I think I chose the wrong career.
There are thousands of business books out there, strategies to get you hired, keep you employed, manage your associates and close the deal. It's a tremendous industry, one I would love to join. Unfortunately, my idea for a corporate strategy guide would be a pretty hard sell.
It'd only be one page long. In fact, it'd only be one sentence on one page, with only three words in that sentence:
Keep it simple.
If I could share one piece of advice with newly minted college graduates and MBAs, if I could offer one suggestion to every employee from the entry-level cubicle drone to the Master of the Corner Office, it would be those three little words. Everyone, in every position and department, would do well to keep it simple.
The modern corporate environment makes every effort toward efficiency, with e-mail, instant messaging, paperless filing and cellular phones. The result, as anyone who has sifted through a five-page e-mail with six blinking chat boxes and a ringing cell can tell you, is a whole new level of complexity.
The modern workplace is global, mobile and always online. The work doesn't stop when you sign off. It's always awake and always there, in your pocket and on your laptop.
The most valued employee in any office, then, is not the gal who comes in earliest, works hardest or gets the most done. It's not the guy who always starts a fresh pot in the break room, either, though he deserves an honorable mention.
No, the hire who deserves the most praise and attention is he -- or she -- who makes life simpler for fellow co-workers. And in the modern workplace, simplicity can take many forms.
E-mail should be stripped to its barest essence. Start with everything you think you need, then pare it down. Then pare it down again. Put the important details first, as if the reader will only get through the first five words.
Because the reader will only get through the first five words.
Never send an e-mail when an instant message will do. Never send an instant message when you can pick up the phone. There is no simpler solution than to speak with someone. The phone predates the mimeograph machine and the electric typewriter. And there's a reason every office still has one.
Start every teleconference with a basic, concise agenda. Return to the agenda when the conference goes astray. Every person on your call is doing 12 things at once, and if you leave them to their own devices, you'll be stuck in conference limbo for hours. Keep the call to 20 minutes and you'll be a legend.
When you take every opportunity to make the next person's work easy, you become an actual co-worker rather than an obstacle to be overcome. Word will spread, people will come to you first. From the senior VPs to the lowliest of staple jockeys, everyone appreciates a little simplicity.
So maybe I do have a whole book here after all. I only need a title.
Maybe something like "The Principles of Simplification: Eliminating Mission-Critical Workplace Complications thorough Synergy and Operational Confluence." Has a nice ring to it.
(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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