by John Sony Robbins, MBA, Program Officer at Bioalberta
Getting hired is the first chapter in your new novel. How you take it from there decides what genre the novel will be. You definitely don’t want it to be a thriller -when you don’t know how long you will last- or an action flick-where you feel like the “Jason Bourne” in your office. What you need is a happy medium. Wait. I am not suggesting the spirit world Harry Potter! It might seem obvious. But you will agree with me that the stress of a new job can make our thinking murky at times. I don’t want to lose you with a long one! So, I will give you the three on my mind now. The rest will follow.
This is number one. What I mean by that is when you sign up for a new gig, the excitement not only works in your favor but at times against you too! You are trying to be like a sponge, imbuing all the information you can. Being like a sponge is all- good as long as you don’t come across as “Sponge Bob”! Sponge bob behavior will get you trampled, stretched, squeezed and dehydrated; ready to be thrown out. Be smart and decisive. Keep your emotions in check. That is the need of the hour.
Be smart by prioritizing. Understand what is being asked of you. There will be many to inundate your day. But in the first week you should get going on what is the priority and spend more time on getting familiar with that at the earliest. The rest will all fall in place in due time. There is always the propensity to paralyze you by throwing the kitchen sink at you! But it doesn’t mean- in most cases- that they are expecting you to be on everything all at once. But you should show them you are no “Forest Gump”. Rather you are “Jackie Chan” and you know how to get to safety even with everything being thrown at you.
You will agree with me that hard work without a plan will get you nowhere. After you have prioritized, be diligent. Many lose focus and saunter. When you are at something and your mind is swimming in the deluge of information that you have just encountered or preoccupied with being observed or judged by the unfamiliar faces around you, you tend to lose focus and efficiency.
Don’t let this happen. It kills your efficiency and steepens your learning curve. When you are drifting into oblivion be like Leonard Shelby in the movie “Memento”. Don’t lose track of your target. Keep at your task any way you can. If you have a door, close it as long as you are working behind it! If you don’t have one, swivel around and face the wall. Put a clock in your mind and block out thinking about the next problem you need to get to until it is time for that.
Don’t ever lock yourselves out and try to plough through it on your own. Don’t become the “Beautiful Mind” of your office. You don’t have to be locked up for your genius to be appreciated! Get out of your lair every now and then and approach your superiors with relevant questions. Give them an opportunity to acknowledge that you are trying hard to grasp the details and contribute. Remember relevant. How do you know it is relevant? Does it involve your organizations bottom line or how your client thinks or what they want? Then it is relevant. You are smart. Figure out what your boss wants. What is that which is close to his heart and the organization? Better, figure out his values. Remember level 3, 4, 5 leadership? Work on the puzzle and formulate a strategy not just to stand out but also to create value. That is, value for yourself and your boss. It all boils down to that.