Rebels at Work

Preface

If you’re reading this book, you’re an idea person. When you see something that isn’t right at work, your mind starts thinking about what could work. You want to make things better.

Maybe you’ve tried to get the powers that be to see the value of your ideas and haven’t made as much progress as you’d like. Or worse, you’ve been told that you’re rocking the boat too hard and your ideas aren’t welcome, thank you very much. Talk about frustration, when all you’re trying to do is make things better. “What am I doing wrong?” you wonder. “What does it take to change things around here? What can I do differently?”

Or, perhaps you are an idea person who has been reluctant to speak up at work because you’re just not sure how to go about proposing a different way of doing things. You may be younger than most people, new to the organization, or have less formal education than your coworkers. You wonder how to be taken seriously and how to propose new approaches without jeopardizing your reputation or your job.

We used to be you. We struggled with the same questions and challenges. We made a lot of mistakes and learned the hard way about what it takes to introduce new ways of doing things at work, which is why we wrote this handbook. We wish someone had given us practical advice on how to create positive change early in our careers. “Imagine,” we wondered, “what we might have been able to do if we had had a practical guide for changing things at work, a handbook with observations and advice ...