There are times when every business is going through a restructure.
Some companies seem to do this every few years, some every year, and
some seem to be undergoing one eternal restructure!
Have you ever
noticed that some people are restructure proof? Fear does not grip their
body at the mention of that word.
They never leave. They never get
demoted. They are important to the company.
This reminds me of a story. Please excuse me; we are a training company, so there is always a story.
A
big corporation hired several cannibals. "You are all part of our team
now," said the HR manager during the welcome briefing. "You get all the
usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but
please don't eat any of the other employees."
The cannibals promised they would not.
A
few weeks later, the cannibals' boss remarked, "You're all working very
hard, and I'm satisfied with you.
However, one of our secretaries has
disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?" The cannibals all
shook their heads, "No," they said.
After the boss left, the
leader of the cannibals said to the others angrily, "Right, which one of
you idiots ate the secretary?" A hand rose hesitantly in admission.
"You fool!" said the leader. "For weeks, we've been eating managers and
no one noticed anything, but noooooo, you had to go and eat someone
important!"
Are you someone important to your company? Would they miss you if you were no longer there?
When
most people hear that dreaded word ‘restructure,' fear fills their mind
and the thought arises: “Am I going to be made redundant?” This is
generally followed by a blubbering cry of, “Who will hire me? I have a
mortgage to pay, car payments, and I need money to wash the dog!”
How
can we make sure that we are someone important? What can we do to be in
the best position to remain in the company? How can we be one of those
people that are indispensable?
In my preparation for writing this
blog, I decided to get some wisdom from people I respect. I asked some
of our best clients — senior managers who work for global companies.
These people have walked the walk; they have been bulletproof when it
comes to restructure.
These are their 5 Keys to Becoming Indispensable at Work:
1. Hold the mindset that change provides opportunity.
There
is an ancient wisdom etched into Chinese vocabulary. The Chinese
ideogram for crisis consists of two separate characters. One means
danger; the other means opportunity.
The proper translation is that a
crisis is a dangerous opportunity. When confronted with a crisis, you
need to recognise both the danger and the opportunity. Often the danger
is more readily apparent, while the opportunity can be deftly concealed.
The thing to keep in mind is to look for the opportunity as well as the
danger. Crisis holds the potential for both.
In studying hundreds
of famous people, whether politicians, sportspeople, business people,
or spiritual leaders, I have found that crisis comes to every person in
some way.
Those who rise in the midst of crisis and see it as an
opportunity to change and grow become greater and more powerful. They
reach heights that they would never have attained had they never
experienced that crisis. As masterful innovator Walt Disney put it,
“You
may not realise it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth might be
the best thing in the world for you.”
When change is imminent,
hold the mindset that change provides opportunity, remain positive, and
don’t dwell on the danger but dwell on the opportunity.
2. Do not overfocus on the next job position but rather on the skills to be developed.
I
think that most people today are aware that the company does not have
the same amount of loyalty to you that they used to a few years ago.
There was a time the company would have a track for your life. You could
go and meet with your manager and they could tell you where you are
going and when you will get there.
Today, you are your manager and
you need to plan out your own career path to your dream job. Therefore,
it is important that you are not focused on the job position, but
rather on the skills required.
I like to say it like this: “You
have to do the job before you get the title.” In other words, if you
want to be the CIO, then you need to develop the hard and soft skills
required for a CIO; you need the education of a CIO, you need to start
dressing like a CIO, acting like a CIO, speaking like a CIO, and then
one day, when you have had the right amount of experience, someone is
going to say, “I think Jessica would make a great CIO!”
3. Building relationships with key decision makers.
It’s
not only what you know but whom you know. I have seen people scoot all
the way up the ladder of a company through being connected closely with
key decision makers.
Think of football coaches: they build their
team and work with players for years, and then they get headhunted to
another club as head coach, and what is the first thing they do?
They
try to get their key players to move to the new club, as well. They are
like a positive cliché. Where one goes, they all go. Some coaches and
key players move together all the way through their playing life.
Why?
Because just as the players think that the coach has made them succeed,
the coach thinks that the players have helped him or her succeed.
They
are a powerful team, and they feel powerful together. Sir Edmund Hillary
needed Tenzing Norgay to climb Everest. We all need to find an
“internal coach” whom we can work with and who would support us to climb
our Everest.
4. Exhibit the ability to get ‘stuff’ done.
How
do you build these key relationships? You build them by working on
projects with key stakeholders, complimenting their skills, and making
them look good.
As one senior manager put it to me, “Over the
years, I’ve had the opportunity to work for some great ‘blue sky’
leaders, but they couldn’t project-manage their way out of a lunch bag.
While I’ve probably not been the best at brainstorming new and creative
ideas, in many situations I’ve been able to take their ‘kernel’ of an
idea, pour some fertiliser on it, and make it grow and flourish into a
great program and actually implement it.”
In projects, there are
two key parts--the front end and the back end, people and tasks,
marketing and operations, talkers and doers. If the key stakeholder is a
talker, then you need to be a doer. If you are the key doer to the key
stakeholder, then you ain't going nowhere fast! They need you to keep
making their projects succeed.
5. Treat everyone with genuine respect.
It’s
not just about managing well, but also about how you treat your peers,
team members, and vendors alike.
You never know who you may be working
for or with some day, so treat everyone as you’d want to be treated and
keep confidences when someone confides in you and wants some advice. As
one senior manager in a global I.T. company put it to me, “I believe in
creating good karma with those you interact with.”
Along with the
other things I have mentioned, this will stand you in good stead with
decision makers and bring you allies and supporters in the organisation.
When business takes a turn for the worse and they’re considering who to
cut, you often won’t make the list if you have built those
relationships and have shown the ability to deliver with quality over
and over again.
By:Chris Gaborit
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