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Information on advancing your career is easy to find. Very few economists and job experts share strategies for sabotaging your career. If you have been searching for a “what not to do” guide, this is it. This article will cover four ways to ruin your career quickly. Here is a preview:
- Don’t Make Friends
- Don’t Go Above and Beyond
- Strive to Win Every Argument
- Write Really Long Emails Expecting Them to Be Read
Don’t Make Friends
Your co-workers are not your friends. They are your colleagues. To ensure you don’t build strong relationships (that could lead to future opportunities), tunnel vision on your work, stay in your lane, and avoid peering into your colleagues’ projects. Building rapport with people at work establishes trust. And trust will boost morale, producing better ideas and stronger execution. For this reason, you’ll want to avoid building relationships at work to deplete your career.
Don’t Go Above and Beyond
You were hired to do one job. Performing beyond your job description is not required of you. It stands out when workers help neighboring departments, stay late to finish projects, or lead important tasks. This kind of work stretches you, strengthens your work ethic, and stands out to your boss. To avoid earning praise and a higher rating on your performance review, do what’s in your job description and not a single thing more.
Strive to Win Every Argument
Disagreement at work is inevitable and healthy. Most work environments promote a culture of collaboration, healthy debates, and some level of competition. With good competition, ideas are refined, egos are put to death, and everyone gets practice collaborating, compromising, and executing a plan. Building a habit of letting things go, and prioritizing progress over pride, may lead you into healthy debates at work. And this will advance your career, not ruin it.
Write Really Long Emails Expecting Them to Be Read
The biggest myth about writing is that the denser the paragraphs, the clearer your message. In actuality, large chunks of text intimidate and bore readers. Hide important details in lengthy paragraphs, expecting the information to be understood and applied. That is the quickest way to ensure your emails don’t get read. Write how you talk, and let the word count soar. Writing drawn-out emails show an inability to be concise and clear, an invaluable skill in a leader. To ensure you do not advance your writing skills, maintain a reputation as a long-winded communicator.