I have managed thousands of people over my career… when people use the arguments you are using, they have lost before they begun. I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but I do know people stand in their own way more than anyone else does…
An American success story died yesterday… he had it much rougher than most people growing up…
“Herman Cain was born on December 13, 1945,[1] in Memphis, Tennessee, to Lenora Davis Cain (1925–1982), a cleaning woman and domestic worker, and Luther Cain (1925–2005), who was raised on a farm and worked as a barber and janitor, as well as a chauffeur for The Coca-Cola Company President Robert W. Woodruff. Cain said that as he was growing up, his family was “poor but happy.” Cain related that his mother taught him about her belief that “success was not a function of what you start out with materially, but what you start out with spiritually.” His father worked three jobs to own his own home — something he achieved during Cain’s childhood — and to see his two sons graduate.[2][3]”
No doubt some people have it easier than others.
But life is a race and very few people start out so far behind they can’t catch up or so far ahead they can’t lose. But anyone that stops running… never finishes… Keeping with the athletic analogy, there are also people with bad coaches… but you can change coaches, as a child you are stuck with your parents… but as you grow older you can seek out mentors…
If someone convinces themselves they can’t succeed they won’t. But until I start hearing employers tell me that there are simply to many hardworking dependable employees to hire them all, I have a hard time believing people don’t have a chance to get ahead.
I don’t think most workers are bad employees because they stupid or lazy… I have never fired someone for being “stupid” and most employees that got fire for being “lazy” were not “lazy”, they just didn’t like their jobs. Hard to work hard at something you hate doing.
So the truth is most lazy people really don’t care about doing a good job. They don’t like their jobs so they don’t put much effort into them. They work because they “need” the money, but it never really occurs to them that the work they do is important and has to be done right and on time for the business they work at to function. I was always turned off by employees whose total focus was on what the company could do for them…
Employers are looking for people that want to do a good job… not employees who want a paycheck… the truth is only around 10% of employees are really wired to do the best job they can… they are the “gold” that most companies are built on… employers do what ever they can to keep them… How often do you ask yourself what can I do to be a better employee at my work…
Instead about 80% of employees have the basic skills to do the job and do it well enough to keep them around. The last 10% of employees at a company are “mistakes”. Rarely are they mistakes because they are not smart enough or can’t do the work, but most of them care so little about doing a good job, that they create more problems than they solve. This is the reality of the workplace…
So which category do you fit in? If you left a job would your employer think… no problem we can replace that person pretty easily and maybe do better… or are you one of those 10% that an employer thinks, how do I get the person to change his or her mind and stay… if you don’t know… you are in the bottom two categories… Now you really know you are in the top category, when your boss leaves and as soon as he or she is established in their new job calls you to offer you a new job at higher pay.
You keep talking like you think it has something to do with “brains” or “skills” and frankly those are good things… but as long as you work hard, in your employer’s interest, and are dependable, you can become “priceless”.
