I recently completed the book They Don't Teach Corporate in College by Alexandra Levit. It's a book that covers all the lessons she struggled to learn as a twenty-something in the corporate world. She covers all the hard lessons, mistakes and successes that eventually lead her to a position she enjoys in the field she loved.
I found I identified with her target audience quite nicely. She described herself as someone who had always been successful in University, achieving high grades and expected to skip up the corporate ladder as easily as the collegiate ladder. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as easy as she expected.
Take Away
There were may points in the book of which I was already aware. For example, the importance of watching what you say, especially when it's documented in writing (something that I strive to do in this blog and my Facebook profile especially). I'm also well aware of the importance of networking in a corporate environment. However, there was quite a bit that I hadn't thought about before.
She recommends developing a 'corporate persona'. Not an entirely new personality, but a more refined version of oneself to bring to work and work related functions. Until this point I had attempted to find a company that would accept me and all of me. In hindsight, this was a bit unrealistic. A corporate persona should still reflect your personality, but should also show you've put the effort into showing respect to your coworkers.
She also recommends a personal mission statement; something that covers who you are, for what you're looking and how you plan to achieve that. I will walk through this process in a later post.
One of the most interesting chapters was the chapter on accepting and dispensing criticism. Being a success oriented person, I have noticed that I have a habit of taking criticism very personally. She recommends that you separate the criticism from yourself; they aren't saying you are bad, rather that the action you are taking is not what is expected of you. Actions are easy to reevaluate and adjust. Your personality? Not as simple. From there it's important to understand just what they are criticizing, and what actions they feel necessary.
As for giving criticism it was mostly information of which I was already aware. Do it nicely, constructively, attack the behavior not the person. But she also mentioned a strategy for coping with employees who, despite your best efforts, cannot accept criticism in any shape or form without falling to pieces. She recommends treating them as though they are already exhibiting the behavior and praise them accordingly. Someone not spell checking their work? Say "It's wonderful that you always check your work for spelling errors. It saves me so much time!" The idea being that having been recognized for this particular behavior this person will attempt to continue to receive praise of the same variety by then actually displaying the behavior.
Criticism
Although I do not completely agree with this assessment, it might be worth an attempt. However, it would be necessary to proceed with caution. There is potential that based on your praise the employee could assume their minimal efforts are enough. When their mistakes become a serious problem and that person may need to be let go, they will view the reasoning behind their dismissal as being out of the wood work. After all, weren't you just praising them for displaying the behavior you are now saying they were not doing in a satisfactory manner?
As with most things, I'm sure it's a situational contingency.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book to job seekers who are interested in working in 'corporate America'. The rules may be different in other life-paths but this is a concise guidebook to a world for which we seem ill prepared.
Best regards,
Beth
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