What is the sure way to succeed at work?

You can be a sincere, hardworking employee and on the other hand, a communicative, street-smart worker, though much lower on delivery compared to other employees. Does that mean that you are poor in anything you do? Will you make it to the top of the ladder?

Let’s see what goes on in our minds. As human beings, we automatically make observations throughout the day. Some of these are good, and some bad. These observations are also known as our perception of a person, place, or situation. We all know we shouldn’t judge someone the first time we meet them, and yet, we’ve all heard that little voice in our head making a comment and forming an opinion. That is our perception of the person we are meeting.

When you are forming perceptions about others, it is quite likely that others are forming their own perceptions about you. In modern-day corporate life, perceptions can make or break careers. In fact, they can be a deciding factor in who moves ahead.

When discussions about employees whose names have been put forward for promotions, the perceptions that everyone has about these individuals plays a crucial part. It is not possible for everyone in the group to know how the individual has fared in his performance indicators, and hence, the larger debates in these promotion meetings centre on battling perceptions.

Why have perceptions become so important?  Most corporates these days operate on a diluted chain of command. Almost every large organization works in a matrixed environment, and the beauty of such an environment is that accountabilities are shared, as is credit. There will be many claimants of credit for success; hence, it is important to manage perceptions about yourself. While creating and maintaining a positive performance is important, negative perceptions can have disastrous consequences despite extraordinary performance.

A number of individuals invest a lot of time and effort in managing perceptions and that definitely helps them in their goals. Cynics might question this approach. “Performance must speak for itself”, they would say.

Managing perceptions without the performance to back it up is unethical. Perceptions have become more important than ever in corporate life. You may either work on your perceptions and charge ahead in life or ignore it and take refuge under the guise of ‘Performance is everything’, and face the consequence.

Good performers, who do not invest in perception management, never gain the full advantage of their work.

Source: CP