How to survive in the corporate world

I have worked in the corporate environment for the past 10 years and I felt I should share some tips on how to survive and succeed in this environment.

Before we move on to the specifics, I should point out that I have failed miserably in the corporate context and I have been a complete disaster in playing the corporate game so please bear that in mind as you read on.

1. Kindness

There is no room for kindness in corporate world so if you live by the principle of treating people how you would like to be treated you will need to park that until you leave the office. In corporate world you will need to display selfishness, narcissism and a willingness to walk all over whoever you can in your attempt to climb up the corporate ladder.

2. Crystal Ball

Having a crystal ball will come in very handy because in sales you are expected to know exactly what you will be selling weeks in advance. The ability to look into the future is not something that corporations will teach you so you’d better pull your socks up and learn it for yourself!!

3. Doing tasks to keep your boss in a job.

This is probably one of the most important aspects of survival in corporate world! If you want to be successful in the corporate hierarchy, you will need to spend a large proportion of your working time completing work created by your boss so that he/she can justify their own existence within the corporation. This work is usually completely irrelevant to the larger good of the company but is a perfect way of killing time you could have spent in more productive ways. It is, however, important to do this work as if it was more important than what you were employed to do and if you can do it with a smile on your face, even better!

4. Smile or Die!

Ok I stole the title of this from Barbara Ehrenreich’s book (which in my view is a must read) but if you want to succeed and survive in the corporate context you are required to remain positive at all times. In fact this is far more important than skills and intelligence! You may actually be better off if you were to park your intelligence at home, because questioning the status quo is a big no no in the corporate world. You were not employed to think, you were employed to do whatever you were asked to do! Trust me on this, I have been forced to listen to phrases like “I want to see lots of energy and positive attitude” on a daily basis!!

5. Stab your colleagues in the back.

This is a very useful skill to have in your ascent up the corporate ladder. You may lose some self respect in the process but surely that is a price well paid for a job title that your ego can be proud of. There are various ways of doing this;

You will need to be alert and on the lookout for colleagues making mistakes and when they do, you email them pointing out the mistake and copy their boss in on the email. This is the perfect way of earning brownie points from your peers! Don’t worry about the consequences of your back stabbing efforts because in corporate world “failure is not an option!” and if you can help your boss weeding out these failures, you are on your way!

6. Making a difference.

This is of no importance whatsoever unless making a difference translates into more sales. If you are in a client facing role, your job is not to listen to what the client wants. Your job is to sell them as many products as possible and if you fail at that task then you will be required to pester them on a regular basis until they finally sign on the dotted line.

7. Work – Life Balance.

If you really want to succeed then you will have to forget about the life part of the work-life balance, there is no balance! Your contract may state that you are required to work during the hours of 9-5 but you need to understand that this is just a technicality! In reality, there are no limits to the number of hours you work. In fact you could boost your climb up the corporate ladder by demonstrating your willingness to give up on life altogether for the greater good of the company. A good way of doing this is by sending emails from home, preferably late at night and on weekends. The best time to do this is between the hours of 10-11pm, which shows dedication, but more importantly, make sure you copy your boss in on the emails.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been a complete failure at playing the corporate game and as a result of that I was asked to resign from my position which I did last Tuesday.

I may have failed at playing the corporate game but at least I have stayed true my own beliefs and I can go to sleep at the end of every day, safe in the knowledge that my focus remained on the needs of my clients instead of the desire to satisfy a sales target!

why some people want to protect the flaws of corporate hierarchies

The more time I spend in the corporate world the more I think it is polluted with morons!

Let me explain;

Perhaps morons is a harsh term to use, although in my experience I have seen more than enough examples to justify the term. However, I’d like to believe that at certain levels there is a degree of intelligence and common sense which unfortunately disappears down the ranks as we get to the middle management level where the morons are most densely populated!

The typical hierarchy within larger organisations typically looks something like this:

[Board of Directors]

|

[CEO/President]

|

[Executive Directors]

(these are usually divided into different business functions)

|

[Divisional Directors]

(For each business function)

|

[Regional Directors]

|

[Area Directors]

|

[Area Managers]

|

And finally;

[Pond Life - aka the people on the floor generating money for the organisation!!]

It’s when we get to the Regional Director level and below the morons start to surface, each level creating pointless and time wasting work for everyone else below them in the corporate food chain, in an attempt to hide the fact that any company or corporation could function so much better (at least in my opinion) if some of these levels were cut out of the system.

The majority of their time is spent in meetings, (perhaps due to a degree of loneliness!!) compiling sales figures, and performance reports on the people below them, neither of which create anything of value or contribute to increased performance or productivity. In fact these control measures waste time and reduce productivity and performance as well as employee morale! Why did these people forget the fact that happy people are productive people?

I struggled for a long time to understand how these middle management roles remained such a firm part of the corporate structure when in natural fact they are not really serving much of a purpose other than to force some level of control on the unfortunate people beneath them and create tension and unnecessary pressure as a way of proving to their equally pointless boss that they are doing something of value!!

That in itself is not the reason for me to refer to them as morons, nor do I blame them for being trapped in a flawed system. We all need a roof over our heads, food on the table and the means to provide for our families.

It’s when hey start to pass on their “golden nuggets” of wisdom that their lack of intelligence becomes abundantly clear. The only conclusion I can draw from this, is that their training (brainwashing) involves the act of memorizing certain phrases and quotes, most of which are re-hashed versions of some management self help book they half heartedly read a few pages from!

Let me give you a few examples starting with the one that makes me cringe the most:

“What are you going to do differently next time?”

Whenever I am asked that question I get an incredible urge to stab myself with a pen or whatever else is in close proximity!! Why show your team how to do better when you can simply pass the blame onto them?? Why lead from the front??

“It takes 21 days to change a habit”

I don’t really know why this is such a particular favourite of middle managers but I have yet to see any evidence of this fact and I doubt I ever will, simply because that statement is yet another example of the “one size fits all” approach used in the majority of the self help/personal development arena. Even more frustrating is the fact that they never offer any advice on how to change a habit (21 days or not) but instead just rattle off the statement and move on to the next one!!!

I have countless examples of these..

The real reason they are able to hide their incompetence behind this bizarre language of management speak, which at the best of times can best be described as meaningless drivel, is because the pond life (that includes me) below them are either too brainwashed or too stupid to see what’s going on or because they are too afraid to challenge or question this out of fear of being outcast for not conforming to the rules or out of fear of losing a desperately needed income!

I fall into the latter category, although I am sure that some people may want to put me into the first category too!

A more important point to factor into this, is the fact that, assuming that the middle management have some degree of intelligence, they must know that they do not serve much of a purpose and with that realisation they have to work very hard to protect the flaws of the corporate hierarchy in order to keep their job. That obviously means that whenever someone challenges the flaws of the system they are often seen as a threat which is when the bullying tactics are employed until the “threat” either resigns or conforms to the system. Resignation is the most common result!

I have spent the best part of four years fighting against a system I naïvely thought I could change for the better as long as I could get other people to see the flaws of the corporate hierarchy. What I failed to understand until now is the amount of work that goes into protecting these flaws, which leaves me very little choice;

I can either get out of of the corporate world or find a way of playing the corporate game while staying true to my values.

Wish me luck……..I have a feeling I may need it!!

The ingredients of mixed mind salad

As a way of kicking off this blog I thought it would be an idea to give you an idea of what ingredients make up a bowl of mixed mind salad, which I also realise may make you run away screaming.

Although this blog is a new beginning, I am not new to the concept of blogging or writing a blog. I have for the past couple of years kept another blog, which after a year or so became my favourite waste of time. A blog through which I made some tremendously wonderful friends who I hope will one day come by and visit. That blog covered a period of my life during which I began to wake up from the hibernation of trying to belong to modern society combined with a continuous search for the magic pills promised by a lot of the self help on offer. This was a journey of many mistakes and setbacks in my life largely due to naïvety on my part. However, in hindsight, I realise that it was an important part of my journey.

However, this was by no means an easy journey (hear the violins in the background???) and to tell you that all is now peachy, would be a blatant lie. I still have endless unanswered questions and often struggle to understand why things are the way they are with very few people questioning things.

The reason I decided to start this instead of carry on writing on my other blogs is partly because I often felt restricted but more importantly I let someone in my physical world have access, who I subsequently discovered was a person I could not trust the result of which would lead to far too much self censoring.

Now, let me give you an idea of what ingredients a mixed mind salad may contain:

Anxiety & Depression often befriends me and writing about it seems to help finding my way out of that fog

The Highly Sensitive Person which is a concept I have only recently become familiar with

Questioning the Status Quo (or in most cases rants) especially about life in the corporate world and modern society

You may find the odd review of books and various other material that I find helpful

From time to time it may be nothing other than pure word salad (thoughts flying around in my head)

Other ingredients will no doubt be added as my journey continues

Now you know what the ingredients are, I suspect I shall be pretty much writing for my own benefit but if you choose to stick around please stay for as long as you like and know that you are always welcome.

Feel free to subscribe at the top of the page and be the first to get the new posts and if you have something to say you can either leave a comment or email me: j | at | success-lounge | dot | net

Thank you for dropping by