To even start thinking about climbing the ladder of success and advancement in a corporation, you logically need to provide the values required (or not required) by your job description and meet the criteria set by the manager. This can be achieved as a – good worker, and if you’re not, or not enough, you can also reach the goal as a – good non-worker. Yes, exactly, you read that right – the most important thing is to be good at what you do or don’t do. In the first case, you are an achiever – a performer: diligently and devotedly helping in the execution of tasks (in most cases, this “helping” means you are doing the entire implementation alone) so that in the end, someone else takes credit for the achieved results and gains points thanks to your knowledge. Being capable and hardworking won’t significantly help you build a career – you’ll succeed only if you’re ambitious and ready to persistently and tenaciously fight for your rights. Otherwise, you’ll be marginalized if you’re modest, conciliatory, and withdrawn. If you’re just a good worker, you’re marginalized right from the start because, as such, you’re needed only by those for whom you do the job until they drain the last atom of your strength. To everyone else, you’ll always be a nuisance “for no reason” because your every success and hard work will remind them of their own failure and laziness. A commonplace in corporations is that good workers always bother someone because of their genuine qualities and achievements, which are talked about, and they mostly leave due to internal pressure (push), or because someone else, noticing their work and success, offers them a better opportunity (pull). So, don’t let intelligence, task execution capability, diligence, and dedication be your only assets because – they aren’t enough. You have strong competition – good non-workers – perfected demagogues, manipulators, and entertainers, who provide the manager with something much more important than your intellect and success: a sort of ego-ecstasy. Their primary weapon is words, empty words not followed by actions or any work process. The way they talk about their job and plans (because they are always just plans) makes you forget what they were supposed to do. You can very succinctly and accurately characterize them, colloquially speaking, as “sellers of fog,” but the fact is they sell that fog well. In the role of good non-workers, women often excel, and that’s true, without any sexist connotations. When I say women, I mean primarily attractive women, but that doesn’t have to be a rule (a matter of taste, preferences, and possibilities), especially if it’s about flattering the ego of an older manager. They (older managers) need occasional breaks from boredom to refresh their work enthusiasm: they want someone to admire them, entertain them with compliments, jokes, anecdotes, pleasant demeanor, or gifts, to confirm their power and authority with their sycophantic behavior – if they get all that in one day, it doesn’t matter whether the “duty performer” is a first-class beauty or just an ambitious sycophant. Accustomed to the bowing of female “subordinates,” such managers have a “god” syndrome that needs sacrifice and are honestly surprised and puzzled when someone doesn’t want to play by such rules.
Therefore, a thorny path to success awaits you. At the risk of sounding discouraging (which I am not, just being realistic), nothing is as simple and beautiful as it seems at the beginning. You enter a collective, ready to give you all to achieve success, and then very quickly realize that it’s not enough and that you still need to learn, not so much about the specific job as about the struggle for supremacy. At university, mostly only theory is taught, or ideal business environments are simulated (which in reality don’t exist or are extremely rare). The assumptions for a case study are very clear and presented in a simple coordinate system with two axes. On the other hand, in reality, everything gains specific depth and significance, and a “3D reader” is necessary for survival. Yes, behind everything there’s always some hidden interest, some cleverly packaged truth that an inexperienced observer’s eye is incapable of seeing at first glance. Later, with time and experience, the ability to “read” deepens and develops, so you can play by the new rules. Until you learn that, the professional knowledge you possess won’t be of great significance in the aforementioned struggle.
The truth about advancement: “One person who rises will always have enemies.” So, if you have decided that an upward trajectory is your direction, pay close attention to who accompanies you on it and what is required of you to follow it to its peak.