This month, Lee Xieli shows you why there is no need for a leather jacket, a guitar pick, or even a game controller to be a rockstar in the corporate world.
Admit it, you’ve all been air guitar rock gods at some point in your life. Britain might be blanketed under one of its longest snow storms in 30 years and Google feuding with China over internet censorship in the country but who cares. Because damn, you look hot strumming in sync with the music blasting out from your earphones.
Why not take it further and give this performance of your life everyday at work? After all, you might think it’s an innocuous glance whenever your boss looks your way. But really, he or she was evaluating you in their mind’s daily employee performance continuum graph. Which is why you should always aim for the median point which lies firmly between ‘high potential’ and ‘high performer’.
Think about it. Do you want to be a rockstar at work? Or do you want to be part of the office scenery? Now that you’ve made the wise choice as I know you would, here’s how you develop the rockstar-esque factor that would make your boss and your workmates love you more.
See yourself as an A-player. Why? Bosses want employees who are excellent and not so-so because an excellent employee is at least three times more productive than a regular one. That means you should appear incredibly smart and productive at work. Starting every sentence with “I have a great idea” is highly recommended because how else would you be able to watch your workmates’ eyes roll with envy at your brilliance.
Next, shut your colleagues up whenever they want to say anything vaguely useful during a meeting. Interrupt with “I wish someone would start taking initiative because I’m frankly tired of being the only one who’s keeping the company profitable.”
Crow about any slightest achievement you make during the day. Washed your own coffee mug? Refilled the paper in the copier machine? Great. Send an email out and copy your boss in it. Even better is if you email the entire department at 2am in the morning, stating a new office policy on how everyone should wash their own mugs after seeing your exemplary behaviour.
The minute someone smiles at you in the pantry room, take the opportunity to whine about how hard you work everyday. Slip in the fact that you’ve lost weight because the heavy workload made you skipped lunch the entire week. But if you have a team under you, work them to their bones. If they start whining, look them in the eyes and tell them firmly that you’re helping them lose the unsightly flab they’ve gained over the holidays.
By the way, always schedule staff meetings right after lunch so everyone knows you take a strict one-hour lunch break. Make sure they see you running into the conference room at 1.55pm sharp.
Whenever your boss praises you for a job well done, pretend you didn’t hear it the first time round so everyone could hear the compliment being repeated. Only then may you begin blushing out of embarrassment.
Remember to take all the credit for any successful team project. While this seems desperately unfair to the ones who put actual effort into it, let them know it’s for their own good. After all, you were protecting them from the jealousy and potential wrath from other colleagues.
Not forgetting, turn down any invites from your colleagues to have a drink or two after work because an A-player like you can’t be seen socialising at the pub with the Bs and Cs. Exception is when your boss is picking up the tab and you need to show how much a popular people manager you are.
Of course, making your presence felt in the workplace is the last golden rule to becoming an A-lister. Always be the first in the office. The minute someone walks in, type furiously at your keyboard. Furrow your eyebrows like a miserable git for extra measure. But you must never be the last to leave the office because an A-player is efficient, remember?
No doubt, if asked for their role models, most people would inevitably name check Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Oprah and Hillary Clinton as A-players in their chosen careers. They work hard, they are motivated and they are extremely passionate in what they do.
In other words, model yourself after someone successful and perhaps when it’s time to tabulate your list of work achievements at the end of 2010, you’ll finally get to brag about your burgeoning rockstar status.
So are you ready to rock your workmates’ socks off? In the words of AC/DC: “We roll tonight to the guitar bite, and for those about to rock, I salute you.”
xielil@humanresourcesonline.net
