Once upon a time, dressing formally used to be synonymous with being a corporate executive. The moment one thought of IBM, the picture of a well groomed executive wearing a dark blue suit, black shoes and a sky blue shirt came to ones mind. It was almost a brand characteristic of IBM. Dressing formally was then considered to be as essential as knowing your subject matter or your business. A few years back when I worked for MphasiS and EDS was still around and invested in MphasiS, I heard this urban legend around how the founder and the then CEO of EDS, Ross Perot was obsessed about formal dressing. He apparently refused to sign an important deal once because the client’s CEO came for the meeting with him wearing laceless shoes! Not sure if the story is true or not but the importance of formal dressing it highlights is not too far fetched.
Fast forward to modern times and you find more and more corporations getting relaxed about formal dressing. It started with dressing down on Fridays, but soon Friday dressing became the norm on other days of the week as well. Having said that, there still are certain occasions, such as senior executive meetings, important sales presentations, or even job interviews, which still demand formal dressing. However, since people are not used to doing so, when the situation does demand, their attempts at formal dressing usually are inadequate. Having spoken to many such people, I came to realise that ignorance and ill informed assumptions are often the cause rather than lack of intent. Penning a few simple rules and clarifications I thought might be of help for many such people.
One has to start with the shoes. The first rule is that the only permissible colour for formal shoes is black. Not even brown, let alone fancier colours like burgundy would be truly formal. The second rule is that formal shoes are always laced. When in doubt, it’s best to keep the shoes plain, but patterns such as the Brogue and the Oxford are definitely formal as well. The last rule is that the soles can only be leather. Rubber or synthetic soles are not on. And needless to say, black shoes can only be paired with a black belt.
Formal dressing has to consist of a suit. The suit should always be a dark shade of blue, black or grey. Sorry to disappoint some of you, but brown is not the colour of a formal suit. Prohibited colours of course are red, green and pink, and no value judgements are intended in saying so. Wear a jacket with less than two buttons or more than three and you are in violation once again. And ofcourse, the fabric is to be wool, always!
A complete faux paux would be to match up this elegant dark suit and black shoes with light coloured socks, the worst of them being white. Some people believe in this myth that socks should match the shirt. That maybe true or at least permissable when dressed casually, but for formal dressing, the socks have to be the same shade or only slightly lighter in colour than the suit.
By now it would be an obvious guess that I will recommend plain white or light blue coloured shirts as the ideal formal wear. But this is where you can experiment a bit. You may be able to carry off very light shades of pink or cream. You could also try some pin stripes or textured patterns. But I must caution you that experimenting too much can take away from the formal effect.
Last but not the least comes the neck tie. This is the area plagued with the most misconceptions. The popular notion is that as long as I have a piece of cloth around my neck I am in good order. That is far from the truth. Ties have various grades of formality. The most formal ones would have not more than two colours, and the pattern if any would not be more than the size of a 25 paise coin. Stripes are fine too as long as they conform to the two colour rule. Once again, a little experimentation may be ok, but stretch your imagination at your own peril.
So it isn’t too difficult after all, is it? All you need for a formal impression, are black laced leather soled shoes, a black belt, a blue/black/grey woollen suit, a White or light blue shirt, and a two coloured tie, and you have a perfect gentleman walking. And dear friends, please do me a favour, no Micky mouse pattern on the tie pleeaaassee!
I know some of you are turning your noses and saying ah! These days are past… let me assure you , they are still relevant and matter at the global workplace. Remember you don’t have be formal always but at the appropriate times. I for one believe that even when you dress causually, dress smartly, it only helps build your brand.
source :- Elango's Blog - CEO of MphsiS an HP company
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The NEW Rules of LEADERSHIP
1. Have a Bias Towards Action
Before Josh James founded online analytics companyOmniture, he carried around an idea book, and jotted down ideas every day. He ended up with a patent on a product: a hair-in-hairbrush remover he dubbed Brush's Groom. It never made a cent, but the process taught him about creating a business plan, marketing, and distribution. "I make mistakes faster than anybody. Ithink, go, do. That's the Omniture mantra."
2. Let "No" Be a Bigger Part of Your Vocabulary
Before she starred in Bravo's Kell on Earth, Kelly Cutrone founded New York-based PR firm People's Revolution. She tells Inc. that one of the greatest gifts professionally in dealing with employees and clients was learning to harness the power of the word "no." Couple the ability to bring limits into a service industry with her stamina and energy – and Cutrone not only has a personal leadership philosophy, but also something more valuable: A clear idea of the traits she likes to see in those around her.
3. Keep Communications to a Minimum
Joel Spolsky, founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software inNew York City, asks: When was the last time you scheduled a meeting and invited eight people instead of the three people who really needed to be there? When did you send a non-consequential company-wide email? These are symptoms of a common ailment that Spolsky dubs too much communication. It's an efficiency problem especially for fast-growing start-ups, because as you grow, people and departments become specialized, though conversations often do not. Forget keeping everyone on the same page, Spolsky says, and instead think of the time you can save by not overdoing the communications.
4. Motivate Employees Through Volunteerism
When your company is booming, but your employees are service-industry workers who can't be paid too much in reward, what do you do? Amy Simmons, founder of Amy's Ice Cream in Austin, Texas, gets her workers involved in the impact her company has on the community. She brings employees to hospital volunteer days and lets them choose which charities Amy's Ice Cream supports. Pretty sweet.
5. Set Up Your Office as an Idea Factory
If you build it, they will come. For pro skateboarder and entrepreneur Rob Dyrdek, that's precisely the case. He runs all of his more than a dozen ventures out of what's called the Fantasy Factory, his office near Los Angeles. Inc. calls it "America's coolest workplace," and plenty of other people think so too. Everyone from important clients to random celebrities stop by Dyrdek's Mecca of skate culture, often just to hang out, and sometimes, powerful ideas are born.
6. Make Customer Service Everyone's Job
Anytime anyone writes an e-mail to Kayak, the travel search engine Paul English founded with Steve Hafner in 2004, they get a personal response. And a phone call? English will jump over desks to answer it. Indeed every employee, from an office assistant to a web developer, is expected to do the same. Why pay an engineer $150,000 to answer phones? "If you make the engineers answer e-mails and phone calls from the customers, the second or third time they get the same question, they'll actually stop what they're doing and fix the code," English says.
7. Value Creativity Over Productivity
A constructive day for Caterina Fake, co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr, might start with she and her colleagues sketching out a prototype, followed by walking through a thought experiment. By noon the lightbulb goes on for a fresh idea. In her new start-up, a user-recommendation website based in New York City, she values intuition – and holds herself to that standard at work. She works on whatever feels instinctively right at the moment and lets her schedule take on an organic randomness, so efficacy can feel effortless. That said, she claims to be one of the most productive people she knows.
7. Leave Your Schedule Open
Agility is the key to productivity for Scott Lang, the CEO of Silver Spring Network, aRedwood City, California-based developer of smart energy grids. He leaves large blocks of his schedule open, such that on an average day, he's only 50 percent scheduled. That way, he's open to impromptu meetings, such as if an important new partner's CEO drops by (that happened one open afternoon). And, if he winds up with extra time, he fills it with self-education and big-picture, future-oriented thinking.
8. Don't Treat All Employees Equally
Cutrone, founder of Manhattan PR firm People's Revolution, describes her office as a research and development lab for the "ultimate power chicks." That said, each employee comes with different skill sets and character defects, she says, so she doesn't treat any of her employees the same. "We’re talking all day long about our lives, our fears, what’s happening, our clients, it’s a very creative place," she says.
9. Skip Meetings and Forget Face Time
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and CEO of HDNet, says "meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go." He estimates he saves five to 10 hours a day conducting business over email, not letting phone calls or face-to-face appointments suck up time. Do it right, he says, and clients and potential partners learn to get to the point without wasting time on the niceties of making a sale or wooing a contact. Nothing but the facts is his e-mail mantra. "Leave the BS for other people," he says.
10. Micromanage. (Sometimes.)
It sounds like a dirty word: micromanage. Business schools teach future CEOs to delegate, delegate, delegate. But Joel Spolsky, the founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software in New York City, finds a lot of value in strategic micromanaging. He writes that he believes a great goal is to hire smart, dedicated people who can be given direction and set free, but when something doesn't go as planned – with a client or in the office – sometimes micromanaging techniques, such as asking the Five Whys – can do just the trick to getting to the root of the problem.
11. Let Employees Come and Go as They Please
Before founding Perfect Fitness, Alden Mills was a Navy SEAL who went on to receive an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon. Much like the SEALs, Mills thinks of his company as a force built of dedicated volunteers – and workers can leave anytime they like. He's a firm believer that his employees should have the freedom to work from anywhere they like, and come and go when they like. He doesn't have a vacation policy, so that workers will "fly out" and come back when they're pumped for more. If you love them, let them go? Not exactly: he says the attitude fosters more commitment – and breeds employees who can, and want to, think about work even when they're at home in their bathroom.
12. Work Weekends, and Love It
For Seth Priebatsch, CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games, weekends are not only fair game, but also are highly productive. When he has a particularly difficult problem to solve, he likes to come in on the weekend when there's less going on and spend a day on it. Evenings are for reading up on fresh technology. And he expects the same of his peers and potential hires. "I'll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. Those are perfectly reasonable times to expect someone who is a rock star to be on top of his or her game and excited."
13. Make the Important Calls Yourself
He's got 22 offices and billings of more than $2.6 billion. How does Jordan Zimmerman, founder of Zimmerman Advertising, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, know what his clients want and are thinking? He calls the CEO or chairperson of every major client every single day. "These people are the brilliance behind the brand, and my job is to keep them in the loop, to make sure that as a team, we're making the right decisions for the brand." So much for delegating.
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