I can always count on Steve Gladis to find exactly the right article in Harvard Business Review for anything going on in the marketplace today! You can visit his blog to find out all sorts of interesting things, like the post below:
How to Protect Your Job in a Recession
To help work through this uncertain economic time, here’s what the Harvard Business review says in a nutshell (How to Protect Your Job in a Recession–Sept. 2008, p. 113-16). The following is a direct quote:
Article at a Glance:
–If you want to survive, act like a survivor. Be confident and cheerful. Stay focused on the future by concentrating on the customer, without whom nobody will have a job.
–Give your leaders hope. They agonize over layoffs, so cut them a break. Empathizing with your boss will give you an advantage.
–Be a corporate citizen. Companies like team players. Research shows that collegiality may trump competence when push comes to shove.
hmmm… what about making your self indispensable? Be it through how effective you are at your job, or by “doing something” that no one else in the company does… Find deficiencies in your company and work with management to “rectify them” e.g. who is leading your company’s “green initiatives” No one? Well then, take the reigns… Are there more efficient processes that could be in place, and subsequently result in cost savings for the company? Lead the charge…
In my opinion, all three of the above items can be summed up by saying: “be likeable”. I can’t believe we needed a harvard study to tell us that. Not everyone is charismatic, companies need rockstars now who can do more with less…
Great points, Jack! Of course, all things being equal, if you are a nice, likeable guy with great ideas who is making yourself indispensable and there’s another guy who’s a real jerk but doing something important for the company, the study says he’s more likely to get the axe than you, regardless of how valuable his contributions to the company are. As a business owner, I’m not sure I believe that entirely, but thought the study was interesting nonetheless!