Self Management

  • Can taking pride in your work be a problem?

    I generally believe taking pride in your work is a hugely important characteristic commonly found in high-performing professionals. When you take pride in your work, you care. You are more likely to go above and beyond. You are likely to re-read before hitting send. Taking pride in what you do also correlates positively with effort; you’re going to put more in because it matters to you.

    For these reasons, I like hiring people and working with people who take pride in their work. There are two watch-outs, though. First, when someone takes immense pride in their work, it can occasionally lead them to strive for perfection. Perfection is impossible to achieve. There’s a gap between excellence and perfection, and in almost all scenarios ‘excellent’ is a sufficient bar to strive for. Usually, I start to wonder if someone is falling into the perfection trap if they always deliver extremely high-quality work but consistently struggle to keep up with the pace of deliverables, if they deliver work after a reasonable, mutually agreed-upon deadline has passed, or if they can only hit the deadline by working an unreasonable amount. Second, is when I notice someone struggle to get started on a new project or work deliverable. The desire to deliver a work product close to perfection can lead to inaction by creating this intimidating invisible barrier to start.

    Fortunately, I’d much rather work with someone who struggles with these challenges than someone who doesn’t give a shit. With coaching, it’s possible to educate someone on the declining marginal benefit of taking something close to ‘perfection’, and make them feel really, really good about delivering something that’s (just) excellent. There’s still a lot of pride to be had and finding that sweet spot between quality and effort is an important learned skill.

    Part of building good professional judgement over time is knowing which projects and work products require more or less time and effort and whether the investment is likely to impact the outcome. For far too long, my desire to take pride in my work resulted in me investing too much effort into deliverables where the quality didn’t necessarily impact the outcome much. Spending an hour honing the perfect email proposal to an executive at a client, who you can reasonably predict might skim the email and say “let’s hop on the phone” may not be the best investment. I try to remind myself of the intended outcome of what I’m working on to help calibrate what level of effort should go into it, despite a general desire to produce something I can be proud of.

  • Say – Do ratio

    The single most important piece of professional advice I’ve ever received and now regularly offer is to maintain a high “Say-Do” ratio.

    The “Say – Do” ratio refers to the ratio of how consistently your actions match your words. I first learned about the concept at Onex during a Lunch and Learn session with one of the most respected CEOs in the portfolio of businesses at the time, Kirk Hachigan. He had dramatically improved performance at one of their largest companies in a very short period and was a bit of an internal celebrity. His answer to the question “What is the single biggest differentiator you’ve seen across executives you’ve worked with during your career?” was a high Say-Do ratio.

    Though simple, there is immense power in operating with a high Say-Do. Consistently delivering on your stated commitments earns you tremendous respect and trust from your peers. It a) breeds trust, b) boosts credibility, c) encourages accountability, and d) improves team alignment. Leaders with high Say-Do ratios have the added benefit of being perceived as more competent.

    Most people are familiar with the concept. What’s underappreciated is that the power of Say-Do comes from maintaining as near 100% a ratio as possible. The gap between 75% consistency and 98% is dramatic in terms of the signal it sends to your team or organization. I use 98% because I think perfection is unrealistic.

    This concept can and should be taken almost to an extreme. Obviously, if you have committed to your team or boss a delivery date on a big project it’s important to meet it. But it’s the micro interactions that matter in terms of consistently demonstrating high Say-Do and cultivating a reputation for trust and follow through. Did you mention to your boss you’d send them an interesting article and then never deliver? Of course, as a single occurrence that’s no big deal. It happens all the time. But if you can be the type of person who demonstrates near perfect follow-through, it will have a material positive impact on your career. As a leader, demonstrating consistent follow-through helps breed a culture where that becomes the expectation, which has a positive multiplier effect on organizational accountability.

    For how simple it is, it’s difficult to persistently deliver on. There are constant distractions that get in the way of follow through; it takes a heightened awareness and real discipline to deliver.

    As incredibly important as a high Say-Do ratio is professionally, the spirit of it applies equally to your personal life. The quality of your relationships will benefit from being a person who follows through on your word with your friends and family.

    I’ve sometimes heard alternative versions of the same concept. For example, “always be the team member that doesn’t need progress to be checked in on”. That’s a wordy way of saying keep your Say-Do high.

  • Admit it when you’re wrong. Be Accountable.

    There’s a consistent theme among the strongest performers and leaders I’ve worked with. And that is a complete willingness to both admit being wrong, and to take accountability for errors, mistakes, and poor performance. Even when those mistakes might only be partially the individual’s fault. Doing so indicates humility, self-awareness and confidence, and an accountability mindset.

    In contrast, when I work with a leader who often skirts accountability, or who is always ready with an explanation as to why they’ve been unsuccessful due to factors outside of their control, it can be a major red flag. And cultivating an accountability mindset becomes harder the more senior and the later someone is in their career. If a team member struggles to take accountability at age 50, I doubt they are going to get it by 60.

    Let’s use an example. You’re overseeing a large project to install and operate a new piece of manufacturing equipment in your plant. The equipment is delayed. Once it arrives, the installation representative from the manufacturer comes down with a flu and you lose two weeks while the equipment sits idle. Finally, it’s installed but the quality calibration is much more challenging than expected and you lose two months. Eventually, it’s installed, operating efficiently, and ready to produce parts. But the whole process has taken 8 months when the objective was to have it operational in 4.

    Here’s how a weak Operations manager might respond.  “We really did our best, but a series of unfortunate events happened. It’s really too bad, but sometimes, that’s the way it goes. Shelly in Procurement should have given us better information on the delivery date. I told Remy in Quality that we would need more time, but he didn’t listen. I did my best.”

    Here’s how an average Operations manager might respond. “We messed up on this one. We should have added more contingency time into the plan for all these unforeseen events. We won’t make that mistake again.”

    Here’s how an excellent Operations manager might respond. “We made a series of serious mistakes on this one. I take full accountability for the delay. First, we should have reviewed past data on actual vs. estimated delivery date for this manufacturer. Second, we should have had a planned, local backup for the installation. I’m not sure what happened on the calibration, but I’m going to work closely with Remy in Quality to learn what we can so I can plan better for next time.”

    Ultimately, the more you can embrace an ownership mindset and take accountability, the better you will become as a leader. Did someone on your team let you down? Your first thought might be “they suck”. But more importantly, could you have trained them better? Could you have hired better? Could you have set better expectations? It’s challenging but ultimately highly rewarding to take accountability, and your peers, direct reports, and boss will notice.