Page 140 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Fit In • 121

overpower (better to stick with a belt, a wedding band, and a watch
instead of additional bling), and mismatched belts and shoes.
Now, if you’re a business legend, you can get away without the
expected business uniform. One of my clients talked about running into
a legendary Internet CEO in a local bakery recently getting a birthday
cake for his daughter. “He was wearing the same turtleneck and blue jeans
that he wore 20 years ago when I worked with him!”
Whatever clothes you choose to wear, they fit and hang on
you better if you stay in reasonable shape. The highest-net-worth people
maintain their ideal average body weight (according to height) over
40 years of age (the time in life most gain around five pounds per year).
Studies show that dropping from 275 to 175 pounds adds $13,000 per year
to your salary. (There are little tricks to hide the extra pounds. For exam-
ple, if you button the top jacket button, you’ll “lose” 20 pounds, accord-
ing to men’s clothing experts, or wear shirts cut fuller rather than tightly.)

I don’t look like an aging Abercrombie & Fitch model, but I do try
not to look like a dork in my workout clothes.
ƒ

You can’t be 20 pounds overweight and come into a job acting like
you can be lean and mean in getting the job done. You don’t repre-
sent vibrancy.

“I’d rather have someone wear a shabby tie and a five-year-old suit
than have weak material and five-year-old concepts,” said one CEO about
the importance of clothes. I agree. The last thing I want people to say about
you (as was said about one ambitious manager) is: “From the shoes he wears
to the car he drives, it’s all scripted, and it’s too smooth.” I just don’t want
something so insignificant to be a derailer: “He looks like a slob.”

Beyond Shaking Hands, Reach Out and Touch

You can be in touch, stay in touch, get in touch, and sometimes get back
in touch. But you do have to literally (and figuratively) touch despite how
uncomfortable it makes you feel, the potential for misinterpretation, the