沉默是金早过时 Too shy to speak up? That just doesn’t work!

自己感觉很有能力，懂得很多，却还在为工作上得不到认可而烦恼吗？还在为内心胆怯，不敢表现而发愁，郁闷自己怀才不遇吗？可是是否有检讨过自己是否有放开自己？在职业上沉默不是金。 只有抓住机会，大胆表达自己，表现自己的人才有更好的机会。得到重用的人往往都是大胆表现的人。哪怕只知道50~ 60 分，大胆发言说出想法的人也更容易受到重用。

这个世界很现实。人脉大多时候比能力更重要。所以把足够的时间花在建立人脉方面很重要。很多情况下，两个工作能力相当的人，或甚至是有点差别的人，如果一个人脉好，跟很多上级有更好的关系，哪怕他/她的能力稍微弱一些，机会总是会更大的。

和steemit 里写作一样。文章写得再好，如果没人看，没人捧，想靠写文章挣钱根本是天大的笑话。 非常认同大鹏@dapeng写的steemit 里的真相。如果没认清方向，再努力也不可能达到你心目中的目标。

Are you still bothered by not being recognized at work? Not being noticed by big shot? I experienced the same situation at my younger age in career.

When I worked in a factory as a trainee, there were 3 other people like me. We all just graduated from college and didn’t have a lot working experience. One of daily responsibility of our job was interpreting emails, policies, etc from the customer into Chinese, our customer was an American company, following company policy and culture, their main communication language was English.

As we were all new to the industry, we tried to learn the process, operation and terminology etc. as much as possible during our daily work. We were all at the same level to begin with.

One day, we greeted Head of Sourcing Global from US headquarter of our customer at our factory. This was his first visit to our factory. Everybody was nervous including factory director. As interpreters, we had to follow the guest through the whole visit, translating for factory director and taking notes.

We started factory tour first before big meeting. When we got to assembly line, the VIP saw the product we were making. It was a product that our factory had been making for years. He murmured to himself, “They always make simple and basic products”.

We all heard it, but nobody dared to say anything except for one girl who was one of the four. She responded right away- “We actually made a lot more complicated style before you were here. It just happened this is what we make today”.

The VIP was surprised, but then he became really happy, he gave high five to the girl and highly appraised her in front of the factory director. The factory director didn’t know what had just happened other than seeing the high five and his critical customer was happy. As you can tell, the girl was promoted right after the visit. She climbed up a lot faster than rest of us.

Another case happened when another group of guest visited our factory. I was also sitting in the presentation with the guests. It was our tech director whom did the presentation to the guest. A guest asked him a question that he couldn’t answer, and he deferred to me. I didn’t expect this. I was not prepared for that question at all. My mind was running, when I was still spacy and tried to figure out how I should respond, I guess it took too long, the tech director told the guest that he will come back to that question later when we did factory tour. The guest was ok with that.

But when the presentation was finally over, I overheard factory executive talking to the tech director and said, “If she were a man, I will kick her ass!” He felt ashamed of my hesitation and that I couldn’t respond to the question right away. He himself can speak fluent English and knew the answer, but he didn’t jump right in. Everything happened so quickly, I was still in shock esp. when I over-heard what he said about me.

I don’t want to comment his behavior as a manager, but what I am trying to say by sharing these 2 stories are:

1. Don’t’ be afraid of big shot. They are no different from us. What they want is quick response. If we know the answer, tell them, if not, let them know we don’t know but will try to find the answer later on.

2. As a minnow at work, we may not really get a lot chance to sit down and meet with big shots. It’s completely ok to be panic and nervous. But let’s keep in mind, they are human too. They have eyes and ears just like us. Their ranking and experience may be higher than us, at the end of the day, they just want the answers and feedback. They welcome any questions and suggestions from us too unless he’s someone who’s really self-centered and arrogant.

3. If we know there is any opportunity for us to meet with big shot, let’s do grasp the chance and try to outshine ourselves. We can impress them just like what my friend did in front of the Sourcing VP. She was smart and quick enough to read through the lines and gave a perfect answer right away.

4. Always be prepared, there is no perfect answer. It’s always better than keeping silent. Most of the time, our audiences will understand. And do remember to follow through as you promised.

5. If we are not sure what was asked, don’t be shy and ask to repeat again, or try to rephrase the question in our own words and confirm with them before giving response. I noticed it a lot in my past international travel that many people, whom didn’t really understand the question but pretended they did, often talking something completely different from what was asked. This is not a good way to keep productive conversation. Sometime, your audience may try to rephrase the question with other words, but sometimes they may just pass.

I paid my dues and learned my lessons when I tried to climb my career ladder. Shyness does not do us any good, we need to walk out of our comfortable zone, and always be prepared for any situations at work. Actually it does not only apply to work, but life and relationship too. Let’s say if you admire someone but are too shy to let them know, they can’t read your mind and will not know until you tell them. When you finally speak up, it could be too late sometimes. So friends, let’s be bold and act on what we want.

Hopefully this is something helpful and inspirational to you.