Wanna get ahead in your career? Here’s how…
Be a person who takes things off your boss’ plate.
Your boss might be internal…like you work at a company.
Or, they might be external…like a client.
Like you, they have too much work to do. So, be a person who makes it so they have one less thing to do.
It goes for more than bosses. Works for co-workers too.
Be a person who takes things off peoples plate and you’ll be a person that people want to work with.
Of course, you can’t always be the person to make work go away, but you can help someone make it go away on their own. In other words, you don’t always need to take things off their plate. If you’re a person who empowers people to get stuff of their own plate faster, then the same axiom applies.
Now, consider the opposite: someone who, by asking them to help you, actually puts more work on your plate. Who wants to work with a person like that?
I’ve worked with many over my career. When I ask for help, the work this person does creates more work for me.
For example, all the code they write, I have to double-check it because they don’t show attention detail.
Or, the reports they run create more questions than they answer, so I have to ask them to dig further to get to the bottom of the issue.
This person doesn’t take work off my plate. Rather, they just fill up my inbox with emails that I dread reading…
…because I know it means more work for me.
In business-speak, you hear employers want “problem solvers”. I think when people say that what they mean is, “people who can take work off my plate…because my problem is too much to do.”
If I’m doing something for someone else, I want to reduce the burdens on them, not add to them.
This doesn’t mean that I never ask someone to do something for me…because we all have to do that in life. Nobody can get through life without a helping hand.
Rather, it means the opposite: when someone else asks me to do something for them that I take the burden completely off of them…and not just put more burden on them.