Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People are More Successful, Daniel S. Hamermesh, Princeton University Press, 2011 La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life, Elaine Sciolino, Times Books, 2011 Not long after I started my job at HBR, I ran across the work of Catherine Hakim, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. At the time she had been getting a lot of press in the UK for proposing that “erotic capital” – a mix of beauty, sex appeal, self-presentation, and people skills – was an asset to be valued, developed, and deployed, just like money, intelligence, and social connections. I asked a smart, seasoned colleague what she thought of the idea. After all, Hakim was arguing that businesspeople can and should leverage erotic capital to advance their careers. Surely this could work as a cool, controversial “managing yourself” topic? The colleague told me not to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Fast-forward 18 months, and Hakim has written a book. So has Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economist at the University of Texas, Austin, whose research focuses on the gains associated with having a beautiful face. And so has Elaine Sciolino, a former New York Times Paris correspondent, who thinks everything in France, including career success, can be boiled down to seduction. So taboos be damned – I’m writing about erotic capital in HBR. The fundamental question remains: Is this a topic managers should take seriously? Yes and no. Yes, because attractive people do, in fact, have more-lucrative careers. Hamermesh reports that in America, a person whose looks are in the top third will earn around 5% more, on average, than a person who, except for facial beauty, is otherwise exactly the same, even on seemingly related factors, such as self-esteem. This audience should consider two studies in particular: one showing that better-looking MBAs saw their earnings grow faster in the decade after graduation than did their uglier classmates (the handsome men also secured higher starting salaries) and another indicating that “hot” professors earn at least 6% more per year than peers with identical pedigrees but worse looks. By Hamermesh’s calculation, the difference in the earnings of someone good-looking versus someone bad-looking might be $230,000 over a lifetime. His conclusion: The role of beauty in labor markets is pervasive. Hakim, whose definition of attractiveness goes well beyond facial beauty to include physical fitness and personality, agrees, citing broader studies that document pay penalties for obesity and preferences for hiring poorly qualified, well-groomed job candidates over well-qualified, poorly groomed ones. Her conclusions: “Erotic capital has value in all social relations and in all settings including the labor force”; “attractive men and women gain a succession of invisibly small advantages from everyone they meet”; and “small differences in early choices and successes can lead to large differences in final outcomes.” Like good academics, both authors also consider whether this “beauty effect” is warranted and/or desirable. Hakim says yes on both counts, because “erotic capital helps to sell products, services, ideas and policies,” and ultimately, in any job that involves human interaction, it generates better returns for both the individual and the organization. In fact, she thinks that women in the Anglo-Saxon workplace aren’t rewarded enough for it. Hamermesh waffles, acknowledging studies that show how “socially productive” beautiful people can be (producing higher revenues both directly in customer-facing roles and indirectly as “inspirational” managers) but also wondering whether companies and governments should protect against lookism at the margins – for example, discrimination against very ugly or disfigured people – just as they protect against racism. Sciolino, the reporter, skips any scientific analysis but suggests that the French would side with Hakim. “In France…all relations, human, political, professional, are subtly eroticized [and] it doesn’t trouble anyone,” she explains. “Sexuality always lies at the bottom of the toolbox – in everyday life, in business….Flirtation is part of the job.” And yet the answer to the question I posed earlier is also no. Managers shouldn’t take this topic too seriously, for two reasons. First, the “beauty premium” that Hamermesh identifies, with exceedingly dry precision, is based on the face – something humans, even as babies, instinctively judge on its symmetry. That means we can’t correct for it on a personal level (without a lot of plastic surgery). Nor should we try to correct for it on an organizational or societal level, because it is, on the one hand, so innate and, on the other hand, relatively insignificant in determining career success for most people when weighed against other factors, like intelligence and education. (Rate the Fortune 500 CEOs on a scale of one to five for facial beauty and tell me what you think.) Second, the most pertinent lessons to be drawn from Hakim’s broader, bodice-ripping analysis (and Sciolino’s scattered French snapshots) can be found in many other sources, most notably the literature on emotional intelligence. We already know that social sensitivity and the ability to charm can be assets at work, that presentation is an important part of persuasion, and that people who “dress for success” tend to achieve it more readily. That said, these books are useful because they force us to confront a reality that American human resources departments – obsessed as they are with enforcing dress codes and preventing sexual harassment – would like to ignore. Employees in all types of industries and jobs should be expected – indeed encouraged – to cultivate and use every advantage at work. That includes beauty (enhanced to varying degrees by clothing, makeup, and exercise) plus all the personality traits and social skills that make us more attractive to the people around us. We might flirt, as the French do, when appropriate, if we want clients, colleagues, or customers to come around to our point of view, or just to boost their confidence and perhaps their productivity. We might tell jokes, sometimes even off-color ones, as a way of building camaraderie and common ground. And we might smile more often, a gesture Hakim sees as playing a crucial role in business not only because it “makes almost everyone more attractive” but also because it is a “universal sign of…acceptance and cheerfulness.” If, as Hakim also argues, alongside Sciolino, executives can get ahead by using this “soft power” more effectively, why shouldn’t they? And if they already are, spurring positive results for their organizations, why shouldn’t they be compensated for their efforts? One other note: In the course of reporting this story, I had numerous workplace-inappropriate conversations about erotic capital. During one, my male cubemate (and friend) accused me of wearing a low-cut dress. During another, a colleague railed against lookist hiring practices even as he and I sweated in our office gym next to other spandex-clad coworkers trying to get thin. There was also a brief discussion of Hakim’s views on sex and marriage markets, which included references to masturbation, prostitution, and trophy wives. Separately, I found myself constantly considering who was, and was not, exploiting their beauty, their social skills, their “seductive” powers. My conclusion: Even if this isn’t the most pressing management topic of the day, it is one that people like to think and talk about—including at the office. “As Helena Rubinstein, one of the founders of modern cosmetics, famously said, ‘There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.’” Catherine Hakim, Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom And the Bedroom
