Don’t Pass the Buck

It’s up to you to exert the power and influence to improve your work situation.

As with any circumstance where you find yourself less than satisfied, the place to start is with a careful – and honest – assessment of where you are.  That assessment can proceed in any number of directions, however.

• Carefully evaluate and list (in detail) what you love about your work, and what you don’t.  What can you fix?  Where can you take action?  Is there someone you could actually trade parts of your job with?
• Get out your latest performance review and identify a step you can take to improve.  Talk to your supervisor about any support you might need.
• Sit down for a conversation with someone who is both smart and sympathetic.  Talk about your work and what you want from it.  Sometimes, just articulating your dissatisfaction will enable you to see ways to address it.
• If your concern arises from a workplace dilemma or dissatisfaction of some sort, carefully evaluate your own role in it.  Rather than wait for something, or someone, else to change, what can you do to impact the outcome?

When you begin with the acknowledgement that you are more in control than you might think, you put yourself in a stronger position to effect change.  For most of us, finger-pointing and excuses are a knee-jerk reaction.  A normal defense mechanism.  Blaming rarely gets you what you want, though.

Taking a risk and stepping forward is never easy, and always risky.  It’s up to you to change what you don’t like and to find out what you really want at work.

Accept that responsibility, complete with its challenges, and you’ll get more of what you want from your work and your workplace.