What Your Boss Wants You To Know!

Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = disaster

I believe that everyone wants to do the right thing… the trouble is that sometimes you are just not sure what the right thing is. And that means you are left to your own devices hoping that you get it right.

This often occurs in business because the boss is so busy they assume you know what the right thing is or they just forget to tell you. When you take a guess at it and get it wrong, it drives the boss up the wall.

So I thought I’d put together a list of some of the things your boss would like you to know. If you know them and, more importantly, do them in your day-to-day activities your boss will be rapt and you’ll enjoy what you do more than ever. What’s more you’ll be the sort of person who gets promotion and pay rises more often than the rest of the team who never show the boss that they care.

1. The boss gets paid last – just because sales are up or things are busy doesn’t mean that the boss is getting fat on big profits. The law requires your boss to pay staff and the taxman first, then of course there’s suppliers, landlords, consultants and service providers who need to get paid too. When they are paid the boss gets what’s left. Some months there may be nothing left but you will still have been paid.
2. If you want to get paid more do more – some people think that it’s their right to get regular salary increases. Not so! If you want to be paid more you need to help the boss make more. When you do so there are very few bosses who would begrudge sharing some of the extra profits with you.
3. Think like a customer – the native Americans say you can only understand how people feel when you’ve walked two moons in their moccasins. Regardless of whether you call them clients, customers or patients put yourself in their shoes and look after them in the way you would expect to be looked after yourself.
4. Leave your problems at home –your partner may not have been talking to you, the kids may have been screaming or you got out of the wrong side of the bed but when you walk through your bosses doorway you’re on show. That means being positive, enthusiastic and switched on all day long. Don’t let your problems interfere with business.
5. Think – don’t just do everything mindlessly without thinking about the results of what you are doing. Concentrate, switch your brain on and think carefully about what you’re going to do or say before you do or say it.
6. Accept responsibility – its popular to blame the computer or tell people that “its not my department.” That’s a cop out because you represent the boss and the business to everybody with whom business is done. So accept responsibility, not necessarily to do the task or correct the mistake, but to ensure that the task gets done or the mistake gets fixed.
7. Go the extra mile – don’t only do what you are paid to do or only what is expected of you. Go the extra mile to ensure that whoever you deal with not only has their problems solved but is delighted with the way you went about it.
8. Bring solutions, not problems – too many people come to the boss with problems and leave them to the boss to solve. Why not put your brain into gear and come to the boss with a solution to the problem? They’ll appreciate it and you’ll score brownie points too.
9. Although you don’t pay the bills act like you do – remember that, at the end of the day, the boss has to pay the bills. And the bigger the bills the less profit there is in the business to be shared around. So whether its using the photocopier, spending time endlessly chatting to friends, using the mobile for lots of private calls, taking breaks, sending private e-mails or wasting paper there’s a cost to all of those things. The more conscious you are of costs and how you can help reduce them the more the boss will like it.
10. Put the time in – starting and finishing times aren’t the time you walk in and out of the bosses door; they are the times you start and finish work. So the pre-work cup of coffee happens before start time and making yourself look handsome or beautiful happens after finish time. Lunch and tea breaks should be kept to the allocated times and, if you are a smoker, minimise your smoke breaks. If you really want to kick goals don’t have your eye on the clock… start earlier than expected and finish later.
11. Do what others don’t do – observance of this rule makes sticking to the other rules easy because so many people really do take advantage of the boss and do as little as possible as often as possible. When you take the initiative and act on what the boss wants you to know you’ll be a 14-carat solid gold employee!