Worth Reading

This is an article that was in the Wall Street Journal. It is a good read for those of us who just do not know what not to wear.

Case Study: Dressing for a Naked CEO

What to Wear to the Office Is Complex Issue for Consultants;From Pinstripes to Jeans

August 23, 2007; Page D8

Few of us will ever face a meeting with an executive who is attired in nothing but a bath towel, as communications coach John Millen once did.

But consultants like him deal each day with all sorts of sartorial complexities that come from constantly entering new office cultures with unfamiliar personalities -- increasingly in different parts of the world.

After all, the products that consultants sell are themselves. Any consumer-product marketer will tell you that -- like it or not -- the packaging is often as important as what's inside. With consultants operating far-flung practices today and with acceptable office attire ranging from jeans to pinstriped suits, many operate in a steady state of indecision: What should I wear today?

"It's a constant dilemma on every engagement," says Robert Salwen, an executive-compensation consultant in New York. In many offices, the rules on clothing are so ill-defined that even people working in the same place don't really understand what's appropriate. Wrinkled khakis? Sports coats? Capris? Joel Garfinkle, an executive coach in Oakland, Calif., has been confronted with clients who work in shorts.

When Mr. Salwen prepares to meet a new client, he makes all sorts of assumptions about the type of person that client is. He divides his wardrobe of suits into two categories. When meeting venture capitalists and investment-banker types, who tend to have more aggressive personalities, he says, he wears his "in-your-face" pinstriped suit, which he pairs with a pinstriped shirt and bold patterned ties. More staid corporate types or start-ups will see Mr. Salwen in a "sincere" solid navy or gray Brooks Brothers suit.

"More often than not, I find myself overdressed on the first meeting," Mr. Salwen says, but "there's not a stigma attached to being overdressed in the environments I work in."

The same can't be said for consultants who work in Silicon Valley, where even the Wall Street investment bankers must closet their suits or face ridicule and lack of trust.

Something most people do rarely -- dressing for the first day on a new job -- consultants must do all the time. Being successful means figuring out how to fit into an environment they don't fully understand -- knowing that first impressions are hard to change. "You always want to establish a bond with people," says Karen Kaplowitz, founder and president of the New Ellis Group, a strategic planning and development firm in Princeton, N.J. "Well, how do you establish a bond? People want to do business with people who are in their tribe."

A former trial lawyer, Ms. Kaplowitz chooses clothes that mirror the environment of the attorneys and digital-entertainment clients she caters to. In one case, with a client who is an exquisitely dressed -- and outspoken -- entertainment lawyer, that meant going shopping for more fashionable clothes. "She told me I needed to update -- I'd gotten too boring," Ms. Kaplowitz says.

The consultant's dilemma is how to impress without making clients feel inferior. For a consultant, in particular, clothes communicate not only expertise but also social rank, says Mr. Millen, who is a specialist in "reputation management" and president of Mainstream Public Relations in Dublin, Ohio.

"In comparison to the person I'm coaching, if I'm underdressed, am I worth her listening to?" he asks. "If I'm better dressed, am I being condescending to him?"

Mr. Millen calls ahead to clients' offices to inquire about dress codes and habits. Nevertheless, he's been foiled. He once received an assignment to meet a CEO at his Los Angeles country club for a confidential afternoon session. It turned out that the executive, who was in his mid-50s, had played golf and taken a steam bath. He "was sitting there in a towel watching 'SportsCenter,' " says Mr. Millen, who had worn what he thought was country-club business casual, a jacket, polo shirt and khakis. "I took off the jacket, but my polo and khakis still felt overdressed."

Larry Marion, chief executive of Triangle Publishing Services Inc., a contract publisher based in Newton, Mass., sees things from the other side. He hires consultants, and if they're likely to work with his clients, he looks for signals such as clothing that suggest they'll be a good fit. "I want my team to fit in. So appropriate attire makes sense," he says.

But sometimes even the best guess proves wrong. Dorothy Crenshaw, president of Stanton Crenshaw Communications in New York, recalls dressing for a tech-company client's weekend videoconference on the West Coast. Given the client, the more casual coast and the Saturday timing, she thought a strappy yellow dress -- not quite a sundress, but almost -- would be appropriate. "They were wearing business suits," Ms. Crenshaw says, her voice rising with emotion. "It was so humiliating. The client just looked me up and down. I kept saying to myself, 'No one cares but you.' "

Overdressing has its drawbacks, though. As the owner of an agency that sends English teachers to teach corporate executives in Paris, Ann Talpey says she is reluctant to wear very expensive clothes or shoes to client meetings. "I don't want them to think the prices they are paying are going into my wardrobe," Ms. Talpey says.

This article was originally posted at: http://online.wsj.com/article/S70824BINKLEY.html but may no longer be available.