The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: Know What Boosts Your Value, Kills Your Chances, and Will Make You Happier

Book description

The key to understanding how your manager calculates your real value—and how to boost it

More than anything else, you need to understand exactly how your employer evaluates you, and your annual performance review doesn't tell the whole story. In The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace, Cy Wakeman shows how to calculate how your true value to your organization by understanding your current and future potential against your "emotional expense"—the toll your actions and attitudes take on the people around you. With Cy's clear, straight-to-the-point advice, you can confront and reduce your emotional costliness, become an invaluable member of your team, and even learn to love your job again.

  • Reveals a formula for measuring your current performance, future potential, and the biggest detractor, your emotional expense

  • Shares real-world advice for quickly boosting your value and becoming a highly-valued, sought after employee and teammate

  • Builds on the lessons in Reality-Based Leadership, Cy Wakeman's first book for leaders and managers

The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace is the essential guide for boosting your value, owning your career, and becoming the kind of employee no organization can afford to lose.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Praise for The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Introduction: The New Rules of the Game
    1. The Reality-Based Revolution
    2. What Happy High-Performers Taught Me
  7. Part One: The New Value Equation
    1. Chapter 1: Your Current Performance
      1. Performance Reviews in Theory
      2. Performance Reviews in Reality
      3. How Performance Reviews Go Wrong
      4. How You Can Rise Above the Confusion
      5. How to Rate Your Current Performance
      6. Got Your Number? Now Raise It!
    2. Chapter 2: Your Future Potential
      1. When You Want to Quit
      2. From Pain … to Vision
      3. How to Rate Your Future Potential
      4. Got Your Number? Now Raise It!
    3. Chapter 3: Your Emotional Expensiveness
      1. Rating Emotional Expensiveness
      2. Emotional Expensiveness Is Costing You
      3. Rate Your Emotional Expensiveness
  8. Part Two: The Five Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace
    1. Chapter 4: Rule #1: Your Level of Accountability Determines Your Level of Happiness, so DON'T HOPE TO BE LUCKY. CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY.
      1. Learned Helplessness: The Opposite of Personal Accountability
      2. How Accountable Are You?
    2. Chapter 5: Rule #2: Suffering Is Optional, so DITCH THE DRAMA!
      1. The Third Column
      2. A Bad Case of the Shoulds
      3. Would You Rather Be Right, or Happy?
      4. The Monster Under the Bed Is in Your Head
      5. The Facts Will Set You Free
      6. Stay in Your Lane
      7. Let Your Sane Response Determine the Outcome
      8. Steering Clear of Other People's Drama
      9. What Comes Next?
    3. Chapter 6: Rule #3: Buy-In Is Not Optional. YOUR ACTION, NOT OPINION, ADDS VALUE.
      1. Five New Realities You Can't Afford to Ignore
      2. Wholeheartedness: The Antidote to Fatigue
      3. Focus on the Big Picture
    4. Chapter 7: Rule #4: Say “Yes” to What's Next. CHANGE IS OPPORTUNITY.
      1. The Three Stages of Change
    5. Chapter 8: Rule #5: You Will Always Have Extenuating Circumstances. SUCCEED ANYWAY.
      1. Excuse #1: My Boss Is a Jerk
      2. Excuse #2: My Coworkers Are Difficult/Bullies/Rude/Indifferent/(Insert Adjective Here)
      3. Excuse #3: My Team Is Really Dysfunctional
      4. Excuse #4: The Culture at My Company Is Hostile/Toxic
  9. Call to Action: Put the New Rules to Work
  10. Acknowledgments
  11. About the Author
  12. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: Know What Boosts Your Value, Kills Your Chances, and Will Make You Happier
  • Author(s): Cy Wakeman
  • Release date: April 2013
  • Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
  • ISBN: 9781118413685