Career Tips - Issue # 15 (April 2005)

FREE bimonthly newsletter dedicated to your career development.

You'll need less than 10 minutes to read this newsletter.

Change Your Shoes

Not all bosses are same. But some are too different. I had the experience of working with a boss who, if you work with him, will make you wonder whether he is working for the same company as you.

This guy was an interesting character. Among all his habits, the most intriguing was the habit of acting like a client.

If anyone comes to his room to discuss or review any work, he would behave like a client. Not just a client but a difficult client. He would shoot holes in your work, question all your assumptions, tear apart your estimates and make you realise a lot more needs to be done. If you defend your work, he would argue, just like a stubborn client. It used to be a real achievement to get anything okayed by him.

No wonder, all of us at the receiving end of his quirky habit used to curse him for being so difficult. No one knew why he used to act like a client in his own office.

Years later, however, I now realise why he used to behave like that. He was much smarter than we thought he was. He knew we would not be able to see our own work from a different perspective. He considered his main contribution was to throw in a different perspective (i.e., client's).

Basically, he was demonstrating one of the rarely found skills: stepping into other people's shoes and seeing things from their view point.

>>CAREER TIP: We can not only avoid major frustrations, problems and arguments but also become more effective, if we learn the art of stepping into other people's shoes. This skill can pay dividends in many different facets of your work (and personal life, too)

Start with your boss. Try to imagine being in his situation. Look at your own work from his perspective. What would you expect to happen as the boss? What would be your major worries, concerns and priorities? You may realise why he behaves the way he does.

Before you enter into a negotiation with a supplier, review the whole situation as if you are the supplier. In fact, it is a common practice in law firms to prepare for a case by first fighting it (in their own office) from the opposition side.

When you make an offer to a client, step into his/her shoes and review the whole proposal (like my boss). Is it worthwhile?

When you demand work from others, often stop and review the targets from their point of view. Do they have enough resources? Are they clear what you expect them to do? Should they be motivated to do the needful?

If you start looking at the world not only from yours but also from other people's point of view, you would better appreciate why others want, what they want and why they behave the way they do.

Finally, the following quotation by Abraham Lincoln (16th President of USA) underlines the importance of stepping into other people's shoes:

"When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say."

The Value of Perceived Value

When Sony's first launched its tape recorder in 1950, Akio Morita, cofounder of Sony, expected nothing short of a flood of orders. After all, there were no other tape recorders in Japan those days.

The reality, however, turned out to be different. There was not even a trickle of orders. To his surprise, though people liked the product, nobody wanted to buy it.

Morita had little clue about why the tape recorder was not selling. Then one day, he happened to stroll by an antique shop in Tokyo. As he was standing in front of the shop, looking at those old art objects and marvelling at the high prices marked on them, he noticed a customer buying an old vase. He saw the customer taking out his wallet and handing over a large number of bills to the antique dealer--without any hesitation.

What he saw in the antique shop set him off to think about his tape recorder. He realised that the vase was more expensive than the tape recorder, yet customer was ready to pay for it.

He asked himself, "Why would someone pay so much money for an old object that had no practical value, while a new and important device such as a tape recorder could attract no customers?"

He went on reasoning and finally concluded that there was no contest; tape recorder was a better bargain. In reality, however, tape recorder had no customers while antique piece had just been sold in front of his eyes.

After much contemplation, Morita realised the antique shop episode had a lesson for him: the value of perceived value. The vase had a perceived value to the collector of antiques, and he had his own valid reasons to invest money in that object.

He understood that beyond producing a product, one needed to sell it and to do that salesman should be able to show the potential buyer the value of the product.

Writes Morita in his autobiography Made in Japan:

"From that moment, I knew to sell our recorder we would have to identify the people and institutions that would be likely to recognise value in our product."

That was a turning point for Sony and Morita. Armed with the new wisdom, Morita noticed that there was a shortage of stenographers in the Japanese courts and so tape recorders could be of value to them. He was right! Japanese Supreme Court bought twenty pieces immediately. Next, he sold it to schools. Tape recorder had taken off. Soon, it was selling like hot cakes.

>>CAREER TIP: Whether it is a tape recorder or an individual, perceived value is all that matters in a market.

Have you observed that the same person who used to struggle in one function/organisation, starts doing great in a different function/organisation? Some people change their industry (e.g., from XYZ to IT) and their career takes off. Some people simply change their location and their value also goes up. For some, the boss changes and everything else also changes.

The point is you have different values in different settings. Your perceived value changes according to the needs of circumstances and perceiver.

If you wish to increase your perceived value within your organisation, look out for opportunities to handle bigger responsibilities, more complex problems and issues of higher stakes. In other words, go for "bigger needs." Staying in a comfort zone and doing the same stuff over and over again for many years is a recipe for capping own perceived value.

But if you find that despite your best efforts, your perceived value is not growing within your organisation, think about other options. Could you change your function? Could you go to a different branch/location? And of course, could you change the organisation itself? The key word here is "change."

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder." Change the beholder and you become more beautiful.

Will be back after two weeks.

Atul Mathur

FORWARD IT: Would you like to share what you've just read with any of your friends? Click below to send a link to your friends.

Tell-a-Friend

To SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter, send a blank e-mail to:subscribe Career Tips

***Copyright 2005 Atul Mathur***

← Back to newsletter listing page