Lack of savoir faire, like hypertension, is a silent killer.
There are few symptoms, other than the odd cringe that often goes unnoticed. But the outcomes are clear if the reasons are not: you’re omitted from meetings, passed over for promotions, underperform in nine-box reviews, find advisors suddenly too busy to work with your company [1], and VCs surprisingly passing on your financing round [2].
The problem is that nobody wants to tell you what’s wrong. It’s like this scene from Young Frankenstein.
Frankenstein: You know, I don’t mean to embarrass you, but I’m a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I could help you with that hump?
Igor: What hump?
It’s just easier to move on.
But make no mistake, these problems can kill your career. Or, more commonly, simply stall it out. Nothing is more lethal to a career than these eight words: “Kelly’s a great director, but not VP material.” [3]
Savoir faire is related to savvy in English, but not quite the same. I think of savoir faire as know-what as opposed to know-how [4]. Diplomats have great know-what when it comes to knowing what to say or do in a delicate situation. Vintners have great know-how on the subject of making wine.
Savoir faire is thus a social skill and largely about adherence to unwritten rules of conduct. In Silicon Valley, land of engineers, we don’t talk much about social skills [5]. We prefer our numbers, facts, and figures.
But to say these rules are unwritten is not to say they don’t exist [6]. I’ve been repeatedly reminded of them in the past few months, courtesy of several encounters with people who were simply, for lack of a better term, doing it wrong.
More interestingly, when I tried to give these people feedback, the reactions I got were defensive and sometimes hostile. You can argue this is about me, my direct style, or my not having earned the right to offer such feedback. But I believe it was primarily about the nature of the feedback itself.
While giving feedback is always tricky — see Jason Lemkin’s recent announcement that he’s going to stop giving feedback in 2024 — feedback about savoir faire is different:
- It’s personal, about behavior, and thus even more likely to cause offense
- It’s seemingly subjective or arbitrary, particularly when you don’t know the rules
- It’s not up for debate. We’re not debating strategy A vs. B. I’m telling you that you don’t treat a successful founder who just sold his company for $600M like a used-car salesperson.
And this is why most people don’t offer it. There’s almost nothing but downside. It’s easier to simply:
- Not invite the guest who talked politics to the next dinner party
- Not return the recruiter’s call seeking a blind reference on the executive who wrote an inappropriate social media farewell thread
- Become too busy to advise the executive who bungled the introduction to a high-value contact
- Ghost the founder who wants copious free advice, but who just can’t get around to signing an advisor agreement
- Say “I need to go mingle” to the clueless employee who challenged you on the utility of MBAs at the company reception [7]
It’s simply not worth the time or risk to explain to these people how dumb they look. And they probably won’t listen anyway. So on they go, like Igor with his hump, unaware of the problem, yet inexplicably not getting results that they want.
If I were to make a tagline for this problem it’d be this:
Savoir Faire: If You Don’t Have It, You Don’t Know.
Almost definitionally [8].
So, this is why, if you ever find yourself lucky enough to be on the receiving end of “you’re doing it wrong” feedback, you should do the following:
- Realize that you’re receiving it. Think: “Hey, we’re not debating options here. I’m being told I mishandled a situation.”
- Understand that you’re being offered a gift. The giver certainly knows it’s potentially offensive, but is offering it nevertheless.
- Recognize that this is likely your last interaction with the giver if you don’t handle the situation well.
- Avoid defensiveness or debate. They’re telling you the equivalent of “use the silverware from the outside in” or “don’t wear white pants after Labor Day.” They’re not looking for a debate.
- Avoid rationalizations like “oh, they’re old and that’s how it used to be done.” A lot of things change in Silicon Valley over time. But a lot don’t.
- Consider the possibility that they may be right. You obviously disagree because they wouldn’t be offering the feedback if you didn’t. The odds of them being correct increase with the size of the experience gap between you.
- Thank them for offering the feedback. Remember that most people wouldn’t, their intent is likely good, and they probably wouldn’t bother if they didn’t see something they liked.
- Apologize if you feel it’s indicated. I literally once told a founder, “you mishandled that introduction so badly that it embarrassed me,” and was told in response, “there’s no reason it should have embarrassed you” [9]. This three-fer wiped out working with me, my friend, and quite probably the VC firm that referred him to me. All because they refused to hear what I was saying (“you embarrassed me”) and offer a simple apology in return.
I hope this post helps you develop your career by explaining why, when someone tells you that you’re doing it wrong, that you should perk up and listen.
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Notes
[1] Despite oddly having time for an exploratory meeting.
[2] Despite saying, “we love what you folks are doing and stay in touch.”
[3] Often, in my experience, such damning statements go unchallenged in a group setting, particularly when made by the boss. The typical response is nods, “oh yes,” “it’s a shame,” and “the world needs directors, too.”
[4] This is an imperfect simplification. I remember it by defining know-how as about tying a bowline or making beef bourguignonne – i.e., knowing how to do something – technical knowledge. Know-what is knowing what to say or what to do, particularly in a difficult situation – social knowledge. Unfortunately, you could just as easily define the latter as know-how: knowing how to behave at a funeral or knowing how to handle a drunk relative at a party.
[5] And when we do it’s about arguably naïve ideas like radical transparency. While I like it as a correction to our default behavior, taken literally, it breaks down quickly: are you going to be radically transparent about the CRO who steps down to enter a rehab program or the planned acquisition that falls through? In the latter case, such transparency is not only ill-advised, it’s typically a breach of contract (e.g., an NDA).
[6] This begs a question about privilege. You could (correctly) argue that a wealthy upbringing teaches you proper table etiquette at a country club and thus that people who grew up in the bottom wealth quartile would not typically have access to that knowledge. (See the infamous SAT oarsmen-to-regatta analogy question.) But I am not talking about either standardized tests or immutable traits, I’m talking about behaviors that can be learned. While privilege might afford you the advantage of already knowing some of these things, it might not. And the good news is that, either way, they can be learned if you are willing to admit there might be things you don’t know, and if you are lucky enough to encounter someone willing to teach you.
[7] In this case, the perpetrator was the 28-year-old me squandering a once-in-a-lifetime chat with Bob Waterman, co-author of In Search of Excellence (and a Stanford MBA), by asking a stupid question. You see, there’s a reason why I’m passionate about this topic. I needed a lot of help myself and was usually — but not always — lucky enough to get it.
[8] A derivative of a tagline we once used at Business Objects — Business Intelligence: If You Have It, You Know.
[9] I’m the one who decides if I’m embarrassed, not you. Whether you would have been, or whether you think I should have been, is beside the point.
