Unspoken Rules at Work
I was recently listening to an episode of HBR IdeaCast. The conversation was with Gorick Ng, a career advisor at Harvard. He counsels young people on how to take on their first job in a way that puts them on the fast-track to success. He’s the author of the book The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right.
The episode sparked this post as it resonated with me based on my prior experience in the industry. The idea here is that they are some unspoken rules in the industry that no one explains to you when you start a job. Knowing them could kickstart your career and put you on the path to success. Top performers on every team usually do these things, but they don’t realize their importance in their success.
There are three different axes of being successful at work:
- Competence
- Commitment
- Compatibility
The minute you step into our workplace, your colleagues start to size you up to figure out whether you can do your job? They try to measure if you are excited and if you get along? To be successful, these three criteria must be met.
Learner vs. Leader mode
In a job, there are two different modes: learner mode vs. leader mode.
