Some time during COVID-19 when the whole world was working from home and had lost complete touch with civilization, I made a list I called the Behavior Bible.

With my commute reduced from bed to table, I would read it like a prayer reminding myself of ways to get the most done when in-person influence was zilch.

Now it’s due for an upgrade as everyone’s back to the office only to continue working from Zoom, but with 3D ways to influence.

A caveat: some of these are controversial. If you don’t want to indulge in my satire — satire that, inconveniently, also works — you can stop reading here. These do not represent the views of my current employer.

The sample size for this “study” is small: one person whose mastery of perception management could have Maven Course of its own and a few others who have been proof of how not to manage perception. The findings are anonymous, but the patterns are universal.

I’ve only chosen people who actually did their job well and not just did perception management. Both are needed to have influence on large outcomes.

Color as a Personal Trademark

I started noticing that certain people had a kind of visual signature. Their profile photos, work outfits, even accessories were in the exact same colour family. I later realized this wasn’t fashion; it was branding. This was more common among the top 1% women at work. Full black outfit. White top. White jacket. Shades of pink. Yellow top.

The discipline it takes to cut almost every other color out of your wardrobe is real. I eventually joined the club. My own choice is star of life, hex code #007ICE. Now, I tell myself when people see that color in pitch decks and logos, they think of me before I’ve even entered the scene.

Theme: The Color Signature Effect — Using one color consistently creates a mental shortcut for recognition and recall.

The Footwear Code

I learned the hard way that visible toes in footwear can be read as “unprofessional.” I had never thought twice about it when I had a thriving career in India until someone in Bay Area subtly hinted on my corporate fashion faux pas. That was when I realized that unspoken dress codes still operate quietly in the background, influencing how people are perceived, long after formal policies have faded. I get it – nobody really needs to see my toes.

Theme: Footwear Conformity Rule — Following subtle dress norms prevents your appearance from becoming the conversation.

Hair as a Competence Signal

Hair seems trivial until you’ve seen how much weight people give it. Frizzy hair can earn a silent judgment about being unprofessional. Long hair is rare enough in Bay Area’s hard water that it sometimes prompts speculation about whether you’re more invested in upkeep than in work. I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum, and both taught me that grooming, whether we like it or not, becomes shorthand for professionalism. I currently sport a short bob and haven’t had to think about combing for 5 days a week.

Theme: Grooming as Competence Cue — People often use appearance as an unfair but powerful proxy for diligence.

Owning the Right Space

In every office layout, there are “power seats” — desks with maximum visibility across the floor and close proximity to meeting rooms and phone booths.

Sitting there means you overhear more, run into more people, and stay on the radar without effort. I learned quickly that physical location is as much a career lever as calendar invites.

You’re making yourself reliable and people know where to find you to save the day.

Theme: Spatial Visibility Advantage — Where you sit shapes how often you’re noticed and included.

The Operator Mentality

There’s a PM at work who is always early — like clockwork, they’d be at their strategic location, laptop open, looking deep in thought. I knew the automatic doors didn’t open until 8 a.m., so how were they already settled in? Turns out they had unorthodox methods. They went as far as having phone number of the security guard to override the automatic lock and let them in early. That, to me, is pure “operator” mentality — not just doing the job, but bending the environment to suit it.

Theme: Environmental Hacking — People with operator mentality optimise for advantage, even if it means rewriting the rules that everyone else quietly follows.

Walking as a Broadcast

There’s a difference between walking to get coffee and walking with someone while debating a critical issue. The latter is a moving billboard of relevance. It creates curiosity. It makes people assume you’re in the middle of something important, even if they don’t know what it is.

Theme: The Motion Broadcast — Purposeful movement turns everyday activity into a signal of value.

Carrying Your Own Water

At first, I thought carrying my own water bottle was just about hygiene. Then I realised it also quietly signals independence and preparedness. It’s a small gesture, but small gestures accumulate in how people perceive your reliability.

Theme: Symbolic Self-Sufficiency — Consistent self-reliance becomes part of your brand.

Skipping Meals as a Signal

There were days I worked through lunch without thinking about it. What I noticed was that other people saw it as sacrifice. It wasn’t always strategic, but it became clear that visible self-denial, however unintentional, gets read as commitment.

Theme: Sacrifice Theatre — Giving something up in plain sight reinforces perceptions of dedication.

The Sharp, Small Question

One of the most effective tactics I picked up was asking a question so short and precise that it instantly revealed a gap or oversight. No confrontation, no speeches — just enough for the other person to realize it themselves.

Theme: Minimalist Correction — Brevity makes it harder for people to dodge accountability.

Using Legal as Leverage

Most people in tech think Legal as the one who’d write off your beautiful ideas as “risky”. But imagine if legal trusted you so much, they come to your defense? Yup, I’ve seen that happen and it only left me speechless how much street cred one must have earned to pull that off.

When an idea was hitting unnecessary resistance with cross-functional stakeholders, I saw how quickly the tone changed once Legal got involved in the room. It reframed the conversation entirely — suddenly it wasn’t “your proposal” anymore, it was “the compliance requirement.”

Theme: Authority Reframing via Legal — Bringing in a higher authority can move an issue from subjective to non-negotiable.

Reading the Unspoken

The people I admired most had an uncanny ability to anticipate concerns before they were voiced. I personally think these are the folks who’d go a very long way in their careers.

They’d come to a meeting armed with the exact answers needed for the group to align and move forward, and it made them look almost psychic.

Theme: Anticipatory Mind-Reading — Anticipation earns trust because it reduces friction before it starts.

This one’s specially for the AI world

Summarising the Summaries

AI has made it easy to take notes, and then summarize those notes… and then summarize the summary. The problem is when that’s all someone does. Without adding any original thinking, it doesn’t take long for people to start wondering what value was brought.

A simple prompt that can actually help middle managers to do their job and keep up perceptions is ask “What is not being discussed that should go in the email?”

Theme: AI-Driven Relevance Erosion — Repetition without insight accelerates invisibility.

This is the list I keep coming back to. It’s a part observation and part survival manual at Corporate America. Some items might make you roll your eyes. Some might make you nod in recognition. All of them work – trust me.