Appearance - Why It's Important

"Your looks have become a problem"

      -Jeff Bebe (Almost Famous)

“…And I don’t give a damn if you don’t like me, cause I don’t like you cause you’re not like me. “

     -Jimmy Pop (Bloodhound Gang)

Looks are important. Not to me personally per se’, but important in your daily life. How you look, carry yourself, and how you speak to others. Why? It’s because you are judged immediately and harshly if you do not look like you belong if you do not speak with confidence and eloquence.

Looks are important because of biases that are beyond our own control. I have to judge you by your looks for multiple reasons.

      1.  I don’t have time to “get to know” you. Chances are when I meet you, I’ll have less than 5 minutes to make a determination on you as a person, your knowledge of whatever it is I am speaking to you for, as well as make a judgment on how I can maximize our relationship.

      2. Others judge me based on how the people I put around me look. I have a need to not only represent myself in how I would like to be judged, but I have a responsibility to that need to ensure the people that I’m with are representing my image accurately

3.   Defiance rarely produces positive results. Our societal norm, especially in business, is that these judgments establish the basis of business going forward regardless of the content.  You must look like a clown to be hired as a clown. We must dress like an employee to represent the company.

My argument was always that my content would explain me as a person. I would never “look like them”. In a sense, I’d call myself today a “sell-out” from what I thought I did not want to become. The truth is that I wanted to be recognized for my brain and not my refined professionalism. The fact is one hand washes the other.

Example:

Would you take financial management advice from a group of college kids you’ve seen at a football game? In my mind, when you ask that question, I think of a crowd of painted up school colors wearing drunk college kids that are waving and screaming at the TV cameras between plays.  “No way”, I immediately think to myself.

Why? Bias.

What is wrong with that is out of that group of kids, there are a handful of educated young minds that are working toward becoming financial analysts, stockbrokers, CPA’s etc... Some of those kids probably have great ways to invest money and make money by managing finances in a logical and effective way.

If I look at the three reasons noted earlier, I can see that based solely on my idea of appearance, and the fact that I don’t have time to meet and question each student, it becomes impractical. This is true mostly because by association of the students around them, they have molded into a bias and an assumption that I have in my mind.

In a real way this happens to everyone every day. But also, in a real way, it’s a cultural association that our lives have been trained to accept. The culture of our country, state, city, family, and personal beliefs are formed by laws, parents, friends, and us. Biases are also changed and reversed by the same people.

Other biases, like ones that are produced in a professional environment are in place because it’s the most effective and efficient way to determine your opinion of people and how they can be used in your own current situation. In other words they travel outside of some people’s belief structure because it’s plain good business.

There are signs of this social behavior from an early age and in all walks of life. Groups of friends reject certain children from their group because of appearance. They don’t wear the right clothes, they don’t speak the same, or they simply aren’t cute/pretty enough.  Maybe the child has a health issue, acne, or maybe you don’t get picked to play on the team because of size or strength. 

As an undersized average looking poor kid with acne when I was young, I developed a strong hatred for the good looking kids that had unearned (in my eyes) confidence and were given every opportunity to excel in school, sports, and in social situations.  Hence my “stance” on never wanting to look like “them”. I didn’t want to be associated with that bias. I had a strong belief.

Over the years, as I have risen in the professional ranks, I’m noticing that I’m the one that is dressed up. I’m the one that rarely jokes around, I’m the one judging whom to promote, and I find myself with the same biases that have been used against me. Also, they are the same biases that have been used against me for many years. Lastly, these are the same biases that I use to maximize my daily potential and I have no remorse, because these biases are socially and professionally accepted.

I will also continue to use biases as a tool to judge and assess a situation because it’s efficient and its necessary. If I discontinued using biases, I’d have to spend too much time getting to know this under dressed outcast that will be representing me to others that will also be judging that person and be judging me based on my recommendation of that person.

I was never given the benefit of the doubt until I parted my hair and put on a nicely pressed shirt.

C.L.