BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CLASSROOMS AND CUBICLES

There is a lot of difference between what we learnt during our classes and what is practically required...

I am sharing with you what i learnt from my practical experiences:-

First of all, I learnt that I am alone and that there are no readymade scripts handed over to me as important questions that will lead to success in my career. If I want to be the captain of my soul and become what I want to, I first have to unlearn what I have learnt in the classroom and start learning from scratch. And the three most essential things that help in building a successful career viz. communication, relationship, & confidence that are often not taught effectively in the classrooms.

Communicate with teammates, project leaders, and everybody irrespective of designation. Learn their names, remember their faces and greet them with a smile every day. Often we spend our entire lives never bothering to ask the name of the security guard, the attender/office boy, or the quiet networks guy who never utters a word except when asked for something. Know people not merely by their designation.
Build Relationships. We never know when we may need answers from someone else regardless of the situation. It is human tendency to seek help only when it is an emergency, but to do so we need to have a rapport with them. Building relationships is a continuous effort. So communicate everyday. Greet them, ask them how their weekend was, how is their family doing, wish them on their birthday or if a significant event/milestone has happened or just find out where they are from. Nothing connects more immediately than asking a person about their language or about their place of birth. And if you don’t happen to be from the same place as they are, then it is a great opportunity to learn about it. In life, we seek help not from books or the Internet but from people and their experiences. The easiest places in office to find others to interact with are: coffee machine, Photocopier/Printer, Cafeteria, Parking lot, Office Bus etc.
Be Confident. Have the courage to ask your superiors what something means when you don’t understand it. And once you understand, don’t forget to thank the superior for helping you. After all, they invested their time to answer your question and the fact that you asked it was important to you at that point of time. Don’t ever forget that. It is small things like these that help you become aware of your surroundings beyond your cubicle. Going to work and performing your job like a robot will not help you move up the career ladder. It might make you a senior in a year or two, but it will not add value beyond that. And if you have an answer to something, share it with people around you, so that they know whom to approach the next time they have a problem.

Ultimately, building your brand net worth is more effective than building your bank balance.