6 Secrets I Wish I Knew When I Entered The Corporate World

The Rule book Which Can Serve You Well

I had been working in the corporate sector for the past 13 years. I have analyzed which type of people climb the ladder fast and which type gets sucked into the painful grinder.

But first, let me take you back, I will walk you through the exact steps of how it happened with me and I bet happens to most of us.

I still remember my first day at my workplace. It was a headquarter of a multinational corporation. It was the first time I had been inside such a lavish building.

My dreams were wild and fresh as a tulip flower after rain on a sunny day. My first day at Job was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had completed 4 dreaded and long years of Engineering. In my thoughts I had endured what had to be endured in life and from now on everything is going to be fairies and jingle bells.

I will be honest, until I started my job I thought the most difficult phase of life is being a student because of all the restrictions and deadlines and all. I naively assumed that all people do at the office is chit chat and drink coffee.

I was right for about the first two days. There was no work and a lot of coffee and chit chat because I was waiting for my email account setup, paperwork to finalize and the laptop.

The corporate world is a perfect personification of a jungle in Africa. There are a lot of rules but for the prey only. For predators there are none. I followed rules like a boy scout. I have observed and differentiated the predators from the prey.

The successful type gets all the bonuses, incentives and they live their dreams. Those who get sucked into the grinder resemble the mouse running on a treadmill for cheese. Here is the list of 6 things I wish I knew when I started my journey:

1- Not Every Rule Needs to Be Followed

There are rules which are meant to be followed and then there are rules which are not meant to be followed. Let me tell you straight. There are different rules for different people. Rules are as good as they are implemented.

Never shy away from bending procedures if they get in your way of getting things done. You will be surprised how many people break those sacred words from the rule book and get away with it.

There are certain rules which are never meant to be fiddled with like sexual harassment, monetary fraud and leaking sensitive information to competitors. Actually, these rubrics are not meant to be followed for the corporate world only but for general life as well. Everything else is shit.

Corporate rules are used to threaten people or fire them when required and let me in you on a secret. When they decide to show you the door they will do it. Don’t think for a second that you are untouchable because you followed all the rules.

2- Prey or Predator

There are only two types of people in the corporate jungle. Prey and the predator. Feeders and the fed. There is another analogy if you prefer. Labor or supervisor. You have to find out which one suits you. It’s OK if you want to be the punching bag. No one will be taking bites out of you physically or murder you to drink your blood. It’s only your soul which gets bludgeoned.

People who are at the top of the food chain live and think in a different realm. They have a different mindset. Most of them consider the people lower in food chain as losers and believe they deserve that foot up their a**.

As I said the corporate world is just like a jungle in Africa. Lions don’t do much work. They sleep most of the time and when they are not sleeping they are either busy consolidating their rule, mating or preying.

The same happens inside those lavishly designed multistory skyscrapers. Managers and above are busy securing their seats, making alliances or instructing their teams. It happens most of the time.

Labors do the hard work, but it’s the supervisor’s responsibility to get the job done.

Don’t misunderstand the amount of work you are doing. Always analyze is it the labor or supervising? If it is labor work chances are you will not excel because someone else is responsible for the work you are doing. Naturally, they will also take the credit for it.

3- Effort and Success Are Completely Different Things

The corporate world is cold, cruel, and cutthroat. There is no recognition or weightage for effort. No one cares if you were in even when you had a bad cold or fever, you skipped your kid’s birthday for an urgent assignment, and you stayed late to finalize that report which your boss asked you to complete on his way out at the close of business.

If things get done you will get all the praise and acclaim, if you are lucky. If somehow progress fails to reach the desired level, all your pain and sacrifice gets thrown out of the window.

What good was all that pain for if we couldn’t meet the deadline? That’s what you will hear. Don’t tell me you skipped your kid’s birthday because it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t finish on time.

Always remember either your target is met or it is not. There is no middle ground. Don’t ever be confused that you have completed 90% of the work so they will give you worth your effort.

In the end, people who get things done, who meet the targets no matter how insanely out of the world they seem, who can make a rooster lay an egg get all the recognition.

4- Be Loyal to Your Work, Not Your Organization

I don’t mean it in a bad cynical way. OK, maybe I do, but I am being completely honest here. I have seen people pushed aside, let go and humiliated who worked for over a decade for an organization. These people wore the employee cards like medals, felt and showed proudness to be attached to that organization. They considered the organization as their family.

Corporate organizations are not meant for humanitarian work. They believe in numbers. Everything is a thing for them. People are headcounts, profit and loss are only monetary. Nothing more nothing less.

Your organization will never reward you for your loyalty. If they decide to go lean and adopt that efficient organizational structure they will let you and most of its staff go in a jiffy.

If they are going to reduce the headcount they won’t consider the warmness and attachment you have for your workplace. Your memories and years of efforts account for nothing.

Instead, be loyal to your work, be a professional. Always try to improve your work. Be your own competition. Always keep a lookout on the market and job situation doesn’t matter how much you love working for where you are working.

5- If You Are Not Going up You Are Going Down

I was such a naïve person when I didn’t get a promotion I thought who cares. When people who were thinking of their careers, worried about professional growth, I was living in a fool’s dream.

After 13 years I have come to know that there is no equilibrium in the corporate world. If you are not moving up the food chain you are going down. You can’t remain where you are because everyone else is moving forward and with an incredible place. Which makes those who remain still look like losers.

Like it or not, the fittest survive in the jungle. People who are called go-getters (whatever that means), highly motivated, always hungry for more, loud and assertive progress much faster.

If you like your work, you are not as mad as everybody else for promotion, you say to yourself “heck why everybody is so worked up for that petty raise” chances are very bright that you will not progress by leaps and bounds.

The problem with the corporate world is that it favors the hungry. People at the top think and portray themselves as lions but they are actually hyenas. Corporate structure favors the hungry people, people who are always ready for more responsibility, for extra hours, for anything out of the blue.

Just like Medium and every social media platform has its algorithm. It favors the person who works according to that algorithm.

The corporate world also has an algorithm. It doesn’t favor people who are satisfied with their position. It favors those who always want more.

6- You Don’t Have to Be Einstein to Succeed

99% of jobs in the corporate sector are boring. They either lack innovation or encourage employees to follow already set guidelines. 99% of you will do chores that 99% of the people can do. Not all of us work for Tesla and Space X. Not all of us are required to build space ships to go to Mars.

Work assigned to us can be done by almost anyone with a college degree.

So what separates the achievers from the losers? The way you do your work. I have seen it more often than normal that people with better communication and presentation skills fare far better than those with superior technical expertise but poor interpersonal skills.

If you want to be the lion, you have to make alliances to protect your pride, you need to learn to address the crowd. If you can’t express your ideas beautifully and succulently nobody will care about the technicalities of your work.

Everyone wants simple things. People with good communication ability like to keep things simple. People whose focus is on the technical part always discuss the complex side of things.

My advice, keep it simple. You will be surprised when the guy with minimal technical knowledge will be chosen over you because he can charm a tree.

Summary

If you want to move up and fast in a corporate environment keep in mind the below secrets:

• Never let the rules get in your way of getting things done (with exception of few rules I mentioned).
• If you are doing the labor work you are the prey, in order to be the predator you have to do the work of a supervisor.
• There is recognition only for success. Don’t confuse effort with success.
• Being loyal to your work rather than the organization will take you further in your career.
• Don’t stay in a state of rest or equilibrium. Corporate algorithm feeds on people who are satisfied with their positions and pays.
• Always try to simplify things, this will improve your communication skills. Communication takes precedence over science any day of the week.