How to succeed at work

 

Ever wondered why some people attend elite high schools, score excellent grades, appear on the dean’s list, hit stellar careers, and achieve their dreams while the majority can only dream about them? I have insights to share. Once you integrate the insights that I am about to share, your work will be pure play and your workplace a paradise. For the past fifteen-plus years, I have been intrigued by one phenomenon - under the same sun and horizon, why do some people achieve more success at work than others? 

If one is dealing with a sluggish business and wants to turn it around, one might turn to Loui Gerstner as a reference point. If one wants to be an innovation geek, one might study Elon Musk. If one wants to master the metaverse, one might consider to follow the works of Mark Zuckerberg. One might be desirous to read about Bono of U2 or Madonna or Diamond Platnumz to learn how to perform on stage. Success leaves behind clues. If we want to succeed at the work that we do, we must look for clues in our workplaces, . . . and most importantly, make small incremental choices that help us play our biggest game as human beings and instruments of service to other people. This is how one achieves success and rises to greatness. 

Some time back - in 2012 to be precise - when I was looking for answers to life’s mysteries and how life works, I bumped into a maharaja. I sought him out as my leadership and personal mastery coach. The induction was burdensome. I vividly remember the scene. I recall feeling apprehensive and elated at the same time. We were sitting in a cut room - analogous to a photography development studio. The room was full of tattered books and antiquated paintings - windowless, dusty, and generally unkempt. Due to dust that was aviating in the room, I developed a runny nose and my eyes hurt. With a guttural voice, he ordered that I should look into the mirror that was perched on the wall. He then asked me a simple question, though difficult to answer, “. . . what do you see in the mirror?” I replied nervously, “. . . I cannot see anything. The thick layer of dust on the mirror is obscuring me from seeing my image.” Without saying a word, he blew a thick puff of air onto the mirror and then wiped the dust with a mutton cloth. A cloud of dust flew into the air and landed on my face causing my eyes to ache even more. I accidentally inhaled some dust. My throat pricked. I coughed uncontrollably. Without showing any remorse whatsoever, he apologized and said something that formed part of the lesson that he wanted to teach me, “. . . mzee, utambulisho wako ni kama kioo kilichofunikwa kwa vumbi - your identity is like a mirror covered with dust. When you first looked into the mirror, the truth of who you are was obscured. Your image was hidden. As you experienced it  -  clearing it was not pleasant. Not at all. You inhaled dust and it pained. But only when the dust was cleared and gone, were you able to see your true image. This is what happens in real life. For you to make meaningful progress in life, you need to first work on yourself. Yes, yourself. Unfortunately, it is not an easy process. A little child does not wake up one day to run a marathon. It takes personal effort. Rightly so - if improvement does not feel difficult, then it is not a real improvement. Pain is simply life’s way of testing how much we desire our dreams. Remember the easiest road is generally the poorest route to ride on.” Concluding the day’s session, he made a statement that awakened my sixth sense and has remained with me to date, “. . . We see the world not the way it is, but the way we are.” He repeated the last part of the statement, “ . . . the way we are.”

Under his tutelage, my blind eyes opened – I saw the unseen. My clogged ears got unblocked – I heard the unheard. My sixth sense was fired up – I felt the unfelt. In quick succession, I read two books – rather biographies – about the life of Ben Franklin and Henry Ford, respectively. My impression of the two was that they both lived a great life. The two, working in dissimilar industries and eras, delivered extraordinary value for mankind in an extraordinary manner. At a time when the world of automobiles was still in its infancy and every motor dealer was producing ordinary cars in ordinary ways, Ford thought contrarily. He envisioned a dream and remarked, “. . . I will build a car for the great multitude, constructed of the best materials by the best men to be hired after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise, so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.” True to his conviction, he delivered both - the dream and value. 

Every business has value matrices and metrics. In fact, the purpose of a business is to gain and retain customers through the provision of value propositions. The success of a business is, therefore, dependent on the quality and number of value propositions that a business delivers in its marketplace. No business works in a vacuum. Every business has roles and positions. Each role has a given amount of expected values that are supposed to be delivered. As a leader, your responsibility is to identify and make these expected values known to your team for delivery to the marketplace. It is your job to put these values in the minds of the people you are blessed to lead: your team. Workers who rise to greatness and become successful in workplaces understand the importance of expected values. They do not just deliver high-class value propositions but broaden horizons. They offer services beyond what is expected of them. They serve beyond expectation. They give their customers ten times the value they do not expect. Whenever I write and facilitate masterminds on the need to deliver extraordinary value propositions, the name of Henry Ford comes to mind.

From time to time, I see people sitting back and hear them say, “. . . my life is the way it is. I am the way I am. I will not change.” They then start blaming results on everything external – their parents, siblings, teachers, co-workers, managers, politicians, and the economy. The key takeaway from the rendezvous that I had with a maharaja, above, was that if one is to be successful in life, one has to take full responsibility for one’s situation. The process is not easy. Fortunately, success has a formula. For its achievement. Regrettably, failure too has a formula. It’s up to you to choose which of the two formulae to adopt. Neuroscience validates this. As human beings, we create our reality - to succeed or fail. The Chinese said it better than I could when they counseled, “. . . personal defeats take place in the silence of an undetermined mind.”    

Talumba and Talitha graduated together from Ukerewe University. They joined a beef canning company in the sales department in their hometown of Morogoro. A few years later, the manager promoted Talumba to a senior position. Talitha remained in his entry-level position. Talitha developed a sense of resentment. But he continued to work. One day, Talitha felt that he could not work with Talumba anymore. He approached the company’s leadership with a complaint that his manager was not valuing his hard work and that his promotions were arbitrary; not based on merit. On the contrary, the company’s leadership knew Talumba as a hard worker and that he earned the promotion on merit. However, to help Talitha understand this, the company’s leadership gave Talitha an assignment to carry out. 

“Go and find out if there is someone in town who is selling beef carcass,” came the directive from the company’s leadership. In no time, Talitha returned with a report - a positive report, “. . . yes, there is someone selling beef.” The leadership asked him, “. . . how much per kilogram?” Talitha drove back to town to get information. He returned and reported, “. . . five hundred shillings per kilogram.”

The leadership saw that Talitha was missing something. They said, “. . . we will give Talumba the same assignment that we gave you. We want you to pay attention to his response.” They called Talumba and issued the same instructions that they had given Talitha earlier to go to town and find out if there was someone selling beef carcass. 

Talumba carried out the errand and reported back to the leadership, “ Sir, there is only one butcher with a big abattoir selling beef in the whole town. His abattoir is approximately fifteen kilometers from our office on Chelinze Road. He charges five hundred shillings per kilogram but if we buy more than 2,000 kilograms per day, he will charge us three hundred shillings per kilogram. He says that he has a big cattle ranch on the outskirts of the city. So, availability is guaranteed. He is able to give us regular supplies. He mentioned that his family operates a transportation company. If we want, he can deliver supplies in refrigerated vans at an increased charge of six hundred and fifty shillings per kilogram. I sampled his meat - it is good. He is willing to come to our office and close the deal with us tomorrow at 8 o’clock. I requested his contact details. Sir, here is his business card. I have done simple simulations based on the price scenarios as alluded to, earlier. If we switch and start buying from him, the highest profit we can earn is twenty-eight million shillings per month and the lowest is twelve million shillings per month. The former is twenty-seven percent higher than the prior year and the latter is sixteen percent better. I have written a comprehensive report and saved the information in a common file in the management dashboard of the operational information technology suite. I have also sent it to you and other executive managers through email. I now wait to hear from you, sir, on the next steps.” 

Talitha was amazed by Talumba’s report. He appreciated the difference between himself and Talumba. He quickly made amends, went back to his workstation, and produced a personal development plan that would help him to improve performance and succeed at work under the guidance of Talumba.

The moral of the story is that no matter how nimble you may be or you may be someone with the loudest voice in the room, you will not be rewarded for doing what you are meant to do. No rational boss will bequeath you with a badge of honor for doing work based on your job framework or specification. Your job specification guarantees you a monthly paycheck. You are rewarded for going the extra mile – that is - performing beyond the expected value of your job framework but within the realms of your position and role. If you want to be successful at the work that you do, you must be willing to do more – to go beyond the call of duty like Talumba in the story, above. But be careful – don’t act ultra vires. Don’t be overzealous to overstep your mark.

Many of us think that we can only add value to our work or partner based on our role. As a spouse - husband or wife. As an employee - business development manager, human resource manager, messenger, director of legal affairs, secretary, et cetera. Not always true. Think beyond your role. Do you possess supplementary strength, competency, or a skillset outside your given position or role that if you were to unearth and use it, would bring new value to your workplace or home? Do you have a certification in another field that is unrelated to, but overlaps with, what you usually do that you can use to deliver new streams of value to your workplace or home? Or put it directly - from the list of products and services that you already have, how can you repackage them to deliver new value to your customers in the marketplace? For instance - you may be working as an information technology manager due to your certification in the field, but perhaps you are a certified toastmaster with impeccable public speaking skills - why not offer yourself for your organization’s public-facing duties, such as product launch ceremonies, employee engagements, et cetera? Fine, they are one-off or irregular events, but who knows how much savings you might be making for your organization for not outsourcing the service. If you want to be successful at work, without relinquishing your current role, explore ways of delivering new streams of value to those that you serve.

There is a term in physics called entropy. From a leadership point of view, you would understand entropy as the tendency of things to deteriorate with time. Phenomena tend to expire and obliterate with time. They dissolve into disorder if they remain idle and unattended to for some time. Living organisms, for example, die. Dead things decay. Rocks and stones weather off. Nothing under the sun remains in the same state, form, or order as the high power created it. Ask the Shonas and they will perhaps tell you ‘. . . hapana chisingapere, - nothing is permanent.’ As workers, each one of us is inevitably and dangerously exposed to entropy. This is true, especially in this age of advancement in the field of artificial intelligence. Businesses are prone to collapse. Knowledge expires. Business processes become outdated. Cartels disintegrate. Energy dissipates. As a leader, you need to be aware of and recognize signals of impending entropy, especially deterioration of knowledge of rendered services and the business environment in general. If left unchecked, entropy becomes costly and dangerous to you as a worker, your team, and the business. The antidote to entropy is study, learning, and growth. It is imperative to upgrade oneself with modern ways of going about things in one’s role. Never stop growing. When you invest in learning, you are able to see around corners. Education is truly inoculation against disruption. The beautiful thing about life is that everything that you want to learn about, there is a book that has been written by someone who walked the planet before you. The maharaja, above, offered me a tip that answers all of life’s questions in print. To succeed at the work that one does, one must read. Daily. In this fast-changing technology-driven business environment, you cannot afford to rely on traditional values to develop yourself and grow your business. Technology and business models are changing - change your psychology as well. Was it not Albert Einstein who warned, “. . . you cannot solve today’s problem with yesterday’s solution.” Remake yourself. Beat entropy - unlearn the old stuff, learn and relearn new techniques for delivering value in the marketplace.

The other factor that determines success at work is time zone. Every role in an organization has three time zones. The way we use these time zones determines our level of success at the work that we do. If you are not succeeding at the level that you want, then you are not optimizing the three time zones effectively. Running a business is like driving a car. Irrespective of make or model or country of manufacture, all cars come with a massive, reinforced panel of transparent glass fitted in the front –the windscreen- and small glasses –rearview mirrors– fitted on the sides. I have yet to come across a car whose rearview mirrors are bigger than the windscreen. The logic for providing a big windscreen and small rearview mirrors is to win over motorists to focus more on where they are going -their destination- than where they are coming from. If they put more focus on the rearview mirrors than the windscreen, I can guarantee a crash. This, in leadership, is referred to as the ‘mirror concept.’ It’s a powerful leadership tool. Most of us approach our work wrongly. We approach work from the rearview mirror. From the past time-zone. We are reactive. We carry out tasks and activities today that could have been delivered and added value in the past. Leadership experts often cite habitual missing deadlines as a red flag or alert that a worker operates in the past time zone. At other times, we focus on addressing immediate needs. Today’s needs. Firefighting. In the same way that a good driver focuses his attention on the windscreen, the destination, those who succeed at work focus their attention on the future time zone. In business language, the future time zone is commonly referred to as strategy. High-performing workers thrive on a balanced work diary – they spend 10 percent of their work schedule in the past time zone, 30 percent in the present time zone, and 60 percent in the future time zone. Commonsensically, high performers are strategists. 

As I round off the chapter, I put it to you and invite you to consider doing one thing and one thing only –  to materialize your optimal genius around the craft that you call work. Every day, each one of us is presented with enormous opportunities to be a model of mastery in the work that we do. Martin Luther King Jr knew the importance of being spectacularly great at what we do, when he advised, “. . . if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted or as Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” An insightful point. It is easy to be caught up in the daily trivialities of work that we forget about delivering real value and being an instrument of service to mankind. We forget that the compensation that we get from the market is determined by the amount and quality of value that we bring to it. Be a gladiator of your trade - focus on customer experience. Strive to be a heavyweight of your craft. Be a creator and distributor of value -  your seat at the high table is securely reserved and your success is guaranteed. Sine dubio. The competition and peers will harmoniously rise and unceasingly salute and celebrate you as a business legend.

Lester Chinyang’anya | General Manager – Operations | Minet Malawi