Skip to main content

Find Out if Your Boss is Crazy by Asking Him this Simple Question

In our training and coaching sessions, a question people often ask is: what is the first step to take if you want to improve your performance at work?  My answer is: Realize that Your Boss is Not Crazy.

Many people often feel that they are not in control of their destiny at work and believe that it is their bosses that determine everything at work. Even if this is true (of course we don't for a moment believe in this), you can still control your fate at work.  Just start to realize that you are in control and you can do something about it.

For example, you can improve your performance by becoming more efficient and more effective.  Efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing the right things. You can put in more hours or even come back on Saturday/Sundays to clear the backlog.  Or you can take up some training to improve your skills, knowledge and attitude.  You can also seek help from your seniors.

In fact there are countless of ways that you can do, all you need to do is take the first step.  Do not, like most people, give excuses or reasons why you cannot do the above.  For me, the only valid reason is your boss disallows you to be more hard-working.  If this is so, your boss must be crazy!  Of course there are no such insane bosses in this world!

In short, you are always in control of your career.  Here are 7 simple things you can do to be more hard-working:
  1. Work 2 extra hours a day (by starting 30 minutes earlier, taking only 30 minutes lunch break, eliminate breaks during the day by 30 minutes, and stay back 30 minutes)
  2. Set your own goals to achieve the boss or company's goals
  3. Work well with other team members to produce strong teamwork
  4. Learning something new everyday
  5. Pro-actively ask your boss, "What is the one or two things that I can do to make your work easier?'
  6. Take up More Duties and Responsibilities
  7. Do an Excellent Job in whatever you're doing.
Of course the more aggressive ones can go to their bosses and ask when is the earliest that you can get promoted.  If the boss says, '3 years', then work out with your boss a 2-year plan to make it happen.  Even if promotion is not possible (you could be at the highest possible level), ask your boss what ways you can be an A at work.  If your boss says no to this, you really have an insane boss! 

By Andy Ng of Asia Trainers.  For details of our management and sales courses, click here. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What an Executive Coach and Business Coach Does

Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years.  Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself?  At least I have better discipline".  It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Head Bleeding when the Chair Falls

The Weight of Silence: What Were We Really Arguing About? My earliest memories are punctuated by the sound of shouting. In 1970, when I was barely 6 years old, I stood as a small witness to the fierce quarrels between my father and my late eldest brother Kah Yang (he passed away in 1971 at the age of 17). As I grew up, these contradictions became the soundtrack of our lives, usually centered around our family's shoe shop and clothing stalls in Chinatown. In the court of family opinion, the verdict was almost always the same: my father was "wrong." He was judged as a man who didn't fulfill his role, who wasn't "burdening" enough for the family’s success. But as I look back from the vantage point of 2026, I have to ask: Was that actually true? Let me finally put to rest what my father did right: the truths that were buried under decades of criticism: Unseen Labor: He worked grueling, long hours. I remember him hauling boxes of goods and equipment to set u...
Post a Comment
Read more