172: How to Change What You Don’t Like at Work

//What’s your role in making your work an opportunity to do what you love? Are there ways that you might be blocking your own goals at work?

As we wrap up this series sparked by our interview with Carson Tate, I address the difference you can make at work when you create a vision for yourself, build trust, initiate productive dialogue, and find win-win solutions for yourself and your company.

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Transcript

Hey there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Last week, I interviewed Carson Tate, and she is the author of this really great book, Own It.  Love it.  Make It Work.: How to Make Any Job, Your Dream Job.  If you have not listened to that episode or the one before that, I encourage you to do so because what we’re doing now, we’re being really intentional about our podcast process and our cycles.  What we do is we have an interview, and we have an episode before that interview to set it up.  We have the interview, and then we have an episode after that interview about applying what was talked about by that guest.

And so, I would really encourage you, from here on out, make sure that you’re listening to all three of the episodes when you get a chance – all three of each cycle – because they’re great.  We’re excited about how this is progressing and how the podcast is growing and moving, and we encourage you to encourage others to listen as well.

So, how do you make your job your dream job?  Obviously, you can read Carson’s book.  You can listen to our conversation.  There are a couple of things that I feel like are worth highlighting here in this episode after that interview.

So, one of the things that we encourage in our trainings is we encourage the idea of personal agency, that you have the ability to make a difference.  You can make a difference for yourself, and you can make a difference for others.  You’re not a victim.  You’re not a lame duck.  You are in a position where you can make change.  And that is one of the most important things to hold onto when you’re feeling like you want to do something more with your job, when you want something more from your job, from the work that you put into the world.

Know that, number one, you really do… you can make a difference.  You have that ability within you.  The question is what’s worth fighting for?  In other words, what do you really want?  Getting to what you want is kind of at the heart of any kind of change.  What is the motivation for change?  What is it that you actually want?

When you think about yourself, when you think about your job, your work, the way that you work with other people, the actual work that you do, the product that you put out, the meaning that your job has in the world, where are you feeling unfulfilled?  Where are you feeling like there’s tension and frustration?  What is that about?  If you can identify what that’s about, then you can start to identify, “Well, then what do I want instead?  I don’t just want everything to magically get better because I can’t have it magically get better.  Nobody’s going to come and be my fairy godmother, and make my job magically better.  I have to be able to identify what it is that I don’t like first.”

And once you can identify that, then you can move forward in figuring out, “Okay, so what am I going to do about it?”  So, identifying what you want is the first thing, and then ask yourself this question.  Because we can only control ourselves, and we can’t actually control anybody else.  Because this is something that we can take responsibility for.  I can take responsibility for how I show up to solving this problem for myself.

The next question that I would encourage you to ask yourself is, “What burdens am I carrying into work that may not be related to work, but they are clouding my perception of the people that I work with or the work that I’m doing?”  Is there anything going on at home?  Is there anything going on in the world around you that you’re struggling with?  Most of us could say, “Absolutely, there are things that I’m struggling with.”  And it’s hard not to bring that to work.”

We can say that we’re not going to do that, but the fact of the matter is it’s hard.  But it’s important to say and to acknowledge that, “Look, this issue that I’m having here in this area of my life, maybe that is why I’m having such a hard time with my boss right now.  Maybe that’s why I’m so irritated with my team.  Maybe it’s more about this other thing than it is about the team themselves.”  Try to identify that, try to give yourself a chance, give people the benefit of the doubt where you can, and lay those burdens down before you come into figuring out what you want to change, how you’re going to change it for yourself so that you can make the job you want.  Then take responsibility for your responsibilities.

It’s funny, I’ve heard clients say this before… but I’ll do surveys before an engagement, and I’ll listen to people as they’re talking over the course of, whether it be stakeholder interviews or the engagement itself, a training or a talk.  And I hear people say things like, “I really think I could be a good leader.”  “I want to be a leader.’’  “I want to step up into a new position on my team.’’  And what I hear from managers, what I hear from executives is, “That’s great.  We appreciate that, but you have to be so good at your job right now where you are before you’re going to be considered for anything else.”

So, you can have leadership qualities, but if you’re not getting your job done, if you’re not actually executing on the things that you’re supposed to be doing, if you’re not one of the best at what you do, you’re not going to get the attention from us that you want to move into leadership later.  So, take responsibility for your responsibilities.  Build trust with those you work with and work for.  Give them a chance to get to know you, to see that you care, that you are putting in that extra effort, that you’re actually for them, that you’re for the company.

It might sound a little crazy, but there are times when it feels like people are pushing against the actual goals of the company.  They’re pushing against the purpose, against the progress that’s being made in the company.  When that happens, those folks are not building trust.  If you do that, if you are demonstrating a lack of alignment, if you’re demonstrating a lack of being for the company, then it’s going to be really hard for you to achieve whatever else you want to achieve with your job.

So, if you’re carrying with you some baggage about, you know, “They don’t care about me.  They’re just out for the money,” or, you know, some of these things that are quite common for people to feel, I would encourage you to try to set that aside as you are approaching your job.  Because after you figure out what you want, you need to make sure that you are the person that is going to gain the trust because you’re taking care of responsibilities, you care about the company, you’re wanting to help everybody move forward.  If you demonstrate that alignment, then you’re going to get people’s attention.

The next thing to do is to not complain but to start problem solving to improve your situation, to demonstrate a business case for why your solution is the right solution to make this change, to actually help solve the problem.  How do you make a business case?  It’s pretty simple.  Where is the company losing money, or not able to achieve, or act on opportunities because of this problem that you see?  And it could be this individual thing that you’re wanting to change about your own job.  Maybe you’re seeing that you have the potential to help them in a way that they don’t realize now.

What is the actual cost of not pursuing this change that you want to make?  What is the cost to the company, and then how could it benefit the company?  How could it benefit not only the company or the organization, but perhaps even the person that you’re talking to?  How could it help your supervisor?  What would be of benefit to them?  How does it help the rest of the team?  How does it help customers or clients?  If you can really get clear on this business case, it’s going to make a huge difference when it comes to the influence that you have on making a change in your job.

Then enter into dialogue with your supervisor or your colleague to get their perspective and to work out the solution together.  So, here is another big problem that I see.   When we finally get the courage, the gumption, we’ve worked it out.  We have the business case.  We’re all ready to go.  We know what we think should happen.  Then the tendency is to want to come and bring that solution and want people to take that solution as it is.  “Don’t question me.  This is my baby.  This is my idea.  It’s precious to me.  I believe that this is the way that it should be, and this is what we should do.”  Then somebody comes along with a little pin and pops the balloon and says, “Okay, but it’s not gonna work in every instance,” or “What about this, this, and this problem?”

The reason why you want to approach this as a dialogue and not as you coming with the answer and you’re the hero of the situation, you want to approach it as a dialogue because you don’t have the full perspective.  Nobody does.  Nobody ever has a full perspective.  That’s one of the most beautiful things and most important things about respectful dialogue is that we help each other to see the big picture.  We take on responsibilities that are different from each other.  And so, we bring these different ideas and perspectives to the conversation, and then we work out together what’s going to work for both you and me.

That is how we do it.  Don’t hold on to those solutions, your ideas as precious, as “This is my baby.  I don’t want to give it up.  Don’t try to change it.”  Instead, hold it open-handedly.  Open your hands up and say, “I see this problem.  I’m seeing how this is affecting or could impact the company, the business in the future, or you as an individual, and I was thinking that this might be a good solution.  Could we talk about this idea?”  Invite somebody into that conversation with you, invite that dialogue so that you can work out the solution together.  And then if you’re open-handed, then it’s not going to be quite as painful when they say, “Okay, yes, but…”  Or “We can do something close to that but not this,” or, “We have to wait a few months,” or whatever it might be.

But the reason why you’re open-handed, the reason why you should want to be open-handed is because, number one, we have to understand that we don’t have that same perspective as everybody else.  We need other people’s perspective.  And number two, our ultimate goal is not our own happiness and fulfillment, though that’s part of our goal.  Our ultimate goal is the purpose and the mission that we serve at our company and that our company serves in the world.  If that is the ultimate goal, then I can put my feelings aside in order to be able to come up with the best solution.

And if I really believe that my voice matters, I have to also believe that every other voice matters too.  I’m bringing in this perspective.  They’re bringing in this perspective.  Let’s come together and work this out.  Such a beautiful thing about being a human being is this ability to dialogue, to converse, to innovate together, to come up with solutions to problems together.  Don’t hold on to your ideas tightly – instead, release them.

Your voice really does matter.  You can make improvements wherever you are.  And if you’re in a situation where you really can’t make improvements, you might need to seriously consider getting out of that situation and taking a risk.  But even if you are in a situation where you kind of like parts of your job, but you don’t like other parts of your job – I encourage you to take the advice that we’ve shared on this episode and the episodes before this to get you out the gate.

If you’re looking for something more than what this podcast can provide – or other podcasts, even books – if you’re needing that additional encouragement, that additional insight or strategy, then we’d encourage you to reach out.  Perhaps even we can help you build a business case for coaching for yourself, for personal growth and development.

We have different programs that work for different kinds of people and the issues or challenges that they’re facing – whether it is personal brand and platform, or personal productivity and performance, or your leadership capabilities and growing in your leadership and communication skills.  We can help with a number of things.  We’d encourage you to check with the people that you work with.  Is there a program you can get involved with in your company?  And if not, would they consider you working with somebody outside, an outside vendor, like Voice of Influence?

So, I hope that you are feeling like you really do matter, that you really can make a difference.  Don’t sit on the despair that you might be feeling right now.  As one of our future guests likes to say, “The antidote to despair is taking action.”  So, create that vision for yourself and give yourself the opportunity to build the trust, to have the conversation, to make that difference, make that change for your own job.

Your voice matters, and you can make it matter more!

 

END