How to easily be better than 95% of people at work
You can be in the top 5% of workers by just:
Showing up on time, always.
Preparing for a meeting
Participating actively in any meeting you’re in
Taking 1 minute to ask your favorite AI to explain you things you don’t deeply understand
Reponding to emails and messages on time, even if it’s just a plain acknowledgement
And I say top 5%, but there’s a part of me that believes it might be an even smaller percentage of people that does all of these things all the time. At the same time, I would say that the best people I’ve ever worked with, independent of the field that they are in, they’ve always done all of these things well. No exception.
They say showing up is half of the work, and I don’t think that holds at work. I think participating is half of the work. If you participate, you’re already ahead of most people.
This list seems really basic to me. But I also kind of understand because integrity is a quality I value above all, and it's extremely rare to come by, both in and outside of work. But I'd have to agree with the comment from @mariam below, if this put someone in the top 5%, indeed, we've got very low standards.
If doing these things puts someone in the top 5%, we don't have a talent problem—we have a standards problem.