Powerful Phrases to Help You Conquer the Working World

Magic Words at Work
by Howard Kaminsky, Alexandra Penney

From the bestselling authors of Magic Words: a collection of workplace wisdom for spectacular results on the job

Having survived and thrived in the competitive media industry, Alexandra Penney and Howard Kaminsky are now revealing their strategies for success. Magic Words at Work captures lessions learned in the trenches and coins perfect turns of phrase for every office situation, including:

• Raising Your Voice Can Work Better Than Raising Your Hand: Don't spend your life asking for permission and waiting to be called on

• The Red Light Is On: Learn the secret to working without interruption

• Make Like a Prairie Dog: When management is in flux, stay low to the ground

• I'm Going to Lead Between the Lines: Find a solution, then make it fit the rules

• Low Overhead Equals High Independence: Living debt-free keeps your options wide open

With a memorable mixture of chutzpah and charm, Kaminsky and Penney deliver the bottom line on rising to the top.

Achilles Was Lucky

We've both known Sara for almost twenty years. Her creative ability and her strength as a manager have landed her a job as editor in chief of a top women's magazine, but back in the days when she was just starting out, Sara was a features editor at a small magazine. That's how Alexandra, who was working as a freelance writer, met her. She got a call from Sara, inviting her to lunch.

"I've got an assignment for you," Sara told her. "It's a little different from what you usually write."

"You've got my attention."

"Do you remember the Iliad?"

"I read it in college. I loved it."

"Do you recall Achilles' one weakness?"

"What is this? A quiz show?"

"Go along with me on this."

"Okay, teacher. It was his heel."

"You get an A. Now, Alexandra, do you think most people have a weakness? No, let's call it a flaw."

"That's easy. Of course they do."

"What would you say yours is?"

"That's easy, too. I'm terrible about returning phone calls. Except when it's to an editor, of course."

Sara looked approving, as though Alexandra had earned herself another A.

"You've just proved my theory, and I think it will make a great piece. Here's my idea. I've always believed that everyone has more than one flaw. We usually pick one that's fairly mild, acknowledge it, and ignore the others. Lucky Achilles. Can you imagine how nice it would be to have only one weakness? Take me, for example. Except for work, I'm always late. I know it. I admit it to friends, and I actually try to work on it. I've improved a bit, but in the meantime my husband has pointed out that, while I'm owning up to that flaw, I have another one which is actually worse. I have a terrible temper, and I lose it over small things. I mean, really tiny things. I pat myself on the back because I've been on time and then blow up because someone else has beaten me to a parking space. So, as my husband puts it, I have a sweet little flaw that I acknowledge, and a big bad flaw that I don't. How about it, Alexandra? Are you willing to interview people and get them to tell you the sweet little flaw and then prod them into pulling out the big bad one?"

Alexandra was, and it produced a great article. One chef initially confessed to an unwillingness to share his Chinese food when eating out with friends, and then, asked to try again, admitted that he really hated having women in his kitchen. There was the woman copywriter who coyly revealed an aversion to sharing taxicabs and then, pressed, admitted that she was so tightfisted that she recycled gifts she didn't want and gave them to her staff at Christmas.

So what is the point of these Magic Words? They're a reminder that if we're like most people we've chosen to acknowledge a fairly harmless flaw and may be letting something far more serious get in the way of our success. Unlike Achilles, who knew the danger of his heel, we aren't always aware of the flaws that can do us harm. The chef who hated female kitchen staff had to acknowledge it to deal with it — certainly every woman who'd ever applied to him for a job had picked up on what he felt. And the copywriter's tightfisted giving was a common source of complaint in her office. Alexandra's long-ago article taught her that it pays to move past the innocent quirk — in herself and others — and look for the flaw that really causes problems.

Chew, Chew, Chew

"Chew your food," our mothers used to say. And even though they didn't insist that we chew each mouthful a hundred times before swallowing, they made it clear that gulping things down was not only bad manners, it was also bad for the digestion.

"Momilies," as author Michele Slung has labeled those homilies handed down by generations of moms, can be the bane of our lives or, as in this instance, they can remind us that the things our mothers used to say may contain valuable lessons.

Recently, Beth, an old friend of Howard's, had dinner with us. We were celebrating her first day on a new job, a job she had lusted for, but one that, she now confessed, might be too much for her to handle.

Beth's area was market research, and her new job at a big advertising agency placed her right below the president — the number-two slot at the agency. Right after she walked into her office that morning — before she even had time to find the ladies' room or visit the company cafeteria — the head of the agency plopped a three-hundred-page report on her desk.

As Beth stared at the thick portfolio, Dave tapped it with his hand and said, "This is very important, Beth. I want you to read it carefully, not once but twice, and then see me."

"What is it?"

"It's a report I commissioned from a management-consulting firm on how to completely restructure our

market-research department both here and overseas."

"I can't wait to read it," Beth said gamely.

"Good," Dave replied, "because that's just the start. I want you to be in charge of implementing the reorganization."

"All I could think of was the twelve labors of Hercules," Beth said to us, crumbling a piece of bread on the small plate. "Now I know how the poor guy felt when he was given the task of cleaning out the Augean stables. Reorganizing the entire agency! The task's immense. I'm new, I don't even know where to begin. Maybe I'm in over my head."

"This calls for the chew approach," said Alexandra, who signaled the waiter to bring another bottle of wine.

"What's that?" asked Beth.

"Maybe Howard should explain."

"I was always in a hurry as a kid," said Howard. "Nothing unusual there. Nor was it unusual that when I sat down to dinner I wasn't thinking of the food, I was thinking about finishing fast so that I could go outside and play ball with my friends. Naturally, my mother was always trying to slow me down: 'Chew your food!' One day she got so frustrated with the way she'd tell me to chew and all I'd do was gulp that she got up from the table, came over to me, and picked up my plate. I thought, 'Oh, great, now I can go out and play,' but she made me sit back down. She took my plate out to the kitchen and separated the food onto four salad plates. She put them in a line in front of me. 'One thing at a time, Howard. Chew!' It became a family joke," said Howard.

"Until you grew up," Alexandra interjected. "Eventually, Beth, Howard realized that it was good advice for a lot of things. Some projects are so big they're intimidating. Look at the whole picture and you'll freeze. So, whenever I get overwhelmed at the job, Howard always says, 'Chew, Chew, Chew.' It reminds me that you can't gulp things down. Things get done one bite at a time."

Copyright © 2004 by Howard Kaminsky and Alexandra Penney. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Howard Kaminsky was the president and publisher of three major publishing houses: Warner Books, Random House, and William Morrow/Avon. Also the author of several screenplays, four novels (cowritten with his wife, Susan), and numerous magazine articles, he lives in New York City and Connecticut.

Alexandra Penney's four bestsellers include the mega-hit How to Make Love to a Man. In addition to serving as editor in chief of Self magazine, she has written lifestyle columns for The New York Times Magazine and contributed regularly to numerous others. Currently launching a national magazine for women called Real, she lives in New York City.