Too short? Never! Just think tall

By Jeff Hage (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published 12:00 p.m., June 19, 2009

With beauty and brains, I always though my wife had the best of both worlds. But being a smart woman with a mind of her own apparently isn’t good enough in today’s world — at least if you’re short.

According to the results of a study that showed up in my email box Thursday, Lauren Radomski, our tall reporter here at the Journal, is destined for a more successful career path than my wife Kathy, who comes in a an even five feet tall.

Success based on height? Can you believe it?

According to The Institute of Social and Economic Research there is irrefutable data to support the idea that good-looking people do better in life than everyone else. I can buy into that argument.

But being over 6'3" for men and over 5'9" for women can also shape your success? I’m not so sure.

Tall people make $789 more per inch per year, and are 90 percent more likely to ascend to the CEO chairs of Fortune 500 Companies, according to Arianne Cohen, author of The Tall Book.

She scoured the sociology, psychology and workplace research to determine why tall people succeed (she herself is 6'3"). And Cohen discovered that the behaviors tall people display can be mimicked by anyone in order to get the career benefits of being tall.

So in short (no pun intended), anyone can succeed, in theory, if they think tall.

Randy Newman wrote a song popular in the 1970s suggesting that “short people have no reason to live.”

Cohen suggests in her research that those words are absolutly untrue if all people take the steps to “think tall.”

Here’s some advice she offers:

Be unforgettable. Due to evolutionary programming, when a tall guy walks into a meeting, everyone registers that he's there, and remembers what he says. This is a huge boon for someone who's also an ambitious, talented worker. So be noticeable. Figure out a way that when you walk in the room, everyone registers it. You can do that through interesting (but professional) clothing, cracking jokes when you walk in, etc.

Act like the boss. Tall children, from a very young age, are deemed the "leader" of their friends. Other little kids literally look up to them and often treat them as they would a slightly older child, and as a result, they're more likely to function as the leader for the rest of their life. Even as interns, other office workers give them the physical space and attention usually reserved for a leader. So act like a leader.

Find a way to look down on coworkers. Literally. An eye cast down is a really powerful behavior — it's the body's way of signaling a power imbalance in your favor, and you can create that power imbalance with some attention to your positioning. Thus, stand whenever you can when coworkers are sitting, and avoid walk-and-talks and casual standing around the office where coworkers are looking down at you.

Guard your personal space. Close friends hold conversations 18" apart; friends 2-3' apart, and bosses and employees four feet apart. Coworkers naturally give tall people four-or-more feet, which means that from the beginning, they're treated with boss-like reverence. You can mimic this body language — simply send out the physical vibe of professionalism, not chumminess, even in casual conversation. You'll see that people step back, and give you more space.

Don't be shy. Tall people often build an oversize personality to fit their oversize bodies. In the workplace tall people are more likely to yell or make demands or pull off a tongue-in-cheek toast to the boss. Socially, they take chances, and those chances are rewarded.

Focus on image rather than competence. Tall people aren't actually better workers, but in surveys, their bosses think they are. Which means that though competence matters, the perception of competence matters much more.

After all that, I guess I’m sold on the “success of the tall” concept and am left with one simple conclusion.

We should all stop concentrating on our work and focus on ways to think tall!

Jeff Hage is the managing editor of The Daily Journal. He can be reached at jeff.hage@fergusfallsjournal.com.

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