Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
A Cursive Hire
I can explain…
Some years ago, I needed to hire a director for our corporate communications organization. This was before Linked In and Monster.com, so we advertised in various media and collected several hundred resumés. Then we tried to read them all. Our brains turned to jelly.
However, one resumé stood out – it was handwritten. Not just the cover letter; the entire multi-page resumé was written in an elegant and self-confident cursive script. Additionally, it was customized, pointing out in various places how the applicant’s experience would help him succeed in our company.
Compared to the hundreds of photocopied, machine-produced resumés, the handwritten resumé told us that the applicant was seriously interested in our position. He had obviously taken some time to study our needs and prepare a thoughtful application. Indeed, he had obviously taken some time just to prepare the physical document.
We decided that we needed to meet and interview the person (as well as several others, of course). The interview went well and we wound up hiring him.
I always tell job applicants that they need to stand out. Making your resumé look different certainly does the trick. In today’s digital age, resumés almost all look the same. Do something different. That may mean handwriting your resumé, (or just the cover letter), making your resumé longer or shorter than others, submitting a video resumé, or just doing something different … like showing up to press your case in person. In the meantime, practice your penmanship.
Culture – Virtue and Truth
Does virtue come from truth? Or does truth come from virtue? It’s an ancient question and one that helps define the differences between cultures.
According to the father-son team of Gert Hofstede and Geert Jan Hofstede, these questions help determine whether a culture is long-term or short-term oriented (LTO or STO). LTO cultures foster “… virtues oriented toward future rewards — in particular, perseverance and thrift.” STO cultures, on the other hand, foster, “…virtues related to the past and present — in particular, respect for tradition, preservation of ‘face’, and fulfilling social obligations.”
Cultures that rank high on the LTO index tend to be eastern. Countries with the highest LTO indexes are: China (LTOI = 118), Hong Kong (96), Taiwan (87), Japan (80), Viet Nam (80), and South Korea (75). Cultures that rank lower tend to have a European heritage: Sweden (33), Germany (31), New Zealand (30), United States (29), Great Britain (25), Canada (23), and Spain (19).
According to the Hofstedes, a short –term culture emphasizes quick results, spending (as opposed to saving), respect for traditions, and concern with preserving social status and ‘face’. Longer-term cultures emphasize sustained efforts, thriftiness, respect for current circumstances (as opposed to tradition), and concern with personal adaptiveness (as opposed to status).
How does all this play out? Students in LTO cultures tend to link success to effort. In STO cultures, students may attribute success to many factors, including luck, social status, appearance, or “who you know”.
The differences crop up in myriad other ways as well. Marriage is a moral arrangement in an STO culture but more of a pragmatic solution in an LTO culture. Gifts for children tend to be playful in STO cultures but educational in LTO cultures. Old age is viewed as an unhappy period in STO cultures but the opposite in LTO cultures.
The extended family is typically more important in LTO cultures. In long-term societies, you’re born into a family and tradition and you adapt to situations that were created long before you arrived. Society imposes itself on you. Short-term cultures, on the other hand, tend to value the “self-made man” who can impose himself on society.
These differences affect organizations in various ways. STO businesses tend to focus on the bottom line and this year’s profits. LTO businesses focus more on market position and profits over the coming decade. Managers and workers are in two different camps in STO cultures; they share similar aspirations in LTO cultures.
But what about virtue and truth? The differences tend to follow an East/West (or, more generally an LTO/STO) divide.
Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all have a Book disseminating a truth that individuals can apprehend. What you believe is important. Virtue comes from truth.
Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taosim) are not based on a Book containing eternal truth. Rather, they focus on living virtuously, which may include meditation, ritual, and self-abnegation. What you do is important. Living virtuously can lead you to spiritual awareness. Truth comes from virtue.
Where virtue comes from truth, enlightenment can happen instantaneously. Think of Saul on the road to Damascus. Where truth comes from virtue, enlightenment may take considerably longer.
Cursed Without Cursive?
When preparing a speech, I encourage my clients to hand write their notes and scripts. There’s something about handwriting that helps you connect with your thoughts and themes. The technique is especially helpful when preparing slides for a speech. Rather than sitting down at a keyboard, start with a set of yellow sticky notes. Then write down your thoughts — one per page — and arrange the notes on a wall. You’ll think more clearly and connect thoughts more effectively. You’ll also create better slides, with less text and more flow.
I never knew quite why handwriting worked so effectively. I just knew that it did. Then I stumbled across an article by William Klemm in Psychology Today about the importance of writing in cursive (as illustrated above). Klemm argues that learning to write cursive makes kids smarter. When learning cursive, “…the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of the brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.” It also improves fine motor skills and gets kids to learn to pay attention more effectively.
Similarly, Susanne Baruch Asherson, writing in the New York Times, argues that “Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing.” Iris Hatfield, writing in New American Cursive, says there are ten reasons to learn cursive. Among them: increased speed, better fine motor skills, better self discipline, and improved self-confidence.
These articles are about teaching cursive to children. Do these benefits apply to adults? I encourage my clients to write drafts of their speeches (or press releases or white papers, etc.) by hand. I think most of them don’t take my advice — it just seems antiquated. But those that do, report positive results. Their communications are simpler and clearer. I also encourage my students to write drafts of their essays by hand. Again, most of them don’t take my advice. But I can generally guess which ones do. They turn in better papers.
So think about your communications. It’s a complex world and communicating effectively is a fundamental competitive advantage. Give cursive a chance. You may just find that you win more business.
Genes and Memes. Who’s In Charge?
Obey!
Suellen loves to garden. When she’s digging and sweating and shoveling, I often wonder if she’s training the flowers to do what she wants or whether the flowers are training her to do what they want. Somehow, flowers have made themselves so seductive that they can convince humans to feed, water, shelter, and reproduce them. Humans do all the work. Plants enjoy the benefits. Who is serving whom? (For a more elegant exploration of this theme, see The Botany of Desire).
We could ask the same question of our genes. In theory, our genes transmit information about us to the next generation. Elliot looks like me because of the genetic material that I’ve passed on. Fortunately for him, Suellen also passed on her good-hair genes. But did we really reproduce ourselves? Or did our genes use us to reproduce themselves? Genes could influence our behavior to cause us to reproduce. As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, “A chicken is just an egg’s way for making another egg.” (Perhaps Suellen is just a bulb’s way of reproducing itself).
And that brings us to memes. The term seems loose and slippery in today’s web usage. So I decided to track down its history and … lo and behold, Richard Dawkins pops up again! In his book, The Selfish Gene in 1976, Dawkins suggested that ideas have the same characteristics as living organisms, including the desire and ability to replicate themselves.
Dawkins coined the term meme and wrote, “Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” As James Gleick writes, “Memes emerge in brains and travel outwards, establishing beachheads on paper and celluloid and anywhere else information can go. … The number three is not a meme; nor is the color blue, nor any simple thought … Memes are complex units, distinct and memorable – units with staying power.”
Like a gene, a meme can influence our behavior. Save for a rainy day is a “good” meme – it influences us to behave prudently. As Nicholas Humphrey notes, a meme can also be a brain parasite. I got a good taste of this on a long bike ride when I couldn’t get the theme from Gilligan’s Island out of my head. It had wormed its way in and wasn’t going to leave.
Of course the idea of a meme is also a meme in itself. We use the term regularly (and somewhat loosely) in the digital world. We think of a meme as any popular idea that travels easily and quickly from brain to brain. They don’t have to be true; most conspiracy theories are memes. They don’t have to be original; clichés are memes. But they do have to replicate themselves and stick around for a while. As Daniel Dennet notes, “A meme is an information packet with attitude.”
So, if we humans are merely the servants of our genes and memes, does that make us bit players in the great, wide world? I’m not sure. But I am sure that a meme is emerging that says just that.
(I adapted much of the meme content for this post from James Gleick’s book, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood).
Title Inflation
My next title.
When I began my career in industry (as opposed to academia), I was a product management specialist. It was a modest title for a modest set of responsibilities. We had a vice president of engineering and a vice president of marketing but the top person in product management was a director. The top dog at the company was the president; he was not referred to as a CEO. We had a rule (unwritten apparently) that no more than 1% of our employees could hold the title of vice president. I don’t recall that we used titles like senior vice president or executive vice president. The president ran things; vice presidents reported to the president.
When I retired from industry (as opposed to academia), I was senior vice president of marketing. For a time, I had six vice presidents reporting to me. My company didn’t use the title chief marketing officer but I might have held that title as well if I had worked at other companies. Neither title — SVP or CMO — existed in my first company.
A number of writers and management theorists have commented on the rampant title inflation of the past 30 years or so. Most have condemned it as a sign of ego, self-importance, faddishness, or just plain silliness. One of my favorite members of the commentariat, Lucy Kellaway, just wrote a blog about the execrable use of American title terminology in the UK — as witnessed by the recent appointment of Charlotte Hogg as the first chief operating officer at the Bank of England. Kellaway seems to be offended that American terminology has infected the old world.
Certainly, we have plenty of ego in the corporate world today. But I think something deeper is going on here. Why do we have title inflation? Because it’s so much cheaper than real inflation. If we teased out the average raise that goes with an “inflated” title change, I think it would be smaller than the raise given with a “non-inflated” title change. (This would be a good dissertation topic). Getting a promotion to vice president makes you feel good. It strokes your ego. That make your compensation less likely to trigger a round of flinty salary negotiations. When you’ve just been made a member of an exclusive club, you’re less likely to wheedle about the salary. It may be cynical but it seems to work. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so pervasive.
My Social Media
