Additional Responsibilities- Are you game?

There have been discussions about what to do in the free time at office/work. If at all we all have any free time, do you think taking some extra responsibilities without giving any hints to the seniors or bosses about the free time is possible? Why not? Give it a try.... Recently while taking an interview of a senior HR professional, the similar discussion cropped up- The guy was just not ready to sit relaxed and hence he took up the additional responsibility of handling operations.... what's your take?  How can we do that...read on

Being handed new work duties is part and parcel of restructuring drive within an organization. Saying yes to new challenges at work is always an opportunity to learn new skills, contribute more towards the growth of the company and career building bridges. However, the load of new responsibility will require some extra input on your part. Here’s how you can make the role transition a smooth process:

Rendezvous with your peers Before you assume charge of some new work responsibility, it is important to gain insight into the role from the person who held the responsibility before you. Go beyond discussing the mere protocol involved; rather have a discussion over the nature and scope of the task you are about to take over.

If it is a newly proposed work, then discuss with the colleague who initiated the idea and/or gave you the responsibility for the same to develop an action plan in order to get started.

Amalgamate new work with existing one. Next, you will need to integrate the new tasks with your present work schedule. An addition to already existing responsibilities can leave you overwhelmed and mismanaged for both time and thought.

You can begin by grouping work that is similar to some existing work in adjacent slots as it gets done faster, with your thought process already aligned in the particular direction. Thus take stock of your daily schedule and create concrete work pockets for different tasks ensuring that the increase in duties does not hamper your original work arrangement.

Take on only as much as you can handle. As your work responsibilities expand, so will the need arise to create a work plan to judge how well you can manage your previous and newly added duties. Be clear on how much you can add to your plate without hampering your productivity and efficiency. There are times when we think our plate is not full and we just keep on filling it and then one day we realize that we are stuck. We have no idea how all this came to us and we cannot do it. So, just take it easy and go on slowly while asking for new tasks.

Initial regular assessment is important. As you assume the new responsibilities, take out time to gauge the progress and impact of your efforts. It’s best that you define the methodology and the projected outcome of the tasks in the beginning before they become accepted processes. Take the feedback from your seniors at various intervals, so that you know you are on the right track and taking a suggestion and advice from experts will surely add value in the long term prospects.

Take challenging tasks: Be open to work with new challenging assignments if you have any free time. Don’t jump over to any opportunity that comes your way, evaluate, introspect and work as per your areas of strength and where you can have some new opportunities of learning.

Learn new things for job enrichment: The same work, less work can add monotony and going to the office may start feeling like a burden. Yes, that’s what happens we all have seen such phases in our career. So what do we do? Start learning new things, look around and whenever an opportunity strikes at your door, just grasp and learn. 

For example if you are in HR role and just handle recruitment, start learning about other HR functions in spare time. Observe, understand and then learn best practices while still working your own thing. This way you can get better opportunities in the future.

Angry MD

In less than one month I have come across three senior level professionals who confessed to be in a state of concern around their own temper. This included two MDs, one of them only marginally considers it an issue.

Bad temprament at the top can be very expensive for both the organization and shareholders. How much shareholders pay in terms of lost performance because of hot temperament of senior management would be indeed an interesting exercise - at least as interesting as Mckinsey's TCJ (total cost of jerks) if not more. But lemme anyways put down a few very logical damages that these top managers end up incurring on their companies:

• Hot tempramental leaders are less likely to create creative & high initiative teams.
• In fact they proactively end up killing initiative and promoting fear.
• Lot of company's time goes in discussing & managing trivia.
• Dressing up becomes important for everyone to avoid conflicts.
• Only a mad man would bring up bad news to these MDs.

In current organizational formations, when frontline staff and managers are often well educated and trained professionally, leadership teams would do well focussing more on providing guidance, future direction, knowledge sharing, employee welfare and promoting a culture of fearlessness, intrapreneurship, performance.

A few minutes of Yoga or meditations would be time well spent for top managers....well for shareholders - paying for Yoga would be cheaper.... :)