How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Part One)

I am . . . not terribly bright. And my sense of impostor syndrome is considerable enough, even after almost five decades on this earth. It’s somewhat remarkable to me that I have managed to be gainfully employed/working for as long as I have been. Heck, it’s somewhat remarkable to me that my body remembers to continue on with its essential but involuntary bodily functions each day.

I’ve thought often about how I’ve managed to keep my work gig going, and how others similarly as unremarkable as me have managed to do the same. And I’ve concluded that (at least moderate) success may be easier to achieve than conventional wisdom might suggest.

Here’s an list of just a few things I think everyone can do that really don’t require any special effort or training but will go a long way toward helping one make it in the work world. Each alone is worthwhile. In combination, the sum is, I have found, even greater than its parts.

Know somethings

First, you gotta bring a base level of competence to the job. You don’t need to be an expert. Just know the job responsibilities and have some relevant training and skills to execute them, even if it takes some time to fully get up to speed.

In other words, don’t take a job you might want but have no real idea or skills as to how to do. Sure, I might want to be an astronaut. But did I go to school to major in “Space Stuff” (trust me, it was a major)? No. Do I know even the slightest thing about what astronauts do other than what I’ve seen in movies? Nope. Am I even a trained pilot? Ummm, no.

So, it’d be an unwise idea for me to apply to be an astronaut. And if NASA made perhaps its worst decision ever and hired me, I would be thrust into a job I knew nothing about how to do. Paradoxically, however, that might lead NASA to thrust me into outer space to be rid of me. That, I will readily admit, would be a perfectly sensible course of action.

Here and now

Woody Allen once famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Is that funny? Sure. But is it right? One-hundred percent.

I’ve been fortunate to have worked my whole career with almost entirely good people who reliably show up to work and do their jobs. The few bad apples were bad mostly because they were bad at one or more of the other things on the list in this blog post.

So, it came as a bit of surprise to me to learn anecdotally over the years that the number of people who don’t regularly show up to work is legion. Not showing up to work on a regular basis is completely foreign to me. Heck, I’ve only called in “sick” when not actually sick about five times in my whole career.

But apparently the not-showing-up-to-work problem is so pervasive that if you do show up, you’re automatically considered a valued worker. Dear Reader, take this one and run with it.

Don’t be a jerk

I work in the legal profession. Its reputation for being overpopulated with jerks probably is exaggerated. But I can assure you that there is no shortage of such people (I also can confirm that the number of absolutely wonderful, caring, and truly helpful people in the profession is grossly underappreciated) in the legal field. Some law firms have “no-jerks” policies, which basically translate to the firm saying that it won’t hire and/or work with people who are jerks. That ain’t something that came to exist in a vacuum.

But I’ve found that regardless of the field one works in, if you’re a decent human being who’s consistently and generally nice to people—co-workers, others in the organization you work for/with, clients/customers, and beyond—you will be appreciated by those you work with or for. At the very least, you won’t attract negative attention to yourself and develop a personal brand that’s bad—or, worse, toxic—which can catapult you to the top of the list of people to get rid of when getting-rid-of-people decisions need to be made. At best, you’ll have people saying things like “We can’t get rid of X. He’s such a nice guy.” Be the nice guy/gal. It’s pretty easy. If you need to vent about your employer or colleagues, do it outside of the workplace.

Funny business

Laughter is said to be the best medicine. Frankly, when I’m ill, I’ll take modern science over laughter. Almost every time. Almost.

But I’ll say this for laughter—it’s a great and easy way to be valued in the workplace. Regularly getting some chuckles out of people you work with/for can go surprisingly far in making people want to work with you.

Mind you, there’s a somewhat fine line. If you’re the class office clown but are lousy at your job or don’t show up to work regularly, you’re probably not long for the job. I once worked with someone who was absolutely hilarious. This person was a procrastinator and a slacker whose work product was OK, but not objectively superior. Eventually this person was let go. But I’m convinced that this person’s being funny kept him around far longer than otherwise would have been the case.

Oh, and it’s best to stay away from the off-color humor and the funny jabs at others you work with/for. Those can come back to bite you in the behind—hard—at some unknown time. Not worth it.

Cleverage

Most days, we go about our work doing tasks we frequently, or always, do in our job and in ways we’ve been trained to do. But there are times when one blows a gasket sees ways to tweak or break the wheel so as to do things more efficiently, pawn off work that others were always best-positioned to do in the first place, and/or reach higher-quality results.

If you can do this even once, I’ve found that your personal stock with the organization’s mukety mucks who are informed about it will rise. If you do it more than once and/or as to a big enough thing, it’s possible you’ll be considered a superhero. Promotions, raises, and other such positive results may be in your short-term future.

Finding a clever solution and implementing it or getting it implemented isn’t necessarily easy. But if you adopt a healthily contrarian attitude and keep your mind alert to opportunities, you’re more likely to find them. And if the proposed solution has objective merit, there’s a better chance it’ll get implemented. Especially so if you show a practical and easy way forward, thus eliminating the work that colleagues otherwise would have to do determine how to implement the innovation.

Many of my epiphanies have come about simply because I got overly frustrated by one thing or another and decided to figure out how to stop that from happening. But you do whatever works for you.

Oh, and best of all is that these solutions often can be surprisingly simple. Having the right mindset at the right time to identify them is many times the real trick.

Well, although I didn’t have a predetermined number of tips to list in this blog post when I set out to write it, it turns out I had a lot. As I’ve rambled on for probably far too long at this point, I’m gonna stop here and list the rest of the items in my next post. If you’ve read this far, Dear Reader, you are an amazing glutton for punishment bully for you! If not, well, you aren’t reading this anyway.

I probably should add that I don’t know if any one item on my list is the most beneficial (aside, perhaps, from knowing something about how to the job and having some degree of knowledge as to how to do it). But being a nice person probably will get you at least as far—and maybe further—than the other items. And even if you’re a client or customer, you could do a lot worse than to be a nice guy.