Come Early. Leave Late

First lets talk about the benchmark times for arriving and leaving work.
For the rest of this chapter, I assume the start time to be the time your first meeting starts, or the time at which most of your team (your staff and peers) is expected to be at work, whichever is earlier. And the end time is the time your last meeting ends, or the time at which most of your team is expected to be leaving, whichever is later.

Get to work about an hour earlier than you need to. I know. If you're in a group that slaves over computers for masters in the west, then there is a chance that you're getting to and from work in small white cars with sharp scratches and dull drivers. Then I can't help you. But let me just say this. If a company dictates what time you come in, and what time you leave, I'll bet you're not really in control of much else either.
Get out of this situation.
You have to have control of some aspects of your job. You have to be trusted with making decisions. If you're not, get out of that job - or that organization - as soon as you can. And it starts with controlling when you come in.

Coming in early is not about showing your bosses and your peers what a hard worker you are, although that is a nice side benefit. Getting in an hour early gives you quiet time - get ahead of email, plan your day and get some thinking time.

And leave late. About 15 to 30 minutes later than the benchmark time above - no more. Staying much later than that shows one of two things.
Either you have no control over your situation. In which case, same argument as above, quit.
Or you have too much control over other people's situations. Again a change is called for. You need to delegate and get out of the way. If you're spending your time exercising your control over other people, you're building a wall in front of you that you can not climb over. Change this immediately - hire more people, restructure your group or just plain learn to let GO you micromanaging sonofabitch.
Use those extra 15 or 30 minutes for going through your to do list so you can recommit, delegate or confirm (More details in the next chapter). Or call a customer (or supplier) who is in a reasonable time zone. Ask him how he's doing and if he is satisfied with the way your team is serving him or talk about the last conversation where you left off. Call a different customer (or supplier) every day, and the same customer never more than twice a month - coz that would just be creepy.

And as a parting note: 2 caveats

1. We only talked above about the start and end times, and not aobut the duration in between. Here's my rule for the duration. Keep it to under 11 hours. I can bet that an average employee in your team (your staff and peers) works less than 9 hours a day. People like to SAY they work hard, but they dont. Some people spend a lot more than 9 hours at work, but they're not working for 9 hours a day. Still, if you assume that the average is 9, your additional hour and half puts you at 10 and half hours a day. Cap it at 11.
2. I expect that you should follow the advice above at least 200 out of 260 weekdays in a year. The other 60 are for holidays, vacations and crises - both personal and official - which will come up and force you to flout those rules. Less than 200 days, and you have to think about what changes you're going to make.

Look after your looks

So you think you're in the right company?
Good. Now lets talk about walking in to work. And how you look when you do that. Here's 20 rules on your appearance at work

1. First and Foremost: Don't dress up or down. Dress right. What is right? Look around you. If you're working at a bank, where everybody else wears white and gray, don't show up in yellow and blue. If you work at a Hawaiian theme restaurant, don't wear a tie. Otherwise put, don't stick out like a sore thumb because of what you wear. This is not high school where wearing gaudy sneakers torn Levi's and T-Shirt with a giant FUCK YOU sign in the front and a middle finger on the back is going to make you look cool. It's going to make you look like a dick.
2. Wear clothes that flatter. For example, ladies, as much as I love y'all, if you've got blubber, no tights, please. If you don't know what looks good, ask a friend. If you don't have a friend you can trust, send me a couple of full length photographs. Seriously. I'll tell you, and I promise not to put them on the web.
   
3. Don't wear stained clothes. Toss 'em.
4. If you have to wear a suit to work, make sure it fits well. Go to a good tailor and custom stitch a couple. Go get some good ties.
   
5. Coordinate your clothes. Don't show up to work looking like a fucking rainbow unless it's gay pride day and you're either gay or proud or both.
6. Shine your shoes everyday. Clean your sneakers every week. Don't come to work with dirty shoes on.
7. When your clothes get old, give them to Salvation Army, or your maid. As a rule, one hundred washes is more than enough for the clothes your buy.
8. Never wear clothes fancier than your bosses boss.
9. Keep some consistency in the way you look. Don't show up one day dressed like George Clooney in Ocean's Eleven and the next day dressed like Freddie Mercuty. (Actually don't ever show up dressed like Freddie). No need to get all Steve Jobs and run out and buy a closet full of the same fucking turtleneck, but pick your look and stick to it.
10. And some special rules for ladies. (a) Watch the level of tittilation. YOu wanna be at your attractive best, but you dont want people getting a stiffy because of the way you're dressed. (b) On Cleavage: Don't show it.(c) On formal wear: Watch your panty line. Don't let your underwear show through your clothes.
    
11. Get your hair cut every two weeks. This is not for your hair, but for the fuzz that grows at the edges. Get your hair cut on Saturday so you don't show up on Monday looking like a freshly mowed lawn.
12. Shave. If you MUST keep a beard or a mustache, don't. If you still must because of your religious or cultural persuasion, trim it regularly.
13. Keep your mouth smelling fresh. Drink water regularly, chew gum, brush your teeth - whatever it takes. Nobody's is interested in smelling what you ate from a mile away.
14. Smokers - see above. Nobody likes it when you walk into their cube and give off that pungent leftover cigarette odor. If your wife/husband likes making love to an ash tray that's their problem. Don't burden the rest of us with the smell of stale smoke.
15. Keep your fingernails clean. Wash your hands regularly. Dont let food color show up on your hands. Dont let dirt show up under your fingernails.
16. And finally - body odor. That is the worst thing that can happen to you. If you stink, nothing else in this world can help you. I've walked into empty elevators and smelt some mother fuckers funk in there long after he left. ReVOLTing.

Why all these rules? The way you look leaves an impression on people. You want that impression to be as favorable as possible. You want to look successful, competent, and clean. Unless you have a reputation for being a genius and a track record of success, you can't show up to work in clothes that don't help you look the part.
And one last thing.
You want to it appear as if your looks take no special effort from your end. So don't discuss where you shop, or why you shop there. Don't constantly preen in front of people. Be Cool. Look nonchalant about your looks. It's not that hard and it's not that expensive to dress well. Do it.

The Ladder to Climb

So you're at the first or second rung, and you're looking up at a long ladder above you stretching up into the sky like Jack's bloody beanstalk only more utilitarian looking.
If you look around you you'll see there's more of these ladders around you. You gotta pick the ladder to climb. Sometimes, to reach the heavens above, you will have to change ladders. So lets look at your ladder right now and see if this is one that matches your needs. You know, your weight, your width and the space between rungs and other such things that would needlessly stretch this analogy to breaking point.

Here's three questions that will help you know the answer. And here's the rule: At least two of them should return a positive answer.
1). Do you appreciate the products coming out of your organization?
2). Do you believe in the markets or customers your organization serves?
3). Do your values match the values of your organization?

I guess I should first tell you what I mean by "organization". I use that term to loosely mean the company as a whole, but in large companies, it could mean the specific profit making unit you're working for. I know some of you may not be in a line job, but in an corporate function like Finance or HR or some such. In your case, consider this "organization" to be your "function", your internal customers to be your customers and your services to be your products.

Now that we've got this definition crap out of the way, lets look at those questions. These questions are difficult to answer, so I'll tell you what I mean a bit more clearly.

Appreciate the products: Do you use your company's products? If the products are not good enough for you, then don't work there. If you're not a smoker and never were, don't work in a cigarette company. If you don't like chocolates, don't work for Cabdury's. See where I'm going? Good.
Now I know this gets complicated when your organization puts out products that are either:

• For niche markets, like luxury goods (which I define as goods that you can not afford to buy 3 off), OR
  
• For consumption by other businesses, like machines and robots, or services
  

In these cases the "use the products" test of appreciation doesn't work, and the only appreciation of the products most employees will have is through literature and company propaganda (internal and external) otherwise known as marketing. It's hard to rise above that noise if you can't use and test your products against your competitors. So in those cases, you only got two questions. Gotta get them both "yes". Sorry.

Believe in the markets: Simply, do you believe that the market you're serving will grow? Do you believe that the customers you're serving will grow?
It is important here to not go by company information. Company information is seductive and is meant to be encouraging and comforting to employees and stakeholders. Your quarterly financials are immune to some extent, but hell, that's a snapshot of the past 3 months. Your financial forecasts are going to be wrong, and are going to be presented with a gushing, flowery, positive spin, designed to give investors as much of a hard on as is legally feasible.
You should look up data from analysts, trade publications, and economic indicators, from sources external to your company. Try hard to find contradicting reports and use your judgment to compare differences. Reach out to the referenced sources to see if the information is used in a valid fashion. Google is your friend. Do this at least once every three months. Preferably close to your quarterly results. It should not take you more than three hours. If you're not in a market that is set to grow significantly (>5%) over time (5 years), quit.
Numbers of cars sold in the world shrinking? Don't work in a car company.
Number of SUV sold in your country shrinking? Get out of the SUV division.
Modify the italics in those statements for your product and the market you serve, and you'll have your answer.

Match the values: This is a very tough thing to do because it is tough to know what your company's values are. Actually it's tough enough to know what your own values are, but this isn't that book.
The one place you should not look to know your company's values is the place where your company has written them down. Let me guess. Performance, Integrity, Customers, Quality and general well being for all. That's your company's value statement, isn't it? Yeah. Bullshit.That's what happens when lecherous consultants lull egomaniacal executives into an overly philosophical setting in an extremely golf prone environment.
Look for you company's values in the places where the values are tested.
How do they treat their suppliers? Do they pay them on time. Give them credit when necessary? Support them through hard times? Does this match how you treat your maid?
How does your company treat it's employees? Do they provide reasonable rewards? Do they provide reasonable learning experiences? Do they provide a safe working environment? Do they empower them to make mistakes while simultaneously showing concern and forgiving genuine first time mistakes? Does this match how you would treat your child?
You see where I'm going? Your organization can be personified as an individual. If you do that and try to find parallels in that individual's behavior with your own, you will know if your values match.

Lets be clear about one thing.
None of the above, you will notice, is a value judgment.
I don't care what your values, beliefs and appreciations are - on an absolute scale. What I am trying to convey is that if they don't match with those of your organization, make a change.
If you are a hard core capitalist and a follower of that transplanted Russian Ayn Rand, who has the entire last speech of Atlas Shrugged memorized, that's YOUR world view. Fine by me. You'll be happy working for Goldman, and what's more, since there's a match there, you will have a higher chance of growing in the organization than if you worked at Greenpeace.

How to use this book

1. I will treat each post as a unique chapter in which I will make a specific point.
2. Each chapter can be read independently, but the best sequence will generally be from top to bottom on the index to the right
3. Treat each chapter as a tip or a rule.
4. Don't argue with me about how some rules are petty, and they shouldn't count as categories or behaviors that signal good candidature for promotions. The world isn't what you want it to be. It is what it is. And these rules are how I see it.
5. Every single rule will have it's exceptions. I will assume that your intelligence will tell you if the exception case you're in is valid.
6. No single rule is necessary. You wont - and you probably cant - follow all the rules all the time
7. No rule is specific to any business or any domain or any situation. They will work almost everywhere (See point 5).
8. All rules are about the additional "tadka" you put on the "daal". The silver foil on the sweet. The paint on the house. They are not about the foundational basics you need to succeed
9. All rules together are not sufficient to get you to 100 percent probability of promotion. They will increase the probability, but they are not a guarantee
10. Follow as many of these rules as you possibly can

Do write in if you agree or disagree with anything. I will be more than willing to engage in discussion. The idea here is to talk with people who have the ability and the desire to rise up in their organizations by helping them get the fringe rules and the basic behaviors of the game right. If I can help. I will.

Preface. Prelude. Disclaimer. Rant

Do you consider yourself intelligent? Not in the IQ sense of the word. That's for the excellent folks at Mensa to drool over. I mean more in the "I can think clearly, and I have a sense of humor" kind of way.
No? Click Here

Do you have a good education? Not as in a stamp from a top ranking school (although that would do nicely) but as in a combination of relevant real life experience and a good grasp of whatever domain it is you work in. No? Click Here

Do you have a healthy work ethic? As in the tenacity to go after your goals and get them delivered in the face of hurdles? No? Click Here

Made it this far, huh? Then if you work in Quality Auditing, Consulting, Investment Banking (or otherwise have integrity problems) Click Here

All right now. That's should be more than 80% of humanity gone right there. A good starting point for my reader base. Let's begin whittling it down a little.

This is a book of notes to help people get up the ladder in corporations. If you've made it this far, you're an intelligent, sincere, hardworking guy with some integrity thrown in. It probably means you're consistently performing at higher levels than your peers. You've probably already made it into the lower ranks of management and you're wondering what else it will take for you to grow up the ranks of managers up into the rarefied heights of the management cadre of your organization, where the air is thin and the money is thick.

If you don't have the above credentials, and you're still here, then you're a weasel who gets by on the work of other men. Stop reading. You don't need this book. This book is for rodents of a completely different persuasion.

OK what are we down to? about 5 percent of humanity?
GREAT!
Now for some further weeding.

Looking for someone to massage your ego? Leave.

Profanity bother you? Get the fuck out.

Are you a smartass who was thinking about writing out a comment about how weasels are not rodents when you read that sentence? You're allowed to stay, but only just

Are you a good boy/girl turned cynic who wants to get better at playing the game so you get that last little push on forward? This is the book for you my friend.

This book is my attempt at writing down what I see as simple rules that all successful people I know - and I know quite a few - seem to follow. Don't get all testy with me if you don't like what I say. I will say things as they are in the real world. Not as they should be in your delusions where the world is focused on how it can mold itself to a shape that best comforts your fragile ego.
Each of my notes (chapters, if this was a real book) will be about a specific point. irreverent, and sometimes rambling.
My language will be curt, profane and will not be able to conceal my desperate attempts to be funny.

Still here?
Well read on as the posts come.
And hope you have fun climbing the ladder.