Absolute essentials for success:

Enjoy your job

Dr. Naomal Balasuriya, a Motivational Speaker and Corporate Trainer in Sri Lanka and the Maldives has trained executives of over 100 top companies in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He is the first doctor of medicine in Sri Lanka to hold the degrees of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and the CIM (UK). This week he speaks on enjoying your job with the Daily News Business.

Q. Does the average executive enjoy one’s job?

A. I suppose the answer is yes and no. Some enjoy their jobs.

Some don’t. But I guess a greater number don’t truly enjoy their job. They merely do it for the money. So I think a majority of people really don’t enjoy their jobs.

Q. How important is it to enjoy one’s job?

A. I would say extremely important. There is a saying “If you enjoy your job, you’ll never work a single day in your life.” If you really like what you are doing, then you will put your heart and soul into it. You will give it all what it takes to make it a success. You will give your job your best shot.

So it is extremely important for an executive to enjoy what he or she is doing. Thomas Alva Edison who gave us the light bulb had once said that he had never worked a single day in his life and that it was all fun.

Q. What are the key success factors of making one’s job enjoyable?

A.. I think there are two things that are important in this respect. Firstly, you must have the desire to succeed in one’s job and in life in general.

Secondly, you must identify what you can do best or in other words what your core competencies are. Once you identify what you can do best in life, then you have to use those talents in the work you do. This will take you to the top of your career faster. Make sure that your job has a good dose of what you can do best in life. So to put things in a nutshell, you need the desire to succeed, you need to identify and use your core competencies.

Q. Can you give an example?

A. If I may quote from my own life, I had the burning desire to succeed in life. At one point in my life, I asked myself what my core competencies were. What I did best in life is to motivate people, inspire people to be the best that they could be. I had the communication skills to hold the attention of my audiences. I knew I could do this in any part of the world. What is more, I enjoyed public speaking. To this I added the passion to succeed as an international trainer. I made it my dream to be amongst the top ten corporate trainers in the world. Today I enjoy my job. I don’t feel as if I am working. It’s all fun. One great innings.

Q. So there is a link between enjoying ones job and ones success?

A. Very definitely yes. I think your work should be looked at as your favourite game.

The more fun you have the more success it will bring you. So enjoy the game, play it hard, play to win but play it straight. You’ll have your fair share of winnings.

Q. What other guidelines would you give an executive to enjoy ones job?

A. Keep things simple, do the basics right. Firstly keep your work simple, don’t get things complicated. Whatever you have to do make sure you keep things simple. Secondly, identify the basics of what you have to do. The fundamentals, the absolute essentials, the critical success factors.

Make sure you do those correctly. For instance, a telephone operator must keep ones desk neat and tidy.

Everything should be at ones finger tips. It must be as simple as possible for one to work. Yet the critical success factors such as answering the phone on the first ring, being professional and friendly and being customer focused must be handled correctly.

Q. What advice would you give a person who is not enjoying ones job?

A. Firstly, identify the aspects of your job that you’re not enjoying. Ask yourself why you’re not enjoying that work. May be your skills need polishing. May be your knowledge needs upgrading. May be you don’t have what it takes to perform that role.

May be the environment is not conducive for you to enjoy the job. For instance, a marketing executive who needs brushing up of his or her marketing knowledge and skills may find it difficult to achieve ones targets. This may make it difficult for that person to enjoy the job. So perhaps upgrading his knowledge as well as his skills in itself may make things simpler for him to enjoy the job more.

Q. What role does one’s attitude play in job enjoyment?

A. One’s attitude plays a major role. How you look at your work. Do you see it as a burden or do you see it as an opportunity for success? It all depends on your thinking. If you think that your work is a great opportunity for you, then you begin to feel the same way and then you begin to act in the same way.

On the other hand, if you think negatively about your job, then you begin to feel negatively and act negatively. So your mind plays a great role.

Q. Finally, how can an organization help its employees to enjoy their jobs?

A. Find a compelling cause for all employees to continue their jobs, align organizational and personal goals, ensure that all employees do what they do best in life, help them to enhance their knowledge, skills and attitudes about their work, make them part of a great team, bond them into the organizational culture and most importantly treat them as human beings.