Done or Done Right

What’s better, done or done right?  Completion or progress?  Timeliness or accuracy?  Ready, fire, aim or ready, aim, fire?  Quantity or quality? 

We’ve heard the saying ‘Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.’  Fair point.  If you only accept perfection, you may never reach the finish line.  That's a problem.  However, we’ve also heard ‘Do it once and do it right.’  If you have to re-do something multiple times because it wasn’t completed correctly the first time, that’s a problem too.  So if both approaches are right, you can see how trying to achieve the appropriate balance may be a significant source of stress and frustration for workers everywhere.

I Have Nothing to Do

Years ago I had a person work for me who had a very high opinion of himself.  In his mind, he was a superstar.  He walked on water, did no wrong, and everything he touched turned to gold.  Ever worked with one of these people?  While he did produce decent work, there was a bit of a discrepancy between his perception and everyone else's reality.  In my opinion, one reason for this gap was his inability to take initiative or be a self-starter.  At one point during a lull in our workload, he even asked me for something to work on because as he said ‘he had nothing to do.’  While I appreciated the apparent desire to take on new tasks, I was a bit disappointed this person really couldn’t find a single thing to do on his own.

Results or Facetime?

It’s that time of year again when it’s usually cold in the morning and comfortable in the afternoon.  Walking the few blocks into work from the parking garage on these very chilly mornings, I’ve noticed many people not wearing a coat.  Conversely, during the winter months, on mornings with the same temperatures, there will not be a single person without a coat.  Why is this?  Simple.  Many people use the warped logic of looking at the calendar to determine what to wear instead of dressing appropriately based on the current temperature.  Makes no sense.

Do More with Less

Can we have a pizza party for the team?  No.  Can we sign up for that training session?  No.  Can we do that teambuilding event?  No.  Can we update our software?  No.  Can we have a holiday party?  No.  Can we get a raise?  Heck no.  Instead, we're going to cut the expense budget by 5%.

 

And oh by the way, we’re not backfilling any of those positions where half the department left the company.  We’ll just need to figure out a way to absorb those responsibilities into our workload.  Plus, we’ll need to take on that new project.

Change for the Sake of Change

The three certainties in life are death, taxes, and change.  Change in the workplace is virtually a daily occurrence.  Why so much change?  Are we that bad now?  Could we be that much better?  We’ll never know unless we change!  But which ones are the needed and good changes and which ones are the changes for the sake of change?  Ideally, every decision maker should use an impartial set of criteria to perform a cost/benefit analysis and come to a rational decision.  But we all know that ’rational’ and ‘impartial’ doesn’t always happen. 

Office Politics: A Couple Do's and Don'ts

Everyone’s got an opinion on office politics.  Heck, there's even a website dedicated to Office Politics!  Some decent reads that get more into this topic include Office Politics Handbook, Dealing With Office Politics, Stop Avoiding Office Politics, How Office Politics Work, and How to Handle Office Politics. 

Here's a couple of my simple tips to keep in mind when navigating the office politics maze. 

Multi-tasking is a Myth

So do you think you’re a good multi-tasker?  You know what?  There’s no such thing.  Effective multi-tasking is an oxymoron.  Here are a couple decent reads from Health.com and AICPA that elaborate on why multi-tasking is counterproductive.  In addition, I think this demotivator says it all.

The Fatal Flaws of the Performance Review

Cue the scary music.  No one looks forward to them, not the boss and not the employee.  So are they even needed?  Here’s some articles that suggest giving the performance review the heave-ho… Wall Street Journal, Forbes-Kruse, Forbes-Lawler, Nelson Motivation.  While I think there’s definitely a place for the performance review in today’s Corporate America, I also think it has some fatal flaws too.

Key Ingredients and Chewed Remains

We’ve all seen the motivational/inspirational postings on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Or if you go old school, there’s always the motivational posters hung in the conference rooms and common areas.  Feeling motivated yet?  Doubt it.  While there’s an endless number of extrinsic motivating factors in today’s world, I contend the vast majority of them are just white noise.  None of them motivate/inspire you to actually take action.  Why?  My experience is that motivation generally comes from within.  The motivational postings may give you a warm and fuzzy for a few seconds or look nice on a wall, but that’s about it.  The demotivation posters, on the other hand, are hilarious.  Art meets Dilbert.  So what’s left?  Plenty.  Instead of coming at it from a motivational standpoint, let’s try the self-awareness angle.

What's the Top Priority in Your Job?

Adam Grant has a pretty good post on LinkedIn regarding The #1 Feature of a Meaningless Job.  Spoiler alert, his answer is meaningful work.  As if you couldn't have guessed that from the headline.  There are many other good articles linked to Mr. Grant's article, so definitely worth the read.

Humor: The Office Fridge

The office fridge can be a battleground.  Approach at your own risk.  It’s certainly been a source of angst for many office workers over the years.  While most people have a name tag on their office door or cube, you’ll never find their office fridge name displayed anywhere.  Here’s a listing and definitions of those office fridge names to help you out.

It's Not My Job!

Have you ever been asked at work to complete a task you felt could only fall in the ‘perform other duties as assigned’ category of your job description?  Or perhaps you perceive there are others in the organization far better equipped to perform said task?  Or maybe there are others that should be performing the task, but aren’t, and now you have to pick up their slack?  Diagnosis:  ‘It's Not My Job’ syndrome.  Course of treatment:  Bite the bullet and do it.  Or read on.