5 steps to "enjoy" your job

The fear of discovering that someone is being more valuable than you is one of the most powerful triggers of a lack of collaboration in any organization. How do you fight it? How do you manage that fear when you are the "active" subject of that fear?

The more I read about concepts like "conscious company" or "leadership," the more clearly I see that large organizations work in silos and make overall performance dependent on the sum of performances based on individual "egos." This leads to absurd paradoxes, such as two departments destroying each other while both are rated as outstanding. This destruction results in individual wear and tear and, in many cases, is a cause of talent destruction. And the most relevant part of this is that the problem is relatively easy to manage at an individual level.

Every one of us has, at some point, felt that aggressive emotion that comes with someone invading our turf: Why on earth are they getting into my business now? This is my call to make! That witch is going to find out who I am for presenting that work without sharing it with me first! They stole my presentation! And so on. By the way, that aggressive emotion is called FEAR.

In the more than three five-year stretches I've spent in contact with large organizations, I've seen this reaction on a daily basis. It's always blamed on a leadership problem, an unresolved conflict between two people, or the bad intentions of one of the parties. Fred Kofmann says it's very hard to win a match when your team's defense is only focused on keeping the ball out of their own net, and not on helping the midfield and forwards score more goals. It's possible for our company to have a terrible year and for us to have an excellent one. Yes, that paradox is possible. And both situations can happen simultaneously, and would likely lead the company to penalize good individual performance.

Is it a matter of goals or objectives that could be better defined? Is it something we have to accept because it's the daily reality of any working group? Does fair play exist in a large organization? Can you be happy in this type of organization?

Most workers who succeed in large organizations are those who stop conceiving of their job as a space for competition. Damn the business school that taught competing as the key to success. Many of the professionals in their forties that I know still see their day-to-day as a space for competition against other competitors. There's only one way to be the CEO when the person running your company has just been appointed. Start your own business, and stop ruining your life and the lives of those around you. There's only one CEO per company.

I firmly believe there is a way to succeed in a large organization. And the key is enjoyment. Here are 5 simple steps to take:

1. Think about yourself, not about others. There's no way to succeed if you're not clear on what success means. The simplest solution is not to confuse your success with your competitor's failure. All the professionals I admire are guys and gals who have decided to stop fighting. They don't see their work as a space for struggle, but as a space for creation. We all have a special gift; think about yours and build a plan to spend as much of your life as possible "creating" every day, making use of that unique talent.

2. Keep thinking about yourself, and ask for help. You'd be surprised how many times you could have solved a problem quickly just by asking for help. Are you sure everyone in your company is going to help you? The answer is you don't know until you make the request. Large organizations are plagued with cynics who have given up on asking for help. If the answer is no, open a space for conversation to understand the reasons. You'd be surprised where this new conversation can take you.

3. Set your limits. Learn what your remit is, what you're accountable for, and ask what's expected of you. It's impossible to satisfy a boss who hasn't defined what they expect from you. I've met some who don't know how to define what they expect from their team members, and I don't know a single one who can rate a performance negatively when their team member asked what was expected of her or him and that commitment was clearly set. Once that commitment is defined, focus on meeting it while making sure not to destroy other people's.

4. Learn to grow through conflict. Most conflicts in large organizations—and in small ones—are conversations never had, conversations postponed or avoided. Resolving a conflict is your responsibility, not your boss's. And when the confrontation is unsalvageable, involve the person who manages you both. If they don't want to resolve it, decide whether you want to keep working for someone who lacks the capacity to resolve conflicts. A conflict is pure potential for both parties. At the end of a conflict, there is always a new space of possibilities for both sides. Conflicts are a space for creation and growth. The one for whom there are no possibilities is the one who thinks of conflicts in terms of "winning" or "losing." That person is already dead inside.

5. Spend all your time creating. Think every day about what you can create within your area of responsibility. Human beings are creators. Even a destructive profile has great creative energy (with its polarity reversed). It's very hard to be sad, angry, or frustrated when your focus is on creating. You might be blocked. Then create a way out of that block. Just as it's not possible to sneeze with your eyes open, it's also not possible to be blinkered, criticize, or complain when your focus is set on creating. Once you decide to put all your energy into creating, the next step is to organize that energy around a purpose. I'll assume you already sorted that out in point three.

That said, if you're not happy at your company, leave it. And do yourself the favor of facing the fears of leaving your job. You may well do yourself the biggest favor of your life: "Losing the fear of losing your job."

It's hard to create when you're afraid of losing your job.

This post was originally published on my blog

Bernardo Crespo is a Digital Transformation Leader at DIVISADERO and a certified Ontological Coach through Newfield Network in Bogotá (Colombia). He holds a degree in Business Sciences from UCLM and a final year of a BA Honours in Management and Economics, University of St Andrews. He holds an Executive Master's in Relationship Marketing, CRM and E-Commerce from ICEMD, and teaches at various business schools in Spain. He worked as digital marketing director at BBVA España.

I currently work helping companies navigate their Digital Transformation journey at DIVISADERO.

I have discovered, and keep discovering, the beauty of play applied outside of play #gamification