Marco "Polo"

Today, I want to talk about the importance of being a player, as it took me a long time to realize this after a lot of failure and research that being a player you can achieve or get what you want. Have you or someone you know has ever been in a position where they have worked in a company, they are brilliant at what they are doing but for some reason, they have not got the promotion they dreamt about for a long time or they were not able to level up. The reason is simply that they might not be good at playing games, yes you heard it well.

I actually got one of the best ways to express this as my manager told me last week just before I left work, “see you tomorrow for more fun and games” (with a cheeky giggle), which was perfectly understood that “you don’t just come to work and do what you’re supposed to do, you’re jumping into the game we play and you’re always ready for a challenge”, and challenge here can mean last-minute changes and the ability to assess and take decisions in a super-fast paced environment, be a team player and be flexible, do anything the business requires of you.

You might say now, you are not a fake person, or you hate being fake, that is totally fine, you do not need to be fake to develop the skills of being a player. Ideally, you will develop both hard work and talent but to get to that stage takes quite a long time. Some people went a long way and became successful just because they were “on the ball”.

In 2015 I was working for a company in London, and, as everywhere else I have worked before, I managed to stand out and show everyone that I am worthy and talented, during this time, I received loads of recognition from both the management and from the clients, but same as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I needed to step up. The step-up never happened because I didn’t have any goals and the worst, I was bad at playing corporate games.

Although I was talented it wasn’t enough for the company to promote me, I had to do a few sacrifices, the type of sacrifices that always feel that you are wasting your time, working without being appreciated, working longer hours than usual, never say no when you’re asked for help, being flexible, basically doing everything your boss or organization wants you to do without expecting anything in return, which, I don’t know about you but my motivation was always extrinsic and I always looked for reward, and regards to extrinsic and intrinsic I will explain a different post later on.

After experiencing all of this and observing what is happening around me at work, I came up with a few steps to improve our ability to be better players and to get more results from what we do at work as per below:

1. Attitude at work has the highest count, a person with “a can-do” attitude will always stand out just because even not knowing the job they are still able to get the job done as opposed to an employee full of doubts if they can pull it off.

2. Open your browser and type in “office politics”, learn it and apply it to work, as my manager says all the time, “know your place” which means you must abide by hierarchy although you are super talented and maybe smarter than many other hierarchical positions, make allies and know when to jump and when to stay quiet.

3. Get more work done, show people you are a reliable person not only when everything goes well but show flexibility in tough times and do more than your job description, no matter the circle a reliable employee will always have priority when it comes to growing on the corporate ladder.

4. Last but not least, be an example, show everyone why do you stand out, simply because you like to help, you never know who you will inspire.

If you found anything valuable in this read, please share it with your tribe, any feedback on improving is valuable feedback, if I can help with anything do not hesitate to contact me.