1. Be a capable colleague – That is to able deliver the results as per what you committed and agreed with your colleagues.  This is a work place.  What is important is the amount of work delivered.  The quality of work delivered.  What your peers or bosses are looking for is if you are capable of delivering and not if you are approachable to take on the tasks!  At the baseline, you are judge by your ability not your friendship level.  Just think, who will you look for to do a project together when you are being assigned one?  You will always look for those capable ones to team up with, right?
2. Be a friendly colleague – After your colleagues feel that you are trustworthy in delivering results and abilities assured, you are now judged by your approachability.  Are you friendly enough that colleague are comfortable to approach you for help?  Or you always giving a black face in front of them that they feel you are “untouchable”?  Be friendly, and you’ll be surprised that you will have more colleagues approaching you and you might be happier too!
3. Be honest – Whatever you do, be honest.  Your peers will be unpleased when they find out that their colleague is not honest.  Nobody likes to work with a liar (minus those that tells a white lie or a lie that is beneficial for the entire team).  If you do not know certain things at work, admit it.  Do not attempt to cover up yourself.  If you can’t deliver as per the specified time line, admit the problem that you have.  In the long run, when your cover is blown, you get an even bigger discontent among your peers than ever before!
4. Be empathic – Being friendly involves the ability to listen with your heart.  Your colleagues will not want to be patronised.  They want good advice from the heart. If you exercise empathic listening at work, we believed that you have quite a fair amount of influence on your colleagues. J
5. Smile – Lastly, smile! And smile often.  Smiling breaks the cold wall barriers between individuals!  The more you smile to your colleagues at work, the more likely they feel you are friendly and approachable.  They will list you as one of the candidates of a potential team mate.

So, with these methods, you will definitely find yourself in a position that everyone wants to approach you.  Do you have other methods that make people want to approach you instead?

1. You are seen by your ability to deliver results – That’s a plus point.  Your peers are confident with your capabilities at work.  But if you are often not delivering results, your peers will be resistance to approach you for help.  That is, you’ve got bad credentials…
2. You are seen by your consistency in delivering results – This is different from your ability to delivery.  This is about your consistent deliver as per your specified time line.  Is it luck or other factors that allows you to complete?  As the given impression is that you may not be trustworthy or confident results, they may feel hesitant to approach you for help.
3. You are seen by your reaction in handling situations – Do you get all work out?  Does your emotion fall into pieces?  Do you worry all night long over the situation?  Your peers would not want a fiery monster or a worrisome loser to be in their team, right?
4. You are seen by your consistency in handling situations – Again, it is the question of consistency and integrity in the way you deal with situations.  Are you trustworthy or do you treat each situation differently?  Note, flexibility can be exercised in different context.  The key thing is do you work on the same principle?  Do you have integrity?  Think. You would not want to work with a two-headed snake!
5. You are seen by the way you dress at work – Oddly, an individual with a poorer dress sense is always labelled a geek.  Your peers will immediate stereotype you and will that you are not approachable or “That geek doesn’t understand me!”  Our advice for you if you look like a geek: go around the nearest shopping mall and buy some proper executive clothes.  Make an effort in your dress sense and avoid being seen as the garage geek from just across the road!
6. You are seen by your personality in front of them – That is everyday, what you look like in front of your peers.  Do you look approachable?  Do you look like a worrisome person thinking of everything to worry about?  Do you look like a walking volcano waiting to be erupting on the next thing that comes in your way?  That is what your peers label you.  In this case, due to your negative personality, your peers will be hesitant to approach you for any help!

Having read these points, what do you think you are presenting in front of your peers?

1. Keep your emails – The most simple thing you can do at work.  Keep all your email conversations and archive them if you run out of space.  These electronic emails will be useful as evidences and proofs against biased remarks made against you in the event that calls for it! J
2. Document all conversations in the workplace – Document all verbal and phone conversations in an email and send it to the party that you spoke to get their consensus on the conversation content.  Being the same as keeping emails, it will become useful as evidences and proofs in future!
3. Be sure to have someone to standby you in any major decisions make – Find someone to back you up in any decisions you make.  Why?  First, you want to have a witness in your decision and when things go against you, you have a witness to standy you.  Secondly, you may not be able to make a major decision alone.  If you do, you might get yourself into trouble and that may be used against you in future.  Therefore, get someone to share the risk with you!  If it involves management, the troublemaker will have to think twice as there are consequences to it. J  (Part of deterring these troublemakers is to make them think of the consequences and the risk versus effort taken)
4. Attempt to covered most of your loop holes in your work – We cannot cover all the risks.  But at your best effort, cover all risk and loop holes.  You do not want to be uncovered of loop holes by your back stabber, right?
5. Always hang around with the “neutral” guys of the organisation – Avoid the “bad” or “loud” guys of the organisation.  It’s birds of the same feather flying in a flock.  Generally, “bad” or “loud” groups tend to be at some kind of office power competition (of any kind).  Therefore, you can avoid being becoming a pawn in the struggle by not joining the group.  However, having said that, it’s still up to individual preference on their social circle. J
6. Be neutral in most situations – Being friendly and not siding to anyone leaves you safe from most office power struggle.  If you do have a point you want to drive across, be firm but at the same time give room for alternatives to those potential back stabbers.  Give them options to choose that will beneficial to them.  If you do not do that, you may end up making enemies instead!

1. Are you unhappy because the job is not what you want? – Simple, this is not the job that you truly dreamed off.  End the misery early by finding something you like.  Avoid hanging in this misery for too long!  You will continue to be miserable if you hold on to it.
2. Are you always doing the “dirty” work? – You are always been given tasks that are of low value operational work.  You are not given tasks that are of high value instead you are always assigned to those meaningless jobs…
3. Are you being rejected for all your training proposals? – Whatever training proposals that you made to the boss are always rejected.  What’s worst is your peers are entitled for the course while you stay in the office to clear his plate of work!  Favoritism at its best again?
4. Are you not appreciated by your boss? – Whatever results you delivered is just not up to the boss’es expectation.  They brush you off with insignificant remarks.   They don’t really see the effort you put into your work.
5. Are you lowly paid compared to your peers in the market? – If the salary you are getting is not comparable to what the market is offering, it’s really time to move on.  You can wait for as long as you want, but what you need maybe a fatter salary package to feed your family, pay the mortgage and the car now!
6. Are you always blame for anything and everything? – Whatever things that happened, you are always blamed.  What’s worst is even you have made significant contributions or have been performing positively but is still blamed for minor details at work.  Is your boss finding all avenue to piss you off?  Or is there some short-circuit mechansim in their brain that they need to pinpoint your every mistake?
7. Are you at the losing end of favoritism? – You are always given unfair treatment.  You are not on par with the other colleagues when it comes to welfare and career progression.  You are always not considered for anything important except to work on simple, non-strategic work.  Guess what, you are not being favored by your boss!

If what these are you are experiencing at work, it maybe time to update your resume.  The world is round and there are lots of opportunities up there.  Again, we are always being make believed to be a better worker in office but not many advocate to leave the organisation if you do not like it.  Take this piece of advice as a note and see if it can be planned and applied in your context.

1. You are always selected for training – You are are selected to attend training most of the time.  Most training budget is allocated to you and not everyone is having that same fair share of pie.
2. You are always selected for the most challenging assignments – Nope you are asked to run those errands or minor tasks anymore.  Your boss trusts your capabilities and is assiging you for control to work on most challenging ones independently.
3. You are always called into important meetings – You won’t be left out for important meetings.  Your boss have arranged for an additional person to tag along into the meeting and that is you!  Furthermore, you are asked to cancel other meetings or appointments to attend this one at all cost most of time.
4. Your boss approaches you for decision and discussion – During normal work days, your boss will approach you for small discussions or seek a 2^nd opinion from you.  The frequency and content of the discussion is more than that of any other colleagues.
5. You are given protection against most fault and errors – Whatever faults happened or any error made, you are given additional protection as compared with your peers.  You are being shielded and supported on your mistakes!
6. Your boss invites you for lunch or dinner – Frequently.  He most comfortable asking you along for lunch and dinner.  That includes gender difference favors with personal agenda as well… but that’s one of the possibility that your boss will ask you out for a meal!
7. Your boss invites you to join his personal sports – You are there!  He LOVES you and wants to share his interest together with you!  You have transit from a surbordinate to a friend!

Congratulations if you have most of these in your list!  You are well loved by your boss and your boss can’t wait to talk to you every morning when the work day starts!  If there isn’t any resemblence of the list, fret not!  The least you can know is that there are room for improvements!  What are your indicators that your boss likes you?

1. Be sure of what you are doing – Always be sure of what you are doing.  Be sure of what you are handling.  If you do not know what you are doing, it’s advisable to find out more and be sure about it.  You do not want to be caught being vulnerable with being unclear of what you are doing, right?
2. Be sure of what is going on around you – That is, being sensitive to the surrounding, the going-on of the organisation, the management, the people, and your peers.  You want to be aware of the situation around you and not be vulnerable for your lack of awareness in the organisation.
3. Be humble on your achievements – Do not go around the office and tell everyone about your achievements and success story.  Ok you may not be shouting out to everyone, BUT are you in every conversation with your peers, trying to inject the topic of your individual success into it?  If you are, curb that habit!  Be humble and modest about it.  Let other’s know your success stories through words from your peers, not you!
4. Be always on your feet to sharpen your skills – Do always take time to improve yourself and skills.  Bring your skill sets to another level or learn another area of expertise.  The more proficient and knowledgeable you are in your field of expertise and experience, the less “surface areas” for the troublemakers to use your proficiency to exploit as a point of weakness.  Also with a new skill sets being acquired, you are more knowledgeable and prepared against their scheming attacks!
5. Be always increasing and improving your relationship with your colleagues – Do always increase your network of friends.  Also take time to improve and maintain the existing ones.  You want to knit a stronger and wider network that you can have support from.  With this network, you would have also established yourself a strong credential in the organisation.  This is a preventive measure against individuals that want to exploit your weak credentials in the organisation.  With a strong credential, they will not be able to exploit that easily.

These are preventive measures against prospective backstabbers.  There will be other methods of prevention as well but the list will certainly help you fend off or deter most troublemakers.  What is your method of prevention against backstabbers?

1. Are you always being put on the bad limelight? Anything and everything of errors and blame will be pointed at you.  Even little things that are insignificant have its roots pointing to you.
2. Have you always or mostly been denied courses even there are ample amount of training budget for everyone? Training budget is used for your co-workers but not you.  Is it because the bosses find that you will not be able to provide benefit to the organisation after you attended the course?  Or is it something else?
3. Have you always or mostly been denied from career progression? You like to progress in your career but always being denied the rights to it.  You are always not being considered for career progression as well.  You are always the last to be shortlist.
4. Are you always NOT selected for any new assignments? Whatever new assignments or projects are not given to you.  You are always not in the “fighting” list but always on the bench list.
5. Are your co-workers being invited for lunch and dinner with the bosses except you? Are you always being left out for any social events initiated by the boss?  The boss is exercising favoritism or has some negative opinion about you.
6. Are you been given unfair treatment? Rewards and punishment are always and totally different from other co-workers.  Is it the system that is having problems or is it favoritism at its best again?
7. Are you always the last to know in the organisation? Why are you the last to know?  Is it because you are not in their “fighting” list?
8. Are you always NOT included in meetings? Again, you are not in the “fighting” list.  You need not know all the on-goings of the company.  You can be sent off anytime if times are bad as you do not have any critical information pertaining to the organisation.

Yes, you are a potential candidate for the next retrenchment exercise.  Don’t fret.  Make effort to correct your “position” in the office.  If it doesn’t work or it’s really too late for that, be prepared for the worst.  Yes, that is the axe on your head.  The world is unfair and that’s why we need to be stronger to adapt into such situations.  Be sure to find alternatives.  Head out and talk to your network of friends for any opportunities.  Be open to what the outside can offer and not dwell into topic of the axe for too long.J

Ask yourself the following questions.  Are you comfortable and confident after going through the questions?  If you are then you are more likely that you are safe and ready from another recession-initiated retrenchment.  If you are not, then it’s time to buck on your skill set before any recession sets in!

1. What have you achieved till date in the organisation? Are the achievements significant that most senior management knows your name?
2. Are you a key contributor to the organisation? That is, the organisation cannot do without you?  Are you one of the key decision makers?
3. Have you been producing results annually? Have you been delivering what you are supposed to every year?  Have you been generating sales for the company or been delaying deliverables?
4. Have you always met your superior’s work target?  Simply put it, have you always met your immediate superior’s expectation?
5. Have you constantly improved your skills and competency? Have you been sharpening your skills or are you still the same after 5 years in the organisation?
6. Are you always the under-dog of the team? You are always the last in delivering results.  You appeared slower than your peers.
7. Are new rookies and co-workers been over-taking you? You are always compared on performance with the new guy sitting beside the pantry or Alex who had been transferred from the other department.
8. Are you redundant in your organisation? Are you in the mid-level management or functions that can be easily removed in the event of a merger or acquisition?
9. Are you on non-permanent employment? That is, contract, part-time or free-lance?  Contract staff will be the first to go as there are no legal obligations. Of course, not all part-timers and free-lancers are removed first.  It may be more effective to employ part-timers and free-lancers during the bad times instead to cut cost!

Knowing all these DOESN’T GUARANTEE that you will not be retrenched, however it does give you a level of assurance that you will not be in the top list and reduced the likelihood of being shortlist for being axed in the next retrenchment exercise! J

1. Do not go around the office for gossip sessions. This gives an impression that you have nothing better to do or you are always hanging around with people that have nothing better do at work.  Be careful, since you have nothing to do at work, the organization might as well axe you to cut cost.
2. Do not work for your competitor company. Some individuals work for competitors in attempt for create additional cash.  This of course, includes the selling of trade secrets to your company’s competitor.  What does it show?  It shows you are disloyal.  What’s worst?  You might get into legal issues when you are being caught red-handed.
3. Do not put a grumpy face at work. You need to find fun and happiness at work.  Find things that bring satisfaction and happiness at work.  Try more of it and develop passion to it.  You’ll be happier this way in these bad times.
4. Do not shun away from tasks that are deemed boring or mandate.  Always remember, every little task in the office contributes to the organization’s success.  Therefore, do not undermine the importance of each of every task.
5. Do not forget to recharge yourself. Work performance is not about the satisfaction of an individual.  You need to constantly upgrade yourself and fill yourself with new knowledge.  In this way, not only you improve your performance, but you bring additional value to the organization
6. Live up to what you promise. That is commitment.  It is not ok you’re your co-workers know you cannot uphold promises and loose trust in you. They won’t support you in future and will diminished your importance in the organization is
7. Do not sit around and wait for instructions to come to you.  Some individuals like to shun away from responsibility.  Yes, you won’t be directly getting the brunt.  But such mentality is short-sighted and won’t bring you far in the organization.  Therefore, be proactive.  Be responsible for your own actions.
8. Do not ride on your colleague’s achievements. Trust me; you loose one friend and make one more enemy by doing this.  Your colleagues loose trust in you and will never work with you again.  Be frank and honest.  Awards and achievements should be given to those who deserved it.
9. Do not patronise your boss’s cold jokes. What bosses need is creative and hardworking subordinates that delivers true results.  Not a boot-licker.
10. Do not bring personal matters at work. This is unprofessional.  There are colleagues that like to share about their family matters at work.  But you and I know that how many of us are really interested in someone’s family matters.  So at work, talk work. Stay focus and be professional.

Are you doing any of these dumb things at work?

Two-headed Snakes – Who are these snakes?  They are the one that doesn’t honor what they committed.  They are also the one that switch sides (on-the-spot) to another party when they see the situation is favoruable to them.  They can praise how good they are at managing the management and at the same time boot-lick the visionay the management are in front of them.  At the bottomline, they displayed their true intentions immediately when they find the situation favourable to them.  Most of us hate them and regard their existence in the workplace as disgusting.

Fox – They are the sly co-workers lurking in the workplace.  They tend to make plans in advance to create situations that’s advantageous to them.  The best part is you may never even know who they are or if you were part of their calculated plan.  They are smart and witty and may appear friendly in front of you.  However, behind you, you may unknowingly fall into part of their scheming plans

Dog – Dogs are the ones that are obedient to their “masters’ instructions no matter what.  They can be considered loyal as they follow to policies and guideliness strictly.  Simply put it, they just follow the rules.  They are not flexible in handling “gray” situations.  At times, they are blinded by the organization’s policy which annoys their co-workers as they lack flexibility and commit to unneccessary (unproductive) procedures.  Comparing with the foxes, foxes strives to use policies to their advantage while dogs prefered to follow them.

Monkey – Working with the monkey can be annoying at times.  Although they are witty and intelligent.  They are complacent and reckless, and often or not, they oversee details in the task.  Although, they do not pose much harm as the snakes, they can be somewhat annoying when they missed out the details which causes the need for re-work.

Sheeps – Sheeps are those that follow instructions blindly.  They never question the authority.  They are very amiable and at times too “soft“ to handle situations or conflicts.  They are easily taken advantage of as anything goes for them.  With their soft and anything-goes personality, they tend to follow the chief’s order or become a victim of the two-headed snakes.

Chiefs –They are the one that gather co-workers to support their idealogy or decisions.  Usually the idealogy defy his boss’s instructions.   If you have surbodinates of these natural, you know they can be a pain in the neck.  They are considered leaders of the group or the alpha co-worker where they can influence the other co-workers to support them.

Cruisers – These are the co-workers that ride along the achievement of others or the organisations.  They just hang around in the organisation without any contirubtion.  At times, you may wonder why these guys are doing in the organisation?

Which of these are presence in your organization?  Are they giving you hell or are they trying to find ways of survival?  Do you feel any resemblance with any of this characteristics?