The way you want vs. the way you appear in business management

I’ve come to the conclusion through my experiences as an entrepreneur, a business partner, and employer, and as a previous employee that some people lack the understanding of the most basic of social business principals. There are a few different principals that can be applied to this situation.

This post will be about the appearance you portray to the people you work with.

Basing this on social business principals I want to discuss how there are two ways to do the same exact thing. The first is ‘the way you want’. In this manner you have an objective and you work towards completing it solely based on reaching your objective. The second is ‘the way you appear’. This is where you choose your steps so that not only will you reach your objective, but you will also maximize credible exposure for your efforts. Some people call this playing politics.

While for the first few years of my professional career I was completely apposed to playing politics as I was a hard nosed no frill objective oriented worker bee. This helped me to work through the ranks of the company I worked for extremely fast. This was a relatively small company with 55 employees and $20M in annual sales. By the end of my second year I was the GM which made me the #3 in the company. I accomplished most of this utilizing ‘the way you want’ method. I took on every project I could and I did it exactly the way I wanted.

This method worked wonders when I was only being judged by the owner and the financial statements. Things changed when I became GM and I had to transition from doing all the work to managing the work. I could no longer just trample over people to reach my objectives. I had to learn to work with people more. I had to start using ‘the way you appear’ method. In its simplest form this means getting people involved, sharing responsibility, and also sharing credit. Failing to change to this method can be a great hindrance on your ability to succeed in executive management.