Familiarity Breeds Contempt—Part III

 

In part two, I discussed how allowing someone to become too familiar with you can severely limit your current and future employment goals.

 

Now, I would like to discuss an example of a profile I located on MySpace and what future employment prospects this individual may expect. The profile is real, but the name has been changed to protect his identity.

 

“Justin” is currently in a doctoral program for chemistry at a well-known East Coast university. Justin is twenty-six-years old and, according to his MySpace profile, is an excellent student and enjoys music of all kinds. His hobbies are reading, videography, and playing his Xbox.

 

On the surface, Justin seems to be a bright person that may go far once he graduates and obtains that Ph.D. He has obviously committed himself to years of education and hard work to get into a doctoral program. He also seems to have several healthy hobbies that allow him to relieve the day’s stress. But what happens when we look closer at his profile and examine the other information on his site.

 

Odds are Justin is still a little immature because he wanted to make his MySpace site cool for his friends when they visit. So Justin has added a few photographs with comments. For example, Justin has included a photo with a caption stating that he is an avid gun supporter and enjoys target practice with his friends. Nothing wrong with being a card-carrying NRA member.

 

However, the picture he chose of himself during one of these target practice sessions, upon closer examination, appears to be in the backyard of someone’s house. I can clearly see Justin holding a gun in one hand and a bottle of liquor in the other. In the background, there is a table with what appears to be a hookah, commonly used for smoking herbal fruits, tobacco, or cannabis. I’m sure our chemistry student and his friends were smoking Butera Royal Vintage tobacco blend in their water-filtered hookah.

 

Upon further examination of Justin’s site, I was able to dig deeper and find more information about Justin from his “friends’” sites, which were linked to Justin’s site. One friend wrote about Justin in detail, telling a very colorful story about how Justin got himself arrested for disorderly conduct and discharging a firearm within city limits.

 

Sure, his friends may have exaggerated some of the information on these sites, or Justin may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some would argue that Justin has a right to do whatever he wants to do on his own personal time, as long as it is legal and does not harm others.

 

But, it’s not about personal rights. It’s about appearances and the impressions you leave for others to view and learn about who you are, whether they are true or not. Sure you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but Justin’s future employer has an obligation to make the best decision as to who is hired based on the information available. If Justin, or anyone else for that matter, makes information publicly available either on-line or in casual conversation, then that information may come around and haunt him sometime in the future. In this case, Justin should not be surprised if, upon graduation, he finds his past catching up with him in an interview.

 

With today’s Generation “Y,” also known as Millennials, entering the work force with their casual lifestyle, informal methods of communications, and propensity for posting every detail of their lives on social networks for the entire world to see, it is common for business relations to become stressed.

 

Greek philosopher Thucydides said, “It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.”

 

So if you want success, try to keep as many people as possible in the dark about your personal life. The world will thank you and look up to you for it.

 

Familiarity Breeds Contempt—Part II

 

In part one of this article, I discussed how familiarity can breed contempt and how teachers and other professionals should avoid giving out too much information about themselves, either in the course of normal conversation or on social networking sites.

 

In this installment, I am going to discuss how providing too much information to others can prevent you from getting that high-paying job you want.

 

In today’s economically trying times, employers are taking great care in performing background checks on the employees they hire and on some they have already employed.

 

Given the vast amount of information that can be gathered on the Internet and its cost-effectiveness in comparison to the potential cost of employing a risky employee, employers are able to perform extensive background checks on potential employees to weed out the undesirables.

 

Social networks such as MySpace and Facebook are prime targets for employers to search when considering a new hire. If an applicant has content or links involving subject matter that can reasonably identify him or her as a threat to workplace harmony and/or safety, such as swastikas, Confederate flags, pornography, glorification of guns, knives, or other weapons, or references to drug use or other illegal activities, then it is fair to use this information to make a hiring decision, to prevent possible future issues.

 

If an employer should hire an employee that was discovered to be into weapons or pornography, and that employee sexually harasses or threatens another employee, the victimized employee could sue the employer because the employer had knowledge of the new hire’s propensity towards the type of offense made.

 

Google is another great tool that employers have added to their toolbox. Who hasn’t “Googled” themselves at some point, eager to see if something interesting pops up? If you have not done that, then perhaps you should. You would be amazed at how much information there could be about you in a simple Google search.

 

Google’s mission statement is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Loosely translated, this means that Google intends to locate any information it can legally access about you and serve that information to anyone that searches for it. Therefore, it does not matter what social network you have posted your personal information on, or what site you use to host your blog, or which Internet News Group you post pictures on. Google will find them and organize them for any potential employer that cares to perform a simple search during your pre-employment check.

 

Personally, I use a feature on Google called Google Alerts to continually search for information about myself. This service allows me to configure a set of search terms about myself, my boss, a friend, or any other information for that matter. Once configured, Goggle will send me instant e-mails with the information it has found about one of my search terms.

 

I can assure you Google has a vast database of information. I once was sent an alert that Google located about an Internet conversation I had forgotten about long ago. It was a posting to a Usenet newsgroup I made in 1981 in which I was part of a conversation regarding co-founder of Apple Computers, Stephen Wozniak’s aircraft accident and how it would affect Apple Computers if he had died in that crash. Human memory is fleeting; the Internet remembers forever.

 

So, the next time you update your MySpace or Facebook site, look closely at it and ask yourself if you would be proud to hand out flyers containing the information on your site or in your blog to your current employer, future employer, or even your mother.

 

In short, Web savvy job seekers can just as easily use the medium of the Internet to boost their chances of landing that dream job as they can to destroy them.

 

In part three of this article, I will discuss a real world example of how providing too much information to others can severely limit your employment potential.

 

 

 

Familiarity Breeds Contempt—Part I

Charles de Gaulle once said, “There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.”

 

So, does familiarity breed contempt? The answer is a resounding “yes”!

 

For as long as I can remember, my mother drilled this into me. She would always warn me to be careful of what I tell people because it might come back to haunt me someday. But, for some reason, the lives of millions are an open book today. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are becoming stages for people to chronicle their lives for all to see.

I find it hard to open a newspaper or watch the news without some story about how someone lost his or her job or missed a promotion because of something he or she displayed to the world without any thought as to how the public would view it.

 

For the sake of this article, I am particularly critical of teachers, but regardless of the profession, the issue is valid for anyone in a position of authority—from public officials to doctors and lawyers to your boss or even you.

 

In the academic world, overfamiliarity of students and teachers can and generally does lead to contempt of one for the other. It is human nature to be curious about other people. Magazines such as People or Us, along with social networking sites, have raised this level of curiosity to an art form.

 

At its core, the concept of “familiarity breeds contempt” is based on the idea that the more we know about an authority figure such as a teacher, on a personal level, the more likely we are to find fault with him or her.

 

Of particular concern is when parents and students learn too much about a teacher. As is human nature, people begin to formulate a mental image of the teacher and then compare that mental image to their own image, often jumping to conclusions or making assumptions based on the available information.

 

As a parent, I have often heard stories from my children about their teachers, but on one particular instance, my child arrived home and enjoyed telling me all about his teacher’s weekend with her boyfriend. My child went on about the margaritas they enjoyed, the beach parties, and countless other details.

 

From that point on, I found it very difficult to take anything the teacher had to say seriously. Based on this and other information I learned through my child, I found myself questioning this teacher’s abilities to educate my child effectively. To make a long story short, I discussed it with the school, changes were made, and apologies given. But, as my mother would say, the damage has been done.

 

Granted this example is most likely the exception, but from my experiences, many teachers, as well as managers and employees in all professions, have a tendency to offer way too much insight into their personal lives.

 

From political positions to religious beliefs or environmental issues to how much they drink over the weekend, this information when distributed to students or coworkers, regardless of your profession, can be fodder for others to become too familiar with you.

 

Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, people will begin to judge you based on that information. Some may question if you are even qualified to perform your job or hold a position of authority.

 

Just ask student teacher Stacy Snyder who, in May of 2006, was denied a teaching degree upon graduation from Millersville University in Pennsylvania because she posted a photo of herself on her private MySpace site that she titled, “Drunken Pirate,” in which she can be seen wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup. The courts ruled that, as a student teacher and an employee of the school, she is an authority figure, has a moral obligation to set an appropriate example, and such a photo sends the wrong message to students.

 

Teachers are not the only group of professionals to lose their jobs over personal postings on social networks. The lists of professionals include police officers, judges, restaurant managers, and even Wal-Mart employees. No one is immune to the consequences of poor judgment.

 

Regardless of whether you agree with these cases or not, you cannot control what other people will think of you based on information they hear from students or friends or read about you on social networking sites.

 

My primary reference in this article has been teachers, but this scenario has played itself out among musicians, politicians, and high-profile executives from Adelphia Cable to Enron to WorldCom. There is no doubt in my mind that people the world over will continue to be disappointed in someone because of becoming too familiar.

 

In my next article, I will discuss how allowing others to become too familiar with you can severely limit your employment prospects.

 

Praise Team Members Publicly

How important is it to praise the performance of your team members? If you want to turn a mediocre team into a magnificent one, it is essential!

 

Everyone wants recognition for their hard work. From the moment we are born we are striving for recognition from our parents, a friend, a teacher, and eventually our employer and colleagues. To receive recognition means we have value as a person, and this makes us feel good about ourselves, which re-enforces our continued efforts of achievement.

 

The web is full of “I hate my boss” web sites, where frustrated employees spend countless hours complaining about their bosses, and offering suggestions about how they would handle issues. Interestingly, most people are looking for appreciation of their work, recognition of a job well done, followed closely by communication, and job security in third place, while money or compensation is relatively low on the list.

 

The interesting part is that all three of the top issues that employees want are intricately related. Public recognition in its self communicates to the individual was well as the whole team that they have value, and you appreciate them. This in tern gives the person being recognized as well as the whole team, the feeling that their job is secure.

 

Even the most troublesome team member will respond well to public praise, and in many cases can cause the team member to continue to improve, becoming a valuable team member.

 

Using a term barrowed from marketing called perception-preceding-reality, I have seen team members that otherwise would have been terminated, make a complete behavioral turn around. While the roots of this concept are primarily from marketing, it is an excellent term to describe a method for altering a team member’s behavior who is not always a team player.

 

By taking the time to seek out actions and behaviors of border line team members, that you can praise publicly you will effectively re-enforce positive behavior in that employee. This re-enforcement will play to the employees self esteem, and with time positive behavior will dominate his actions.

 

The idea is that the positive feedback will re-enforce positive behavior, as well as the team member’s transition to being a team player, which will ultimately catch up with the perception.

 

Mary Kay ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics once said, “There are two things people want more than sex and money, and they are recognition and praise.”

 

Before you run out and start praising your team for every little thing they do, take care in what you praise and how often. Praise works best in moderation, so use it sparingly. If you start praising every little thing, eventually your praise becomes nothing more than an annoyance, as your team will quickly see that the praise is not sincere.

 

Employees need praise, like plants need sunlight. Just like a tree spreads its branches to absorb more sunlight, without praise, your employees will leave in search of praise.