Help Others At Work, And Their Work Will In Turn Help You Succeed
Tags: Work, Life Lessons, Careers, Learning, Millennials

This is the second half on my reflections of 30 Things On Turning 30. Check out the first article on generic reflections about life.

My 20s had been exciting and fulfilling. From learning and playing in university to working for my first paycheck, I’ve made plenty of mistakes in life and at work.

Whether it’s school projects or executing campaigns, I tend to go to the extremes with my work (usually unnecessary) as I felt that it’s too plain and boring to err on the side of caution. This spirit of doing extra work and making things loud worked fine in the school context, but was sometimes undesirable at work and caused me to flop “magnificently”, which probably left me more scarred than motivated.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Having said that, I’m optimistic and I’d still choose to make the same mistakes because I see them as lessons. So here are some of my takeaways, feel free to take it for what it’s worth. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Working Smart

School projects gave us a taste of working with all types of people — the “carry”, the freeloader, the people person, the competitive etc. But when it comes to the workplace, these traits manifest and amplifies, and you really get to see the true nature of the people you work with.

While you cannot control (and shouldn’t dictate) how others behave, you have autonomy over your own actions, and how you react to the actions of others. Yes, you should try to be tactful and considerate towards your colleagues, but it’s even more important to do it in a way that does not compromise your welfare.

1. Helping others is helping yourself

Have you found yourself in a highly competitive environment where people climb over one another to ascend to the top? It’s survival of the fittest and you’re all on your own if you want to make it. You learn to make use of others and to fight for power probably because you were once at the receiving end of these power tussles.

What many people don’t realise is that there’s an alternative way to succeed. Rather than be an opportunistic and manipulative person who steps on others, help them out in a genuine manner— be it your subordinates, your peers, or your superiors. In this thing called teamwork, their success will define you and will in turn help you achieve yours.

Of course, you can’t do much if your boss throws you in the deep or if your colleague passes the blame to you. But the last thing you should do is to pass that burden on to the next person and reinforce this never-ending cycle. Instead, try your best to help others and let them not make the same mistakes, because a team’s success is due to both the effective execution at the bottom and the constructive leadership and management.

2. The smarter way to say “No”

In my early 20s, I was a yes-person. I’d try my best to accommodate every request even if it came at the expense of my own well-being. Needless to say, I had too much up my plate, and that taught me the importance of saying “No”.

Yet, it was only after many years that I learnt how to say “No”. The trick is get the requester to change his mind.

This can come in many forms e.g your boss asking you to follow up on a problem or your colleagues asking for your assistance — and it gets harder to reject the person when he is in a more superior or senior position.

Step 1: Have a strong and compelling reason to reject him.

Step 2: Validate his request — this is crucial because both parties must be clear and aligned on the required task and the demands of the task. Further, it assures him that you have understood what was requested. If there’s no middle ground i.e. he stands firm on the request and you on the “No”, then it leads to…

Step 3: Reframe the demands of the tasks. Make clear the reasons for rejecting the request e.g. there could be some tradeoffs, and clarify the potential consequences that he should bear if he should insist. Most of the times, that should be stern enough to get your point across, and if the requester were to insist, the burden is on him.

3. Dealing with different views and opinions

Ask 10 people surrounding an elephant to describe the animal they see, and you’ll get 10 different views. Likewise, when presented with different problems and scenarios, every one has their own views and methods around the problem.

We need a diversity in opinions. More importantly, it’s about respecting that others too are entitled to their views.

Many a times, there are more than one solution to a problem. There will be tradeoffs for each solution but you have to acknowledge and attend to every one of them. Having the humility to listen to and accept differing perspectives not only makes you a more empathetic person but also opens your mind to possibilities.

4. Covering your own back

Try as you may, you’ll often find yourself being manipulated or sabotaged at work. It may be tempting to retaliate or get back at the person, but if you were to do that, you will just become another version of that dreaded aggressor.

Instead, you could take the high ground and be graceful about it. This means making the effort to understand why the person did what he did, and taking protective measures on his next attempts e.g. making sure you have certain things listed down in writing so as to cover your own back.

Whether at work, or even when playing sports, this mentality has helped me to stay focus on my own plays. The aggressor can keep coming at you but you can always choose how you react.

Always Be Learning

When we become increasingly adept at a skill or task, it gets easier and sometimes too comfortable. In my work and career, I look out for that and try to move to new challenges when I see myself getting too comfortable.

This pursuit of learning and pushing of boundaries can be overwhelming sometimes. To stay hungry, I always remind myself of the following.

5. The more you know, the more you don’t know

Have you tried researching a topic on Wikipedia before and end up clicking more links than you can finish reading? Have you stood before the ocean or atop a mountain and marvel at how big the world is and how small we are?

We should never be contented with learning because what we see, and what we think we know is but just a small drop of the entire ocean. It’s important to stay humble and stay hungry for learning.

6. There are lessons and takeaways in failures

Everyone has a fear of failure. What if we look bad? What if we lose everything we have? What if we were wrong?

Focusing on the end result means losing sight of the process. Many a times, it’s the process of trying that matters because that’s where you learn, and that’s how we accumulate our experiences.

“Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game” — Babe Ruth

What is worse than failing is a half-hearted attempt or not trying altogether. Don’t be afraid to fail. Whether it’s pursuing a career, starting a business, or chasing the girl of your dreams, it’s about taking the first step and only then can we become better at it.

7. Be patient, keep track of the long-term goal

When pursuing a goal, it can be frustrating to not see any results. Perhaps your business is not getting any sales, or your campaign is not getting traction, or that you’re not getting better at a particular skill.

It can be tempting to give up and say that’s not something for you. Perhaps it’s wiser to devote your time and efforts into things that you are good at or which you can see some success. There isn’t a right or wrong as to whether you persist at something or change your course of action.

Rather, you should be keenly aware of what led you down your current path. Has your long-term goal change? Do you need to change anything in the short to medium term? Keep in mind that you have to put in the hours to achieve success, and if you’re feeling impatient, you might have to keep working at it.

8. Position of growth and learning are uncomfortable

It can be painful and disconcerting when you try something new. After all, if you never had the relevant training or experience, how can you excel at it?

Humans are creatures of learning — we have an incredible ability to learn and adapt. While it might be uncomfortable at the start, our minds and bodies eventually get the hang of it, and we will tap onto previous experiences to shape the current one.

Imagine coming across the phrase: “Hola, como esta?” When we learn something from scratch, such as picking up a new language, it will be difficult at the start when we have no context. We will rely on our existing knowledge to interpret and pronounce that phrase, which will also help us remember as we build associations to it e.g. hola sounds like hello.

Then, through repetitive actions (or what we call practice), our minds build up these associations until it becomes intuitive to us. The challenge is having the patience to get through the uncomfortable phase of learning.

9. To find a breakthrough, sometimes it involves breaking yourself

When I first picked up softball, I never had formal training. I did what I could to throw a ball, catch a ball, and bat a ball, which came intuitively thanks to my experiences from other sports. A year later, came a coach that focused on the basics, who changed and “spoilt” my form.

You see, the “form” I thought I had was ill-informed, and if I had not went back to the basics, I would probably be stuck at that level. I fell into a slump when I tried to relearn everything, and it took me another year and a half of practice before I could get back to enjoying the sport, at a more competitive level.

Moving into the creative industry, I see a similar pattern in many successful artists. It could be moving away from a tried-and-tested method, or doing something different so as to pick up a complementary set of skills, the generic idea is to work on the breadth rather than the depth of your skills.

Sometimes, when we free ourselves from what we’ve firmly practiced, it allows us to approach the same problem from another perspective. It can be terrifying to break away from everything you’ve known but it’s when we tap onto a different set of skills or knowledge, would we have a creative breakthrough.

Find Out What Works For You

I’ve been fortunate to work in startups where I learnt to be scrappy, and to find the least-cost method to reach the next stage of progress. These experiences have shaped my perspectives towards work and entrepreneurship, and in a way, they’ve empowered me to pursue success in my preferred way.

The following perspectives have helped me get through work life and it might for you. But don’t worry if you don’t resonate with any of them because all of us have different experiences that defines our world view.

10. Move fast, break fast

A startup’s lifecycle is extremely short. Most often, it comes to an end when the startup runs out of runway (or in business terms, no cashflow), the founding team loses interest, or if they fail to find product-market fit.

As such, it’s essential to “move fast and break fast”. You form hypotheses, test it, double down if it works and go back to the drawing boards if it doesn’t. Repeat this cycle a few times and you either see a startup that hits the market or disappears altogether.

The same concept can be adopted at work (also known as a ‘sprint’), whether it’s pushing for more sales, increasing productivity, or achieving certain outcomes. You develop ideas on how to improve the current process, implement it, and then double down on what works or try another approach if it doesn’t. This move-fast-break-fast, iterative process is very much like taking many small steps until you arrive at the eventual goal.

11. Give just enough fks

A senior once shared a piece of advice, “After some time, you don’t actually produce better work. You merely get better at dealing with expectations.” It was only after a couple of years of working when I came to appreciate this.

Everyone has different level of expectations, and sometimes you might be misaligned with your boss, your colleagues, or your clients. It’s easy to say, align expectations before you start on any project, and while that’s an important piece of advice, you’ll come to realise that people will still subscribe to their own standards.

In dealing with clients and bosses, the first trick is to “under promise, and over deliver” — this increases the chance that you’ll exceed if not meet their expectations. Next, you have to learn to “give just enough fks”. People tend to pay too much attention to every minute detail, and most of the time, it’s excessive and redundant.

For example, in using the word “fks”, I can list down a list of considerations — whether it’s too vulgar, what alternatives are there, whether it’s grammatically correct, whether it represents what I want to say — but the more important question for me is “Does it get my message across?” Depending on where this article is published, the use of “fks” might be inappropriate, but in this case, it really matters not.

The small details do matter, especially for some types of work. But it’s one thing to attend to them and another to be overly obsessed to a point where you lose sight of the big picture. In other words, pay attention but learn to “give just enough attention”.

12. Know your stuff, and stand your ground

As a newbie to the workplace, you’re not expected to know everything and so your colleagues might step in to help you figure it out. Yet, even when you know your way around things, they will still step in to tell you how to do your job.

That’s when you need to be firm about your work. Everyone thinks they can do your work, but you are hired for a reason.

The first criteria is that you have to “know your stuff”. Stepping into a new industry or a new workplace, you should get up to speed with your job demands and the people you have to work with as soon as possible. Only when you are aware and confident of your work and workplace, can you then “stand your ground” when others cross into your boundaries.

Similarly, when working with clients, they will have their own ideas and think that they know better. The worst thing you can do is to sway between your own standards and their demands — you might perceive it as accommodating but it might come across as unsettling. They’ve contracted you for a reason, and that’s when you should own your sh*t and stand your ground.

This is not to say that you won’t be wrong. You can stand firm on a decision and it can turn out to be a mistake. When that happens, own it, but until we get to that point, be firm and assert your stance.

Surviving the workplace is a skill. I know I’ve not seen it all, but I do hope that some of these lessons help you in a way or another. Let me know if it does (: