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Okay, so where am I?

It’s almost time to leave town…vacation style. Well, working vacation. Actually just working at my moonlighting gig. Shhhhh, it’s top secret…

Before I get to the business at hand in this column, I want to report on the homework assignment I spoke of in the last column. The good news (for me at least) is that I got the gig for the hockey website Jewels From The Crown, an SB Nation site dedicated to my beloved Los Angeles Kings. I’ll be writing a weekly opinion column called “Perspectives from the Cheap Seats.” The best part about all of this so far is the killer bio they put up:

Michael Lloyd used to sit in Jack Kent Cooke’s office at the Fabulous Forum stuffing season tickets into envelopes. Since then he’s grown up to be a modern-day mad man with a couple of Clio Awards and Emmys to his credit while penning multiple books. As a 45-year Kings fan, Lloyd brings a unique brand of angst and perspective to the cheap seats.

Yeah, that’s fairly awesome!

Speaking of killers…there are the seven deadly sins and the seven marketing career killers. Believing in bogus platitudes, falling into cognitive bias, clustering into cliques and four other things that could stop your marketing career in its tracks.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Italian philosopher George Santayana famously said. In the workplace, the saying may as well be, “Those who cannot learn from the errors of others are doomed to make the same mistakes.”

Author Becki Saltzman wrote about seven career killers in her recent book, “Living Curiously: How to Use Curiosity to Be Remarkable and Do Good Stuff”. Each is very common and likely noticeable by anyone who has worked in an office setting, and each can stop a high-potential career in its tracks.

To combat these career killers, Saltzman suggests bringing curiosity to work every day.

“Bringing a dose of curiosity to your expectations, you can remain curious prior to being judgmental, fearful, complacent or critical,” she says.

Here are Saltzman’s seven career killers and how marketers can reverse course on them.

1. Believing in bogus platitudes

Statements such as “Let’s not reinvent the wheel” and “The customer is always right”​ are clichés and beliefs that can end up being major roadblocks to career advancement.

“Platitudes can be a trap in marketing,” Saltzman says, adding that most of these platitudes, such as “Quitting is the easiest thing to do,” don’t ring true in many situations.

“Tell that to me with a pitcher of margaritas and a bowl of chips in front of me,” she says with a laugh.

Instead of believing in these cliché maxims, Saltzman suggests testing assumptions by looking at these sayings with curiosity and skepticism. Test and explore how they can relate to aspects of work, such as the review and promotion process, evaluation of leaders and hiring or firing of employees.

Saltzman gave an example of how dangerous it can be to adhere too strictly to platitudes. She was working as a sales manager at a retail shop when a customer tried to return a vial of perfume; the vial was filled with urine.

“My employee was like, ‘What do I do? The customer is always right.’ But that’s the time where you may have to elevate curiosity a little bit to see if that actually matches reality and if ‘The customer is always right’ is going to fit with the review process,” she says.

Illustration by Andrew Joyner

2. Clustering into cliques

Becoming cliquish at work can provide a sense of belonging and security, but it can also mean putting a cap on your potential at work by branding yourself as a group instead of an individual.

Instead of forming a friend group, a la high school, Saltzman suggests expanding work networks to be broader. Knowing more people will provide more opportunity to jump into leadership roles, she says.

3. Trying too hard to be interesting

Most people want their effort to be recognized, but perceived effort can be a dangerous thing. Often, those who try too hard can come off as self-centered or desperate to coworkers and executives.

Instead of trying too hard to be interesting, Saltzman says employees should become more curious at work and focus on being interested in what they’re doing. This, in turn, will make others more curious about who they are and what they do.

“My gig is curiosity,” she says. “I think most people get trapped into [these career killers] because they think they show up to work on time, they do a good job, they get their work done, they don’t make excuses, they don’t fall into the trap of these career killers. But they’re not curious enough to see beneath the curtain.”

Become curious about work by asking questions of coworkers about what they like about their job and what policies they would put into action. Figure out something unique about a coworker or uncommon commonalities between you.

4. Gravitating toward groupthink

​​​Getting caught up in groupthink may be one of the more difficult traps to avoid; it’s tough to be a single dissenting voice among a group of people saying, “Yes.”

Saltzman says that she often asks clients whether they’d rather be wrong in a crowd or right by themselves, and concedes that the answer isn’t always clear.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of picking your battles,” she says. “Sometimes you can’t be the contrarian that’s always poking. By the same token, sometimes you can’t be the silent one. But [you must] always be taking the pulse of the crowd [and figure out if it’s a battle worth fighting]. The stakes may be high, but you’re probably not ever going to differentiate yourself as a leader if that’s something you won’t do.”

Engaging in new ways of thinking and suggesting other coworkers do the same thing can go a long way toward eliminating groupthink in a work environment, Saltzman says.

“Just falling into anti- or pro-groupthink is dangerous. I’d suggest too much groupthink has a much greater downside than too little.”

Avoiding groupthink certainly does not mean avoiding working with others. Dana Glasgo, a career coach based in Cincinatti, says employees may want to find a good mentor internally to help them grow within the company.

“Networking is the key [to becoming a top employee],” she says.

5. Becoming too familiar with coworkers or bosses

Not knowing your coworkers and bosses well enough certainly isn’t good, but Saltzman says becoming too familiar can be even more of a career killer. Sharing too much or “knowing too much,” thereby becoming less curious, can lead to stagnation at work, she says.

Instead, she suggests finding the right balance between knowing and sharing. Be familiar with people, but not so familiar that things get dramatic or you become incurious about coworkers or work itself.

Becoming too familiar may also breed gossip, especially when in concert with cliques. Glasgo says employees need to have a positive attitude at work.

“You’re there to do a job, and that’s what they’re paying you to do,” she says. “Keeping that attitude right is important.”

6. Mental Sand Traps

“Mental sand traps,” or cognitive biases and mental shortcuts, are the most dangerous of the seven career killers, Saltzman says. Confirmation bias, for one, may cause someone to always believe they’re correct, even if they are not.

“That kind of belief system allows us to think that we’re doing the right thing and we miss cues in all of these career killers that might be illuminated if we weren’t caught in these mental sand traps,” she says. “From a practical, tactical standpoint, the first thing [to counteract this] is becoming really comfortable with being wrong. In the workplace, that’s hard. We’re not awarded for making mistakes and being wrong.”

Saltzman says people should practice being wrong outside of work when the stakes are not as high. This can be as simple as testing assumptions outside of work or taking up a new hobby.

“You realize [being wrong] doesn’t kill you,” she says. “Maybe you call it the beginner’s mindset​ or the mindset of not being an expert. You start seeing how that mindset is OK to bring to an area where you may need to be perceived as more of an expert, such as the workplace.”

7. Behavior bombs

No one likes being around someone who flies off the handle, easily gets angry or holds passive aggressive grudges. Saltzman says these are “behavior bombs,” something that may cause people to erupt when confronted with others’ selfish behavior, not being listened to or a perceived lack of fairness, among other issues.

To confront this issue, Saltzman says a simple solution is to figure out “what pisses you off,” your behavior bomb, so that you can recognize when it pops up among coworkers or bosses.

“Before you figure out your behavior bombs, figuring out what are the behavior bomb triggers and why [they happen], be really curious about it: Why do you think that’s an appropriate way to be?” she says. “Once you’ve identified that and you get really curious, you almost get so analytical that you don’t react to it thoughtlessly. You can chuckle at catching yourself before these trigger behavior bombs [take hold] because you can see nuance in things you thought were so absolute.”

Saltzman suggests elevating curiosity over criticism, judgment, fear and complacency as an ordering mechanism. This, she believes, can help stave off most of these career killers.

The post Career Killers and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

You won’t be seeing this guy on the Oscars Red Carpet anytime soon…

I’m watching another Hollywood career move to life support as Harvey Weinstein’s atrocious behavior is coming to light with a never-ending barrage of A-listers leveling allegations of sexual harassment ever since The New York Times published their exposé.

I mean, when Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie start talking about you saying they are done keeping his secret now, because “women need to send a clear message that this is over” then rest assured, it’s going to be over.

Yeah, this won’t end well.

I have to say that I jumped on the anti-casting couch bandwagon over a year ago when I penned a column about “Casting Call, The Project,” where real women read real casting notices. Maybe Weinstein should have read this…maybe he did and didn’t care. Regardless, R.I.P. to Harvey Weinstein as a Hollywood mogul.

Speaking of dying careers, I hope Donna Karan is ready to see a dip in sales because her troublesome and downright idiotic opinions about the alleged serial sexual predator Harvey, you can expect women to stop buying DKNY fashions for the foreseeable future. The Daily Mail interviewed Karan on the CinéFashion Film Awards red carpet and said this:

“I think we have to look at ourselves. Obviously, the treatment of women all over the world is something that has always had to be identified. Certainly in the country of Haiti where I work, in Africa, in the developing world, it’s been a hard time for women.

“To see it here in our own country is very difficult, but I also think how do we display ourselves? How do we present ourselves as women? What are we asking? Are we asking for it by presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality?”

Did she really just suggest they were asking for it? But did she stop there? Not even close! I can only imagine the reporter’s concealed delight knowing that this interview had more crackpot gold in those mountains as Karan finished her red carpet tour de force with this nugget of wisdom:

“You look at everything all over the world today and how women are dressing and what they are asking by just presenting themselves the way they do. What are they asking for? Trouble.”

Yeah, this won’t end well either. So, not to be flip, but speaking of death…


…Okay, so where am I?

Seems I have spent a lot of my trips recently near or in cemeteries. On this trip to Poland, I have visited the death camps in Auschwitz and Majdanek and felt the immense pain of death of the people

The final feet of railroad that leads into Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

interned there. Going to Majdanek was a day of remembrance to those we, as a people, let perish through racism, ignorance, and indifference. Majdanek was a concentration and forced labor camp that evolved into a death camp. It opened in September 1941, initially for Soviet prisoners of war, and was liberated by the Soviet Army in July 1944. During this time approximately 360,000 victims died or were murdered, 120,000 of them Jews.

The inmates of comprised people of 54 nationalities from 28 different countries. They included Soviet prisoners of war and Jews from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Belgium and Greece. In addition, many non-Jews from Belorussia, the Ukraine and across Poland were taken to the camp as political prisoners or slave laborers.

I see these atrocities up close and wonder how there can ever be resistance to giving support in any form to stop the genocides that are still occurring in our world. No amount of photos or thoughtful words can capture what I saw. Truly heartbroken.

The only thing that got me through this agony of all of this was the lunch I had a couple of months ago to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to see where Johnny Ramone is buried and saw the most bizarre thing: a cemetery jogger.

Running a few steps closer to hell…

One upon a time we respected the dead and didn’t need a life manual to tell us to either. It just came naturally. Dying is the only thing we spend our lives preparing to do, so at least give credit to the time and effort dedicated to do it. Instead what you see at cemeteries now is pretty unsettling. If you believe in the concept of people spinning in their graves, one can only image the anger, commotion, and outrage going on six feet under.

I was paying my respects to Rudolph Valentino, the actor who played Larry Tate on Bewitched, and Peter Lorre when I was stunned to see a twentysomething year-old huffing and puffing down the cracked cement path that separates the grave sites. She passed me and then two other women in short-shorts who were power walking almost slamming to a man walking his three dogs.

Seriously? It’s a cemetery for goodness sakes!

Also seen at the cemetery…ugh!

There’s headstones and monuments and ghosts trying in earnest to rest in peace! This is hallowed ground and not your playground. Whenever I see a jogger sprinting through a cemetery, I secretly wish he was screaming as a dozen ghouls and zombies chase him down with a book of etiquette. I mean, how tone deaf can you be to think that your pursuit of fitness extends to desecrating sacred resting places with your exercise? I mean just because it’s quiet and green, does it give you a pass to take over? What don’t you lay out a picnic blanket over that fresh mound of dirt, set up a barbecue and cook a filet? Better yet, lay out your yoga mat and find your zen spot.

C’mon people, a little respect please…leave those souls in the ground some dignity and solitude. This isn’t parking on Hollywood Boulevard. We don’t need no jogging signs to point this out, do we? I mean there aren’t signs in church that say no iPods in the sanctuary, but you know not to bring those things there.

Leave the dead their peace.

Stop vandalizing grave sites with your running shoe footprints which bring you a little closer to hell with each step.

Harvey Weinstein was personally thanked or praised by name in at least 34 Oscar speeches from 1993 through 2016…ugh!:

The post A Little Closer to Hell… appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.