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Op-Ed: Do Not Model Your Professional Life After Justin Bieber

Next time, remember that you could also delegate that DUI to Lil Za.

Is Justin Bieber ruining the fabric of society or is he simply a thought leader's worst nightmare? It's too soon to tell, but one thing's for sure, the Justin Bieber Lamborghini drag racing DUI incident offers some serious lessons for leaders in the business community and up-and-coming stakeholders alike. You might not be wondering what Justin Bieber’s numerous “fails” throughout his career can teach an aspiring executive, and I wasn’t either, until I saw this headline on Forbes today:

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Justin Bieber: A Career Cautionary Tale

And then it hit me! Personally, I feel like this is a bottomless topic, which is why I wrote this post for my LinkedIn audience. We can all avoid turning our sales or management role into a Lamborghini DUI incident of our own. Here are some important #bieberfails to avoid if you want to jump start your career and take it to the next level.

Focusing on the wrong metrics and set flawed goals

If there's one objective fact that everyone can agree on, it's that Justin Bieber’s music is terrible. When you have a popular persona, you can make a few gaffes from time to time, but if you're the employee who's already a dead weight around the office, your mistakes will be scrutinized much more closely. Justin Bieber makes music for teenage girls, which makes him completely different from someone like The Beatles, who make timeless music that everyone has been able to enjoy over the years, ever since the British Invasion. It would really help Justin Bieber's career to not make bad music! Haha, as if. Justin Bieber wouldn't know a guitar if it hit him in his computerized AutoTune microphone-face! But seriously, if you want to be seen as a key stakeholder in your organization, stop suggesting bad ideas. That's one easy way to achieve high heights on the management ladder in your career. Higher than Justin Bieber after the epic bong toke that got him his DUI.

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Trying to be 'cool'

It wasn't cool to do drugs back in middle school when you were taught to just say no, and it's not cool to do them now. True thought leaders know that when you're out innovating, innovation itself is a drug! Justin Bieber needs to ditch the sizz-ur-rup and drink the dis-ur-rup(t). He needs to stop thinking that "All That Matters" is "What's Hatnin'" with the "Future" and take his own advice to Beliebe in himself! There will always be young professionals in the office who will encourage you to "fit in" and "act cool" by “smoking weed,” but the greatest innovators were always hated in their own time. Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs—they were once labeled failures for not fitting in. And look how successful their careers were! Food for thought: Don’t smoke weed to be cool, because the cool people never win. You need to fail to succeed, but a #fail won't get you anywhere.

Dressing like a pop star, not a rockstar

Justin Bieber likes to imagine himself as a Silicon Valley player. He's invested in photo sharing app ShotsOfMe, for instance. But when you go around wearing drop crotch leather pants, sneakers and Been Trill hats, you don't really look the part of a success. Who wants a Hood By Air? Whatever happened to Hoodies and the simple charm of looking like you founded a startup like AirBnB? For instance, Steve Jobs became an icon by wearing his signature black turtlenecks. To make your mark, you have to embrace new look that business has never seen before, not look like a punk hip-hopper kid. Granted, it's not easy to dress like a venture capitalist, but, if anyone has the money to invest in designer jeans and a high-end blazer, it's Justin Bieber. If only he had a little more self-respect for the job he wants! You don't become a VC rockstar looking like a pop star.

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Here's the lesson for young professionals: If you want to succeed, you can't look like you just walked out of the skateboard shop smoking on a marijuana cigarette. Buy a few new clothes! Disrupt your look! Build a brand around looking good, but more importantly build a brand around showing you know how to embrace the future. This doesn't just mean clothes: Look to disrupt everything. If Justin Bieber were driving a Zipcar instead of a Lamborghini, this might not have been such a rough week for his PR team. Or better yet, he could have called an Uber and had his driver drag race for him!

Struggling to delegate

I cannot stress this one enough. Although it has been reiterated time and time again by leading management gurus, delegation is one of the most important skills for any executive's success. Justin Bieber has examples of both "turbo wins" and "epic fails" in the delegation sphere. On one hand, he has "delegated" things like his drug charges to his junior associate Lil Za. On the other, he might have considered "outsourcing" the driving responsibilities for his recent drag race, if you other thought leaders know what I mean. Ha, just a little joke out there for anyone who's ever been debating CapEx vs. OpEx models or anyone who's ever been caught driving their Lamborghini drunk! (I know I've been the former, and one or two "managers" I can think of have been the latter!) He may have shown impressive foresight in delegating the responsibility for blocking off the road while he raced, but when it came to actual driving, he micromanaged his way into an arrest! Just something to think about the next time you plan on "taking a look at key financials." Once again, allow me recommend Uber.

There are many business lessons that can be gained from looking at Justin Bieber's recent #fails. The bottom line is that if you want to have a successful career, you're probably best off not doing anything that the Biebs has done. Don't "innovate" your way into a "jail cell" or even a “fail cell”; try innovating a new fuel cell, a new cell phone or a new way to carry out functions in a spreadsheet cell! There's no art in R&B, but there is in choosing career solutions with demonstrable ROI (return on investment). Make sure you know the difference. Let me know if you have any ideas for how to avoid #bieberfails in the comments section, and stay tuned for next week's column about what we can learn about branding challenges from Kanye West's CRAZY RANTS! Thank you for reading, please share this content with your network.

Your Dad is actually Kyle Kramer, who is on Twitter - @KyleKramer