Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Foreword
Preface
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
A Message Whose Time Has Come
PART 2: THE ULTIMATE EXPECTATION
Do What Needs to Be Done
PART 3: SIMPLE STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES
Ways to Get Started Now
Think—What Needs to Be Done?
• Make Your Job More Difficult
• Think How Things Could Be Improved
• Develop a Reputation for Being the Office Cheapskate
• Ask Silly Questions
• Turn Needs Into Opportunities
• Caution: Don’t Be a Complainer
Prepare—Do Your Homework
• Learn What You Don’t Know First
• Collect Your Own Data
• Develop Options and a Plan of Action
• Shoot Holes in Your Own Plan
• Realize No One Cares about Your Ideas
• Caution: Don’t Play Games at Work
Act—Do Something Different Now
• Speak Up to Have Influence!
• Volunteer for Difficult Assignments
• Greet Challenges with Creativity
• Look for the Positive in Problems
• Be a Person Who Makes Things Happen
• Caution: Take Responsibility for Your Actions (and Inactions)
Persevere—Don’t Give Up Easily
• Regroup When Your Ideas Meet Resistance
• Don’t Trust Your Manager’s Open Door
• Persist When Obstacles Arise
• Do the Same Thing Differently
• Learn to Enjoy Those Things That Others Hate to Do
• Caution: Avoid the “Blame Game”
PART 4: COMMON CONCERNS
What Holds Us Back
Fear
“I might make a mistake.”
“What needs to be done is not easy.”
“I’m afraid of being fired.”
Frustration
“I don’t have the authority.”
“I don’t have the support.”
“I don’t have the skills.”
Failure
“I took initiative once and made a mistake.”
“Someone keeps blocking my efforts.”
“I constantly fail when I try to take initiative.”
PART 5: IN CONCLUSION—THE ULTIMATE REWARD
Realize Your Potential
Copyright
About the Author
Bob Nelson, Ph.D., is president of Nelson Motivation Inc. in San Diego, California, and author of the bestselling books 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, 1001 Ways to Energize Employees, 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work, and Managing for Dummies.
Foreword
Bob Nelson and I have been colleagues and friends for more than fifteen years. This book, Please Don’t Just Do What I Tell You! Do What Needs to Be Done, has a wonderful history. Bob and I talked for some time about possibly writing a book together around Message to Garcia, that classic fable about the importance of employees doing what they are told to do. Now, more than a decade later, Bob has appropriately repositioned that message to one that is more in tune with the times.
Why? The old deal is over at work. Loyalty used to get you job security. When I graduated from Cornell, a friend of mine got a job at AT&T. He called home and his mother cried. She said, “You are set for life.” Today, regardless of where you work, nobody is set for life. With the amount of change facing every organization today, all bets are off for the future.
If the old deal is off, what is the new deal? In talking to people around the world, I have asked, “If you can’t get job security at work, what do you want?” They tell me they want two things: honesty and opportunity. First, today’s employees want the straight story—they don’t want to be lied to. “Don’t tell us you are not going to lay people off and then go ahead and do so six months later.” Second, today’s employees want opportunity: opportunity to learn, to build knowledge, and to develop their skills. People know that their best job security is to increase their marketability and the value they have to offer where they work.
Tom Peters is talking all the time now about “Brand You.” Everyone soon will have their own portfolio describing the opportunities they have had and the skills they bring to the party. The best way for people to learn today is to have opportunities to take initiative. People have to have a chance to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. And they have to have the strategies and techniques to make a difference at work. That’s what this book is all about. Bob shows that we each can create our own opportunity, regardless of where we work or the job we do.
Bob’s message is also timely in that the great organizations that are beating the competition today are those that are customer-focused. There’s nothing that drives a customer crazy quicker than to have a front-line employee quack like a duck and say: “I’m sorry, it’s our policy,” or “I just work here,” or “Do you want to talk to my supervisor?” Enlightened customers today want to deal with somebody who has the power to make decisions. That’s what beats the competition, and that’s what keeps your workforce motivated.
The best organizations are finding that the best service comes from employees who are given a chance to have an impact in their jobs. Again, Bob’s book shows us that for every position, at any level, employees are closer than anyone else to the problems and opportunities of their own jobs, and thus better able to make a difference with their customers, colleagues, and even their managers.
Read Please Don’t Just Do What I Tell You! Do What Needs to Be Done and tell everyone you know about it! It will really help you create opportunities for yourself and those with whom you work to make a difference. My guess is that your boss will like it too. Good on you all!
Ken Blanchard, Ph.D.
Co-author, The One Minute Manager
Preface
This book has a simple premise: You never need permission to do great work. Wherever you work, whomever you work for, management expects that you will always use your own best judgment and effort to do what needs to be done for the organization to be successful.
I call this The Ultimate Expectation. It’s a message that every employee needs to hear, but one that few employers explicitly state.
Although it may sound strange, every employer today is looking to hire essentially the same person: someone who takes initiative. Of course, specific employers’ needs are as varied as the skills and abilities of the workers they hire; but at the core, it’s the same individual they seek. The person who—regardless of his or her background, training, or abilities—can be dropped into a work situation and take independent action is worth his or her weight in gold.
Being able to fulfill The Ultimate Expectation is a virtue every worker possesses, but few seem to demonstrate. To do what needs to be done without being told is the hallmark of professional excellence.
To serve a customer, solve a problem, assist a co-worker, make a money-saving suggestion, develop an idea, or improve a process are actions that are needed from all employees every day, indeed, every moment they are employed.
In fact, I know of no company today that can survive with employees doing only what they are told to do. The competitive environment, the amount of change, and the speed of business today in most markets is too intense for employees to act otherwise. An organization that expects employees to do only what they are told is on a slippery slope to being out of business in just a matter of time.
Compare your company with any of its competitors. More likely than not, you have similar products and services, technology and channels of distribution, marketing strategies, and more.
What makes one company a success while another struggles to survive? It’s the people—and the daily initiative, energy, and commitment these people bring to their work, without waiting to be told what to do.
The days of “superiors” and “subordinates” are long past. Work today is a partnership, and everyone’s in it together. The nature of work—of business itself—is changing too quickly for employees to wait for direction. They must jump in with both feet.