Fun & Famous
8 EASY TRICKS TO SEEM SMARTER AT WORK
Do you ever wonder at work: do I come across as intelligent? If so, you want to read this. I have a few tricks for you to make a stunning impression without too much effort. Or okay, actually I borrowed them from the hilariously funny American Sarah Cooper. Uh, who is that? You might be thinking now. I get it.
This lady has worked for Google and Yahoo! among others and now runs the satirical blog The Cooper Review. She teaches you how to nod strategically, come across as creative without suggesting a single idea, and look intelligent while having no clue what it's about. She wrote the book ‘100 tricks to seem smarter at work’, because yes, just like everything can be faked these days: intelligence can too. Now, I'm not going to reveal everything, but a little teaser in the form of 8 tips? Should be possible.
Trick #1 something with notes
During that meeting... Nod continuously while pretending to take notes. That there's a nasty hairy little man drawn on your paper, no one will notice, right? Silly.
Trick #2 walk around
Isn't it true that you immediately feel respect for someone who gets up from the table during a meeting and starts walking around? I certainly do. It takes a lot of courage, but once you do it, you instantly create a smart impression. Go to the corner and lean against the wall. Let out a deep contemplative sigh. Everyone will be dying to know what you're thinking. They should know (bacon).
Trick #3 draw as many meaningless diagrams as possible
Are you drawing something on a piece of paper? Or even better, on a whiteboard? Then your potential leadership already increases a thousand percent. But what should you draw? It doesn't matter. You can just throw a bunch of arrows on the board and it already looks like something. Or another good one: write the word ‘vision’ and circle it. Then repeat a few times that everything ‘we’ do must center around our vision. Sounds nice.
“Do you ever wonder at work: do I come across as intelligent? If so, you want to read this.”
Trick #4 for when someone interrupts you at work...
Say that you need to quickly finish something, even if that's not true. ‘Give me two seconds.’ Look as intelligent and busy as possible while doing so. Of course, you have to make many important decisions.
Trick #5 always respond as if you already knew it
Respond to everything your colleague says as if it's very obvious. Cut him/her off with filler words like ‘exactly’, ‘of course’, and ‘yes, obviously’. If you really want to put someone in their place at work, throw in a few ‘everyone knows that’ and ‘duh’.
Trick #6 Suggest a walking meeting
If a colleague wants to discuss something with you, suggest doing it while walking. Say that, like Steve Jobs, you prefer to have meetings while walking because it clears your mind.
Trick #7 say that everything you discuss is confidential
Ask your colleague for discretion regarding everything you discuss, even if it's about public secrets. This gives everything you say more weight. And it also increases the chance that your colleague suddenly shares something with you that they should have kept to themselves. Hehe.
Trick #8 Use the royal we
In conversations about someone else's project, always use the royal ‘we’, even if you have nothing to do with it. ‘We really need to work on that.’ Sounds smart, right? Get them, tiger.
