RULE 6: Learn To Ask Why

You won’t be able to do your best for your employer if you can’t see the big picture. You may be only a humble cog in a huge grinding machine, but if you can’t step back and see what the whole machine is up to, you won’t be able to do your little coggy things as well as you could. What’s more, if you only ever talk in terms of your cog and your immediate neighboring cogs and bolts and shafts and pistons, everyone around you will see you as belonging neatly in that little part of the machine.

But you have aspirations to move into bigger and more important parts of the machine, don’t you? Of course you do—you’re a Rules Player. You want to grow and develop and make a bigger contribution. And to do that—and be seen as a suitable candidate to do that—you need to understand what drives the whole thing and what its purpose is.

The way you do that is to ask questions. When your boss briefs you on any new task or project, ask how it fits into the big picture. Why are you shifting focus to selling by phone? Is this a standard market trend, or is your company trying to do something innovative? Why is the accounts department splitting into two—is this to benefit customers or to help the internal structure? And so on.

I’m not talking about plaguing your boss with questions about what color paper clip you should use for the pink triplicate sheets and whether it’s OK to put your vacation request in via email. I’m talking about taking an interest in the whole organization and not just your corner of it, and letting your boss see that you have your eye on the big picture.

One of the reasons for this is, of course, that your boss will start to see you as someone who is capable of working at a higher level with a bigger overview, and someone who has a loyalty and concern for the whole company. But you’ll also find that your own job makes far more sense when you can see the wider view, and that you’re more motivated when you understand the reasons behind changes, new directives, extra work, or special projects.

I’M TALKING ABOUT TAKING AN INTEREST IN THE WHOLE ORGANIZATION AND NOT JUST YOUR CORNER OF IT.