How to Stay Motivated at Work

Reader Alfred writes:

“Recently my boss has been putting me down in front of other managers, despite my stellar performance evaluations from him for the last 5 years. I still take pride in my work, but I’m finding it hard to stay motivated working for someone who is undermining me. What can I do?”

In First, Break All the Rules, the Gallup Organization found that your boss is super-important to job satisfaction. Even if you work for a loving, gentle company that gives you free neck rubs when you’re feeling down, having a bad boss will lead you to quit your job. And even if you work for an evil, polluting company whose demonic executives live by drinking children’s tears, having a good boss will make you eager to come to work each day. (And these days, it’s just $0.69 for earplugs to shut out the sound of children crying in the feeding areas.)

Here are 7 things you can do to make your work life more palatable.

Tip #1: Keep Detailed Records

If your boss is giving you positive evaluations and then putting you down elsewhere, that’s called slander, and it’s illegal, especially if you can show it’s malicious and can harm your career. I received outstanding performance reviews in one of my early jobs. I quit, and was later informed by several people that my boss was so upset about my leaving that he insulted me and my work in front of my colleagues. I kept track of the incidents I heard about, just in case I ever decided to pursue the matter legally. Sheldon, if you’re listening, it’s never too late to apologize.

Tip #2: Transfer Work Groups

Some companies are genuinely concerned about their employees. You can go to your Human Resources department and file a complaint against your boss and ask that you be transferred to another group. If you have glowing performance evaluations in writing from this same boss, another group should be thrilled to have you join.

Start by building ties to other departments. Find out their interests and help them. Early in my career, I discovered my company’s tech support department was struggling to help customers with certain problems. I arranged for one of our product developers to create a tool for tech support to handle those customer problems. It helped the company and helped me build strong ties to the tech support department.

Tip #3: Keep Yourself Amused

What fuels misery at work is when you dwell on the awful bits. Instead, dwell on the fun bits. You must have taken the job for a reason. There is something about it you like—the people, the customers, the industry, etc.—so dwell on that. Check out my article on this very topic, How to Find Passion at Work.

If there’s nothing you like about the job, invent something. Ask yourself what opportunities or activities would be satisfying, and find ways to incorporate those into your workday. That’s how buzzword bingo got started. People who thought business buzzwords were silly, made a bingo game out of it. If it takes playing buzzword bingo to make it through a stultifying meeting, then give that a try. (You can also send your meeting facilitator to my article on how to run effective meetings.)

Tip #4: Divorce Your Office

To the extent possible, you may want to divorce your office. More and more places are letting employees work from home a few days a week. If your office lets you, you can escape a toxic environment by working remotely. Just make sure you know how to keep yourself productive and motivated at home. You need to keep this job, so working from home is only a solution if you can stay on top of your responsibilities.

Tip #5: Become Unstuck in Time

If you can’t work totally from home, maybe you can use flex-time to come in early and leave early. If you minimize the hours you overlap with your boss, you can still get your job done with as little boss-time as possible.

Tip #6: Learn

When all else fails, use your time at work to learn. If your boss is trashing you behind your back, your chances for promotion may be slim anyway. Use your time at work to learn and make yourself more marketable for future jobs. You can throw yourself into the learning.

Learn new job content. Take classes that the company will pay for. Learn interpersonal skills. Learn to negotiate. Since it’s clearly a big factor in your workplace, you can even learn to play politics. 

Tip #7: Have a Difficult Conversation with Your Boss

Of course, you’re assuming your boss really has it in for you. One thing you might try is to have a difficult conversation with your boss. Approach him and say, “I’m concerned about our working relationship. You’ve given me stellar performance evaluations for 5 years, yet I feel like lately you’ve put me in the doghouse. I’ve heard from others that they get that impression too. Are these impressions mistaken? Can you share with me what’s going on?”

It may be a difficult conversation to have, but if your boss is actually a reasonable human being, he may be willing to sit down and talk. You might find he’s been too scared to give you negative feedback, and has given you glowing evaluations when he really needs you to change and just doesn’t know how to tell you that. In other words, your boss may be an imperfect human being struggling with how to have a difficult conversation himself. (Or he could be an alien scout from Alpha Centauri, bent on discovering whether human beings pose a threat to their galactic expansion plans. You won’t know until you ask, however.)

Having a bad boss is a good way to get frustrated in a job. Documenting the badness, transferring workgroups, focusing on the positive, divorcing your job, and having a difficult conversation with your boss can all help.

I mentor successful people in building exceptional lives, business, and careers by helping them get clarity on their direction, aligning their commitments with their goals, and creating accountability to keep them moving. If you want to know more, visit Stever Robbins.

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!

Sad Employee image courtesy of Shutterstock