A Pawn to The Queen: How to be successful in corporate

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes || Estimated gain: Eternal 🙂

” At first they will ask why you’re doing it.

Later they will ask how you did it.”

~Anonymous

You don’t need to be a master in chess to understand this, visit https://www.chess.com/learn for that. Although, I am expecting you are aware of the power structure of the chess pieces.

I could have used A Pawn to The King, but that is an entirely different discussion, will do it some other day.

Being The Queen means to be the best asset for your lead (our king in this case), who is trying to be the queen of some other king. I hope you got the analogy it’s pretty confusing stuff I know.

In a team, the ladder of opportunities is always presented to the best assets first. Which you might already know, If not, Congratulations you know it now.
We will see how to become successful in corporate by being the best asset of your team every time. So, all the dreamers who are about to enter this new and challenging world or going to switch to a new paradigm. Let’s get started! Shall we?

Be a Pawn first

No doubt you are an epitome of smartness, accuracy, and intelligence mingled together. You don’t want to waste a second to make an impression and announce that ” The Champ is here!”.

Wait! no one wants to know that yet. Moreover, people don’t like strangers who act smart unless you are working for them.

Since you are brand-new they would be happy to see you dumb and clueless.

They don’t know you yet so avoid being cocky and let the ice melt slowly.

Be a Pawn, SIT and OBSERVE, be nice to them. Introduce yourself humbly to everyone you meet.

Even if she is the most beautiful girl in the team, for whom your eyes popped out and you fell at first sight on the first day itself, still exhibit yourself modestly.

Remember you are in the analysis phase and want to know these folks with whom you are going to spend the next few months or years. So, try to grasp more and show less.

Know your team. Who is the power center? Who is the knowledge center? Who is the princess here? who is the angry-head? who is what and what is who?

This is the most important step which will enable you to mold your conduct in order to successfully work with each of them individually later. Moreover, you will discover various unique qualities they all possess.

For example, in my early days, one of my teammates knew where to find all the older documents or anything for reference, another one was the master in technology and another told me all about the team dynamics. They all have something to tell you if you wish to hear it.

Learn to ask the right questions to right people and nothing can stop you, all you need to do is to switch your point of contact depending on the kind of the problem you are baffled with.

Be the best pawn on the board

Great going! Now it’s time to build your credibility.

I know you want to do some groundbreaking and meaningful stuff from the first day itself but initially, you might get some non-critical work only. But, these apparent breadcrumbs are very significant, remember “The first impression is the last impression” How you perform your first task will speak for itself and boast about you. Make it count!

How to do that? Hard work of course.
What? you don’t even want to do hard work? You lazy fellow!
Oooo… are you one of them? who says ” We don’t do hard work, we do smart work!” Ahhaa…!
Listen, do whatever you want but consider below points to be the best:

Find out what piece of the whole you are working on

Very important! The knowledge of where you and your team fits in the whole process like Nuts-Bolts will help you to understand what is the impact of your individual contribution on the final product (whatever it is). It will make your work meaningful, probably interesting too but will definitely enable you to align your output with the business goal of that task. Oh, Boi! everybody loves it!

For example, ever face this problem while signing-in on any website? “Either of your username or password is not correct” leaving you in the confusion that which one is it? I know… very annoying!

Back in my coding days, I was given a task to do some changes on a similar Login page showing the same message. Since the client didn’t ask for the detailed information no one fretted to change it, but the business goal of this page was to make the Login process seamless for the customer.

I hope you know the difference between client and customer. Suppose you are making furniture for IKEA ( https://www.ikea.com/ ) Here, the client is Ikea who is paying you to make the furniture, but a customer is that person who is going to use this piece of furniture in his/her home, office etc.

So, I asked my manager that I want to change this confusing message to a precise one for better customer experience, an add-on to the agreed-upon scope of the task. Clearly, it was not a significant deed, just an extra effort to tell the customers about, which one out of their Username/password is incorrect and saving them some trouble.

Everybody liked it. Simply because I took an initiative to align my work with the business goal. I hope you got my point. Don’t just do your work, know why are you doing it, what difference is it going to do, even if it is insignificant.

Clearly define your scope

Expectations out of any task should be crystal clear to you and your assigning authority. Ask as many questions you want to, in the beginning. Better frustrating them in the start rather than disappointing them in the end.

Articulate your understanding of the task and convey it to the assignee, that “as per our discussion, I think I have to do Blah…! Blah…! Blah…! Please correct me if I am missing something”.
Not only it will make things clearer, but it might also save your ass if things go south.

Time

After they tell you what to do, the next question is “How much time.eh?” Don’t just blabber anything, being on-time is one of the important characteristics of a credible person. Ask for some time to analyze the work.

If confused, ask your new friends about how much time is generally needed for such tasks, and always quote more than that. If asked why do you need more time? say for Quality assurance, it always works. Hehe…

If you want to prove a point that you are good, extended delivery time might be acceptable initially but inaccurate work will not be entertained ever.

Validate your work

Before you say ” I’m done” make sure your work is flawless. Test it rigorously, ask one of your new friends in the team to do it for you, but when you communicate your completion status to your manager. No one in this world should be able to point a figure at it.

Even then if someone points out an issue, accept it and correct it.

Harder it is for them to find a flaw in your work, higher your credibility in their eyes.

Appearance/ Presentation of your work

I am not talking only about Powerpoint ppts but even when you are making a document or drafting an email make it as easy to comprehend as possible.

If you are attaching a document such as a report in an email, try to provide a summary of it in a tabular format or few lines in the email itself. Well, it just shows that you took an extra step to save their time. Time savvy a prominent characteristic of a professional.

Accurate, On-time, Aligned with business, and Nicely presented, isn’t it a great work? Keep them in your deliverables and you will surely become the “Best Pawn on the board”.

Be the light

So you took care of things you had no control over like your teammates, your client’s business goals and complexity of the work given to you. Now, let’s look into something you do have control over. Your Conduct with others.

You can win their appreciation with your work but only your conduct can win their hearts.
Now, don’t say why do I need to win their hearts to be “The Queen”.
A manager manages the work of the people but only a leader rules the hearts.
In the start, we were talking about being the best asset and now this Leader stuff? Well, what do you want to achieve by being the best asset? Career growth rite?

What is the next milestone in that? A leadership position and journey from a team of few to… well, there are billions of people on this planet.

So, be modest about your strengths avoid boasting, everybody remembers or will soon come to know how well or poor you perform. Let your work speak for you.

Be respectful to everyone, everyone and everyone you meet. No matter who they are NO MATTER…!

Great! Now you know where you are, what you do and people around you have started liking you, at least those who matter if not all.

But, remember there can be only one Queen on the board, things we have done so far are a great start, but there is more to be done.

Which we will continue in the next edition of this article.
Since the content is too long for an article and too short for a book. We decided to release it in parts.
Visit Pawn to Queen: Part 2, your road map ahead to success!

Happy Success!

~R