7 Rules You Must Break to Be Super-Successful at Work

7 Rules You Must Break to Be Super-Successful at Work

by Bishwabandita Guru

Have you ever encountered anyone breaking so many rules and yet end up being admired? I’m sure in real life scenario this situation would have come many a times in everyone’s life when we end up supporting the rule breaker overwhelmingly and with vast majority.

Be they the most polarizing global figures or the most successful business barons, they once upon a time broke rules in ways that created success.

So before we start analyzing why people follow rules, we must first go to the roots why a rule exists and what harm or good it does. Rules are basically framed by experienced people and the purpose is to tell others what to do and what not to. And plenty among them just blindly follow and think no little more of the applicability of the rules at their situations and raise no voice against the feasibility to follow them.

Before blindly following any rule at your work, it is extremely important to analyze it with due diligence, consideration and thoughtfulness. The rule makers and supporters may shun you for breaking it. But still you can find support in few office groups if you are able to validate your stance. To break the rule that doesn’t suit your ideal is effective a trial by fire that comes with living in the spotlight.

So, mentioned below are the 7 rules you must break if you want to be super-successful @ work.

1^st rule to break: Speaking only when you are asked to.

If you happen to have been guided by a career guidance counselor, then he/she must have suggested you that when you enter  a new work set up, you must speak when asked to in order to create and maintain a cordial relationship with your boss as well as subordinates. The reason is, if you speak up a lot in your beginning days, you may be judged as being cocky or outspoken. But career counseling for experienced professionals stresses the importance of speaking up when you have useful ideas or comments. If you speak only when you are asked to and don’t express your views, you won’t be taken seriously and will be left to be bypassed by others. So it is necessary to break the rule of speaking only when you are asked to in order to climb up on the career ladder relentlessly and successfully.

2^nd rule to break: Counting days for the weekend to arrive.

The most painful way of living a professional life is to live for weekends till retirement. If you dislike most parts of your job and find yourself constantly wishing time away, if you count days for the weekend to come just to avoid the dread that your work brings in your life, it’s time you break the rule and go for an alternative job search or try for a job role in your organization itself that interests you. The best is to see a career guidance counselor, who can help and mentor you till you land your dream job.

 3^rd rule to break: Keeping your brilliant thoughts only to yourself.

Do you feel that your brilliant business thoughts and ideas may get stolen away by others? Perfectly alright! You are a great keeper of your thoughts! But, what about your thoughts carrying a prospect of driving your company and people miles ahead? Won’t you come forward to divulge and discuss them? Then how good is it to keep your thoughts to yourself? Break the rule and reveal them!

 4^th rule to break: Never mixing pleasure with work.

When the work condition gets to work, work and no play, it diminishes productivity. On the contrary, just add little leisurely moments to work and productivity manifolds. Higher rate of employee engagement comes as a result and employee branding strengthens. At the core of every successful employee branding strategy is the Employee value proposition (EVP). So never mixing pleasure with work is a strong rule to break that comes in the pathway to super success.

5^th rule to break: Shying away from asking for what you deserve.

People continue to work hard year after year, but when it comes to asking for a hike on salary or a promotion, they usually shy away from doing so. If you don’t speak up upfront, you stagnate your own value. If you are diligent worker and truly believe you deserve something better, break the rule of shying away from asking the things you deserve.

6^th rule to break: Racing too hard to win the career race.

Sometimes we want to win the career race so desperately that most of the time we spend tirelessly racing too hard. It is exhilarating to be a racer and amazing to be a winner. But ask yourself these 3 questions.

a) Are you just following your culture to earn lots of money, climb up the career ladder and have an impressive lifestyle?

b) Are you under tremendous pressure to perform hard or perish in your career?

c) Do you feel your over-indulgence in your career as a barrier to start and run your own successful business?

 If answers to these questions are ‘yes’ and you feel it is worth taking a drift off your focus, as winning the career race is not your true inner calling, please break the rule and take a bend! Your super-success awaits there.

 7^th rule to break: Inability to accept the consequences that comes out of confronting rules.

Possibilities are always there that confronting a rule can cause woe for others somewhere in the organization. Breaking an established rule comes usually with a measure of risk. As a famous headline reads in retail sector – “If you break it you own it”, owning our choice to break rules, I think, is part of being a responsible leader.

Those who stick to old and outdated rules often suffer from slow flow of progress or even at times the progress goes down to a trickle. Old rules stifle creativity and innovation. And they create roadblocks to the implementation of needed change. From this standpoint, I feel, it safe to say that the work of super-successful people and super-leadership includes breaking rules.