi beserta dampaknya dan ada pula nasihat-nasihat untuk tidak melakukan korupsi dari sisi agama.

For the First Time..

Ada seorang teman saya yang bertanya tentang apa yang harus ia lakukan pada hari pertama ia masuk bekerja di perusahaan baru. Saya hanya memberikan jawaban untuk bekerja seperti biasa ia bekerja di perusahaan sebelumnya. Ia kembali bertanya apakah nanti ia dapat diterima oleh rekan-rekan kerjanya di perusahaan baru tersebut?.

No Challenge, No Fun. Kalimat tersebut pertama kali saya dengar, pada tahun 2009 ketika saya masih bekerja di suatu perusahaan asuransi, yang dilontarkan oleh rekan kerja saya (pada saat itu). Rekan kerja saya tersebut merupakan orang yang cukup santai, mungkin saja karena bidang pekerjaannya adalah seorang IT Programmer sehingga cukup eksentrik juga dalam perilaku sehari-hari di kantor.

Bagi saya, langkah pertama selalu menjadi hal yang terberat. Langkah kedua dan selanjutnya adalah langkah yang mudah. Para orang tua pernah berkata bahwa pengalaman pertama selalu pengalaman terberat dan kegagalan adalah hal yang seharusnya membuat kita lebih kuat karena dengan adanya kegagalan kita dapat mengetahui di titik mana kita melakukan kesalahan sehingga suatu saat nanti dapat kita hindari.

9 Tipe Kepribadian Manusia..

Menurut Baron & Wagele (1994), terdapat sembilan tipe kepribadian manusia, yakni perfeksionis, penolong, pengejar prestasi, romantis, pengamat, pencemas, petualang, pejuang dan pendamai. Setiap manusia, menurut saya, tidak terlahir dengan tipe kepribadian tertentu tetapi terbentuk karena lingkungan hidup dan bagaimana seorang anak dibesarkan dalam sebuah keluarga.

Tipe kepribadian tertentu akan menjadi dominan seiring dengan intensitas waktu dimana seseorang melewati masa kanak-kanak hingga menjelang dewasa (remaja). Misalnya, seseorang dengan tipe kepribadian pencemas. Mungkin saja, ia dibesarkan dalam situasi / lingkungan yang tidak pernah mendorongnya untuk melakukan segala sesuatu hal sendiri tetapi selalu dengan bantuan dari pihak lain (saudara kandung atau orang tua). Pada suatu saat ia berada jauh dari saudara atau keluarga yang terbiasa memikirkan, melakukan sesuatu untuknya maka perasaan cemas atau khawatir berlebihan akan muncul. Ini merupakan contoh sederhana dan kecil saja, tapi saya ingin mencoba berbagi pendapat dari Baron & Wagele (1994) mengenai sembilan tipe kepribadian manusia.

What kind of a Leader are you?..

When a Director issued a decision to secure his position regardless of the impact of this decision to the employee that he appointed then I think he was not a fair leader.

The attitude of a leader who tends to impose the will without regard to existing entries, which means it does not require manager-level employees but sufficient level of staff only. The will to control all the operational activities of each department has signaled that he did not need a manager.

Almost in every company, a manager has a high responsibility for the department that he managed so that all decisions that occur internally or anything that affects the entire department work process to be decided at the managerial level.

Being a Director can not forget that tolerance need to be enacted, not to treat an employee like a machine, must see humanely.

I am writing this short article to remind the leaders in every company. That you need to look at and try to appreciate your presence has always been supported by your subordinates.