Don’t Be An Idea Person. 3 Most Underrated Qualities in the Workplace

There’s a great sense of glamour attached to being a manager and making your way up the corporate ladder. Yet I find that as I work in more organisations and approach the decade mark in my working life, much of what our parents taught us as children can be applied to the workplace to climb up that ‘proverbial’ ladder to success. 

The right attitude: whether you’re a fresher or someone with a mammoth amount of work experience, the right attitude almost always trumps skill. What is the ‘right’ attitude? Humility, taking initiative and being a learner. I think these three aspects within them encompass everything I need in a person working my team. It includes being energetic, taking people along, and adapting to new situations easily. Much like in life, if we can bring these three aspects of ourselves to our workplace, we can be unstoppable. 

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. - Lou Holtz

Efficiency and execution: we live in a world that glorifies big ideas. Don’t get me wrong, ideas are great. Innovation is the essence of evolution and creativity. But ideas mean nothing without the ability to execute them. Our value truly lies in taking an idea from thought to execution. Here, I admire people and aspire to be someone who can get things done. And the world we live in, there is no excuse to not be fast and efficient in our dealings. Technology has ensured everything is on our fingertips so faster turn-around times, thoroughness in getting a job done and done well, these are really relevant in our world today.

Ideas are cheap. Ideas are easy. Ideas are common. Everybody has ideas. Ideas are highly, highly overvalued. Execution is all that matters. - Casey Neistat

The ability to filter things out: angry bosses, office politics, gossip - this is inevitable in any workplace. While I do believe that a certain kind of work culture must exist for the growth of an individual and that certain environments are better for certain personalities and roles (for instance, creative roles shouldn’t be tied down to a desk and very rigid routines), it is also true that to succeed anywhere in life, we have to learn to block certain things out and train ourselves to focus on the essentials. Clarity, is just this. Spotting what matters in a situation where there is always something going on. This helps in making better decisions and in a more efficient manner. It’s not something you’re born with but a quality you can cultivate by simply clearing the clutter first externally and then slowly internalising it. Yes, there is something to having a clean desk!

It's easy to get rid of things when there is an obvious reason for doing so. It's much more difficult when there is no compelling reason. - Mary Kondo