56 MEN’S FITNESS AUGUST 2016Earn It!
NOT LONG AGO,I attended a business conference —
the type of corporate gathering any road warrior
knows will invariably end with a motivational
speech culminating in some over-the-top, life-
changing conclusion: “Everything you’ve been told
is wrong!” “Diet and exercise don’t work!” “Micromanaging is good!”
This time, however, the keynote speaker, a deeply respected university professor,
shocked 800 of the nation’s top inancial pros with some news that was as
revolutionary as it was (refreshingly) boring: That decades of real-world research had
proven that everything they knew about good management practices — that, to get the
best out of employees, you need to promote from within, invest in training, reward
good performance with bonus pay and decentralise decision-making — was basically
correct. Happy employees, he went on, make for kick-arse companies, which is what
bosses everywhere have been told... well, forever.
So how come your boss always overlooks you for promotions, keeps you toiling
in the dark and reneges on every yearly bonus? The problem, the professor said,
is that few managers actually follow these wisdoms, as conventional as they are.You’re working
for the bastard
child of Kim
Jong-un and Clive
Palmer, with a
little David Brent
DNA thrown in.
Here’s how to
succeed anyway.He then detailed some stomach-turning
indings: That employee engagement in
corporate Australia is horrible and job
satisfaction is tanking and businesses are
sufering as a result. Big companies are
loaded with loathsome executives whose
inertia, fear and refusal to share power
are sucking the life out of their workers.
It got me thinking: If your company is
run by an incompetent corporate cabal,
does that mean you have to pay the
price? Hardly. So I took the professor’s
best management practices and lipped
them to come up with the “best employee
commandments”. Use them and you can
bypass an awful boss and excel even in
a workplace designed to quash success.What to do about
a bad boss
Horrible bosses.
Don’t let the David
Brents of this world
hold you back.