Being happy at workplace is in your hands..

Dear All,

I have been craving to write this blog for quite sometime now, with all the crests and troughs in mind that happened with me till date, I had a lot of stuff buried inside my brain which I wanted to bring out and share with one and all, the content that will enable them to know the secrets behind keeping oneself happy at their workplace all the time.. Happy reading :-)

Let me tell you honestly at this point of time that it might not be practical to follow all of the below (And if you do, I am sure that you are mature enough to survive anywhere successfully). The points mentioned below are in a specific order of priority (Highest to lowest) that one should understand and master at, if the purpose of reading this blog is intended by the reader for his/her success..

Also, please keep in mind that the intend behind writing all this stuff is only to improve one's professional satisfaction (As the title of the blog indicates) and nothing else..

Here I go...
I) Know what you want to do and what you want to become:
The first and the most important thing that you need to do is to know what you currently are (Which means know where you stand with respect to what you do) and what you want to become (In short term as well as long term). These are things that you should be reviewing on a recurring basis and have every thing recorded (Mind and media)

-> Have Items/attributes to measure your current capabilities and set targets for each of them. For example, as a software professional, one (Like me) might prefer to have the following "Item/Attribute(s)/Current Value(s)/Target(s)/Comments" in an excel sheet:
1) Technology/Operating System(Windows)/2.0/10.0/ 0 - No knowledge, 10 - Highest (Architecture, working mechanisms, debugging skill, tools,etc.)
2) Soft-Skills/Communication (E-mail)/......

This is just an example and should be customized according to the job/role one is on. And, do remember that all of this stuff (Content and target dates) should be very realistic and must be written with a solid intent to improve oneself, not just for the sake of having all of this.

-> Have short-term/long-term goals. Having short-term goals is the more important thing - this doesn't mean that you don't have any long-term vision in mind and you define random short-term goals - this doesn't make any sense. Usually, long-term goals are very abstract - For e.g. consider me - I am a Sr. Quality Assurance Engineer at the moment, so my long term goal is to become a Quality Assurance architect. This is very generic in nature and doesn't immediately tell me what I need to do now. So, I have a short term goal which is more specific and which makes sense - I want to become a CSTE certified professional in the next 3 months.
Again, record everything - humans are error prone - Forgetting things soon is not always a boon :-)

Having all of this is really wonderful, but useless if you are not at the right place (Like the monster ad that says - Are you in the right job?) :-) So, make sure that your current job supports your goals. If you are moving to a new company, please (For heavens sake) make sure (By whatever means you wish to) that your job profile is exactly what you are looking for, because if you don't, believe me, you don't want to move on to another company with-in the next 2-3 months (Which, if done, gives lot of input about you to the companies that you apply/join later-on, and is a bad remark that remains for-ever). In other words, you will be stuck in no mans land! If your current job is slightly different from what you want to do, use all your knowledge /relationship and influence to get what you want.

Moral: If you are not sure what you want to do, you WILL be unhappy (If not immediately, some time going forward) - As a fresher, I never bothered to have any goal in mind, I just did what came my way and let years pass by - What is the consequence? - I repent now :-(

But, as with any good improver, I do not like to repeat the same mistake. :-)

II) Relationship with your manager/team-mates/ other colleagues:

The kind of relationship that you maintain with your peers is the key for getting things done smoothly. My younger brother always keeps telling me - "Surya, you have to manage your manager in a better way", but its not only your immediate manager, it is the entire staff that you will need to manage. When I just said "you will need to manage", it doesn't mean that you will act as their manager or something, rather, what it means is that you build an excellent "professional" relationship with each of them and then maintain it so as to get things done the way you want them to without any hassles. Believe me, it is not so easy as it sounds - People are of various kinds - You will need to figure out the nature of each and every person you interact with and mould yourself accordingly. You should know what kind of statements make/keep them happy. To do this successfully, you will need to have the skill that reads a person's attributes (Such as attitude, general nature of the person, etc.)

The relationship with your boss and your team are the first priority. Always keep the relationship "professional" - I will write more content in the next section about my understanding of professionalism, but the reason why I am mentioning it here is because of its importance and because it does play a big role in building your relationships.

One last tip before I stop writing in this section - Know as many people as you can in your company - Keep talking to people, wish them when you pass by 'em every morning, poke them when you don't get to see them for some time, do what-ever you want, but maintain that "professional" relationship with people in all departments - At-least till you remain with that organization :D - I will keep repeating this word "professional" because I want to bury it inside the reader's mind.

Moral: Maintaining a professional relationship by virtue of intelligently dealing with your boss and other peers will keep you happy all the while. :-)

III) Being "ethical" and a "true professional":

This will most likely be the lengthiest of all sections. First I will explain what each of those terms mean to me and how they differ from each other. Then, I shall let you know their importance in any organization and the satisfaction that one gets being ethical and a true professional. I will try to quote some example situations whenever I feel are required.

Ethics: Relating to human conduct, ethics for me mean the set of moral principles. There are various kinds of ethics one should follow depending on where they are and what they do, such as "Corporate/Business ethics", "Computer ethics", "Medical ethics", etc. - To put simply, ethics involves learning what is right or wrong, and then doing the right thing. For example, in computer ethics, trying to crack another user's password without their notice is not ethical. Similarly, in medical ethics, a doctor forcing a patient to undergo a particular treatment is not ethical...

Professionalism: Denoting the highest degree of maturity in terms of setting and following a set of standards, professionalism means the art of having complete knowledge of all the ethics that apply based on who they are what they do, and strictly following them without any violation. Simply put, an ethical person need not be a well read, but a professional need to follow some ethics.

Differentiating example: I might be following a set of ethics as a computer professional, such as not peeping into other's monitor when he/she is keying in their password although I might not be aware of all the ethics that apply to me as a computer professional. But, if I do a certification, for instance, such as a CISSP which forces the credential holder to follow a set of ethics as defined by the ISC2 organization (The organization that provides this credential), then I know in and out of the ethics that I must abide by as a CISSP, and that's why the letter 'P' in CISSP (meaning professional). So, if you dont abide by the "code of ethics", your credentials are revoked!

Now that you have an idea of what these two mean, your job is to figure out the set of ethics that apply to you and your job and then target to be a true professional by repeating the practices. Trust me, if you start following the ethics, the amount of satisfaction that you get anywhere is immense.

Examples of some very basic, but effective ethics are given below. I am just quoting only one example per type:

- Meeting room ethics: Make sure that you wipe out the board and turn off the power before coming out of the room.

- Email ethics: Do not use harassing/ threatening words in the emails. Be as gentle as possible.

- Telephone ethics: Do not be loud when talking to someone over a telephone.

and the list goes on and on...

Moral: If you know what are all the set of ethics applicable to you based on your job function and role, and if you are abiding by all of those consistently, then you are a true professional. By doing so, your happiness at workplace will improve significantly. Organizations do respect people who strictly abide by ethics.

IV) (Personal life ∩ Professional life) = Null:

I knew this equation before I joined my last company, but I just could not implement it. What happened with me? - HELL!!! Yes, you heard it, I went through hell and just returned :-)

There is no other relation at workplace apart from one - colleague. If you want to have it, you can, but at your own risk. Seriously, it does not fetch you any good, rather it can do nothing to you or worsen everything at workplace (Which is exactly what happened with me!!)

If you don't believe in this and want a realistic example, do talk to me personally (Send out an email or call me) because I cannot write my personal matter in a public blog, it is not ethical you see :D

Moral: Never build or allow anyone build personal relationships at workplace. Always maintain true professionalism in your talks and do not prefer to talk anything that is not beneficial to either of the parties. Doing so will keep you and others happy all the while.

V) Honesty is "NOT" always the best policy:
Most of the readers might not like the heading of this as the original quote appears to have lost its meaning here. That was not the intent though. What I mean by this is that I am sure that you might run into situations where-in being honest will not help. So, it is a matter of your intelligence and maturity levels that will enable you to decide what to talk and what not to under various circumstances. Always think before you utter anything to anyone, even a single word!
In most of the cases, preparing yourself in advance will do the trick, but being dynamic is also quint-essential, especially when you get what you did not forecast. This is very common and in such a situation you are expected to do all the thinking in fraction of seconds. Learn how to do this - this comes only with experience, but if you already have it imbibed and you are using elsewhere (May be at your home with your parents :D), start applying it at workplace as well.

An example scenario that I personally encountered is something that should help you understand what I mean by this - I was walking alongside a team mate and suddenly he asked me "Surya, what is your current package?". Now, then! You know it is not ethical to disclose your package and it is strictly against organizations interests. You also know that you cannot tell your colleague/team-mate that you cannot tell it as it is not ethical because he doesn't bother about all those and he becomes furious at you if you tell it. Now what do you do? Do you want to lose the relation? Do you want to be honest? Figure out yourself as to what you need to do.. I will take this example as a situation where one needs to be dynamic based on the unexpected situations that can arise from no where.

Moral: Being honest is a very good thing, but not at times. Always prepare yourself before you talk to any of your colleague (Be it your manager, team mate or any other colleague). Develop the skill to give good dynamic answers that will keep both the parties happy. Doing so will improve your happiness at workplace :)

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I will keep updating this blog as and when I gain new knowledge going forward in my career. I expect the readers support in terms of their experiences and thoughts on the content posted here.Please do not hesitate to question me (For any clarifications/ambiguities in the content) or to provide me your valuable comments. Write to me at ch.surya@gmail.com

All the best for your future endeavors! :-)
Surya