Handling a difficult boss

During the course of your career, you may always run into a difficult boss. While some can be simply forceful and insistent, others could be impolite and uncouth. In most cases when a boss tends to be insulting and offensive, the general impression generated is that he has problems on the domestic front on account of which he has adopted and intimidating disposition. You may not be able to bring about a change in such disgusting outlooks but that does not, in any way imply that you have to subsist through a frightful work life.

Your boss, howsoever difficult he or she may be, should not be allowed to have a free run and exercise control over your life. Some methods to tackle difficult boss situations are:

· Have an alternative line of action at hand: People are generally apprehensive of sitting across the table to discuss outrageous boss conduct. They either worry about being castigated or even losing a job. Such worries are justifiable when a boss feels endangered by juniors. Therefore, to have an alternative line of action at hand is recommended prior to any initiative to deal with your boss in this regard. The alternative line of action can be implemented if your boss seems incorrigible. It entails having a secured job offer in hand prior to discussing your boss’ misconduct with him because you cannot be certain if the boss will be relenting or not. But in case you do not, you afford your intemperate boss an opportunity to further subdue you.  

· Refrain from reacting expressively to ill-treatment or punitive disparagement: You may land up in difficult situations yourself because of clash of self-esteems. There will be every possibility of your boss harbouring a bigger sense of self. If at all you are subjected to a dose of personal condemnation, the intention could well be to prompt you to react sensitively so that you become easy targets for additional such attacks. You simply have to grant and carry on; in the process, you will successfully strip your boss of all sway behind such attacks without creating a dispute. You need to remain balanced and poised; saying sorry will be in the fitness of things.

· Engage in a dialogue instead of an open altercation: Any impulsive action on your part to take your boss head on will lead to deteriorating circumstances for you. You could well make use of censure, reproach and disapproval as an opportunity to discuss various concerns and objectives; and solve thorny issues, requesting assistance, if necessary. If it is your work that comes in for denigration, it implies that your boss harbours affixation on how needs to be done. Under such situations, seeking guidance on how to go about and bring improvement is a viable option.

· Dealing with a new boss: A new boss may lay down new working procedures and that may generate some resentment. There is always hostility to change and most employees generally keep doing their jobs as hitherto fore till such time the new boss intervenes and disapproves the entire working methodology. Therefore, you need to display foresight and to avoid any subsequent admonition or rebuke, get on the same wicket as your boss. Any assignment can be undertaken in numerous ways and hence, discussing its modalities ab initio will help you to comprehend your boss’ perception and also making yours known to him. You need to be cognisant of what your boss likes and dislikes.

· Realise that you cannot alter your boss: The very fact that your boss is difficult implies that his personality is such and that you can do nothing substantial to alter his stance, attitude and conduct. Your efforts should be directed to bring about a change in how you regard his comportment. Just because he happens to be your boss, you should not brand him as thoughtless and imprudent; but if you persist with such an approach, you are more liable to anger yourself and develop animosity towards him.

· Maintain a professional stance at all times: Professionalism entails going ahead with assigned tasks in an obedient manner. Differences apart, you need to realise that as a subordinate, you have no option but to comply with the directions of your boss. You also need to introspect and assess your own outputs, requesting feedback from your colleagues, if required. There could be people who support you and this is bound to make your boss take a relook at things and alter his behaviour.

· Reporting to higher-ups should be last option: If you do so, you are increasing disturbing workplace harmony. You may be viewed as a back-stabber and your boss could be inspired to harbour a silent grudge against you. Whistle-blowing may not be seen in positive light by even some of your co-workers. Sitting across the table with your boss should be your first priority.

Remember that your charter of responsibilities apart, your job is also to make yourself as flexible, alert, brainy and adept in as many situations as possible. And such traits are required to be displayed in your dealings with your boss – good or difficult. 

Plan your career success

There are hundreds of people who keep struggling and wallowing for decades without having any comprehension of why things have not turned out in their favour. Success continues to elude them. The job that they are in and the career path that stands in front of them are more often than not a consequence of coincidence. Evidently, the options that they have exercised that have brought them to wherever they happen to be in their life are not an outcome of a well-defined and conclusive preparation and scheduling.

If you are truly keen to boost your prospects of success in your career, you need to formulate a personal growth plan. This will serve to offer you a precise ‘to-do’ list of actions for the purpose. What you need to do is to make certain that all chances and probabilities are harnessed in your support to accomplish whatever you set out to in your career. And this can be achieved by the growth plan that you make for yourself. In order to lay the e foundation for success in your life and career alike, you need to understand:

·  What a growth plan comprises: You growth plan encompasses certain highly specific components that need to be reduced to writing. In essence, they are your individual career plan, actions that you need to take, your fortes, your principles and objectives that you set for yourself. Once you have it in a written form, you can always peruse it periodically and be reminded and goaded to move forward to materialise it. With regard to your fortes, you need to be clear about how they can facilitate your move ahead.

· How a growth plan helps you: Your growth plan impacts the manner in which you lead your life. Most of us live in the present, rather the current moment and are thus prone to respond to various changes that take place in our surroundings and resultantly on our lives. The foregoing notwithstanding, all of us harbour aspirations and yearnings as also an earnest desire to be successful. But if your compass bearings are not set properly, it is evident that you will head on the wrong course. The growth plan that you formulate will manifest your precise aims. If followed sincerely, it is unlikely that you will go off-track and fail in achieving your objectives. Your growth plan will prove to be a very useful tool to progress deliberately through a specific career path. You will be able to judiciously and decisively consider where you are in your current career, where you intend to be, how you think you can get there and how you will judge the effectiveness of the actions that you take.

You have to understand that creating a personal growth plan is plain and simple hard work. And following through on the plan and sustaining your efforts is something that may not come easy at first. It is bound to take time and a considerable amount of discipline. As a matter of fact, the process may involve some introspection to find out ways and means to deal with those facets of your life that so far you have felt were not possible to be addressed. All along the following aspects should always be remembered:

· Your growth is your responsibility and to attain your dreams, you need to regularly set higher yardsticks and targets. To start with, you should be fully aware of your strengths and weaknesses.

· If you really seek to be at the wheels, you must have well-defined objectives and the time frame in which ought to be achieved by you. Once attained, you need to assess yourself afresh and adapt proactively the limits of your job and functions.

· Stiff competition will be posed to you by others as you move ahead. You need to overlook trifling contentions and yet find a way out to keep moving forward.

· You may not be able to move ahead on your own steam. You may require guidance and which you will need to have a mentor. It is not that you will fail totally, but with a mentor by your side, you will be able to acquit yourself creatively, effectually and vigorously.

The crux of the matter is that sans any exact line of action, you will not be able to reach the zenith of your career, howsoever hard you may slog or remain devoted to your work. It requires only efforts of two or three days to formulate your growth plan and once formulated, you will realise that you possess the requisite three Cs - capabilities, capacities and confidence – that will impel you forward in attaining the career and life that you have always sought. Positive alterations will automatically be brought about in you and which will steer you towards success.   Although success does not come immediately, good judgment, conscientiousness, industriousness and careful planning are what it takes to propel even an ordinary career to enviable pinnacles.

Benefitting from a sudden job loss

“Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.”

― Lauren DeStefano

Jobs today are like roller-coaster rides; they may come and go. Some job losses could be forced like when a company is downsized and the axe falls on you, despite having worked satisfactorily for a number of years. There are some that are voluntary, but nonetheless anticipated; you yourself decide to quit because of various reasons. However, the strain and ordeal are just the same in both.

A job loss is a loss, whether expected or not, whether voluntary or otherwise. It is rather difficult to foretell who will survive an unexpected job loss and flourish thereafter, their background or reasons for the crash notwithstanding. This is a fact relevant to everybody – men or women, young or old and leavers or losers. But while some people cope with it in a positive manner, others find it difficult to terms with. How is that possible? Having rendered jobless, what are the vital tasks that need to be done to put your career back on rails?

Anybody who is able to bounce back will agree on one singular truth and that is that the revival process is gradual and not overnight. The period can extend to weeks and months. You may discover shortcuts in your job search, but finding them for your emotional regaining is indeed difficult. The transition to a fresh stability will have to undergo three elemental phases entailing forgetting the past, remaining without a clear identity for some time and then embarking on a new path. These phases are:

· Liberating yourself of the past: The maiden step required to be taken by you is severing your links with your previous job – both physically and mentally. You must refrain from making references to or using your old designation, status or associations till you are secure at some other place. Your old company should be out of your mind, including what is transpiring there or what is happening to whom there. You may find your experience enjoyable and to some extent also invigorating. But the fact is that you will find it difficult to reconcile to the fact that you are jobless. You will be able to come to terms with it when you mourn its demise once and for all and understand that on the emotional plane it is all over. This phase can be trying alright, but it has to be undergone. 

· Lolling about to open up: People have varying personalities – they could be loud and unreserved or quiet and reticent; bright and buoyant or gloomy and unenthusiastic; and precise and measured or creative and imaginative. But when a crash hits them, there could be drastic changes in their outlooks. That apart, you need to be flexible in your approach because you are now required to cut through your skylines and cogitate all-over again as to who you are and what you aspire to be. You need to afford yourself time to reassess your abilities and aspirations. This will be possible only if you repel the stunt of settling in a new career straightaway. This phase will be one when you could be devoid of an identity, but you can overcome this disturbance by treating your present times like a vacation. It is only when you have come to terms with your job loss should you think of get going once again.

· Taking the forward plunge: Your lolling about automatically ceases when you decide to take on a job. Your precedence should not be to find a job alone. While at a job, people regard it as central to their life and a source of their [H1]  self-esteem, self-confidence, pride and dignity. Little do they realise that it is devouring all their time and there is no happiness in their life. That is why, it is necessary to go through a self-awareness exercise before taking up a job or career. Now that you happen to be once bitten and twice shy, you need to alter that arrangement. You need to consider all things more holistically and accord priorities to other things that you now realise are important. Your new job could well turn out to be a different pursuit altogether, a new beginning as they say.

Following a sudden job loss, you should view your life as a fresh chapter. You should explore yourself one again. And if you are persevering enough, you will emerge as a more self-assured and assertive individual. You will find your new job or career rewarding on both your individual and professional planes. Remember that there are as many worlds as there are kinds of days. You ought to realise that if a door closed, it was because whatever was behind it was not meant for you. Just as an opal changes its colours and its fire to match the nature of a day, so can you. You always raze the old to raise the new.

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Be career-conscious to maintain a lead

Quite a few people tend to sail through their careers from the time they take up a job and eventually superannuate. While they go to work every day and sweat it out, they are not truly sentient of their career, particularly when it comes to giving it a direction for achievement of their objectives. But people who are career-conscious deliberate on what seek to accomplish in their professional endeavours and devise ways and means to do so. Consequentially, such people remain at the wheels and are generally not dictated by others or events. They are able to visualise and address hold-ups to their benefit.

Here are ten aspects that you need to do to be career-conscious and maintain a lead over others in your career journey:

· Remain at the wheels: To believe that your company or manager is responsible for your career development will amount to being presumptuous. You should be aware that the responsibility is yours and hence you have to be at the wheels and navigate through your career successfully.

· Be aware of happenings around you: Primarily, this entails being awake and responsive to what is happening in your company. Today, with stiff competition around, companies tend to be impacted by global developments over which they have no influence whatsoever. Therefore, if you are alert, you will exert yourself successfully at your job. In quite a number of instances, people tend to take impulsive or uninformed career decisions and land up in unforeseen difficult situations. If you want to be always ready for unforeseen developments, it is essential that you keep your eyes and ears open.

· Engage yourself in continual learning: While your company may organise learning and development programmes, the basic responsibility to update your skills and knowledge is yours. The initiative has to come from you alone. You cannot wait for your company to ask you to improve your qualifications or develop a particular skills set. If you think that your company will make available to you the wherewithal or details, you will be sadly mistaken. You will have to ideate all plans to increase your individual worth, experience and knowledge on a continuous basis.

· Nurture potent associations: All successful people invariably have a wide network of people and influence. They always have people readily available on whom they can bank upon. You need to foster excellent relationships with your co-workers and seniors alike because you can never predict when you will require their assistance. Learning from people in your contact base is always a big possibility.

· Seek periodic appraisals: It is essential to be aware if you are pulling on well with your boss. You should know how he or she views you and this can be possible only if you sit across the table and seek an appraisal about your performance. Doing so will reinforce the psychological robustness of your work place, an aspect necessary to put up with your career.

· Be on the lookout for openings and prospects: Most of the times, people are nor even aware of various opportunities available within an organisation for career advancement. But if you keep your wits about, you can always let people know about your willingness. It is also essential to keep an eye on openings elsewhere too and for that you will need to establish liaison and contact with individuals outside your company. Social media sites are a good platform for the purpose.  

· Evaluate your worth: Depending upon your experience and length of service, you will have to your credit a definite worth that is centred on them. Needless to state, but important is the point that such worth is perpetually connected with some people and groups in your life as also your availability. To be able to move forward, you need to know what your worth is and who is likely to appreciate it.

· Build an exclusive brand image: It is all about being able to project yourself in the job market. Your CV is a potent tool towards this alright, but you need to focus on making use of social media sites for the purpose. Your presence on such sites needs to be controlled too so that the image is portrayed in consonance with your intended objectives.

· Don’t deviate from your path & be explicit: If at all you want to affect any change in your career at any time in your career journey, you will need to be precise, detailed and unambiguous. It is your degree of clarity with regard to whatever you want to seek and how you intend doing so that will help you to move forward.

If you want to be career-conscious, you need not take giant strides or mammoth decisions in a single day. Small, progressive steps to take charge of your career and reach the endpoint of your career journey will be inescapable. 

Dogmata that shore up career success

Whatever results we achieve in life, they are contingent on the principles and values we have relating to ourselves, our surroundings, our conditions and our work. They also depend to a great extent on what the future holds for us and our adeptness and capacities to influence the turn of events.

While there could be several dogmata that have an effect on our capability to embark upon a successful career, major ones harboured by people are:

· I can craft my own actuality: Anything that you select to ruminate on or experience about and eventually do that, expresses your actuality that is originated. If you believe that your life is spinning out of control and success is eluding you, you will tend to be left high and dry. You will start relying only on providence. Remember that whatever you dream gets transformed into accomplishments and from such accomplishments, additional dreams   come to you. It is this cyclic phenomenon that generates the utmost form of existence. Success will never become an actuality unless you get going to make your dreams into actualities.

· I have confidence in my abilities: When you are cognisant of your dexterities and hold them in regard, you will definitely strive to apply them to practical situations. But if you suffer from any reservations or qualms about them, you will always be reluctant in your outlook and in the process fail miserably at clutching prospects that keep passing by. Hesitation and disinclination will be quite a common occurrence when you have to move outside a relaxed environment and experiment with new things. That is the time when you need to be really confident about your capabilities and belief that success is crucial for you.    

· I have full faith in whatever I am doing: If you take up a job or a career that does not hold out much significance or sense for you, it is implausible that you will ever flourish. You need to give wings to your passions in a manner that is of benefit to you and the world. It is an established fact that when you engage yourself in any activity that you adore and with a conviction that it is of import, your disposition, attitude and life-force gets uplifted. The greatest satisfaction of life is the conviction that tells you that are correct. In other words, you need to have full faith in whatever you do.

· I know that I am competent enough to do better: Restraining your self-confidence will invariably render your life unrewarding. You should be certain of your capacity, the external boundaries of which are determined exclusively by your individual convictions and imaginations. You may set any number of objectives for yourself and perhaps identify several ways and means in terms of skills and knowhow to attain them. That by themselves may not suffice; you must have confidence in your own faculties, competencies and potentials to attain success. 

· I know I can learn more: The knowledge base that you have today will not see you through your entire life and career. At some stage or the other you will realise your deficiencies and feel the need to acquire more. But if you fail to take any action, you are bound to stagnate. You should not believe that you have crossed the learning phase. You should feel confident in your ability to learn. 

· I do believe that I can defy all tests & trials: Your career journey will have its share of ups and downs; evidently the downs will be exasperating and trying. Most people tend to give up in the wake of difficulties. It is essential that you do not get bogged down when you get stuck; any impediment or obstacle that you encounter should goad you to think and find a way out. You must keep doing your utmost with a conviction that you can bring about a positive alteration to the situation that you are faced with or are in currently. If you happen to harbour any signs of a wounded outlook, the earlier you shed them, the better it will be. Despite all the tests and trials, you need to feel that you are the author and potentate of your own fate and future. It is only then that you will succeed in negotiating various hurdles in your life. 

· I am an original and not a dual personality: To be successful, it is inescapable to be an authentic and genuine individual. Even while building your network, you have to be so. You must guard against any presumptuousness with regard to emulating behaviour that does not gel with you. Trying to hide behind a smokescreen is unlikely to lead you anywhere other than failure. Your actions and deeds should be in harmony with you are and nobody knows you better than you yourself. Remember that having a dual personality will never help you in the identification of your shortfalls, as a result of which, you will never be able to affect any self-improvement. 

To accomplish great things in your life and career, you need to act and also dream. You also need to plan and believe. There are many rules for success, but none of them will work unless you do. Victory invariably belongs to the person who is most resolute.

Lead your team competently

A team leader gets his team from where it is to where it has not been. He or she is supposedly a dealer in hope and unlocks the potential of all team members to become better. And in doing so, he is the chief but not the lord. He is the very influence that brings about team success.

Are you due for elevation to the post for a team leader? Even if you are not, there is nothing inappropriate in know what a good team leader should be all about. A team may comprise technical and non-technical members and hence, being a team leader calls for assorted skills. That is why everybody cannot be a competent team leader. But you can always acquire or improve upon certain skills like:

·Good communication skills: A proficient team leader will have mastery over his words. Communication is something that is beyond talking. It is also about writing, body language and listening. As an effective team leader, you must have the ability to not only communicate with different types of people in different echelons. You deed to do it well with your team, your seniors and your counterparts heading other teams. Remember that good communications always lead to good comprehension, familiarity and mutual valuing. And that is what fostering team spirit is all about.  

· Poise and cool: As a team leader, being able to maintain your calm under conditions of stress and strain is an inescapable attribute. You team could be assigned difficult assignments entailing great effort, deadlines and pressures from within and outside. And God forbid if things go wrong, there will be pressures of a different kind. Being able to maintain your poise and calm is what you as a team leader should be adept at.

· Accountability: As a team leader, you simply cannot pass on blame to someone else. You have to be accountable for your actions and decisions. It is necessary that if at all you make a mistake or wrong decision, you do not run away from them. On the contrary, it will be appreciated if you acknowledge them and initiate necessary action to offset their fallout. You will have to ensure that their recurrence is prevented. In fact that should be the guiding philosophy for everyone, but it is more applicable to a team leader for certain.

· Appreciation: If your team members have to respect and believe you, they should be well-integrated into the team. And the best way to do so is by acknowledging their efforts, howsoever big or small they could be. While acknowledging the good work of any team member individually is always advisable, indulging in it for your team as a whole will keep your team contented, efficient and upbeat. As a team leader, your mantra should be, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” This will be adopted by your team if you value individual contributions.

· Persuasion: This is intrinsic to your role as team leader and leads to things getting accomplished. Persuasion implies convincing your team members about a plan that should be implemented as also others who would need to be approached for release of required resources like additional manpower ore finances. This ability will help in your career advancement.

· Decision-making:  As a team leader, you job entails several issues, including having the power to arrive at prompt decisions. You should be able to formulate a line of action that has applicability in diverse circumstances. This can be done by studying different facts, evaluating them for their effects and outcomes and selecting on a particular choice from amongst several of the. It is important that a choice once exercised should not be changed unless situations themselves get altered.      

The prime task of a team leader is to ensure that loyalty of the team towards the team is maintained and motivation levels of all members to achieve team goals are kept high. To that effect, you should be able to work effectively on a team. Remember that you may be a team leader that places you in a slot above others that necessitate making decisions, nevertheless, you should always ask people what their opinion is. It is also essential that you should find a task for everyone, no matter what their skill or level happens to be. And most importantly, you should enjoy being a team leader. You will have to display due seriousness to all matters, but then that does not imply that you cannot have fun. As a routine, you must always try to balance the serious business at hand with regard for the morale and spirits of the team. Last but not the least, you have to lead by example.

Twigging career advancement

Who doesn’t want to see his or her efforts being appreciated? If your senior praises you for a project well-executed or when you are felicitated for outstanding contributions, don’t you have pleasurable feelings? Words of praise are one thing, but all of us want to experience advancement. But quite a few amongst us do not have any scheme of action for the purpose. In order to attain your objectives – both in career and life – simply winning words of praise is not enough. You need to have an assiduous and systematic outlook towards your career plan.

Career advancement will entail change in designations and additional responsibilities to shoulder. How can you witness it? You may consider seeking help from a career counsellor who can peruse your objectives and assist you to gear up for move head. You may have to provide extensive details, including information about your present job, if any and the possible position it can take you to. Such information may also be obtainable from your employer together with relevant qualitative requirements. The career counsellor will be in a position to contour a complete career path for you and indicate additional efforts by you en route. A mentor should also be able to help out in this regard.

Irrespective of the fact whether it is a career counsellor or a mentor, the important point of the matter is the affiliation and rapport that you infuse into the dialogue. If you are truly self-aware, that is, if you are mindful of your history, circumstances, knowledge, proficiencies and objectives background, the conversation process will definitely be more fruitful. Every single title in your selected domain will invariably call for particular knowhow to obtain it and move on to the next higher one. Each specific knowhow as an entity should be viewed as your personal achievement.

Your career counsellor or mentor may gauge your aptitude or have a tête-à-tête about your existing skills and compare them with the qualitative requirements indispensable for your career progression. Based on the inferences drawn, you can make arrangements to acquire them. If you are already working, you can even approach your management for assistance.

If while exploring the environment, you get an inkling of lesser prospects of growth with your present employer, you can always consider the option of moving on to another company where things are perceived to be more favourable. In case you decide to do so, your resume has to be structured appropriately. Indicating in the resume your intention to advance in your job and career and therefore the change of career line is advisable. Stating that will add potency to your application. However, you must endeavour to find out what your new employer is seeking and underscore your demonstrated performance in your previous job utilising similar expertise. It is also prudent to not to overlook your drawbacks and shortcomings; a mention can be made during the interview with an assertion that you can learn new roles fast and well. Your new employer will not treat this as a disadvantage.

You may apply for a new post in your present company or another company. You can get to know what it calls for only from a person who has served in that appointment or is currently serving. Your aim should be to talk to a present incumbent. In the case of another company, you must find out company policies for employee growth within the organisation or whether they lure and hire a suitable candidate working in a different company. In a nutshell, you should get to know the facts related to how the company values its staff and if serving personnel are given opportunities to ascend the career ladder or not.

In the case of career advancement with your present company, you must view those who are serving in appointments that you seek. For all you know, it may come to your knowledge that a particular employee has resigned. Under such circumstances, you must interact with the concerned employees and discern what that post is all about. Networking with people in that department or vertical will help in your name being considered whenever an opening is there. You must regard your career advancement not as a lone act of one step up, but part of your persistent efforts of moving up one step at a time. However, you must not be found wanting in updating your skills and making your efforts known to people who matter.

People generally accept as true that luck too has a role to play in career advancement, besides aspects like circumstances, academic pursuits and networking. But you need to understand that none of these by themselves can be of any benefit. You will require a premeditated and pre-calculated plan. Your career advancement has to be an intentional subscription to a long-term line of action that has inherent in it well thought-out objectives. The objectives have to be in sync with your penchants and inclinations.

  They say that opportunities are like elevators; they arrive and open their doors only for those who wait. And if you get out of focus, the doors will close. The decision to progress to the next level lies within you and no one can make that decision for you. 

Settling down in a new job

Settling down in a new job may not be easy. Your new company may be quite different from your previous one. Therefore, you should, without much delay get to know what is expected of you and how to go about doing and getting things done. In other words, you will have to establish yourself quickly and effectively in your new role.

Kicking off a new job is a formidable effort because there is everything new for you there. If you do not go about seriously at your new job, chances are that your jubilation will give way to apprehensions and misgivings. Despite various reservations, your initial days at your new job can be made remarkable. If you want to facilitate the adjustment process, you need to organise yourself. How can you do that? Some general guidelines are:

· Don’t pay heed to inconsequentialities: You should overlook trivialities and understand that you are a human being first. Small slip-ups like not recollecting names or venues can be quite bothersome, but there would have been many like you. Such gaffes will not be a yardstick of your capabilities in your new job.

· Dress appropriately: You must get to know dress regulations in advance and then follow them in letter and spirit. Your own comfort in wearing a particular attire notwithstanding, being wrongly dressed can add to your woes in an already worrying atmosphere.

· Be amiable: You should display affability at all times, though you will take time getting acquainted with your co-workers. If ab initio you are friendly, others will open up with you sooner than usual. This is more pertinent if you happen to be joining in a senior designation.

· Know the work culture: You must familiarise yourself with the ethos and values of your company. This would necessitate making a note of various arrangements and implicit challenges, besides identifying people with whom you could possibly build relationships. Every organisation has its own working philosophy and hence you should avoid imposing yourself.

· Discern skills necessary for good performance: All new jobs have inherent contests and defies; and call for expertise that perhaps you may not be having as yet. You must discern them and formulate an appropriate line of action. When you go about like that, besides the buoyancy that you will generate in yourself, you will create a positive impact on your seniors for your initiative.

Your initial months will be hectic and demanding for obvious reasons. But you can always make the adjustment to the new environment a pleasant experience and eliminate any trepidations that you may be harbouring. You can achieve this by:

· Take recourse to known stress-busters: The need to remain stress-free is significant. Being new, you will find yourself worrying. To overcome any uneasiness, you could take a walk in the corridor or simply look out of the window.

· Be punctual: Being early at work strengthens your reputation and encourages people to trust you.  Punctuality will transmit to your team your seriousness towards your work and help you in being at the wheels of your routine. If you want to begin your day in a less stressful manner, you must subscribe to the philosophy ‘Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.’

· Make your work-station orderly: Your table and room should be well-organised. You will find that your comfort level will increase when you know where things are kept. Depending upon the prevalent culture, you could display a small photograph of your family or some items to individualise your work-station; such exhibits will make you feel undisturbed.

· Get to know your job imperatives: The earlier you do so, the better it will be for you. You should get to know what and how your boss believes you to do. If you start feeling confident in your new position, the more self-assuredly you will be able to acquit yourself. And that will create the desired good impression.

· Find people with whom you can spend some time with: Recesses are good times to interact with people. You must identify those with whom you could have lunch together or spend time in the tea-break. You will get to know a lot about the company through casual conversations and people will also get to know you.

· Take part in extra-curricular activities: Whatever be the established norms, you must follow them. This will help in fostering camaraderie. Chipping in for a meal out or witnessing a match will establish your credibility as a team player. However, you need to guard against falling prey to temptations associated with socialising.

  Starting a new job is always chilling, like any new beginning. It should be your endeavour to live up to the impression that you created during the interview session. If you go about adjusting to it with a positive outlook, you will find it amazingly interesting. You should begin by doing what is essential and then do what is possible. Sooner or later you will find yourself doing the impossible.