What you can do to be successful in the corporate world?

When I was studying, I thought getting into one of those big corporates would make my life complete. I am sure many of you had that kind of a desire. Now, as we have kind of settled down in the corporate world, our thoughts and opinions have changed over the period of time. That sheer excitment during the early days is gone and we just nudge on and on to pay our dues from the salary that we get.  In this article, I will share a few thoughts with you on certain things that you can do to be successful in the corporate world

Folks, lets make our remaining days of the corporate career exciting. Ultimately, there will be pain points everywhere. You had it in your school, college and even in your family. Don’t you agree? With time, we have overcome most of these pain points, but then the one on coping with corporate atomsphere still looms large. If you aren’t smart enough, there are chances that people are going to exploit you. We are living in a highly competitive world, Huh!

Survival or showing the way?

I often hear people speaking about politics in the corporate world. You might have heard so many times that you need to bring your political skills to the core if you have to fight for survival. My question is this…”Why should you fight for survival?” Fighting for survival is for those are beaten down. Champ, you are brave to overcome all these. You need to show the way instead of rumbling over the negative atomsphere in your office.

Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see”. You get the point? If at all there is somebody who could make your life easy in office, it has to be you and you only. You need to believe that office politics is for the losers who don’t have enough skills to face the battle head on. They bring the shield of fear and discrimination to protect their shortfalls. They are afraid that they will be stripped down fast if they don’t play dirty politics.

Here are some points to make your life easier in the corporate world. I recommend you to try these things out.

1. Never showcase yourself to be the smartest person around in your team even though you are one! It will lead to unnecessary inflation of egos on one side and on the other side ,every nasty work will be dumped on you. Be careful!
2. Never indulge in personal love affairs in the work place. It will showcase you as a joker!
3. Don’t poke your nose into everything. Be contempt with what you ought to know. Too much of information will make you go mad
4. Learn to take critisicm in a light way. If you take it personal, you are gone!
5. Be wise enough to discern that promotions, hikes and other benefits are not in your hands. You are just an employee. Don’t think that you can always fight and win. Most of the time, you will not get what you want.
6. Always remember that your company can go on without you. Make sure you get this point right. Don’t think you are the guy whom your company looks up to run the show. After all, don’t they have risk management in place?
7. Don’t try to do your manager’s job. They say that you need to play the next level role for a good appraisal rating. But, where your manager will go if you play his role?
8. Learn to accept your weakness. Don’t try to be strong in something when you are weak. You will become a clown in doing so. On the contrary, take every effort to overcome that weakness.
9. Learn to develop professional connections at your work place. It will help you on the long run. I am not talking about that secret meeting in the cafeteria or the car park!
10. Above all, develop all the skills necessary to do your job properly. Let your work do the talking and keep your mouth shut! This is one thing that you should never forget

Being successful in a corporate environment is all about adaptability. You need to adapt of get out, or else you will be thrown out in the longer run. Learn to remain within the boundaries of an employee and don’t get carried away by the terms like co-owners, partners etc.

Luxury in work place – Is it necessary?

I was reading through an article in a news paper on how companies pamper their staff with exotic furniture, interiors, free food and other flamboyant stuff. They had also published a few photos where the employees are seen relaxing in bean bags, rope chairs, playing indoor games and relaxing with a head massage done by a professional massageur. It was an exciting sight to watch and this might be the dream of every employee who works for an organization.

Everything looks good but the question to ponder over is this “Is it worth to splurge millions of dollars into getting this kind of infrastructure being set up?” and not every organization can afford it. Is productivity in any way linked with this sort of indulgence? We need to think deep to find an answer to this intriguing question.

These days, many companies take investor money to build their superior infrastructure. I am sure a huge chunk of the money that is being raised is being spent on infrastructure especially interiors than what is being paid to the employees. Many companies that start with grandoise and splendor in the beginning fail to last long because they did not focus much on growth and quality. All that they try is to become big too soon, attracting smart talents within a short time through their mind boggling interiors and facilities.

But the impending danger of going broke too soon is shrugged by everyone, both the promoters and employees. There are many such organizations that have not paid salaries to their employees regularly. There have been mass layoffs and firings as well. Why does all this happen? The reason is simple, everyone focusses on the short term and are looking for some quick bucks starting with investors, promoters and finally the employees.

All of them seem to forget the golden rule in business which is “If you are not providing value and great service to your customers, you will run out of business”. It doesn’t matter if you have the biggest building or the finest interiors, the customers will just walk away if you provide them shabby service.

Finally, those who get affected are the employees who are left in the cross roads, and they can only dream about those times that they indulged in pomp and splendour when their companies played high with the investor money. They keep hoping for the good times to return in their lives infinitely. Isn’t it wise to play it safe focussing on the long term? It is time to think as we see signs of a huge investment bubble that is waiting to be ripped apart.

The taxi driver who owned a provision store

I was riding on a taxi this morning to work. The driver was an enthusiastic person who seemed to be enjoying his work, a trait that is found lacking in many of us today. I wanted to strike a conversation with him as it has become a habit for me these days to know more about different people whom I meet daily.

I started asking him about his native place and he was from a place in south Tamil Nadu and is living in Chennai for more than 10 years. My next question was “Are you driving taxi for all these years”? to which he replied, “No sir”, I owned a provision store for a long time and the demanding nature of owning it forced me to become a taxi driver.

Come on, I thought the provision store guys enjoy their life and make tons and tons of money as we see “Annachi kadais” all over the livelihood. By now, I was feeling comfortable talking to him and more importantly, he too was comfortable to talk with a highly talkative person like me. When asked how much he was earning through his provision store, he said “My daily total sales used to be 10,000 rs and would make a profit of 2500 rs per day”

Fair amount of money, one would say! I also got to know that major profits would be got from selling vegetables. Now, everything seems rosy, what is there to complain about it? This is where he started narrating the problems one by one. It all starts with managing the labour and this is the key. You need to get good sales people who would be loyal. As most of these shops don’t have a proper inventory and accounting system in place, pilferage is a major issue.

Even if a worker swindles 200 rs everyday, it is very difficult to track. So, the owner should be always on his toes. It is a demanding schedule starting at 3 am in the morning where one goes to the whole sale market to purchase vegetables to 11 pm where the shop is shut. People talk a lot about work life balance and I found that in this particular business, it is close to zero. If you want to take rest or attend a family function, you need to close down your shop and who knows the next shop guy might poach your customers!

The next challenge with the business of provision stores as per him is the purchasing mode of people shifting towards the supermarkets. Yes, you have those giant super and hypermarkets all over the place and people go there as an outing and complete their purchase. All these caused a dent into this business and hence this person had to put an end to it.

It was time for me to get down and asked him one final question “How is your taxi driving when compared to running a provision store” He said with a twinkle in his eyes “Sir, now I have my time in my hands. If I want to go to my native place, I can just park the car in the shed and go ahead, but can always come back and start driving as I get customers at will on a daily basis.

A profound truth explained in simple terms isn’t it? All of us want to have time in our control and many venture into entrepreneurship for this simple reason. To me, This taxi driver is an entrepreneur, a smart one. I said good bye to him and ran to my work.

How can you turn risks into opportunities?

I was looking out through the big glass side walls of my office and saw a bird sitting on the edge of a window shade in the 13th floor of a tall building. The legs were perilously closer to the edge and there was every possibility that it might lose its balance and  fall down, but in a few seconds, the bird majestically flapped its wings and soared to greater heights as I watched it as long as it flew out of my view.

Once I had settled down, I imagined how I would have felt if I were to be placed in that position as how that bird was dangling over the edge, a highly risky position to be in and when your life is at stake. However, for the bird it is not risky as it knows how to safeguard itself and rise up from there as it has the necessary skills and abilities to fly out of that seemingly dangerous position.

It is also very similar with the risks that we face in our lives. We may find ourselves in so many risky situations at various points of our lives. Recently, I met three youngsters who were fired from their jobs for poor performance and I had a chance to speak with two of them. During our initial conversations, I found that they were completely dejected, distraught and clueless about what they would do further.

One of the guys even went to the extend of drinking heavily to overcome the pain wrought out by the situation. Here are three youngsters in a very risky situation in their lives and are not able to handle it because they did not have the confidence and ability to find another job.

The reason that they don’t have the confidence is because they are not prepared and have wasted their time without utilizing the opportunities that came their way to gain the required knowledge and skill. They are scared and anxious because they were not sure of getting another job and their entire future was hanging in a balance.

It is in this situation that they realized their problem and started working hard to enhance their skills that are required to find another job. They started to attend training programs and worked hard to make sure that they had enough knowledge to face the world and prove a point. Yes, they realized that the only way in which they could change their risky situation is by equipping themselves with all that is needed to overcome their current miserable plight.

After a couple of months, I got the news that all three of them landed in jobs that was far better than their previous ones and that they are all charged up to face anything in their work life. What gave them this confidence? It is the effort that they put in order to gain the required knowledge and skills. Yes, it is true that “without pain, there is no gain”

Life seems very tough and risky only as long as we are not equipped to handle the different risky situations that we come across. Once we take measures to learn and understand everything that is required, we are emboldened to face what may come our way. It may be with your finance, jobs, relationships, aspirations, passions or whatever may be the case, if you take the pain to learn the tricks of the trade, you will not be shaken by the uncertainties and would be ready to convert those risks to go up in life.

What to do if you are stuck in a boring job?

A survey says that around 53.4% of the Americans are not satisfied with their work. This is not a thing to be ignored as what it means that more than half of the American workforce are not satisfied with what they are doing day in and day out for a living. I am sure that this number would be almost similar if we extend this stats to the whole world, if not more. Yes, there are a huge number of people who doesn’t like the work they are doing and do not have the motivation to leave their homes to work every morning. Every work day is dreadful to them. I am listing down the following tips that I have tested practically and also heard from many others. I am sure that these will really help someone who is really struggling to keep it going when it comes to work.

1. The start that you have for the day is very essential to keep you motivated throughout the entire day at work. You need to make sure you get up with the right frame of mind and shift to a positive mind set as soon as possible. You must do some sort of physical exercise for at least 30 minutes. This will open up your clouded mind and invigorate you. You also need to read some motivational stuff everyday or listen to a soul stirring music before starting out to work.

2. Make a list of work and non-work related tasks that you would be doing for the day. Your work related tasks would include everything from the emails that you would send, the meetings that you would attend and the actual work that you would do. The non-work related tasks would include the items that you like to do and includes your coffee breaks, the chat that you want to have with a friend, the food that you would like to try out for your lunch, the reading that you would like to do during your spare time etc…

3. You should be interested to help everybody around you so that it refreshes your conscience and brings in that feel good factor. If you have a colleague who is struggling in something that you are really good at, take your time to help them out. If you are good at communication or organizing things, volunteer to train your colleagues so that they can improve themselves.

4. If you are disappointed with the monotonous nature of your job, opt for more variety by asking for work that would keep you challenged and break that monotonous grind that is choking you. Go outside of your project and look for interesting things in your organization where you can pitch in and contribute.

5. Make sure that you take complete ownership of the work assigned to you and never make a mess out of it. The more you fail at your work, the more you will be depressed about it. Your focus should be to get all your daily work done at the earliest without committing any blunders. Always take comfort of the fact that you are paid for that particular boring task that you do, and you need to do justice to it.

6. Read the book “Quitter” by Jon Acuff. It has many illustrations on why you should hold on to your current job while getting prepared for a dream job or career. There are many who take impulsive decisions to get out of their current jobs without having any plan in place for the future.

7. Take some additional responsibilities and participate in organizational activities. This would include organizing parties in the office, conducting events, part of the organization’s social and fun activities.

8. Learn new skills that would be needed for your dream job whenever you get time. It is better to use time in this manner than just wasting it away by chit chatting or gossiping with a colleague. You can also browse through websites like howstuffworks.com to gain an understanding on various things that we use everyday. It will really make you more confident and feel good.

9. Make use of the boredom to get creative. Your boredom is a blessing in disguise as it challenges you to think more and squeezes out the creative juice inside your brains. On the other hand, boredom can actually choke and demoralize you. Hence, use it to your advantage.

10. Take regular breaks so that you can get away from your desk to get a breathe of fresh air. You can read a 5 min quick motivating article, or look at an inspiring image during the breaks to propel you for the next phase of the day. You can also try solving a puzzle that will power your brain further.

11. Take a few minutes to write down your thoughts and analyse them. You can also use this to plan out the rest of the day.

12. Sometimes it is better that you just close your eyes for 5 minutes, shut off all the thoughts and just focus on what you really want to do in life. Also, you can think about your achievements, the unique skills that you possess and be thankful for all the blessings that you have. This will refresh your mind.

13. You can also call to a friend who would inspire you and speak positive words to encourage you. It will instil a fresh doze of strength to help you move along

Note : Even after trying these out, you find yourself demotivated and unwilling to do that work, then it makes sense to plan for a job or career change. But, never do it in a haste. Plan and prepare well while holding on to the current job and make the switch at the appropriate time.

Why Am I stuck in a boring 9 to 5 job?

As I was reading through the life stories of some of the successful people of the world, that too, those who rose up in life from the ashes, a huge question started ringing in my mind making me restless. Why can’t I be one among them? What should I do to chart one such success story?

Most of the times, I feel that my life is getting subdued due to the monotonous 9 to 7 job that I do in IT. All my creativity and dreams seem to be buried inside the IT Park where I work. While I dream to fly in the sky by utilizing my talents, the situation in which I am trapped makes me feel like a bird with clipped wings.

This is the mind voice of many creative people who are stuck in monotonous grinding jobs due to various circumstances, but without their liking. Yes, when you were young, you had the zeal to work in a huge corporate setup to make many heads turn towards you. It was one great experience when you walked into your corporate job for the first time with your ID cards hanging around your neck, entering into the sprawling workspaces, corporate boardrooms, the cafeterias etc. You felt as if you have reached the pinnacle in life.

But, how is it possible that such a great feeling of excitement and joy during the first few years of work turns into rants and murmurs when you hit your mid life? What went wrong? When I sat for a while and thought about this, a different chord of thoughts struck me. I started to think that this hatred towards a routine job, during mid life is because the nature of these jobs blocks the curiosity and creativity inside you from gaining momentum.

You have so many ideas and plans. You want to venture out into a business, you want to become a musician, a writer or a poet, but your corporate life doesn’t seem to support it as you are expected to sit in your desks from morning till evening. This leaves you with no time to nurture your ambitions and passions.

One youngster working in IT told me that he really hates his job. He is just 3 years since landing into this job, straight out of college. His ambition is to become a successful businessman, but his family forced him to take this job to earn money and support the family. He needs to earn money so that his younger sister could be married. He was in agony over the fact that he had to keep coming everyday to a job which he just hates.

Another middle aged executive told me that, though his corporate job pays him a huge amount of money every month, he does not have any satisfaction in it. He feels that his identity as a creative human being is being wiped out slowly every single day that he sticks on the job. He wants to come out of it, but his loans and other commitments pluck off that thought even before he thinks of taking some action about it

Our earlier generation were very content and happy to do these kinds of jobs as most of them worked in banks, educational institutions and government offices. The setup then was different. Even then, the creative few started their own ventures and became highly successful. I know of a person who worked very hard all through his career in the government and retired without even owning a home. He wanted to play it very safe, and never thought about taking any calculated risks in life for the betterment of his family. The result, his children are forced to stick to jobs they don’t like in order to support the family.

Whenever you read the story of entrepreneurs revealing the tipping point when they took the plunge into entrepreneurship, your mind encourages you to try doing it. But, the very next counter thought reminds you of your commitments and pushes you towards the wall. It seems to you that you are locked in an inescapable prison forever.

Is there a way out to come out of this rut? Well, it depends on the kind of support and encouragement that you get from your family and friends. Someone needs to uphold you and lift your spirits. It is very much possible that anyone can become successful in anything through sheer hard work and focus. It could be your spouse, siblings or parents. But, someone needs to listen up to your situation and provide the encouragement to live your passion. Until then, keep dreaming. Never lose your interests. Your great days may be delayed for a while, but never eternally. There will be a time when you will be doing what you enjoy doing. You need to have enormous will power to sustain this, isn’t it?

10 steps to hold on to the job that you hate

You cannot always expect to convert your hobbies into your dream job. If it has worked out for a few, it doesn’t mean everyone would be fortunate to have a job centered on their hobbies. There will be times when you will have to work on a job that you hate to the core. But, you must have to hold on to it so that you can run your livelihood.

Following are few ways through which you can hold on to a job that you don’t like

1. Focus on the positives of the job that you hate. I am sure that there will be a few things that you would like in your job, and it is essential that you give importance to that. It might be something like you have less pressure, your job location is nearby your home, you have some nice colleagues etc.
2. Chalk out the things that you hate the most in your job and try to analyze the reason for which you hate them. There could be reasons like you have an ego clash with your boss, you may not like your boss to be on your nose always, a coworker may not be receptive, there might not be good facilities or it could very well be that you are not doing your work sincerely. Try to find the reason for your hatred towards your job and fix those areas.
3. Don’t mix hobbies with the job. You can indulge in your hobbies and passions even by holding onto your so called boring job. Try to use your spare time to hook on to your hobbies.
4. Involve yourselves in other extra-curricular activities in your organization by being a volunteer. These days, there are a lot of interesting events that are conducted in the organizations ranging from fun festivals to sports tournaments to social activities. Involve yourself in everything that you can.
5. Try to help others with your job. It could be a client or a colleague. If you try to solve their problems with your effort, you create an awesome atmosphere at your office
6. Never send any harsh or hatred emails to anybody in your organization no matter whatever bad situations that you are pushed into. Don’t send your resignation email in a haste either. The value of your job will be known only when you have it no more.
7. Try to work through a well-defined schedule to avoid the monotonous grind every day. Make your schedule interesting by mixing different tasks and agendas
8. Talk with people whom you trust on your problems with your job. They might be able to give you some good counsel and guide you.
9. Always remember that every job will have its own problems. The grass on the other side will look greener till you move onto that side. Once you reach the other side, you will see the same old story there as well, if not much worse.
10. Your way of relating with people makes or breaks your success at your workplace. Learn to adapt with different kinds of people who may be totally opposite to you in everything

Young employees and their addictions

Beer, parties, fun, bar – These are pretty much the frequently used words with today’s young workforce. One could see this first hand in the huge corporate set up, as even the official celebrations never conclude without a drink. The other day, I was in an official party, and as the happenings on the stage came to a close, it was time for “Open the bottle”, the official way to open the drinks party. People in the senior management also support this by their explicit participation.

The youngsters seem to enjoy drinks more than food and they drink till they drop down. Some of them even drive back after drinking without worrying about the inherent dangers of accidents or the possibility of ending up behind the bars for drunken drive. What is painful to see is that even women are not left behind when it comes to drinking, and even smoking too. If you can take a stroll in an IT park, around the smoking area, you could see women with homely looks, puffing out smoke along with their male counterparts. Oh, is this the equality at work that we talk about?

Coming back, we could see an increasing trend with youngsters, especially those who earn a lot of money early in their careers, taking drinks on a daily basis. If you listen to their conversation before they leave their office, it would mostly be around the bar or the place, that they would be visiting to have their scintillating drink for that night.

Youngsters from remote villages usually come to cities for work. When they start their career, they would be very innocent. The problem starts when they acquaint with their colleagues or friends who lure them into this deadly path. As these folks don’t have the right people to mentor and guide them, they take to drinks, drugs and illicit relationships to get a high quite often. We even have seniors in office encouraging their younger colleagues to take this path, even after witnessing their very own lives ruined because of it.

Cigarettes, beers, alcohol, drugs and illicit relationship are the real spoilers of the young workforce of our countries. The corporates would go to any extent to grow their business, but they seem to be least bothered about the lives of their employees. What a difference these corporates could make if they can have the right people to mentor the young workforce by motivating them in the right ways and discouraging them to indulge in the wrong habits. I am sure that the corporates have everything to gain by taking this step, as their employees would be healthy and thereby productivity and revenue will increase.

The corporates can encourage the good forms of entertainment like sports, music and other extracurricular activities that would help the young employees to grow in their life. The corporates should also have trained in-house counsellors to whom these youngsters can fall back for guidance. We all need somebody to speak our hearts out.If we have the right people available, it makes a lot of difference. We read about young employees committing suicides, running away from homes, indulging in live-in relationships, partying hard and abusing themselves in every possible way. Why are the corporates silent about it? Isn’t it possible for them to control this? When they can go to any extent to improve their business, why can’t they take some simple steps that would save the precious lives of their budding employees, who are wandering away from their boundaries on a regular basis?

Why you should not have sleazy relationships at work?

Our workplaces are our second home. According to surveys, it is estimated that an individual who works 40 hours per week for 40 years spends 10.3 years of his lifetime in work. Now, this is a staggering number. I am sure that with the advances in technology and the need to be connected with work on a 24/7 basis, would only shoot up this number.

Let me get straight to the point. I want to write about the relationships that we have to manage in our workplaces especially with respect to the opposite sex. There was a person who was in a very high position in an organization. He was very talented, won lot of business for the organization, traveled all over the world. He was at the peak of his career and everything was going very well for him. People around considered this guy as one with a Midas touch, who succeeds in everything that he does.

But, there was one gorilla that he was fighting inside and did not take it very seriously. Yes, he had a weakness for girls. Women could accomplish anything with him easily, and he would use them to his advantage. This was happening for some time and was unknown to many. He used his foreign tours, outdoor trainings and every possible opportunity, to satisfy his pleasure. As he was razor sharp with his work, he helped his organization to grow fast as well. His professional success masked his moral filth.

On the personal side, he had an innocent and undoubting wife and two great kids. At least, if this guy had thought about his family, he would have controlled his glaring sensual desires. But, that didn’t happen and he had his good run, doing wrong things.

On a particular day, when he was in a meeting with a client, he received a call for a disciplinary hearing. In the hearing, he came to know that somebody has blown the whistle, and for a moment, he realized that it was all over. Yes, it was indeed all over for him, as he was sacked from the organization and had to tread through a very painful path before he could get back to normal life.

These days, even some newspapers promote sensual stuff in the office. Articles like “How to have a romp in the office” are very common in some of the mainline newspapers. Even the digital media promote these behaviors. It may be even true that certain business favors could be accomplished by these acts. But, life is not all about business and there is more to it. Your integrity, personality, character, attitude and everything is at stake. Your spouse and children are solely dependent on you for their life. Would your indecent acts help them in any way?. The next time you desire to have a romp up, think whether it worthy enough to indulge.

Moral :
1. Don’t lose your life for a couple of minutes of pleasure.
2. Draw clear boundaries when relating to opposite sex at work

Never retaliate to your boss, Learn to respond

Yesterday evening I was completely depressed as I received an unexpected email from my boss asking me to test a work item which my team needs to deliver. Though it is quite normal for a boss to assign work to his subordinate, I felt annoyed at this one. Several thoughts started to invade my mind. Is he thinking that I am not working properly? Is he feeling that I am wasting time without work? or is it that he wants to show his supremacy and power over me? As I was driving down home late in the evening, these thoughts repeatedly came over to me, and as a result, I was pretty annoyed and felt aghast.

My reasoning was like this. As I am managing the team, I have people who can do the testing and in fact, I had made arrangements for it. Then, why does my boss specifically ask me to test?. The more I thought this way, the more angry and agitated I became. Should I send a strong worded reply to him? or Should I send an SMS to him saying that testing something doesn’t fall into my job description? I decided not to do anything in a haste as I have become little matured these days. Had it been during the early days of my career, I would have really gotten into a big trouble by showing my dissent in a very vocal and open manner.

I got to learn an important lesson from this incident. Your boss might shoot you an email or say something that you may not like. But, it is very important that you keep yourself calm and not retaliate. The best thing to do in these situations is just to let it go and ignore it. If you keep it inside, you are tend to blow it up sooner. Who knows your boss may even forget whatever he said as time passes by. Resist the urge to react and retaliate immediately. Always choose to respond in a cool manner.

In my case, that particular work was assigned to another person by my boss’s boss. It made me to realize one very important aspect that I should always have in mind – Never think of giving it back to anyone immediately under any situation. The best thing that you could do, is to shift your focus to something else and walk away.

Lesson learnt : Never retaliate and give it back immediately.