3 Reasons Why Sitting Next to Your Manager is Absolutely Crucial to Your Career

I have been sitting Face to Face with my manager since last 2 years and I could not have imagined this would be the best thing for my career

In my previous company we had an exchange of office location from one floor to another and everyone was asked to move their stuff by themselves and choose their desk. In a matter of few seconds of announcement everyone hurled towards the new bay and tried to book the seat as far as managers desk. I was one of them. The ideal location was the one where manager can’t see your Face, your laptop screen and things which are running in your soul :P and I did not manage to get that as I was racing against 10 people who suddenly became olympic level sprinters. I was PISSED!

In my current company I was preassigned the desk and it was right in front of my manager’s(let’s refer as N)desk. When I started here I was like “Damn! This is going to be painful but turned out to be a game changer.”

Continuous Feedback

One of the most crucial things in shaping your professional personality is the action you take on the feedback from peers. Now you will get feedback no matter where you sit but the timing is the crucial part. Sitting next to N allows both of us to have real time feedback exchange. I have gotten feedback on multiple levels, “Don’t use Thanks and Regards together”, “You should have said ownership instead of authority, it made you sound arrogant” and hundreds of similar minute pointers on how I can be a better professional.

Enhanced Productivity

Being a business analyst one of the major part of my job is to make people understand how data analysis can be used to make better business decisions. This involves talking to folks at different levels. Before any presentation I take several inputs from N on how to make the presentation better and suited for the audience, others do this as well but having her right next to me allows me to get her opinion quickly and not to waste time on scheduling meetings. Because of this I can iterate much faster which leads to a better presentation and less loss of productivity in meetings.

Personal Connect

With my previous manager it was always about if the work got done, if I need a leave, if we need to go out to bond as a team and things on the similar lines. With N it ranges from critical projects, music playlist sharing, food habit discussion and what not. The reason for this is I have to be my real self if I am spending 10 hrs of my day in front of the same person. Nobody can fake a different personality for that long. As the filter is much less and I can not portray an image I am not, I remain very comfortable and less awkward in any of my conversation with N.

So, I would highly recommend you to give it a shot and take that SPOT LESS TAKEN alongside your manager and grow 10x faster(there is no formula but numbers stick to mind more so 10x) in your career.

Thank you for reading :)