Jonar Nader encourages employees to stand up to bosses who waste their life, creativity, and time. The boss is not your boss. You must learn to follow your heart. Further below is a transcript of the video.
Here is the transcript:
Nanette Hansen: Welcome back to Early Today. When it comes to life on the job, authors, experts, self help gurus have plenty of advice on how to impress the boss and get along with co-workers. But now comes along somebody who says, “Sometimes it’s better to infuriate your boss and lose friends. Joining us this morning is author Jonar Nader. Good morning to you.
Jonar Nader: Hi, Nanette..
Nanette Hansen: What, are you nuts?
Jonar Nader: Yeah. Well …
Nanette Hansen: You insult the boss. I mean can you be serious. What can somebody gain by being rude to the person who signs your paycheck?
Jonar Nader: Well look, you don’t have to say, I have to be rude. But …
Nanette Hansen: Okay.
Jonar Nader: … what you have to do is take control. Be in charge of your life. Say, “Hang on a minute, I come to work, I give it my best shot, I go home miserable. You’re stealing my life.” If you steal some – if someone’s camera, you’re absolutely in trouble. But when the boss steals your life, they get away with it. I think it’s about time …
Nanette Hansen: Yeah, but they’re going to say possibly, you know what, you don’t like it, we’ll get somebody else who does.
Jonar Nader: Yeah, that might be so. But actually the more people who speak up at work, the better the work environment will likely to get. And the more we let the boss continue to make life miserable, the more life will be miserable. So it just needs one or two people to stand up, that’s all. Usually it’s the minority who can improve the situation.
Nanette Hansen: All right. Maybe I am showing my age or something but a lot of us were brought up to believe that you get ahead in the work place by pleasing your boss and being a team player with co-workers. You’re saying, I guess if you’re a woman, take the risk of being labeled something that rhymes with rich. And …
Jonar Nader: Well …
Nanette Hansen: … think of yourself first.
Jonar Nader: …look, it’s not about thinking of yourself. It’s about thinking of what’s right. How many times you sit in a meeting and you know in your heart that, “Hang on, this doesn’t sound right. We’re all wasting our time. We’re all kidding ourselves. We all go, “Oh dear, here we go again.” And we walk out. Why have we just wasted six people’s you know, half an hour, an hour’s time? So you go away not being true to yourself. All I’m saying is be true to yourself. Do what you know has to be done. It doesn’t mean you have to rude and obnoxious. But you’ve got to stand up and say, “This is my life, hang on a minute. Why are you stealing it from me?”
Nanette Hansen: It should be interesting to see if politicians would pick-up on this strategy. Anyway, if you do choose to fight back against the boss, you have some recommendations that you talked about in your book. Why don’t you go through a couple of them and explain.
Jonar Nader: Well look – okay the first thing is you really need to pick the right fight. There’s no point just going around saying, “Hey the – let’s go pick any old fight,” because you’re wasting a lot of energy. So the second point is to protect your energy because at the end of the day after everything whether it’s money or whatever, all you really have is energy whether be mental, physical or emotional. Then you have to look at the big picture and say, “Am I really trying to fight my boss or am I trying to fight the corporation or society?” Work out what you’re trying to fight or do you want to have an exit plan? Learn how to have a back up, know your back up. And then you need to display loyalty and courtesy. Don’t be someone who is obnoxious and rude. Be strong and ethical because that’s when you get your greatest strength.
Nanette Hansen: And assertive but still telling the boss he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of which we know, you are and you know who you are. The book is called “How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People: Leadership in the Networked World”. Jonar Nader, thank you …
Jonar Nader: Yes.
Nanette Hansen: …for coming by and talking with us.
Jonar Nader: Thank you.
Nanette Hansen: About work place strategies. I’m Nanette Hansen and this is Early Today on NBC.
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