Today, you received the following e-mail message from your boss:
Subject: Oversee United Way I’m appointing you to be the company representative to oversee United Way. You’ve done a good job the last three years, so this year should be a piece of cake!
It’s true that you know exactly what to do. The job wouldn’t be hard for you. But that’s just the problem. You wouldn’t learn anything, either. You’d rather have an assignment that would stretch you, teach you new skills, or enable you to interact with new people. Continuing to grow is your insurance of continued employability and mobility.
Three upcoming projects in your division might offer growth: creating videos for a ‘town meeting’ for all employees to be held at the beginning of next quarter, creating an intranet for the company, or serving on the diversity committee. Any of these would be time-consuming, but no more time-consuming than running the United Way campaign.
Write to your boss, asking for something more challenging to do.