I was talking to one of my friends who is having some troubles at work. Work have not been smooth sailing for everyone in his company where they are expanding in a rapid rate and everything seems to be in a mess and everyone seems to be unsure of their roles anymore. Does this sound familiar to you?
While at work, we often have differences in our opinions and the decisions we make. More often than not, people at the management level do have the right to question you and perhaps forcing another decision that is unpalatable down your throat. Without seemingly going against others all the time and of course, without throwing the towel to quit, there are ways to avoid such conflicts and yet still retain your principles. One of them is to pick your rightful battles to fight on.
I often view my working days as battles on the field and me as a general leading my army of soldiers to victories. One thing I learned early into my career is that you can’t change some of the things in your company or your role. Yes, I do advocate making changes and striving towards progress, however, there are times you need to learn to let go.
We can break down into categories like the ones below:
Things you can change It is within your scope of work and you don’t need permission to spice your tasks up. You need little or no help in changing the things you do and whatever you change improves your own work processes but does not impact the whole vision or directions of the company.
Things you can influence You believe with statistics and proven evidence you can influence your boss’s decisions into deviating the steering into a slightly different directions. Or you can use the power of positive peer influences to motivate your team and peers to do better for this quarter.
Things you cannot change or have no power to influence You may try a couple of times however, the people at the top just refused to budge because of certain “reasons” that are not made clear to you. Or you may beam your strongest influences at a certain coworker but he or she just simply ignore you or stay the same if not worse. At this time, it’s about letting go. If you cannot stomach it, it boils down to whether the job or the company’s vision is suitable for you and your growth. Constantly banging your head into obstacles are just going to give you a huge headache or deflated your spirit. Either adapt and hoped that in time to come, things will improve or seek greener fields out there.
Let’s apply the above to some real life examples to give a better illustration.
Sales Things you can change The way you approach your customers, the way you present your sales and the way you use certain sales tactics are things that you have a lot of maneuvering areas to better your skills and in turn, improve your career performance.
Things you can influence Market trends, customer’s comments, and calculated projected forecast are some of the examples you can use to influence your boss into changing next quarter’s sales targets. Positivity support, proper 1 on 1 guidance and encouragement are what you can use to influence your team to sell better and hit the targets.
Things you cannot change or have no power to influence By telling your company’s shareholders that profit doesn’t matter, only long term customers’ relationships does are never going to work. The realistic cynical consumerism world is just going to push you to insanity if you kept on harping about it. Instead of wasting your saliva arguing with the top, go back into the other two categories and see if you can do it in little ways of your own. You might never know, bit by bit, little by little, you just may be able to use your actions to prove your point subtlety.
Project Mangement
Things you can change Your efficiency, juggling different scope of your work, your approach to different people in different departments are what you can control because it’s all about your input.
Things you can influence Figures and facts, case studies and powerful persuasion are some of the methods you can apply to influence things to go your way. Instead of saying I can’t all the time to your bosses, try saying perhaps we can do this… Apply different persuasive techniques onto different personalities. Studied their weakness and swiftly apply to attack. A brilliant example is when I know my secretary hates to do overtime when I need her to do so because of her family, I always overcompensate her by giving her free tickets to a Disney ice-skating shows or helped to order in dinner for her family or arrange to pick up for her kids. You can do so in a different capacity in your own way, a cupcake or a cup of Starbucks won’t hurt anyone and immediately brightens the person’s day. Just don’t overdo it.
Things you cannot change or no power to influence Pushing management to scream or dictate at others to follow your ways or your timeline. You’ll lose respect immediately among your coworkers that you had to have a big boss to help you pave the way and you are just showing you are not the right person to be in this role.
These are the two jobs for examples. I may not be in your role or your industry, your company might do things in a different way, but the basis of any job are the same, you just need to find out what fits in the categories and act accordingly. Otherwise, you’ll end up swimming against the never ending impossibly currents and not reach the shore.
Swim or sink, the decision is yours.
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