Chapter 17

Becoming a Star Employee

In This Chapter

  • Settling in
  • Making yourself irreplaceable
  • Adjusting to changing conditions

According to one school of thought, all you need to do to keep a job is to show up to work on time, perform according to your job description, and do what you are told. We don't know whether this was ever true, but we do know it's not true today. This approach is also boring.

Ultimately, your job is to make your boss's job easier, or make your boss look good to his or her boss, or both. The best way to achieve this is to implement outstanding network solutions. Taking a more active role in the company can be fun!

These days, it is important to be seen as contributing to the overall success of the company. Failure to have a solid, or even stellar, reputation puts you at risk of being on the layoff list if the company decides to have a shake-up to get rid of dead wood or has to make some tough decisions for financial reasons.

Achieving that stellar reputation doesn't require that you work long hours every night as well as work weekends. You probably need to perform only a few actions differently. Some of these actions are relevant to the early days of your employment, and the rest are ongoing suggestions. This chapter documents as many of these actions as possible. We hope that most of these suggestions will seem like old news and a few will be novel and easy to apply.

On the other hand, if you prefer the old school of thought described earlier, be sure to keep this book handy and dog-ear Chapters 14 and 15. You may need them sooner than you imagine.

Onboarding and Orientation

Every new job has a honeymoon period. Be sure to take advantage of this period of time because it happens only once with every new job.

After your boss shows you your new cubicle and issues you your computer, you must discover what you need to be successful. Now is not the time to become bashful. Ask for what you need while upper management are still patting themselves on the back for landing you as a new employee. In this section, you discover some actions a new employee should take.

Image You will be drinking from the proverbial fire hose at the beginning of your tenure at your new job. You have a lot of information to understand, absorb, and categorize. Trying to take it all in once can be too much, so be sure to pace yourself.

Understanding the IT department

The IT department is your new home, so you should learn what goes on here: understand your narrow responsibilities as well as the priorities of the entire department. You should

  • Learn the installed technology: You may say “duh” to this suggestion. because it seems obvious. But don't be surprised if you find many subtle differences between what you were led to believe during the interview process and reality. The managers with whom you interviewed may not really know what is going on in the network.
  • Map out current support systems: Before you spend all your time understanding the technology, learn how it is applied in your firm. The general accounting system, for example may or may not be similar from company to company. The other major systems, such as the billing system, the CRM system, and the ERP system, are typically customized. Learn how and why they were customized.
  • Look at routine reports: The IT department produces weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reports for most parts of the organization. See if you can get a list of these and review them. Whatever a company tracks is what is most important to them. The information in these reports is an important clue about the priorities of your new firm.
  • Understand major IT initiatives: There are several good reasons for understanding active initiatives. First, you will probably be involved in at least some of these initiatives. Next, you can gain insight into where the company is heading. Executive management should understand that IT is typically the long lead-time factor in implementing any new initiatives. This is a fact, not a criticism. An appreciation of these initiatives and their priorities will tell you where the company is heading.

Understanding the rest of your organization

In Chapters 15 and 16, you learned what your company looks like from the outside in. Now that you're an employee, you can look at the company from the inside in.

Sometimes people do not answer questions during the interview process because the answers are confidential. Other questions are so wrapped in spin that they are meaningless. Just as you answered everything positively, so did the interviewers. Now is the time to ask the difficult questions. Seek to learn the following:

  • Learn the organizational structure: This task includes understanding both the formal hierarchy and the informal power structure. Information on the formal structure is probably stored digitally. You'll also want to talk to coworkers to find out how things get done.
  • Understand how to get things done: Each company has a process for moving forward with projects and initiatives. It is important you understand how this is done.
  • Understand the company's priorities: The HR department will say that a company's people are its most important asset. The sales department will say that its customers are the company's most important asset. The finance department will say that the investors are the most important. You need to know whose computer system gets priority when there is a network or computer system failure.
  • Get to know the support staff: Make friends with everyone, particularly the people who do not seem to have influence over your job. Getting to know these people is not difficult. Everyone has a computer at home and horror stories about getting help. Giving someone a little free advice can pay dividends in this career (and your next).

Looking and becoming competent

You looked competent when you interviewed for the position, and you should keep this appearance while you are in the learning phase and are taking more than you are contributing. Take advantage of the life-work balance after you're making a difference. Here are some ways to show that you are committed to this company:

  • Arrive on time: Actually, arrive early.
  • Become familiar with the company's business: We hope you've looked at recent financial information while you were interviewing. Now is your chance to really learn about how your company competes in the marketplace. Ask about the company's competitors. Ask about the company's strategy. Find out which trade shows and conferences are most important. Subscribe to relevant trade magazines, e-zines, and blogs to keep current on what is happening in the industry.
  • Get training: You might feel that it is too soon to ask for training. Untrue. Take the initiative and find technical classes that will make you more productive. Don't wait for your first annual review.

Moving Forward after the Honeymoon

You have to keep the momentum going after you have the basics down and have shown that you can contribute. The goal is to make yourself seem irreplaceable.

As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, we hope that you do most of the following suggestions already. If not, you can learn to do them. These skills are in the following categories: professional skills you can learn and master regardless of your job title; technical skills that apply to this job; and personal attributes that are relevant outside your cubicle.

Developing professional skills

The following are skills and actions that apply directly to your job:

  • Expand your job description: You should have been provided a job description, outlining the basic expectations of your role. Do everything in your job description, plus something more. Be part of the team planning the summer picnic. Even better, be on the team performing an in-depth system analysis of how orders flow through the organization. Engaging with other functional areas makes you look good, expands your contacts, and makes your boss look good. However, don't overcommit.
  • Get your responsibilities and the responsibilities of your department more organized: When you start a new job, you may find that everything is disorganized. This is your opportunity to organize it. Even if your house is a total mess and your car is a disaster, find it within yourself to improve the organization of what you are doing. If you find it well organized, make it better organized. Create the vision of what an exceptionally well-organized system looks like and present that to management.
  • Communicate frequently and succinctly: Now that you have things better organized, continuously remind management about how things are changing. It is important to keep this communication brief. Take notes at staff meetings and track the progress of departmental initiatives.
  • Get on a team: Join the teams that are working on new IT initiatives. Many people fear “death by meetings.” There is no point fighting meetings. And if you embrace it, you will be a long way ahead in making yourself irreplaceable.
  • Invite others to be on your team: President Harry S. Truman made the following quote famous: “It's amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.” When you are tasked with running a meeting, be sure to take this bit of advice to heart.
  • Work on being reliable: A wonderful compliment to someone in a networking role is to be told that you are reliable. Of course, the network should be reliable, but you can take steps to be reliable as well. Keep your smartphone charged and with you at all times. If a call comes when you're in a meeting, find a way to communicate with the caller that you will call as soon as there is a break, and then call back. Check and answer your email even when it is inconvenient or you are tired. Let people know when you are going to be unavailable on vacations and personal days.
  • Take direction from your boss: Do the tasks you are asked, even if you believe you are moving in the wrong direction. Do it even if it undoes a lot of your good work. Do it with a big smile on your face. You should have pride in your work, but you can get in trouble if you fight too much. Tactfully tell the boss that his or her direction has trade-offs. This capability is sometimes called resiliency.

Enhancing your technical skills

Of course, you'll need to keep current on technology. Most companies have a budget to keep their technical employees up-to-date on evolving technology. Stay on top of trends in your area of expertise. Do not let the following list be an afterthought:

  • Engage in ongoing training: Too many of us get to our annual review and then remember that one of our tasks was to take continuing training. Do not let that happen to you. Soon after you start your job, you should be looking for training programs and making plans to attend. In networking, as in most IT jobs, on-going training is critical to having a successful career.
  • Join a users' group: It is amazing what you can learn at a users' group meeting. Your technical peers have probably encountered the issues with which you are struggling. You can get these solved at the meeting, but more importantly, you can develop contacts at other companies to help you troubleshoot problems. Also, vendors will tell you what capabilities are coming in future releases, and you then become the conduit by which your company learns about new features. You get the credit instead of the vendor's salesman. Too bad for him or her. Good for you.
  • Work on tasks that matter most: Everyone has a tendency to work on projects that are intellectually interesting or that are easy and give a sense of progress. It is better to be disciplined and focus on the projects that have the most affect on business success.
  • Anticipate problems and propose solutions while not in a crisis: You cannot be too paranoid. You may or may not have responsibility for backing up the system, but your goal is to avoid unwanted attention from upper management. The only question is how much your company is willing to pay for resiliency and redundancy. Remember that matter how much you prepare, you can always do more. You will do yourself and your company a favor if you try to anticipate every negative situation and have a plan.

Acquiring positive personal attributes

You've learned about professional skills and technical skills that will enhance your success on the job. In this section, we cover some personal attributes that will make you more valuable at work:

  • Keep home at home and work at work: One of the interview questions proposed in Chapter 18 has to do with balancing your work and personal life. Particularly in IT, this statement is usually more aspirational than reality. This job can involve late nights and long weekends. Also, the notion that we can compartmentalize and focus exclusively on work or on home is unrealistic. In spite of these realities, do yourself a favor and minimize the discussion of personal issues at work and looking for relief from work frustrations at home. When in doubt, choose to be discreet.
  • Volunteer in your community: Almost anything you do to help other people will make you a better person, which is why many companies support their employees' volunteer efforts. Expanding your humanity makes you a more complete person, on and off the job.
  • Avoid gossip: Involvement with others outside your direct job role provides cohesiveness in the organization. It keeps you informed about events in other areas that relate to your job description. Knowing what is going on is important. In this process, you will also come across stories about other coworkers. Resist the temptation to share this information with others. Gossip is corrosive. Although it provides a momentary emotional charge, it ultimately weakens relationships. Don't let it go any further.
  • Maintain confidentiality: A human trait is to share news, particularly bad news or news that will endear you to other people. Limit the people with whom you share your company's bad news as well as new and exciting innovations. Loose lips sink ships. This advice applies in war and in business.

As you work in an organization, you'll meet a variety of personality types. You'll meet workaholics, who have no balance in their life; sycophants, who seem to do nothing but feed the ego of their bosses; and narcissists, who take credit for all the work, whether or not they had any involvement. On the surface, companies seem to reward this kind of behavior. The apparent rewards are typically short term: workaholics burn out, sycophants get boring, and narcissists lose trust. The people who succeed over the long run are the ones who have a passion for their work and a passion outside their work.

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