Business

Top 100 Brands in the Philippines 2018

Campaign Asia- Pacific’s Top 1000 Brands has released the top 100 brands in the Philippines this 2018! In collaboration with Nielsen, this research claims to be the most comprehensive in terms of consumer brand perception. The study explores consumers’ attitudes in 14 specific market, with 400 respondents from Philippines. It includes 15 major brand categories and 81 sub-categories.The respondents were given these following questions:

Question 1:

“When you think of the following category, which is the best brand that comes to your mind? By best, we mean the one that you trust the most or the one that has the best reputation in this category.”

Question 2:

“Apart from the best brand that you entered, which brand do you consider to be the second best brand in the category?”

Top 100 Brands in the Philippines in 2018

Philippines Top 100 Brands 2018. Image from Campaign Asia Pacific Page. No copyright infringement intended. — *Philippines Top 100 Brands in 2018. Image from Campaign Asia-Pacific Page. No copyright infringement intended.*

The list is dominated by global Consumer Electronics and Household and Personal Care brands. I’m a little bit surprised that only one brand from the food category made it to the top 10. And with Nike as the top apparel brand to boot. Well, that furthers Filipinos shift to an active and hopefully, healthier lifestyle.

It’s just sad that local brands are way further down. We got BDO and BPI in the 17th and 18th place respectively. And from the Food Category, we got Magnolia at 24th and Lucky Me at the 29th place. Jollibee’s at 41st while it’s rival, foreign brand McDo’s at 55th place. There’s also a dedicated page about the strongest home-grown brands in the Philippines and there they cited Jollibee at the top. A bit confusing when you see the actual rank, to be honest.

Philippines’ page also contains information about demographics, spending behavior, average income disposal, FMCG growth, consumer confidence index, etc.

As per United Nations 2017 Population Prospects there’s about 105 million Filipinos, dominated by 0 -14 years of age which consists 32%. This is followed by Gen Y, or those that are 20 to 34 years old at 25%. It’s important to note though that in terms of direct buying power, you want to bet with Gen Y and Gen X markets (age range: 20 to 49 years old) as they consist 44.7% of the population combined. And this market is what would actually back the demand or the influence on consumption from the younger ones because of their purchasing power.

It’s really nice to know that behind Food and Education, Filipinos are now more into Savings and Investment. And contrary to what many of us believe, only 3.2% of the respondents spend on pleasure travel or vacation. This is much lower than the ones who enjoy dining out at 6%.

Reports are also in for Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. And we’re about to see the drill down on the following markets in the next few weeks: India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

I strongly recommend you visit Campaign Asia-Pacific’s 1000 Top Brands because it would also allow you to compare brands per year and by APAC market or category. You can also pit brands against each other. It’s really a marketer’s and advertiser’s haven. Happy exploring!

P.S. Congratulations Samsung! And Apple, keep up! Though what I really want to say is, we Filipinos should love our own products more. It’ll be nice if the top 10 are all home-growns.

P.P.S. Of course, as in any other research, please take the result with a pinch of salt, because if there’s only 400 respondents from the Philippines and there’s already 105M of us, that means, the sample isn’t even 1% of the population, hardly a solid representation of the country.

As always, thanks for dropping by!

I used Canva to create the Featured Image

The 6 Benefits of Building a Team

If you’re familiar with John Maxwell’s The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, then you must know about the first law: The Law of Significance. It states that one is too small a number to achieve greatness, thus the importance of forming a team. And how effective this team on achieving the goal depends on the quality of their teamwork and manifesting the other 16 laws.

But what is a team?

In simple words, a team is consists of people who work together to achieve a specific goal. And relationships between people are strengthened and made even more special when they start to work as a team.

Isn’t it better to work alone?

Photo by Elisabetta Foco

Whenever we hear stories of individuals who’ve achieved so much, we’re always fascinated on how they seemingly overcame all the challenges by themselves. But Maxwell proved that notion is wrong. There’s no such thing as self-made man. The Lone Ranger is a myth. And as a Chinese proverb states, “Behind an able man there are always other able men.”

Maxwell also cited some of the reasons some people prefer to work on their goals alone. Factors such as ego, insecurity, naiveté and temperament hinder us from working well with others. But if we’re willing to give ourselves and others the chance, we’ll soon find out that we’re only capable of achieving something of any significance when we start to reach out and ask for help.

The 6 Benefits of Building a Team

Photo by rawpixel.com

The following are the six (6) ways on which we can always benefit from creating a team. These are based from C. Gene Wilkes’ work, Jesus on Leadership:

Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas and energy than would an individual.
Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize their weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are more exposed in individuals.
Teams provide multiple perspective on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation. Individual insight is seldom as broad and deep as a group’s when it takes on a problem.
Teams share the credit for victories and the blame for losses. This fosters genuine humility and authentic community. Individuals take credit and blame alone. This fosters pride and sometimes a sense of failure.
Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability.
Teams can simply do more than an individual.

Understanding the significance of working with others is fundamental on achieving success. The rest of the Indisputable Laws of Teamwork would help a leader make the team more efficient and effective in achieving the goal. You may check out the book at Amazon.com.

You may also share this article as an infographic:

As always, thanks for dropping by!

Featured Photo by James Thomas

Insights on the Four Consumer Generations: A Marketer’s Guide

Businesses know that they can’t be everything to everyone. Focus is key if you want your product/service to remain competitive and relevant. That’s why you should get as close as possible to the market you’d like to serve. Insights on your target market’s behavior and preferences are very important in formulating your marketing or business strategy.

Consumer insights allow you to identify which segment of the market needed your product the most and thus, the more profitable to serve. They also help you create effective and relevant communication materials. This information will ultimately guide your decision on selecting the most efficient channels to deliver your messages and products from.

The following information is an excerpt based on a Yes Lifecycle Marketing survey of more than 1,000 consumers who have received a marketing email in the past year. The company wants the report to serve as a guidebook for marketers looking to reach and engage shoppers from each generation.

INSIGHTS ON THE FOUR CONSUMER GENERATIONS

As always, thanks for dropping by.

Useful Links:

Download the free white paper from Yes! Lifecycle Marketing.

Photo Credits:

Centennials: Photo by Alexis Brown

Millennials: Photo by rawpixel.com

Generation X: Photo from Unsplash

Baby Boomer: Photo by Thomas Hafeneth

Infographic Template by Canva

5 Amazing Ted Talks That You Absolutely Can’t Miss

You can always find interesting, funny and amazing talks at Ted.com. What follows is a list of my all-time favorites. They span a wide range of disciplines and ideas but you’re sure to benefit from them. If you have time to spare, watch and read on.

The Happy Secret to Better Work

This talk re-frames our perspective on how to achieve happiness. We’re raised to believe that the harder we work, the more successful we get, the happier we become. But Shawn Achor would like to reverse that formula. He says that being happy starts with training the brain to become more positive.

According to his study, “… our brains work in the opposite order. If you can raise somebody’s level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, we’ve found that every single business outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You’re 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.”

How then can we achieve this happiness advantage? He gives us the following recommendations:

List three new things you’re grateful for 21 days in a row. This way the brain would learn to scan the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.
Journal about your positive experiences so that the brain re-lives the way it feels.
Meditation and exercise.
Random acts of kindness.

Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe

“When we feel safe inside the organization, we will naturally combine our talents and our strengths and work tirelessly to face the dangers outside and seize the opportunities.” – Simon Sinek

To make your people feel safe and taken care of are signs of good leadership. I couldn’t agree more when he said that when leaders decide to put people first, when they show willingness to sacrifice comforts and tangible results so that people remain and feel safe and feel that they belong, remarkable things happen.

He’s cited two companies who’re so good at this principle and they’re thriving businesses right now. Just imagine working for that particular company that’s willing to keep you for a lifetime.

Also he’s given a damn good definition of leadership. Leadership is never about the rank. Like him, I’ve encountered so many people who occupy higher rungs in a company. They’re people of authority for sure, but definitely not leaders. Leadership is a choice – to go first, to make sacrifices so your people may gain and succeed. And what do leaders gain from all this? It’s the absolute willingness of their people to do the same for them.

Your Elusive Creative Genius

From the author of Eat, Pray, Love, this talk tackles the daunting issue that every artist face after creating their best, most acclaimed work by far: Will they ever surpass their most recent achievement?

This thought is certainly scary and puts a lot of pressure on the artist while getting the “next big work” out there.

According to her, life need not to be full of anguish if you never happen to believe that the most extraordinary aspect of your being comes from you. In some ancient cultures, they have the idea of a disembodied creative creature called genius. While in some places, artists can have that single, transcendent moment when they seem to become a vessel so spectators can have a glimpse of God. And so in recognizing this distance between the artist and the work, artists may be able to retain that sanity, that courage to get on with the work and just stubbornly show up until it is done.

Beautiful Minds Are Free From Fear

Sometimes, fear can be so strong and paralyzing. When it hits, Robert Grant gives the following recommendations on how to overcome fear:

Practice gratitude. It’s impossible to be fearful and grateful at the same time.
Intentional Decision. Anything that can happen to you in your life can either the best or the worst thing. You decide which is which. Every day you wake up, you get to decide whether it’s going to be a good day or a bad day. It’s all up to you.

How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over

Whenever you feel stuck or dissatisfied with your life, Mel Robbins says that you gotta force yourself out of the following:

Out of your head. Most especially when you’re just wallowing on your negative thoughts.
Past your feelings. Because you’re never gonna feel like getting what you want when you’re so focused on your emotions.
Out of your comfort zone. Because that’s where everything starts to happen.

And she says it’s very important to act on our impulse. Because if we don’t marry the impulse with a physical action, we’re going to trigger our emergency break and we’ll never get to do what we want to do in the first place.

You may have your own set of Ted Talks favorites. Put them on the comment section or send them my way so I can add them here.

As always, thanks for dropping by!

Featured Photo by Avi Richards

4 Reminders for a Successful Career Change

I’ve recently had a career change. I moved to Operations from being in Admin for about three years. It’s not so far off from my previous position, though instead of calculating growth and creating plans to increase market share, I went to giving out solutions on how customers can take better care of their credit cards accounts. (I never thought I’d be debt collector, ever! I personally hate debts!)

Anyway, I made all the considerations before I applied for my current job – the working hours, industry culture, some pay cuts. But I know, I’m not the only career shifter who’s having the occasional blues. Sometimes, I really miss working late into the night, the nonstop follow-ups, as well as going around town to make sure that people know about my brand. I just really miss the ‘going-out’ part the most. I find the walls of my current office suffocating sometimes and I really like to get away. Then I’ll remind myself of the reasons I’m right here.

So, for those who have recently change careers, I hope the following reminders would be helpful to you. Whenever I feel the urge to leave or become sad or miss the life I left behind, these are what I think about:

1. The “Why” of the Career Change.

We’ll all have our reasons. Reasons we deemed valid and important and urgent. We wouldn’t take all the risks and accept trade-offs if our reason is not worth betting on. You must always go back to that. And remember that changing careers is like starting over, drawing square one. And I’m sure even before you went to that first job interview, you’re mind’s made up. This is what you wanted to do. Be thankful now that you got it. Live it. Focus on the opportunities. Remember, it’s your win because you get to start over. Some people never even had their chance.

2. The 3 A’s – Adjust Aptitude and Attitude.

You’ve had work experience, learning curve is not some strange, new concept for you. You know you got to adjust, it’s either you’ve got to shave off or gain an edge so you can follow on this new track. You have to gain skills, and that means learning, which also means it’d take time and patience and effort and love. You got to develop genuine love for what you’re doing. It’s the only way, it’s the only way you can succeed. That would depend much on the attitude that you’ll bring into the job. Keep the enthusiasm, keep being interested. Learn. Never stop. Reach out. Ask. But remember to do your own research, too. There’s just too much that people can teach you.

3. Reach Goals.

Of course, you’ve got to measure up. Determine what you’re aiming for. Break them down so you can work on them on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Challenging yourself to surpass the minimum requirement of the passing scores will keep you motivated. Also, you may look at it as an indication of how flexible your skills are.

4. New Connections.

Your new environment gives you the opportunity to connect with new sets of people – different backgrounds, expertise and culture, even. And being around these people can be really exciting, though intimidating some of the time. But it’s going to bring you new experiences and joy. It’s going to expand your relationships and it opens possibilities for friendships, mentor-ship and inspirations. People can really be awesome. And if you just wait long enough, they’d surprise you.

You may also have your own set of reminders for a successful career change. We’d like to hear them. Please free to leave a comment below.

As always, thanks for dropping by.

What Really Goes on Behind The Most Powerful Marketing Campaigns

Sorry to burst your bubble, but that latest campaign you’ve seen of us was done just so you’d react exactly the way you do right now.

Yes, we keep track of you and we do our best to know you. There are times when we don’t get it, but whenever we do, it goes down so good, you’ll never knew what hit you. And we’d always, always leave you wanting more of it. In fact, it may stay on your system for days, years or your lifetime.

It’s not magic, nor rocket science. It’s Marketing.

Marketing Campaign — When we put something up, we make sure that it’s something you’d at least notice.

Campaigns aim to affect your perception. It conditions your mind to think in a certain way, to manifest behaviors that would best serve the brand’s purpose. The goal is to get you to the place where we want you. All these without being so obvious.

How do we do that? Take note of how we communicate. We anchor our messages to your beliefs, we made them stand on your values, we rest them in your hopes. We’d make you feel like you’re standing in front of the Mirror of Erised, you’ll see everything that you ever want.

Because at the most basic level of consumption is the idea of needs and wants. You may need food, but you wouldn’t just have any food. There would always be something that you’d want more than anything else. And when you back this up with money, then a purchase transaction happens. That’s our moment of truth. It’s the ultimate test of how well we facilitated your journey. We finally got you where we want you. And sometimes, we also influence the time when you’d want more of what we offer. Or the how’d you want the offer to be.

Product Choices — Campaigns let you on the choices that you have.

Don’t misconstrue Marketing. We’re not here to deceive you. To think of consumers as pushovers or fools belittles our industry. We hold you in high esteem. We want to believe that a brand stands out because the best people support it, because it makes so much sense to have it in your life.

Also, we’re bound by law to tell you the truth. We just talk in way that you’d find it hard not to listen, we present in a way that you can’t help but be engaged, we act in a way that you’d find it hard not to talk about it with others. And we change because that’s just how you are.

And because, well, we Marketers are all brilliant like that!

Three Things You Can Do When Facing Possibilities

Possibilities spell out the likelihood of an event or thing from happening. You can also say that they prelude changes. And like life itself, possibilities aren’t just about dealing with solid negative or flat-out positive outcomes. They’re also filled with gray areas. After all, nobody ever has 100% information every time.

Instead of freezing up in the face of possibilities, here’s what you can do:

1. Get your facts straight.

You got to establish the premise that the possibility can exist at all. Look at the proof or evidence. How do they support or disprove the possibility? Though intuition can get you far, hard facts and evidences keep you grounded on reality and help you come up with a sensible plan.

2. Pick your stance.

Your attitude toward possibilities depends on their impact to your life. This means that you’re most likely to act indifferent if the possibility is less likely to happen and if it happens, it wouldn’t affect you that much. This is a case of live and let live.

It gets trickier though, when a possibility is more likely to happen and can greatly affect your life. You have to think about how the outcome can be an advantage or a disadvantage to you. Of course, when you identify it as an advantage, you may be excited or overjoyed! But if it’s a disadvantage, you may be frightened and anxious. These emotions are understandable, but useless. The possibility is more likely to happen, anyway. So you better get your act together.

3. Develop a plan and stick to it.

Whether it’s a positive or negative outcome, you need a plan on how to face the situation when it happens. When you identify the possibility as an advantage, determine how you can maximize it. Will it so that others can benefit from it as well. Express gratitude and infect others with positivism.

If the possibility would have an adverse effect, brace yourself. Identify the specific aspect of your life that will be hit the most. Is there any way to limit or minimize its effect? Determine the time frame that you’ll be working on. This will help you set priorities. You can also ask for help. In times when you don’t have enough answers, look for people who can fill in the blanks for you. You’ll never be 100% ready, so leave a room for faith. Everything does work at the end, but the essence of the plan is to carry you through it all so that you can reach the end.

In both cases, practice caution. Great expectations over possibilities with great advantages may lead to misery when they unfold in ways you failed to anticipate. And to fill your days with anxiety is to miss on other awesome things that life can offer.
As always, thanks for dropping by!

Interventions for Toxic People at Work – Yes Boss, This is About You, Too

Toxic people are the unnecessary crazies at work. Spending even a minute with them zap your energy. Hearing them talk rile up feelings that are mostly negative. For them, everything is big deal. There’s not an office hour when you can skip their drama. In extreme cases when they tend to be hurtful, they make you feel like your existence is the smallest, most insignificant of all. You don’t want to do anything or be around with them but they’re part of your team.

Posts on how to deal with toxic people at work just abounds. You can at least find a dozen ways on how to handle these people. Most of them are all about protecting yourself. They go on about establishing a limit or making yourself less vulnerable. It’s like: Never reach out to toxic people at work, period.

Quote on Toxic People — Or is it? Taking it from a team leader or a concerned team member’s perspective, how’d you go about helping a toxic team member to change?

I tried a quick search on how you can help a team member change their toxic behavior. I’ve encountered some self-confessed toxic people and how they eventually changed. According to them, it’s all about self-awareness – recognizing the signs that you’re becoming a toxic person and initiating changes that mostly include therapy and restraint. (Whoa, therapy sounds so serious!) I’d like to think that they are what Randy Pausch would call recovering jerks in his book, “The Last Lecture”.

Workplace Interventions for Toxic People

This info-graphic from GetVOIP might be a good springboard on the interventions that the management can do to change toxic employee’s behavior. It may be applicable for both subordinates and managers:

5 Types of Toxic Employees and How to Deal with Them [Infographic]

Interventions for Toxic People Using Emotional Intelligence Approach

If you want a lengthy study on toxic managers, this article by Roy Lubit may be really insightful. The article aims to help senior management identify toxic managers so they can distinguish those who can still be coached and therefore, retain, and those who they need to let go. He argues that to effectively deal with toxic people, you need to understand where they’re coming from. Uncovering their objectives will help you design interventions accordingly. He emphasizes the importance of developing emotional intelligence so it can help you reign in your feelings and behaviors, rather than letting the feelings run away with you.

In his article, there are four types of toxic managers:

Narcissistic
Aggressive
Rigid
Impaired

Each type comes in several varieties. The author put each in a table so personal traits and objectives can easily be identified. He also put in recommendations on how to deal with each type, both for when you’re a subordinate or a superior.

I may not always agree on the recommendations, especially the ones for subordinates. Most of it seemed to lean on downplaying performance or avoiding provocation. But to senior management, it can be a good springboard on how to reach out to once well-performing managers who devolved into being a toxic boss.

If you can share any tips on how to reach out to a colleague or a boss who’s become toxic, put them in the comment below.

As always, thanks for dropping by!

ONE MINUTE MANAGER SPEAKS ON HOW TO TREAT PEOPLE BETTER

The One Minute Manager has arguably oversimplified management principles and focused a bit too much on dealing with subordinates at work. Yet, it’s allegorical style and use of ordinary words rendered it a very easy read. The principles presented are also practical and adaptable.

It rests on the idea that people and results go hand in hand. This means that how you treat your people greatly impacts your bottom line. Therefore, it’s extremely important to deal with them in the proper way. The book highlights the significance of setting goals/expectations and how to give out praises and reprimands.

If you’re in a middle management position, I recommend grabbing a copy of this book. You’ll find that the scenarios presented are relevant and it wouldn’t take too much of your time.

A word of caution though. Never take the title of this book literally. The One Minute Manager is just an expression, an attempt to put away the idea that a management position is one of the most complex and difficult there is. I’d like to think that this book is a sort of initiation, an intro that touches mostly on how to deal with people.

Here are the three most important points in the book that can help you become a One Minute Manager:

The One Minute Goal Setting

First, set expectations clear and straight. Goals need to be brief and mutually agreed upon. It must only have 250 characters or less and can be read in a minute. Identify the behaviors that will lead to the achievement of the goals. Review the goals time and again and check whether the behaviors matches the goals.

Set Clear Expectations — Be upfront with your people.

The One Minute Praise

Your people want to know how they’re doing at work so it’s important that you give them immediate feedback. Try to catch them when they’re doing things right. Specify the good behavior and commend them for it. Pause a bit so that the good feeling sinks in. Gestures like shaking hands or touching the shoulders may be good ways of reinforcing your message. But take care that the gesture makes your people comfortable and your touch, sincere.

How to Properly Train People — Catch your people doing things right.

The One Minute Reprimand

Giving out reprimands has two parts. First part includes reprimanding people immediately. Specifically point out the bad behavior and express how you honestly feel about it. Let there be an uncomfortable silence in between so that the situations sinks in.

The second part include reaching out to person and sincerely expressing you’re still on their side. Make them understand that this is about their work performance and not them as a person. Finally, when the reprimand is over, it’s over. Don’t ever bring it up again.

Behavior does not equal worth. — A person’s behavior does not equal his or her worth.

Though it’s hardly a quick-guide to all things management, The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard Ph.D. and Spencer Johnson M.D. shows you practical steps on how to deal with people better. Parents also have found the principles useful when raising their children.

Check the book on Amazon and Goodreads.

As always, thanks for dropping by!

Mentors Preach: Lessons Practiced at Work… and Life

It’s said that if you want a great career, look for a boss, not a job. I’ve been blessed to have worked with brilliant mentors in recent years. Though none of them is perfect, all of them contributed to what I know now. I will only have my gratitude to offer them.

Here are some of those important lessons I learned from my mentors, both useful at work and in personal life:

Do one thing at a time.

This means you got to learn how to properly prioritize your tasks. Everyday is a cycle of work that’s left undone from yesterday and tasks assigned to us today. It’s not uncommon to hear some coworkers complain over workloads and new projects. Multitasking has also been a common practice. I feel blessed that I got to work with a boss who recognizes the value of time. He’s also one to meticulously screens the quality of work. When tasks stack up, he’ll often say, “Drop everything and work on the first item on your list. ‘Cause if you’re finally done with that, then you can stop thinking about it. And you can put your whole attention to the next item.”

Photo Credit: wwarby Grandad’s Watch via photopin (license)

Do not fall in love easily.

“Sometimes, when we love something or someone, we’re content to let them be the way they are. It seems to us that they’re already perfect. But that’s loving blindly and that’s not helping them. Always challenge what you’re seeing right now. Identify what’s working. Ask what’s not working and how the change can be facilitated.” In effect, these statements best describe how branding/rebranding works. And to be working with such an excellent brand person is truly a great experience. These words ring true to our personal lives and a wide range of other industries as well.

Photo Credit: Nick Fuentes Lejano. via photopin (license)

You can be good leader and a kind leader at the same time.

Though not in the exact words, Bob Davids said, “If you push people, deep inside, you wouldn’t know where they will go. But if you’ll show them how it’s done, then they’d follow you…And whenever you give power to your subordinates, that power comes back to you in the amount that’s always greater than what you’ve given away.” This sums up my experience with this particular mentor. She guided, encouraged and trusted me to do the things that I myself didn’t think I can do. Of course it wasn’t always perfect and there were times when I’ve been all over the place, but my mentor’s patience and generosity carried me through.

Photo Credit: Luigi Mengato Leadership As A Service via photopin (license)

Sincerity goes a long, long way.

When I thought people whose names are as good as VIP pass only exist in fiction, there’s actually this very cool guy who’s just that. Of course, it took him much time before he gained this advantage. He told me, “Initially people would only do business with you if they perceive you as the better deal, but that’s just the start. What you must do is to sustain that initial contact and continue to establish the relationship – be reliable, be trustworthy, genuine and concerned. It’s a tricky world out there and while you must do your job, you should also learn how to play it cool and enjoy yourself.” And yes, guys, he acts as he preaches.

Photo Credit: bellmon1 Helping Hands via photopin (license)

Dedication takes you places.

Most of our superiors have been in the company for at least three years. The amount of time that they’ve put into the job may be tracked, but the dedication that they’ve put in along those minutes is definitely immeasurable.

I’ve met a Manager who’s been with a 48-year old company for 32 years and another who chose to work during weekends to deliver reports on Monday.

I think people with this amount of dedication also has a great sense of accountability, not with just the output but with the people working under them. They are also usually the people who occupy the higher ranks. We always complain that we’re overworked or the tasks just keeps piling up. But not everyone in the higher rungs passes down the work, some of them shoulder the bulk of the load themselves. They may even have made greater sacrifices. These mentors taught me that I should be thoroughly responsible and dedicated to my tasks and that I can always give just a bit more to go the extra mile.

Photo Credit: Daquella manera Milla Extra via photopin (license)

You may also have other lessons from your mentors, feel free to share them in the comment section below!