Common blunders to avoid in getting ahead

By Adetunji Adeleye

IT is common place to see employees resuming office as early as 7.30 a.m., stay late to finish all assignments and come in below budget, but still lack the recognition they deserve due to organisational issues they fail to come to terms with.

According to Cynthia Shapiro, author of the book Corporate Confidential, it does not matter how adept you are at your job, if you make these five common mistakes in your workplace, you will never be a star:

Pursuing your personal agenda:
Many of us assume we know how best to approach our jobs, but letting your own judgment dictate your actions is unlikely to get you noticed or rewarded. If you are not working on what your company or your boss thinks is important, you are never going to be seen as a valued asset, warns Shapiro. If your goal is to make up the ranks, drop your own agenda and do what you can to further theirs, no matter how misguided you think it is.

In a strict bureaucratic organisational set up, strict adherence to policy and regulation are critical to individual’s success. Any digression is met with summary dismissal in such workplaces. For example, Mr. Ademola Olabode (not real name) was employed by a logistic and distribution company in Lagos as a territorial sales manager for its Ibadan office with a mandate to rake in N100 million as the territorial sales target.

Mr. Olabode reached out to his old customers whom he had serviced when he was in Lagos to sell his products and meet sales target. It was not long before his company got to hear about his sales adventure into another territory and he was given a query for violating the rule of engagement which led to his dismissal.

Voicing negative opinion has become highly risky in workplaces because one would be marked as an opposition.

Many employees have become victims of the comments they made about their chief executives or those people in authority and have remained stagnant in the same positions for a long time.

Are you the office Kvetch, always ready to bad-mouth your boss or ridicule your company’s latest venture? Watch out! You may be ruining your career. “When it comes to business, being positive is more important than being skilled,” says Shapiro. The next time you notice yourself gripping, ask yourself: Is it more important to say what’s on your mind, or to get that next promotion?

A friend who was asked to resign from a company once told me what led to this. He said that he was working with a man who liked saying terrible things to his workers which had always destroyed employees’ morale. Things like everybody working in this company is an animal except him and that employees should start behaving like human beings. This comment generated a reaction from my friend, who voiced out his opinion during a meeting with his boss and he was asked to go.

Every employee should note that today’s work environment is hostile and does not make room for personal expression of contradictory opinion. Non-aligned opinion is seen as opposition and does lead to job insecurity.

Complaining to Human Resource (HR) is dangerous to your job security.
Companies tend to portray HR as a service for employees, but that is not really true. The HR people are really there to protect the company from you and they do that by keeping you close. If you bring an issue to HR people, they will only work to address your concern if it is in the best interest of the company to do so. If your problem threatens the company or your job performance, the “help” they offer may, infact, be an attempt to minimise the company’s liability or to collect the evidence they need to push you out of your job.

HR people are the secret agents for the company. They get closer to you to understudy you and see what you are doing right or wrong and how you are impacting on the company’s progress and success. Like the police, most especially in Nigeria, you cannot be too sure of their positions in a matter whether they are on your side or the company’s side. They are necessary evil that cannot in some circumstances be avoided.

HR people are the ones to hire and fire and always keep the official secret, secret. If anything will happen within the organisation that has to do with down-sizing, lay-off, right-sizing, retrenchment, etc, they are the ones to first hear about it.

Most times, information that filters from them can be crucial to career decision and success. They are the greatest tool in the hands of the chief executive. Every employee must understand their roles in determining career survival in corporate world.

Being too smart can lead you into trouble.
You may believe that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to gain recognition, but that is not always the case. Showcasing your smartness can make you appear like more of a threat than an asset if it is not done with finesse. If you want to be promoted then use your smartness in support of your boss and your peers. Anything you will do that will look like you want to overthrow your boss should be avoided like a plague. Word to the wise: Never point out what could be done better unless your supervisor specifically asks for your opinion, and even then you should tread carefully. There is an adage in Yoruba, “People do not want the truth, whereas God hates lies.”

Not knowing when to jump could be disastrous to your career.
There are a number of ways to gauge whether you are in danger of being fired. When you begin to see early morning signs of being sacked, you must start to prepare for your exit. These are the signs:
You have a contentious relationship with your boss; you have not gotten a raise in a long time and you are consistently given the clients or projects no one else wants. If any of this sounds familiar, start looking for another job as soon as possible.

It is always better to jump to a new position than to get terminated. You are 10 times more appealing to an employer if you are still employed, and if you get a job while you still have a job, it prevents your new firm from calling your current employer, and creates a seamless jump on your resume.

Do not wait to be sacked. Many employees will continue to wait and hope for a change when everything around them is pointing to the fact that they are no longer wanted or they have been short-changed in the organisational power matrix. Even those people they are complaining to are parts of the system that wants to do away with them. Wisdom demands you should leave when you are no longer cared for, nor celebrated.

To be seen as an irritant in your workplace is an indication that your service will soon be over.