Welcome to Pick Your Tribe – Kick Ass at Work Lesson 11.

Your Work Tribe are the people you chose to help you thrive and enjoy your work environment.

We talk about “tribes” in our personal lives, but having a tribe at work is just as important.

On average, we spend over 40 hours per week at work therefore, it’s vital that the people we surround ourselves with are conducive to our growth and happiness.

Not breeding insecurities and doubt.

I know you can’t chose the people you work with, but you can directly influence who you spend time with and also specifically target those individuals who are going to help you grow professionally.

Outlined below are those three Work Tribe Members that I recommend you find.

So here we go: Pick Your Tribe – Kick Ass at Work Lesson 11:

The Mentor

Your Mentor is the person in your company that you want to be like.

Normally the person whose job you want to have in the future.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be your boss btw.

Your Mentor is going to be that person who has more experience than you, is more senior than you and someone who you can go to for advice and career direction.

Some companies have Mentoring schemes, if your company does, then make sure you are using it. If your company doesn’t, then pick your own Mentor.

You will meet with your Mentor at least every 3 months to talk through work problems and more importantly strategize on your career and how you can get promoted.

All you have to do is identify that person, arrange to meet them and ask them to be your Mentor. Stress it shouldn’t be onerous for them and will consist of one hour every three months.

It’s as simple as that.

The onus is on you to ensure that the meetings with your Mentor are meaningful and productive. Therefore, prepare for them. They are not the forum to ask for advice on petty problems.

The meetings with your Mentor are strategic, bigger picture stuff.

The Brain Storm Team

Identify three or four work colleagues, probably in your immediate team who you can pull aside as and when you need to brain storm any obstacles you may be facing. The saying “two heads are better than one” is a valid one, whatever you may be experiencing at work, fall back on your colleagues to help you.

Perhaps this is stating this obvious to some of you, but I’ve noticed how some people tend to keep themselves to themselves at work and don’t want to share challenges with their peers because they don’t want to appear weak.

If this is you, you are missing a trick.

Please make the effort to get to know your colleagues and use them as your support network.

All help each other.

Obviously, you don’t want to exclude people, so you need to adapt this strategy to suit your work place, but I recommend you identify three or four people and ask them if they are interested in forming a brain storming team for each other.

You can either agree to meet on an Ad-Hoc basis as and when you need each other OR you commit to meeting once a month for breakfast or lunch to touch base and brain storm OR it may be as simple as setting up a WhatsApp group that you post into when you need support or advice.

The Confidant

This tends to happen naturally anyway, but find that one person at work to become your friend as well as being your colleague.

If you haven’t got that person, then find someone.

I truly believe having a friend at work who is also a colleague gives you so many things:

  1. Honest feedback about your behaviour or performance.
  2. Someone to confide in if you’re experiencing personal problems.
  3. They’ve got your back.
  4. Support each other in times of need and obviously help each other to shine.
  5. Someone to go to work socials with.

As I said at the beginning, you spend so much time at work that it’s really important that you build the right tribe of people around you.

Some companies lend themselves to be more social and friendly than others, so I appreciate it can be hard to make friends in some places.

However, it shouldn’t be impossible.

I hope this has helped you.

Other articles that may be of interest to you:

Don’t Work Long Hours

Bad Boss Management

Manage Your Calendar

Gemma

xx

Click here for a copy of my free e-book: The Happiness Revolution: Instant Happiness Volume. In the book I outline 13 ways to instantly improve your mood, now!

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