Think like an owner

This is part of a series “Lessons from my internship experience”

# 3

In the workplace, people tend to focus on getting the work done. I get it – in the department in which I interned, most of the employees are extremely busy. They just have to spend the hours to produce the promised output in exchange of a salary.

Over time, this habit of putting your head down and doing the work that is given to you is bad for you. You get trapped in the narrow realm in which you operate, and lose touch with the broader dynamics that the company and the world at play. If you and your colleagues act this way, your boss has to do the all the work to make sure that the team he manages is aligned with the current affairs in the company and the world.

There are some many examples of this. Someone junior, dedicated to the professional work, are so fixated with their professional duties that they missed the larger context to solve a particular problem. By not thinking in systems, they fail to become effective employees, which forces managers to be on their heels a lot more.

Managing up is an important skill in any company you work at. If you are dealing with a problem in a big project, sometimes the solution lies outside of your team. Those who understand the job, challenges and resources of the company would have the necessary knowledge to identify where to find the solution can provide good solutions to your team’s problem. This removes some plate from your superiors, which opens up opportunity for more responsibility and challenges that grows you as an effective employee.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should take action independently. If you are an intern, you should definitely raise the problem to your manager, provide potential solutions, reasons for your proposals and pros and cons for each. If you are new to this internship business, do you start by surfacing a problem, and through practice, work your way through to the end of the step. If you gain the confidence of your manager through this (amongst other mini-accomplishments), you may get to make some decisions independently. Never complain behind their backs. That is how children behave.

But you might ask, how could know any better solving a big problem than your manger? You don’t know any better because you are not proactive enough to understand your manager’s role and the company’s situation. Talk to people beyond your immediate colleagues. By networking with colleagues from different teams, different companies, different industries, you get a better sense of how the world fits to your industry, your industry to your company, and your company to the project your team is working on. You will give bad recommendations from time to time, but don’t do it frequently. Always do your homework before approaching your manager.