Making Rain

I wanted to briefly follow up last week’s ruminations on the mind altering implications of new media technologies. As I noted at the end of last week’s post (July 20), my instinct is that if you try to do everything, you do nothing. I am frequently as much of a crazed multi-tasking fool as any other executive, as I rush through the hydra-headed challenges and crises of being the CEO of my own firm Corporate Rain International. Yet this flittery, fast-paced daily race often leaves me with the breathless sense that I am missing the bigger picture, of seeing the trees but not the forest.

Russell A. Poldrack, Director of the Imaging Research Center at the University of Texas, states:

“Our research shows that multitasking can have an insidious effect on learning, changing the brain systems that are involved so that even if one can learn while multitasking, the nature of that learning is altered to be less flexible.”

Or consider the work of Dr. Patricia Greenfield, a professor of developmental psychology at UCLA. She warns in a Science article last year that our growing use of the Internet, with all its advantages of speed and accessibility, seems to be weakening our “higher order cognitive processes [including] abstract vocabulary, mindfulness, reflection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking and imagination.”

Likewise, William Powers new book, Hamlet’s Blackberry, putatively argues convincingly that the distractions of manic connectivity can lead to a lack of productivity. Though I have not yet read his book, Mr. Powers apparently warns that an excess of digital activity reduces mental life to “a blizzard of snapshots” (WSJ review-David Harsanyi-June 30, 2010).

Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows (see last week’s post), begins his excellent book with a quote from HAL, the super computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL’s mind is being slowly erased at the end of the film and HAL plaintively says, “My mind is going. I can feel it.” Carr goes on to expound, “Over the last few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory….Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Well put.  Thank you, Nicholas.

American society worships youth. Our society devalues age. This is humanly and entrepreneurially wasteful. This is not ROI practical. It is also not demographically realistic.

It has become a clichéd joke, but 60 really is the new 40 and 70 really is the new 50. We all are simply living longer and healthier lives.

Betty Friedan, the founder of NOW, wrote a book in 1994 called The Fountain of Age (Reed Business Information). Friedan presents the thesis that life after 55 is by far the most fecund and useful for most people. She produces research studies and considerable anecdotal evidence that the “Third Age” (after growing up and then generating a career and a family) is the age of creativity.

I know my own executive sales outsourcing firm, Corporate Rain International, has vastly profited over the years by resting the core of our practice on the backs of associates between the ages of 35 and 65. (Admittedly this has been made easier by the fact that Corporate Rain is a virtual company. Our executives mostly work out of their home offices all over the country.) In our case we need high-level people who can speak on a basis of equal business stature with top decision-makers at corporations. The authority to do this type of business development effectively is not something that can be taught to a younger employee academically. Subtle instinct and articulate gravitas can only come through the experience and hard knocks of a lived life. Hence the enormous value of older employees.

I’ve heard the business reasons for hiring the young–that the young have more energy, they are more open to the new (not set in their ways), they work for less money, they are healthier, more technologically savvy…and they’re prettier. I’ve found most of these arguments to be specious on balance. In fact, what the older employee offers is an unteachable wisdom, knowledge, perspective and patience.  These unquantifiable qualities come mostly from a lived life. From the travails of existence itself come humility, sensitivity and compassion. These are certainly very useful qualities in service-oriented, high-end sales. I anticipate each of my associates will be independent, authoritative points of interaction in support of our clients. They must be constantly making independent, nuanced decisions, in addition to consistently embodying the service ethic and spiritual generosity that I expect out of my representatives.

I have found the older employee to have more loyalty and staying power. And the generational work ethic is better. I know this makes me sound like a creaky curmudgeon, but it is, I believe, a clear-eyed, practical observation. Furthermore, in exchange for certain life-style tradeoffs and flexibility, these employees are more financially practicable than one might think. (I intend to talk about life-style and employment next week.) Also, most of the work of my firm is sedentary, not requiring the vaster physical prowess of the young.

Additionally, it’s just ridiculously wasteful to prematurely abandon the aging employee, like an old Inuit floating off to die on an iceberg.

Social security begins at 62. In practical terms this age must be raised. The average lifespan of a 40 year old male is 77.1 years and the average lifespan of the 40 year old female is 81.9 years. Government retirement support will have to be scaled back to deal with the coming financial tsunami of unfunded entitlements. There is no reason for your employees not to come from this overlooked pool of more seasoned employees, especially if they’re not required to dig ditches.

Financier Bernard Baruch said in 1955, “To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.” Makes sense to me. Thanks, Bernard.

There is a famous German novella I read in college called Kleider Machen Leute by Gottfried Keller. (It is usually translated as “Clothes Make the Man”.)  It’s about a poor tailor who takes a coach journey and, through an odd set of circumstances, he is dressed in a fur trimmed cloak much above his real ability to afford and his station in life. He is mistaken for a rich man and the results of this misidentity and various people’s reactions guide the tale.

This novella is highly applicable to entrepreneurs. I believe many of us entrepreneurs don’t think enough about clothes in business. And we should. Here’s why.

Most of us spend large amounts on branding, marketing, and advertising creating the apt image for our firms. Yet it constantly amazes me how little thought owners give to how they present themselves sartorially.  It is relatively inexpensive personal branding we’re talking about here.

This most certainly does not mean an entrepreneur needs to be a fashion plate. Any styling from the funerial to the flamboyant can be appropriate, but it should be consistent with your chosen messaging and branding. Making strong, identifying statements through your attire can create a defined presence before you say a word. It can telegraph a context and corporate definition.

I’ve had clients who accomplish this bespoke branding very well in t-shirts. Some of my creative clients will choose bold colors. If you sell beer you might want to look like a guy who is comfortable in a bar. I am sure Anna Wintour spends extensive time each day ensuring her personal clothes visually affirm her authoritative fashion leadership as editor of Vogue Magazine. Personally, I try to look like a banker. My company Corporate Ran International is mostly known for creating high-quality meetings with real financial corporate decision-makers. My clients often entrust me with their most proprietary information and secrets. So, even though my personal history and proclivities are quite bohemian, I want to create assurance of stability and discretion. I do this partially by investing in expensive, highly tailored suits and by insisting that my associates always dress high when meeting with Corporate Rain clients.

You don’t need a personal makeover to brand yourself through your apparel. You do need to know what you have to offer and who you are. Then sartorial branding becomes simple common sense.

As the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus states, “Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

Thank you, Epictetus.