Follow these crucial steps to keep your boss happy and your job safe
Employees should be conversant with their job and support team leaders to achieve set targets for the general good of their organisations. Photo/Fotosearch
Last week, the Time Business online had a great article by Geoffrey James titled ‘Eight ways to keep your boss happy’.
The tips are very practical and for all intents and purposes should be instinctive for any good employee.
I thought I would share the same here, but with the added advantage of emphasising what I think your boss REALLY wants you to do.
Here goes:
1. Be true to your word
What your boss REALLY wants you to do though is deliver when you say you will deliver and when you don’t, just fire yourself and make life easier for both of you.
2. No surprises, ever
What your boss REALLY wants you to do is keep one informed about everything going on in the business. The good, the bad and the ugly.
One never wants to go in front of one’s own boss and be floored by information you knew and should have told your supervisor.
If, by the way, you knew and did not tell the boss, fire yourself and make life easier for both of you.
3. Be prepared on the details
What your boss REALLY wants you to do is always be prepared for a surprise test, a snap check, an unholy communion where mind meets memory with shaky results.
The boss needs to know that you know what you say you know. Supervisors do not want you to make them look bad in front of clients or their bosses.
If your boss gets to know that you don’t know what you say you know, fire yourself. It will really make life easier for both of you.
4. Take your job seriously
What your boss REALLY wants you to do is to take your job seriously. Yes, your job. Not the monthly TGIF “drinkathons”. Not the staff Christmas party “after party” that happens when the CEO leaves. Your boss knows that you take drinking seriously. And dancing. And flirting with the girls — or the boys — whatever your inclination. Seeing you bleary eyed and dry mouthed from retching your dinner in the bushes outside is not a pleasant sight, but I dare say it is a memorable one. So memorable that it is the only picture your boss will have of you when doing your performance appraisal at the end of the quarter. The ONLY PICTURE. So do yourself a favour. Fire yourself. It will make life easier for both of you.
5. Have your boss’s back What your boss REALLY wants you to do is cover one when one looks bad. When your boss makes a presentation full of mistakes, don’t point them out.
Just smile and nod furiously while surreptitiously jotting down a note alerting the boss of the mistake.
And as Geoffrey James writes, if your boss is about to make a foolish mistake it’s your responsibility to try and convince him/her to do otherwise.
But make no mistake, if one is headed to hell on the non-stop Orient express, by all means jump off the train and take care of yourself.
If the boss survives the trip to hell and back realising that you jumped off the train, be ready to fire yourself. It will make life easier for both of you.
6. Provide solutions, not complaints
What your boss REALLY wants you to do is stop being a whiny namby-pamby and man up. It really gets old when you keep complaining about the same thing over and over again and don’t want to provide a solution yourself.
In fact, here’s a solution: fire yourself. It will make life easier for both of you.
7. Communicate in plain language
What your boss REALLY wants you to do is speak and write your emails in the Queen’s English that you were taught in both primary and secondary school.
Not your coded slang or your SMS abbreviated language. And just in case you had a business law elective in your university education, showing off that Latin gobbledygook that you crammed into your over stimulated mind doesn’t help either.
In fact, you should look up the words “fire yourself” in Latin. It will make life easier for both of you.
8. Know your real job
I like what Geoffrey James says about this objective. He writes that your real job is to make your boss successful and that there are no exceptions to this rule.
What I think your boss REALLY wants you to do is make him look successful. From A to Z. Alpha to Omega. Sunrise to Sunset. Your job is to make one rise up the corporate ladder. And rise. And rise. And if you are really good at your job, one might let you ride on one’s coat tails and drag you up.
However, if you make your boss drop, look bad, or get creamed by superiors one will kick you like a rabid dog. Your boss will chew you up and spit you out, wipe the floor with your face and pour fire and brimstone on your head.
Well you know the drill by now, after removing the wheels from your boss’s swivel chair when he takes a bathroom break, fire yourself. It will make life easier for both of you.
Geoffrey James ends his article with a great parting shot. Your boss’s real job is to make you successful. What I think your boss REALLY wants you to know is that indeed his or her job is to make you successful.
Successful at doing your work on time. Successful at getting to work on time. Successful at working all the time without those incessant bathroom, coffee and lunch breaks.
Your boss wants you to be successful all the time. But if you can’t be successful then you need to, you guessed it, fire yourself. It will really make life easier for both of you.
