Sexual Selection and Business Contacts
Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema
What’s the best way to choose a mate? Here’s some good advice.
“Look over a sample of males and go for the one with the longest tail.”
Actually, that advice works really well for birds. Not so well for people. Scientists speculate that female birds might have had a preference for longer tailed males because those males could fly better. Long-tailed males then got a better deal. They were perceived as more attractive, therefore more able to find a mate and reproduce; therefore there were more of them around. It’s called a runaway process, as described eloquently by Gerd Gigerenzer in his book Gut Feelings. He points out that in decision-making one good reason can be enough. (“Does this milk smell bad?”)
What’s the best way to make a career choice?
Counting summer and college jobs, I have worked as a chef, a professional stapler in a pamphlet factory, a veterinarian’s assistant, a boat scraper, a mental hospital attendant, a newspaper reporter, a news producer and currently, a film director and blog writer.
How did I make those choices? Uh, it’s complicated. Important decisions are made not logically but from the gut.
by lightmatter, via Flickr
When you “decide” on a particular career path or to take a job, you often are following a series of chance events. (“I went to high school with this guy, and then he knew this guy, and then we met this guy at Burning Man and that guy hired me.”) In a study of 772 college and university students, nearly 70 percent reported that chance events influenced their career decisions. What we call “luck” is a big factor in how life and work unfold.
But what is luck, really? It breaks down to the ability to see opportunities when others don’t. Colleen Seifert, a psych professor at the University of Michigan, calls this predictive encoding. You imagine scenarios where intentions and desires might be fulfilled and in so doing encode your mind to recognize the opportunity when it comes up.
When opportunity knocks, you’re listening. You program yourself to receive the good stuff, and sure enough you do.
That means that you can grab on to the power of serendipity to make things go your way.
Changing your usual patterns also leads to opportunity. Richard Wiseman, a researcher who studies the psychology of chance, has shown that even taking a different way to work can change your perceptions and widen your horizons. This, I think, is what makes somebody like Keith Ferrazzi, author of “Never Eat Alone,” an effective networker. By becoming a professional extrovert and talking up everyone you meet, you see opportunity everywhere. Opportunity therefore is created.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
-Seneca, Roman philosopher
Some folks are trying to take the idea of a “hunch” and make it into a science – check out the addictive decision-making website hunch.com.
I still like to believe that I got my first job because I knew a guy who knew a guy who talked about the place with the thing and his sister, who was hot, recommended me.
But it would seem that luck is no accident and career paths are not random.
Lee,
I’m not sure how I ended up where I am–probably as a result of some very bad luck. I think as humans we have “control” issues: We want to believe that someone or something is pulling the strings–either a conscious universe, God, or even ourselves. The thought that we are helmless–an evolutionary quirk–is frightening.
Which brings up luck: Is it just blind chance or synchronicity? I think I agree with Seneca. And Jefferson, who said something to the effect that “the harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Bob
good piece. lots of truth to it. chance plays an important part.
Good one. Lucky me!
Fascinating subject. I will be celebrating 40 years with my eponymous company, Syd Mead, Incorporated, next year. I’ve never had a business plan. My career started by sending car drawings to Mr. John Reinhart while I was in the Army on Okinawa in 1955. He recommended the Art Center School, then in Los Angeles. On discharge, I applied, was accepted and after three years graduated and was hired by Ford’s Advanced Design Studio, a job that lasted 26 months. My graduation work on display in the studio triggered a re-linking with John Reinhart who, after leaving Ford as head of design was the executive in charge of United States Steel Automotive Marketing Group. I designed, produced all the illustrations for the first ‘steel book’ and after that went world-wide, quit Ford and went to work for the next six years for a small Chicago group that produced collateral material for major U.S. Corporations. I started my own company in October of 1970 with no clients, has just turned down studio management positions at Chrysler and GM; just pure, blind naivete combined with very large cojones! My first corporate client through a visibility link to the Steel Book series landed a twelve-year consultant contract with Philips N.V., Eindhoven, Holland. In ensuing years, always by referral (I never had a sales force, resume or other deliberate P.R. activity). I’m still fulfilling professional design commissions at 76 and am approached by groups as diverse as architectural interiors designers, super yacht yards, the movie business and multi-national corporate groups in addition to doing from four to six presentations a year to university, professional and design society associations. It has always been extended visibility, a non-linear career that now spans 50 years since graduating from Art Center.
I appreciate much the quote by Seneca: Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.