Ah, you're wrong I'm not simply a fork - things I learnt about being stereotyped

If you've been following my latest blog series 'Everything is Shi*t! So, what can I do to help?' then hopefully you enjoyed my previous article where I set out my career to date; if you haven't read it yet then what are you waiting for!

The purpose of mapping out my career isn't simply to indulge myself in a trip down memory lane (or save me writing the first chapter of my autobiography at a later date), it was more for the benefit of laying out the context of what I have been through so that when I share some of the hard-learned career lessons I've experienced they may help all those of you out there that are finding things a bit tough at the moment.

It doesn't matter if you're a recent graduate looking for your first job, someone grappling with a recent redundancy, someone just setting up their first business or someone who has a job but is finding it incredibly tough; whatever your situation, this pandemic is totally cr*p so stand on the shoulders of my experiences to get a little leg-up (or just have a laugh at my expense).

Right, so what's lesson 1?

If you've read my career story you will have clearly picked up on the challenges I faced when I attempted to move from the world of teaching to the world of business. My naive approach of applying for a range of jobs was eventually met with the immortal line "You're a teacher, you have no transferable skills!"

Whilst I didn't dwell on that at the time and decided to seek out graduate jobs instead; there was actually a valuable lesson there that I would see happen time and again throughout my, and everyone else's, career.

It happened when I got accidentally cc'd on a hiring email once between 2 senior individuals when one confessed "I reckon he'll be smug because he previously worked at a strategy house."

It happened when I walked into the office of a new client one time and he said "Ah, I've heard all about you, you're the difficult one aren't you?".

It happened when a colleague once said "You're actually much more eloquent than I imagined a Palestinian to be".

What's the common theme here?

It's stereotyping, it's people having pre-conceived ideas about you.

It's not their fault, we're all afflicted by it, we all make assumptions about each other every second of every day. Doing this helps our brains categorise things based on titles, loose connections and previous experiences. It means we can operate quicker and with less effort when we need to but the danger here is that we often get things wrong. What's worse is we often don't think about it from the other person's point of view.

A hiring manager seeing an ex-teacher apply for a general manager role in their company may only picture them stood in front of 30 pupils teaching all about Pythagoras' Theorem. A senior executive may tend to focus only on the negative experiences they've had with strategy houses when meeting an ex-employee from Kearney (perhaps they got snubbed for a job by them many years ago). A new client may be swayed by grumblings a team member has made about an external consultant (without mentioning all the good things they have done). An unworldly colleague's only reference point for Palestinians may be the small snippets they've seen on the news late at night.

Don't get me wrong, I've also had positive experiences of this phenomenon such as the time I went for an interview and the Partner sat opposite me said "I can see you went to Durham University, that's where I went too; I'm certain you're a good guy so no need to do the tough bit of the interview"

If only all stereo-typing led to good outcomes. Unfortunately it does not and at its worse it is at the heart of ingraining inequalities throughout business and society.

So what's my "Now What"?

I came to the conclusion that for good or for bad, stereotyping is here to stay; in fact people, more often than not, summarise each other into 3 adjectives for simplicity (I'll write a separate blog about this as I think this is so powerful a concept to understand and vital for an individual to become the master of their own 3 words) .

You can spend your time pushing back against the stereotyping and changing pre-made assumptions (this route is admirable and worth doing, just don't expect it to happen overnight). An alternative, and the lesson I learnt across my career, was that it is far easier to control your own narrative so that you can circumnavigate the negative stereotyping. What do I mean by this?

Well, if I could go back all those years to when I was making the move from teaching to business, I would not have sent my applications off with the title Teacher at the top of my CV. Instead I would have presented my self as an expert facilitator of all day sessions, manager of a team of 30 and creative problem-solver (for this is what a teacher really is). I am certain a description like that would have got me some interviews straight away rather than the connotations of being a teacher not even eliciting a response.

Similarly I could have controlled the narratives of the smug ex-strategy house employee, the tough new consultant or the uneducated Palestinian by selecting what I present at the outset and how the conversation flows.

Think about this when you approach your own work. If you're looking for a new job, then control the narrative on your CV to increase the chances you will be selected; if you're struggling with a tough boss then think about how you can present a new narrative to get them to think differently about you; if you're trying to start your own business be conscious of the impact of your narrative in the marketplace in current climes.

Above all, at the end of the day, you most definitely don't want them labelling you as "only a fork" when you know you are so much more....

I hope that makes sense; if it does, great! If not, then not to worry, join me next time for another career experience shared

Faris

Faris is the Founder and CEO of Shiageto Consulting, a strategy consultancy focusing on IQ, EQ and FQ. Shiageto helps organisations improve their effectiveness through emotionally intelligent facilitation and training. Contact Faris to learn more