I guess everyone when first graduated from the college or university feels very passionate about finding a job. They wanted to find a perfect job that offers them high salary, glamorous title and probably, as little workload as possible.
While I believe there's existence for such job, many like the average Joe will actually stuck in a "normal" company. Well, it isn't really that bad as the pay, benefits and work scope may also be quite reasonable.
However, put aside those tangible things that you can calculate, there's a hidden risk that you have not considered when you're looking for a job – Office Politics
If you do a mini survey among your friends – who have been working for years, you will soon discover how ugly Office Politics can sometimes be.
A friend of mine who has been in the corporate world for many years commented:
"It's not sometimes what you contribute to the company that gives you a promotion, it's how you "promote" those you've done and more importantly, yourself."
In another word, pure hard work will not guarantee any job promotion if you don't know how to promote yourself. Worse still, you might end up letting others to take your credit and get recognition!
Remember, I'm not suggesting that hard work is not necessary to get the promotion. No boss will like a staff who is lazy and keep bugging him for a better pay.
Throughout my working life in the company, I've seen so many tragedies similar to this. And I can assure you, it's not limited to any company, industry, culture and whatsoever. As small as your company has only few workers, to a huge multinational company, they all have the same issue.
"Can I avoid that?" You might be asking yourself. Well, I suggest you don't take this direction as your final answer. Many has tried to avoid themselves from getting involved into Office Politics. Based on my observation, there are only 2 types of employees that can escape from that:
- Someone who intends to leave the company soon either for a better job or have his own career. As long as he doesn't need his boss or his colleagues anymore, it doesn't bother him to get involved in office politics.
- Someone who doesn't want to get any attention, that goes without saying losing significantly high chance of getting any promotion – because even your boss won't notice you.
If you are one of these two types and you're happy with it, then I would like to congratulate you. But if you're not, I suggest you relook your strategy so you can get what you want ultimately from your company, instead of sitting there like a crying baby at the end.
Let's face it. How do we react when we hear our colleague being promoted faster than us – but not working as hard as us?
Some of us choose to stay calm, swallow the tears back to stomach and continue doing our work. The rest? Find a way so to get the promotion soonest possible.
Believe it or not, the techniques that I have shared so far aren't the best. To be fair, there's no any techniques that ones can claim it's the best.
Why? Pretty simple, everyone of us is working in different environment and culture. The people that we are working with are carrying different mind.
So why some of the techniques still work? It's simply because although we all different as an individual, we still have some commonalities. And these have become our habits, that sometimes it surpass our conscious mind and influence our decision-making process subconsciously.
Huh, feel tricky?
It's not. Once you start reading those techniques that I share, you might wonder you've probably seen or heard it somewhere else. Why? When you try to look for a solution to a question, and be very focus, you'll soon realized you've seen many in similar before.
For example, when you are about to buy a sexy red Mini Cooper, you'll start noticing that how many red Mini Cooper you can find on the road, near your area and wherever you go. Why? Simply because your mind has focused to look for "red Mini Cooper".
You might feel very surprise there are actually so many "Sexy Red Mini Cooper" on the road. Is that because suddenly everyone start buying that car? No, it's because now your mind start searching for the car. And it all begins when you're willing to start focusing.
It's very the same for everything else in your life – with the condition that you must really focus and commit to find the solution.
Now, ask yourself how long have you struggled in the Office Politics? How many times have you seen someone with less qualification than you, putting less efforts than you and still get faster promotion than you?
I'm not suggesting an Office Politics is something very bad. It's in fact, a tool in my eyes. Just like anything in this world, it all depends on whether you know how to use the tool, or somebody is smarter to use it against you.
So why not make it a tool FOR you instead of against you? Isn't that better to have more tools and resources that help you to get what you want in your career life?
At the end, you have the chance to choose how successful or what you want to get from your career life. However, there's one thing we all should take note and cherish – that's our precious time.
If you can get a better paycheck NOW compare to 3 years later, would it be worth for you to change yourself to get it now? Think about it.
Last but not least, I want to give another piece of advice. This is in fact a personal experience that I've encountered. Many of times, we choose to fight and voice out the unfairness to our boss, but you were to get my opinion, I'll say stop it.
Nobody wants his staffs to be so annoying and tell him what's right and wrong – especially the decision is made by the boss himself. In most cases, you are digging your own grave and you don't even know about it!
So, for the sake of yourself, please stop doing it unless you have 110% trust towards your boss.
I hope you enjoy this article and more importantly, enjoy your working life in future.
Warm regards,
Daniel Lee
The Author Of
"How to WIN BIG in Office Politics"
PS: If you are serious about changing your working life and deal with your company's Office Politics, you need to know how first. You will discover 7 survival skills that helps you in Office Politics at
