7 Success Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

In a previous post, I provided a common sense "cheat sheet" with the 7 most useful things for managers to know. Here's another set of shortcuts useful for managers and non-managers alike.

1. How to Earn Respect

• Be yourself rather than your role.
• Show interest in other people.
• Always share the limelight.
• Dress and groom to match your ambitions.
• Pause before speaking to mentally frame your thoughts.
• Speak from your chest without verbal tics or end-of-sentence rises in pitch.

2. How to Play Clean Office Politics

• Find out what other people need and want.
• Build mutually useful alliances with those you can trust.
• Keep track of the favors you owe and the ones owed you.
• Use your alliances at key points to help achieve your goals.

3. How to Recruit a Mentor

• Forget official mentoring programs; they're like arranged marriages.
• Mentors crave to teach people what they have learned.
• Seek out mentors who have experience and skills you lack.
• Ask for advice and let the relationship develop naturally.
• Be kind when you outgrow the relationship (as you will eventually).

4. How to Handle Annoying Coworkers

• Wafflers can't decide, so force the issue.
• Conquerors must win, so make them team leaders.
• Drama queens and kings crave attention, so ignore them.
• Iconoclasts break rules needlessly, so avoid them.
• Droners are boring, so find something else to do.
• Frenemies sabotage, so keep them at arm's length.
• Toadies mean you must either leave the firm or become a toady yourself.
• Vampires leach energy unless you stay upbeat.
• Parasites steal credit, so track who's contributed.
• Geniuses are all talk, so pester them until they deliver.

5. How to Handle Corporate Lawyers

• When risk is minimal, leave lawyers out of the loop.
• Lawyers are not decision makers; they only give advice.
• Insist that legal gibberish be simplified into plain language.
• Never rush a lawyer, because it will result in even more delay.
• If you've got a corporate legal group, find somebody in it to befriend.

6. How to Build a Personal Brand

• Your personal brand will define how people see you.
• Get a professional portrait and expunge unprofessional ones.
• Customize your résumé to match your career goals.
• Solicit recommendations that are realistic and relevant.
• Avoid blogging unless you're being paid to do so.
• Keep your irrelevant opinions off the Internet.

7. How to Shine in a Meeting

• Treat every meeting as a possible way to advance your own agenda.
• Decide whether each meeting will be useful or useless.
• Don't attend the useless ones; prepare well for the useful ones.
• Take notes so you can speak coherently when it's your turn.
• Speak confidently and, if appropriate, segue into your own agenda.

Excerpted from the "How to Manage Your Coworkers" chapter of my new book, Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know.