I recently started reading Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment on a plane ride to meet a client. As I sat on the runway waiting while they made a repair (always reassuring) and sweating in head-to-toe wool, I read his section entitled “Dress for a Tie” which takes a look at how our choices in dress affect our professional interactions. I should mention that this section resides in a chapter called “How to Achieve Likability.” I should also mention that, much respect to Guy, I’m generally suspicious of anyone who bullet points tangible action steps to achieve intangible qualities. Affecting attributes in order to win people over can be sniffed out by the herd on a very primal level, and it generally stinks.
Still, I’m intrigued by boardroom behavior that involves subliminal communication (as I assume anyone in the business of wooing people would be) and I found it refreshing to see a man willing to discuss dress in terms of strategy rather than fashion. The “jeans vs. suit” is a real issue that can be (and arguably is intended to be) very polarizing in the workplace, especially in agencies.
Recently, I read that though now Steve Jobs’ jeans are an iconic statement of innovation, they were once part of the reason he was fired from Apple in the 80’s. Alex Bogusky, former head of CP+B, said he heard that the reason they lost the pitch to Land Rover was because he showed up in jeans. On the flip side, I know of another agency that lost a pitch to a youthful brand partially because they all showed up in suits and ties. “They’re out of touch.” If anyone was at Future Midwest this year, they likely remember one of the speakers stand up and apologize for wearing a suit to speak to what was clearly a jeans and jackets crowd.
I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to make the claim we associate jeans with innovation. (Please see Steve Jobs and Alex Bogusky above for support.) I don’t think it’s a huge leap either to claim that some people still see it as disrespectful and unprofessional.
I don’t know if I have anything to contribute to this issue that will be helpful (as I sit typing in head-to-toe wool), but here are some things I think about when I talk to myself about this debate:
-Is it silly to conflate attire with innovation or creativity or is it fair to say that wearing jeans in a professional environment, or any other item counter to the acceptable dress code, is indicative of a deeper drive for breaking the rules, a necessary part of innovation?
-Is it silly to think about dress too much when time would be better spent on your pitch? (I think you could argue that if Bogusky’s idea for Land Rover had blown the others away, they might have looked past the jeans.)
-I hate to drop the gender card in the midst of an already polarizing issue, but is it different for women? Ever look at the difference between how Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and the rest of the team dresses?
-Do people like Bogusky wear jeans because they’re thinking about dress, or because they refuse to? And isn’t “refusing to” still thinking about it? (When he was conducting interviews at CP+B, he said he regularly asked prospective hires to explain why they’d chosen their outfit in order to hear them work through strategy and rationale.)
-Do any of these questions even apply to junior workers, or non-principals? Or do we just wear what the bosses wear? And if you do just conform to the boss, are you making a statement about your innovation within the company?
I’d like to hear what you think about when you think about this issue, or if you think about it at all?
Jen Wright, Yaffe Suit and Jeans Wearer
