Are you an asset or a liability?

Find out if you are an asset or a liability to your team or to your organisation by selecting one answer per question below.

You were recruited because the workload of your team was excessive. Within the first weeks of your arrival, your boss trains you and gives you small amounts of work to do in order to allow you to gently ease into your role. How do you handle this initially slow pace?

a) You quickly botch through the tasks to have some extra time to spend on Facebook, until your boss gives you more work.

b) You complete your tasks and you ask your boss to review your work, in order to check whether you have performed as expected.

c) You complete your tasks and then wait quietly for your boss to eventually give you more work.

d) You complete your tasks and you ask your boss to review your work, in order to check whether you have performed as expected. If your boss is satisfied with your work, you ask for more work.

e) Because you have so much time to perform your tasks, you spend time on the internet, chatting on your phone or watching videos and you wait for the very last minute to quickly complete your tasks.

Your boss’s workload is overwhelming. When you first arrived, he/she trained you on documented procedures, and he/she gave you responsibility for the storage of a bunch of equipment, which you organised yourself. You had the freedom to use the organisation system of your choice. One day, you need to use a piece of equipment that was part of your responsibility. What is your first reaction:

f) You look for it extensively. When you find it, you realise that you must produce a schematic to explain where each piece of equipment is and you tell your boss that it should be done quickly.

g) You ask your boss where the piece of equipment should be.

h) You look for it extensively. When you find it, you realise that you must produce a schematic to explain where each piece of equipment is. Then, you produce the schematic for future reference.

i) You quickly look for it, then you ask your boss where it should be.

j) You order a new piece of equipment, then tell your boss about it.

Your boss explained the mandatory strategy to follow for the piece of work for which you are responsible. It is very different from what you know or from what you are used to. You do not know how to proceed and there are parts of the tasks in which you are not good at all. What do you do?

k) You follow the strategy and you seek occasional guidance from your boss.

l) You follow the strategy and you seek occasional guidance from your boss. You identify your areas of weakness and you devise a plan to improve in those areas.

m) You do not know how to proceed, therefore you proceed following the method with which you are comfortable, which does not comply with your boss’s strategy, hoping that it works.

n) You do not know how to proceed, therefore you remain stuck and unproductive and you develop considerable efforts to hide from your boss that you are not making any progress at all.

o) You do not know how to proceed, therefore you do the parts at which you are mediocre, without asking for help, and completely neglect the parts at which you are bad.

• If you have between 12 and 15 points, you are an asset to your team and to your organisation.
• If you have between 8 and 11 points, you are not of great value to your team but, with a change of attitude, you may become an asset.
• If you have between 3 and 7 points, you are a liability to your team and you illegitimately occupy the position that someone else should have. Your job security is under constant threat.

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