A: Regardless of who you work for, there are four things every boss wants in an employee:

1. Loyalty.
2. Energy and drive.
3. Common sense.
4. The ability to work as part of a team. And sometimes
5. A modicum of intelligence.

These skills will pretty much help you succeed anywhere. Beyond this list, bosses’ requirements depend on the bosses’ idiosyncrasies, which themselves can be catalogued, analyzed, and anticipated, but that is a story for another day.

Here is a quick quiz to see how you stack up in each of the above areas. Assuming that you already believe yourself to be perfect on all four of these dimensions, this quiz will be a piece of cake. Further assuming that your self-awareness is about as good as the average person’s, you’ll want to have a glass of milk on hand for when you choke on said cake.

True or False:

1. If you have questions about your company’s benefits, you should always bring these up in your performance review.
2. You are smart, and that exempts you from having to work as hard as other people.
3. It is OK to leave work at 6pm if you have tickets to a play that night, even if there is an “emergency” in your department and there is work that needs to be delivered to a client the next day.
4. On a related note, it is OK to call you manager–or even the CEO–on a Sunday morning to ask about something you read in the newspaper about your company.
5. You should do your job, other people should do their jobs, and if everyone just did what they were asked to do, everything would be great.

Answers:

1. False. A performance review is a performance review. Benefits should be discussed as part of the review only if you are renegotiating your compensation, or if they are somehow the cause of your performance problems. Otherwise, leave them off the table and circle back with HR later (or better yet, as the questions come up). I recently sat with a friend who told me that when he put an employee on a 90-day probation, the employee’s response was to ask for (1) a raise, (2) a change in the employer/employee healthcare contribution split, and (3) a 401(k) option. Note to employee: Your question signals that your compensation is more important to you than your performance, in turn signaling your self-centeredness and lack of loyalty. My advice to you is to save as much of your salary as you can over the next 90 days. I foresee a layoff in your future.
2. Falsity-false false. Being smart means that if you bust your butt, you stand a better than even chance at winning the race. Not busting your butt, however, guarantees that you will lose the race, regardless of how many IQ points you’ve got tucked under the hood.
3. Holy cow, this one is false. I am not even sure what to say… no customer, no revenues; no revenues, no job; no job, no play. If you can’t see that connection and prioritize your life accordingly, then call me… I’ve got a competitor I would like you to send your resume to.
4. False, and by the way, your narcissistic tendencies are starting to really shine through here, Pumpkin. A moment ago you thought it was OK to bail on your team to go catch a show while they pull an all-nighter to cover your butt… and now you tell me it is OK to interrupt your boss’s family brunch because you can’t sift fact from fiction in the popular press? What did your parents do to you? Were you raised in a shoebox?
5. False. Didn’t you ever come home as a kid to find your room tidied by your mom? On any of those occasions, didn’t you ever blame her for messing up your stuff, by saying something like, “Didn’t you notice that all my stuff was in an order?! Why didn’t you just ask me before moving everything around?!” Well, work is the same way. You may do great work, but if you’re the only one who gets it, other people may not appreciate the full scope of what you’re up to. Yes, it is great that you are a role player. Truly. Now try–just for a microsecond–to see the bigger picture and where you fit into it. Anticipate how others will use your work and consider (dare I say it?) asking questions to find ways to make your work even more helpful… to them. Because it really didn’t matter if you could find a pair of clean socks on the floor; you weren’t really cleaning for you. You were cleaning out of respect for the others you lived with. I know it’s tough moving out of the center of the universe… but you can do it.

So, there it is… how’d you do?

0-2 right — Napoleonic Nightmare.
Your sense of self is shocking. Six billion people on this little rock called Earth, and you think it revolves around you? Forget trying to work; with a head that big, you should be careful walking through doors. The good news for the rest of us is that historically, people as annoying as you are often shipped off to uninhabited islands.

3-4 right — Delayed Maturity.
Your boss has hope for you yet. The bad news is that where you are in your personal maturity cycle is where you should have been at 14 years old. Hopefully, your synapses are still nice and springy and capable of learning.

5 right — Human Being.
No one’s perfect, but you are close enough. You will go far in this world, Grasshopper.

Posted under Q&A, Coaching & Consulting, Self-Development, Gen X & Gen Y