Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

February 19, 2025

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm by leveraging The Triple Win Method.

What I'll be talking about today is foundational to a great work life. It can create a wonderful brand for your career.

Ps: Don't forget to sign up for the "Winning at Work With Toxic & Difficult Boss" Workshop before the prices go up. The date is Saturday, March 8, 2025. You can get the sign up details here.

Now to today's conversation.

How You Start Your Workplace Impact

I did my National Youth Service (a compulsory program for all graduates under the age of 30 in Nigeria) in Yobe State (North-East Nigeria) and took some sweet time before coming back to Lagos.

True confession – it wasn’t as long as you might imagine.

Just an extra two weeks sorting out a couple of matters before I bid adieu to the wonderful community I had just lived about 1 year of my life with.

Those weeks were like aeons in a world before mobile phones and the internet.

I arrived back in Lagos (South West Nigeria) with hopes that spending one year away from the rest of commercial civilization would not mean I had to spend months before getting a job.

More than hope, strong confidence that I was going to hit the bullseye within 6 weeks of my return.

Four weeks into my return, nothing in hand, I was almost wondering if my high hopes and strutting confidence would not disappear like mirages on the desert horizon.

Let me spare you the details.

The Job Hunt

Long story short, I applied to 3 places, two places invited me for an interview and one place offered me a job. All within 6 weeks.

God had a huge play in the place where I was offered a job.

How else can you explain the only two members of a department resigning a week or two after my interview (where they had told me they had no opening for me)?

This changed the company’s tune - they wanted me to resume immediately so I could understudy them.

They made me an offer on Friday that I didn’t refuse (The Godfather might not have been proud of my negotiation skills) – I was to resume on Wednesday.

The Three Guiding Principles

Over the weekend, I wrote out three statements that would become my principles for creating the sort of impact I want to bring to the workplace.

Principle #1: Divine Employment

The first principle leans on my Christian faith – “I have been bought with the blood of Jesus and so I am too expensive for any employer. I therefore put myself on permanent employment with God.”

The impact of this is that it has kept me out of a lot of office complaints. As long as I know who my overall employer (God) is, I give the best of my service to my place of deployment (my current office).

I don’t join the “management is not paying us what we deserve” grumble. If I have an issue with how I am treated at work, I first take it up with headquarters (God) before I take it up with the branch-level team (office management).

It’s not a cop-out excuse to be silent when I should speak. No, I am not a member of the Dependent Order Of the Relatively Meek And Timid Society(DOORMATS). I speak because I have a just cause and head office said I should take it up with branch level team.

Principle #2: Maximum Efficiency

My second principle was this “Don’t do in 2 hours what you can do in 1 hour.” Yes, I know the reward for good work is more work. But I am not out to mark time and just earn pay.

I am at work to deliver the most results with the capacity that I have. It should never enter the mind of anyone that I am playing games with a result I could have delivered faster.

Principle #3: Relationship Building

My third & final principle was this “Work should be used to create long-lasting relationship.” I know that not everyone agrees with this. I once had a colleague who would say “We don’t have to be friends to work together.”

But I think we need to be friendly to work better together.

And that is what I aim for with this principle. Work is the place that people spend most of their waking hours in. If they are going to spend it with me, I need to make sure they enjoy working with me enough to want to keep working with me.

Working with me should not be an obligation, it should be an experience that they appreciate. This applies to people outside my team. As long you have to engage with me, I want to make sure you enjoy working with me.

These were the 3 principles I entered the workplace with. They formed the foundation of the experience I set out to create with the people I have worked with.

Living the Principles

More than 2 decades later, I am still living by these principles. They come with their own set of challenges.

Or how else can I explain to you the fact that I remain good friends with one of my ex-bosses who gave me the worst appraisal score of my career and for some strange reason didn’t think I was worth a promotion for most of the time I worked in that team?

I choose to see what I have become through that experience rather than what I thought I lost by working in that team.

These principles have formed the foundation for how I create my impact in the workplace.

Your principles will do the same for you.

Building Your Own Legacy

So, how are you forming your principles? Are you just going with what the weather brings every day or building a boat that can sail through all weather…even tropical hurricanes?

You are at work not just to make a buck. You are building a legacy.

Be the author of your legacy story. Own the full creative rights to what everyone else gets to say about you.

In the long-lost words of Captain Planet…”The Power is Yours”

You can win at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

I am a Workplace Multiplier

Ps: on March 8^th, 2025, I’ll be hosting a Winning at Work with Toxic & Difficult Bosses Workshop. You can get the full details on this Google Doc - https://bit.ly/WinToxicBossDoc .