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7 Ways to Make Yourself Irreplaceable in the Office

Vipul Mali — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 10:09:51 +0000

In order to protect yourself from the next round of layoffs, you need to convince your employers that you’re valuable and that your existence alone benefits the company.
“Today’s business environment doesn’t allow for satisfaction with the status quo. It requires constant growth and change,” writes Mark Samuel in his book Making Yourself Indispensable: The Power of Personal Accountability.
“Being indispensable means that you are adaptable, learning and growing with your organization as it changes and evolves…at the end of the day, you are either working to make yourself indispensable or working to make yourself obsolete.”
Here are the seven tips to help you become the most valuable person to your employers:
1. Never take the shortcut. Have you known many highly-successful people to be lazy? In order to be truly irreplaceable, you have to work hard. You can’t take shortcuts and still expect tremendous respect.
2. Be adaptable, not rigid. It’s been said that being rigid is the fastest way to losing your job. In an age where technology, workplace environment and strategy techniques are constantly changing, the most pernicious thing you can do for your career is to cling on to something from the past and refuse to change.
“The good news about rigidity is that it gives you a sense of control — it is predictable. You understand it, know it, can explain it, and can even teach it to others,” he says. “The bad news is that the sense of control is often a false one or temporary at best.”
“You can always tell when someone isn’t adaptable to change. They demonstrate their paralysis through resistance, advocating for the old way, talking about the “good old days,” or undermining current change efforts through their lack of cooperation and cynicism.”
3. Being a perfectionist will be your downfall. Most people think that being a perfectionist is what they need for success, but, in actuality, it prevents it.
“Perfectionism fosters inaction — waiting until we can guarantee success before we take action. And this negates accountability and prevents success. We wait for the perfect plan, the perfect decision, and the perfect action that won’t fail.”
4. Be of service to others without expecting anything in return. Most of us only do things for other people if we get something in return, but a truly irreplaceable employee is someone who makes decisions and solves problems for the good of their team and other departments in the organization.
The more you become “we-centered” rather than “me-centered” the more indispensable you become.
“Trust grows when our motives are straightforward and based on mutual benefits — in other words, when we genuinely care not only for ourselves, but also for the people we interact with, lead, or serve.”
5. Be purpose-driven, not goal-driven. At work, you will have goals to achieve, but these goals are often “established without a clear sense of purpose.” And since most people are often too busy to go above and beyond their daily tasks, they’re not making an effort to produce actual changes.
“Substantial evidence demonstrates that in addition to motivating constructive effort, goal setting can induce some unethical behavior.”
So don’t stresses out about finishing every single step you’ve written down on your checklist or it’ll become a never-ending cycle.
6. Be assertive. Life is a game, so play big or go home. Take charge, stand apart and don’t be afraid to speak up during meetings for fear of sounding unintelligent or being wrong.
7. Forgive others quickly. “The measure of accountability is based more on how you handle mistakes, mishaps, and breakdowns than on getting everything right all the time,” Samuel says. “It’s about how fast you can pick yourself up when you fall; how quickly you correct a mistake that you made; that little or no harm comes to your customer, family member, or friend.”

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Five ways to crack the whip when it is needed…

Vipul Mali — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:39:23 +0000

The new-age boss is expected to be the benevolent guide who will always back his team, hand-hold each member and push them to succeed by carefully eroding their faults. But there are times when he has to crack the whip.
It may result in wrath and the boss’s popularity may dip for a while, but to hold the team in steadfast discipline is a propelling factor. There are ways a boss can rein in errant team members without causing unnecessary damage, says ET.
Be the change
Many managers call their team for a meeting and turn up late, washing away the relevance of the issue that was to be discussed, says R Elango, HR head of MphasiS. The team tends to mimic the ways of the manager, and this shows in their attitude in meetings and the work coming out of it.
Leave out ambiguity
“When setting targets and key result areas, the boss will have to be very clear on what he expects from each one of them so there is no place for ambiguity, which results in indiscipline,” says Ronesh Puri, managing director of Delhi-based executive search firm, Executive Access.
Reward and Punish
A team head should know follow the reward and punish principle, says Elango. So if employees exceed the performance criteria but are indisciplined in their approach towards work and others during team tasks, then they should not be rewarded. Similarly, to ensure a balanced approach, an employee who may be disciplined but is not a performer should not be rewarded.
Say it Loud and Clear
An employee may not know he or she is not following the rules, and will continue if not checked. The first step, says Puri, is to talk to them and explain clearly that such behavior will not be tolerated.
The manager should find a reason behind such behavior and if it continues, send a warning letter stating the consequences could impact their appraisal. If the employee still takes it lightly, the boss should go ahead with giving him or her poor rating during review and mention why.
Set the Team Tasks
The manager should get employees to work in as many team tasks as possible. This brings in a sense of responsibility, and they will know their performance will impact others’ grading as well.
An indisciplined employee may not follow instructions to the team initially but will realize how his or her waywardness is leading to low scores, for which colleagues will hold them accountable. This often is a factor that pushes people to change their ways and work better.
Article courtesy of Economic Times

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The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time

Vipul Mali — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:10:16 +0000

Why is it that between 25 and 50 per cent of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?
It’s not just the number of hours we’re working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.
What we’ve lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It’s like an itch we can’t resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.
Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you’re taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you’re driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn’t?
The biggest cost — assuming you don’t crash — is to your productivity. In part, that’s a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you’re partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it’s because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you’re increasing the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.
But most insidiously, it’s because if you’re always doing something, you’re relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.
I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.
If you’re a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:
1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what’s been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it’s urgent, you can call them — but that won’t happen very often.
3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.
It’s also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:
1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you’ll be. When you’re done, take at least a few minutes to renew.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don’t, you’ll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that’s relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.
3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you’re off, you’re truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you’ll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.
A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you’re engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you’re renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.
Courtesy By: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/03/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-a.html

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