We’ve been looking at the analogy of the balance to demonstrate how to add value at work. Last week we looked at some ways to add value. Your goal is to add value and not do the things that either balance out your value or take away from it.

This week we’ll look at three ways to completely negate any possible value you add. Be sure not to do any of these.

Be a Non-Team Player. Several years ago I worked at a trade association where all of us were part of a really good team. We worked well together and even our president would stay late and stuff binders in preparation for our Annual Conference. Then we added a new member to the team. He carried an ego that dwarfed any I’d ever seen. His pet project, the association magazine took up all his attention and pulled from ours. He was particularly frustrating to our graphics person, insisting he be Photoshopped taller and at better angles in the many photos of himself that graced the magazine. At first it was shocking, then annoying, then infuriating. Mercifully, he eventually moved on but in some ways I felt the damage was done.   I never again felt that same connection to the team.

If you’re not going to be a team player, prepare to face the consequences.

Be a social loafer. If you’ve ever faked it while pulling on a tug-o-war team, you know that you can feel the rope pull through your loosened fingers even though you’re putting in no effort. Years ago while in our graduate program, the cohort I belonged to had a classmate who was the worst one to have on a group project. We would meet on weekends to work on presentations but he was a no-show. Finally, in one of our most difficult group projects, we told him the night of the presentation that he would be standing up to deliver for us. We handed him a huge stack of transparencies (pre-PowerPoint® days) and sat back watching his sweat trying to sort them out. When it was our group’s turn to present, I stood up to deliver for the group but mouthed to him “don’t ever do this to us again.” He was relieved, and was a better team member from that day on.

If you’re going to be a social loafer, prepare to face the consequences.

Commit to being annoying. This comes in many shapes and forms. It’s an individual who is the social butterfly when others need to concentrate. It’s the person who has poor personal habits like bad B.O. or rancid breath. It might be someone who leaves a mess in the lounge, continually microwaves fishy fish, or talks loudly on their personal phone. I worked in a hospital once in the HR department. On our bi-monthly new employee orientation we would have coffee for our new employees. The physicians had a bad habit of walking in to steal our coffee. One of them tried to sneak in and when I caught him, he knocked over the urn of coffee spilling it all over the table and the floor. He looked at me and walked out. I guess his little-girl surgeon hands were too important to be wasted wiping up the mess. In a perfect world the Medical Director would counsel him but such was not the case. In my world, he should have been fired, or at least flogged.

If you’re going to be annoying, prepare to face SOME consequences.

So that’s it. Three ways to tip the balance away from your favor. Ask those around you to tell you if you embody any of these three behaviors and if so, change them. I want you to be successful and I hope you want the same for yourself.