A Piece of Advice

I had the opportunity to talk to some college students about going into the professional world. One asked, "What piece of advice do you wish that someone had given you when you were making this transition?" First, I told the student that I was already a restaurant manager and married by the time I graduated. My thought was that any advice I needed was far different from what a graduate with a few summer jobs needed. Then, in an effort to provide some guidance, I offered my thoughts on what I think sets school life apart from work. I told the student that business is about results; it is not about effort just about results. The student was taken aback and just said okay. I have listened to more than my share of internship and management candidates talk about dealing with team members that don't perform. In every case, they knew that the work still needed to be done, however, most of them simply redistributed the work or took it on themselves. Why? They had to get a result, as grade. In the process the poor performers get the benefit of the work or the students ratted them out to the teacher. They may be learning about results in some way, but they are not learning effective ways to deal with difficult people. In the work world, difficult people will be their greatest challenge and biggest obstacle to results. Far too many of them will run into savvy blockers that put their jobs in jeopardy and squelch their enthusiasm. We don't need to teach them about all the bad people, but they need to be expected to engage challenging people. It's about the results and when we get them by overburdening ourselves or others to cover for the poor behavior of a team member, there is more loss from the resentment and frustration.