Are you getting yourself fired? Recognise self-sabotage and avoid common mistakes

How’s it going for you at work? Are you on track to reach this year’s goals or are you falling behind? If you are in a constant cycle of mistakes, missed opportunities and high stress, you are probably heading towards a pink slip or a career setback. Recognise the behaviours and signs that are setting you up for failure and execute a turnaround.

Self-sabotage
Self-sabotage is not just about dramatic, emotional meltdowns at work, but more commonly about small, counter-productive actions. Together they compound into a steep dowward spiral for your career. The most common self-sabotaging behaviour is procrastination. Who doesn’t like putting off a task that isn’t urgent? You tell yourself that you will complete it faster closer to the deadline and will work on something more urgent today. When each day is about urgent tasks, not about what is important, you miss deadlines and deliver sub-par results.

The second sabotaging behaviour is perfectionism. The obsessive perfectionist is unable to allocate time and resources proportional to expected outcomes, and focuses on achieving perfection in one task. The time and effort spent are not justified, and other important tasks and deadlines fall by the wayside.

The other negative behaviour is doing the bare minimum in a given role. This is the passive approach, where you take no initiative to learn or contribute and avoid new projects till you are forced to do so. The employer ignores you and focuses on others who are willing to go beyond the defined scope of work.

A common negative behaviour that often correlates with other sabotaging behaviours is avoiding feedback. If you are dodging or dreading appraisals or project evaluation meetings, or even regular conversations with your manager, you are missing out on critical inputs and constructive criticism that could help you succeed and grow.

Finally, success at work comes from team contribution, which hinges a lot on interpersonal relationships. If you are neglecting relationships, you are missing out on team support and collaborative opportunities.

Unforced errors
One of the common mistakes that professionals make is that they become complacent as soon as they taste success. Settling down in a comfort zone is a sureshot career killer. The only way to keep up in a fast-paced world is to continuously learn new skills, improve on deliverables and pursue new challenges. Closely related is the second mistake of resisting change. With rapid technological and cultural changes at work, businesses evolve quickly to survive. If you are unwilling to adapt to new processes and team structures, you will be considered rigid and left out of the team.

The next mistake is ignoring new company culture. If you fail to recognise and adapt to your company culture or if you are a misfit with the company values or team dynamics, it could lead to rapid failure.

The next mistake is poor communication. Output is only one half of what your manager requires from you. The other, critical half is good flow of communication, including regular information about progress, adherence to feedback and instructions, and proactive resolution of misunderstandings. Learn to deliver clear, effective communication in a consistent manner with your manager and team members, and avoid misunderstandings and unmet expectations. The last mistake is not taking accountability and ownership for your actions, communication and outcomes. Without this, there is no trust and your reputation and career collapse rapidly.

You won’t always be successful in your career and many things will lie outside your control. However, by eliminating self-sabotage and common mistakes, you improve your batting average and avoid pink slips.

TURN AROUND YOUR STORY
OWN YOUR DISASTERS
When disaster strikes, own your mistake. Acknowledge where you went wrong, what steps you’ll take to mitigate the loss, what you learnt and how you’ll avoid it in future. Your maturity will help rebuild trust with the team.

GOALS AND INITIATIVE
Set clear, specific, measurable goals for the month and year. Tangible targets will keep you focused and energised. Add value and make progress on your, team’s and manager’s goals daily. Taking initiative will keep you engaged with work.

POWER OF FEEDBACK
Seek feedback for your work. Incorporate measurement systems for every task and project to stay on track. Feedback loops help solve problems before they escalate. Seeking feedback shows commitment to growth.

RELATIONSHIP INVESTMENT
The best long-term levers for career are compounding investments in professional relationships. Spend thought, time and effort to connect with your teammates and superiors. Seek joint projects, informal chats and non-work activities.

FACING CHANGE
Reframe your thinking to expect and embrace change at every step. Look forward to predicting change by studying industry trends, internal people and process changes. Be willing to adapt your work to include new ideas.

EARLY WARNING OF A PINK SLIP
1.LESSER WORK
Sometimes you have no forewarning and are terminated without notice. Mostly, however, you can recognise early signs that you will be fired soon. Is your workload reducing? Are you not staffed on critical projects? Either business is slow or their confidence in you is waning. Both are warning signs.

2.SILENCE
If you are not receiving any feedback from your boss, or are struggling to get regular meetings, perhaps your manager finds you less critical to the team. If you are not invited to office meetings and social gatherings, your team and superiors are distancing themselves from you. A huge negative.

3.SHRINKING RESOURCES
Your budget has suddenly been reallocated or next year’s forecast is nearly zero. If you are a manager, your team size has been shrunk drastically, while the other teams under your boss are unaffected. Unless you are given a new team or budget, signs are that you are being nudged out gently.

4.REWARDS & RECOGNITION
Are your key projects being given to your subordinates directly, bypassing your chain of control? Are they being directly feted for achievements without acknowledging your guidance? Are your individual contributions going unnoticed? The management has lost interest in keeping you engaged at work.

5.POOR APPRAISAL
One bad annual appraisal is not the death knell. However, consistent, negative, monthly or quarterly feedback is definitely serious. If the feedback is subjective, discuss and agree on tangible deliverables. If you are missing out on your sales targets or deadlines, tackle the problem head-on without delay.

THE WRITER IS FOUNDER & CEO, SALARYNEXT.COM, A JOB LOSS ASSURANCE COMPANY.