You’re working hard and you’re doing what your boss tells you to do, even when you don’t feel like it.
If anyone deserves that promotion you’ve been longing for, it’s you. You’ve been with the company for years, and yet other employees who seem to have just joined recently, are getting promoted before you…
It’s not fair. Why do they get the raise? Why do they get the fancy company car?
Because hard work and loyalty make great factory workers.
Although these traits are admirable, you’ll walk into two fundamental problems if they’re your ONLY traits as an employee:
- Keeping your head down is a sure way to get you stuck where you are. Companies can only promote a small percentage of production line workers to leadership positions before the company stops being productive. And the compliant worker will often be picked last. Most followers make terrible leaders.
- You’ll be in direct competition with technical innovation and it’s a battle you won’t win. You can’t work harder and be more loyal than a machine. Machines don’t need sleep, machines make less mistakes, and machines never question what they’ve been told.
Hard work and loyalty are important, but they’re only part of the equation of what’ll get you promoted on the work floor.
The rewards will be going to the person who constantly questions the status quo and is able to inspire and bring the change that is needed to move the organization forward.
Although it’s essential to be working on the assembly line at the start of your career, make sure you’re constantly working towards becoming the person who builds a better assembly line.
The employees that reap rewards don’t row the boat, they make waves.
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