Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep244: Please help your boss, help you.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hey, welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast. I'm Mei Ping, Corporate Leader turned Career Coach and founder of the Corporate Survivor Career Program. So today I want to help you understand your boss a little bit better.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Now, one of the mistakes that I see many 9-5 working professionals make is to misunderstand what work actually means. W-O-R-K, work. Now, most people think, and you may be included, that work is completing that report. Work is completing that project. Work is putting in a lot of effort to complete a specific checklist and to do a list of things that your boss has told you to do. Now, that is important and that definitely needs to be done. But the mistake that you might be making is thinking that that is 100% considered work. Meaning that once you've done everything, it means that, oh, maybe I've completed my work already. No, no, no, no. This is the perspective I want to share with you today. Now, if you have done everything that I've just listed, it's only 50% of work completed. And guess what is the missing puzzle? The missing puzzle is

Starting point is 00:01:31 the other 50% is you need to tell your boss that the work is done. Now, why this is so important is that when you spend a lot of time completing a piece of work and your boss doesn't know about it, your boss doesn't know about the progress, the completion rate, has no way of giving feedback and following through as to figuring out what the heck you have been doing, guess what is your boss's thinking about? Your boss probably thinks that you have not done anything. So you may be working like 100% in your mind, but in your boss's mind, work is not done. And guess what's going to happen is that your boss is now going to be worried

Starting point is 00:02:12 and feeling more anxious and wondering, how come Mayping hasn't updated me yet? So then what your boss is going to do is that your boss probably is going to start asking you a bunch of questions. And this is when you feel like your boss may be micromanaging you. Now, why I want to share this with you today is because obviously I have been a worker, but I've also been a manager and director leading teams as well. So I've seen both perspectives of me, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:36 me being an executor completing the work versus me being the boss who is overseeing and managing a team and wanting to make sure that everything is completed per whatever that was agreed. So if you're in the mindset of like, oh, I'm going to spend a lot of my time just to complete that specific project. And then once everything is perfectly done

Starting point is 00:02:57 based on what I imagined in my mind, then I'm just going to send it to my boss at the end of it. Then I want you to stop right now and recognize that your work is only considered completed if you've done the work right the specific execution whatever report checklist that you need to do plus your boss is aware of it you have told your boss you have updated your boss whether it's on email face-to-face presentation whatever it is right the moment your boss is aware,

Starting point is 00:03:25 that means your work is completed. Now, I'll repeat that very clearly. Work is only completed if your boss knows about it, okay? Work is not completed when you feel like you have come up with that perfect report, but your boss doesn't know about it. No, no, no. That, in your boss's mind, is zero completion. Okay. So this is actually one of the reasons why I see so many people, they work hard, put in a lot of hours, but they feel like when it comes to performance review,

Starting point is 00:03:53 performance rating, their boss seems to have like no idea what they have been doing. And in fact, their boss may give them feedback like, oh, actually, you know, you need to be more proactive and stuff like that. And this is where the disconnect might be. And you are the one who is actually working hard. You may feel like, how come my boss doesn't know? And guess whose fault is that, that your boss doesn't know,

Starting point is 00:04:16 right? So what you can do about it is just be more proactive, like have a very, very specific way of making sure that your boss is aware, is up to date on what you're doing and make sure that your boss has a chance to give some feedback and kind of like be a little bit more involved and more aware of your progress and your hard work this is really really the best way and this is episode is actually inspired by one conversation that i had one corporate survivor member as well so the point i want to make here is that like it's not just you who may be feeling this way actually a lot of people do feel this way as well and honestly if you're listening to the corporate podcast most of my listeners and like most of my community members like you guys are very hardworking you're very hardworking right you are dedicated you are ambitious and

Starting point is 00:04:54 guess what you want to get rewarded for your hard work so yes you're doing the work already make sure that you get visible make sure that you are not like taking for granted that your boss should know what you're doing. Make it a point and include it in like a frequent catch-up and stuff like that, that your boss knows that you are adding value, you are contributing, you're putting in the effort. This is really the most consistent way how you can make sure that you are top of mind when it comes to performance reviews. you are top of mind when it comes to performance reviews. You are top of mind when it comes to job promotions.

Starting point is 00:05:28 You are top of mind when it comes to salary increments. Don't wait until the year end and then magically you're going to tell your boss that you did all these things that your boss has spent like almost a whole year

Starting point is 00:05:38 have like no freaking clue what you're doing because you're working quietly on your own. Make sure that you don't make these mistakes and I'm telling you this because I used to be someone who is in the position of overseeing a team. I work with management and leadership super closely. And this is really what we would expect from our team

Starting point is 00:05:55 members. And the most successful people and the people who get promoted, the people who get salary increment, the people who get work recognition are very, very clear that work is only completed once their boss knows about it. So please communicate, please get visible, please be proactive to make sure that this is the year that you get recognized for your hard work because isn't this why we're all working so hard for it? Get recognized for your hard work. Don't be invisible. Make sure that you understand very clearly that my work is only considered completed once my boss is aware that this work has been delivered. Once my boss knows

Starting point is 00:06:32 that this work is completed, right? So work plus boss, that is work completed. So this is actually something that I want you to keep in mind for the whole of this year. So with that, I wish you all the best

Starting point is 00:06:44 and hopefully I'll see you in my career program, The Corporate Survivor, and make this the year that you step out of your comfort zone. As I said, if you're already working hard, then don't lose out just because you are not visible. Get visible, which is why the three-step framework that I teach is get clear, get confident, and guess what's the last thing? Get visible. Good luck and see you soon.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep244: Please help your boss, help you.

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