Make More of Your Job

Balance Analysis and Reward

One of the greatest influences of my life was Coach Baker, a baseball coach that I had at summer camp for several years.  After every single game, as we walked off of the field, Coach Baker would say something to me like, “Great slide into second during the fifth inning! Tomorrow at practice, let’s work on some short hops. Good game.” 

Simple as that - in a few short sentences, he had both praised my successes and helped me identify areas that were still holding me back.  It contained both negative and positive feedback, but most importantly, it was productive feedback.

When I think about those quick assessments Coach Baker gave me long ago, I start thinking about what all of the the mentors from my youth have in common. The truth was shockingly simple: they all helped teach me how to balance analysis and reward.

Looking back, it hasn’t been the teachers who praised me the most that I remember, nor has it been the coaches that yelled the most when I failed.  The most influential forces in my life have always been the people that have helped me to find strategies for continual self improvement while being honest about both my strengths and weaknesses.  It is those people to whom I owe credit for all of the great things I’ve got in life.  The lesson of analysis and reward, for me, really has been the gift that keeps on giving.

As an adult I’ve found that I can apply analysis and reward to any task, no matter how big or small.  It guarantees that I’m not too self-congratulating or too self-critical. Instead, I am constantly focused on getting better.  After all, life really is a competition, but not always with others. Most of the time, the competition is about waking up every day with the desire to realize more of your potential, to always be moving towards your goals.  Every day, I compete with myself to be a better version of me, and the tactic of analysis and reward helps me to do that.

It’s such a basic concept, and yet one that has become the most powerful tool I have to drive my life.  When I go through any process, whether it be a project at work, a conversation with a client, or a weekend workout, I always spend at least a few minutes thinking about the highs and lows of the experience.  I don’t just beat myself up for the areas where I underperformed and I don’t simply pat myself on the back for the things well done. I try to balance both the analysis and the reward.

Patience is Virtue

I'll admit it, I'm not the most patient person in the world. But recently I've been getting a lot of opportunities to practice. About a week ago, I brought a new dog, Naya, home from a local animal shelter. And though every day has been wonderful, each one so far has been an ongoing exercise in patience.

The two most important things in my life are my career and my family, so I can't help but draw parallels between the patience required to integrate a new member into the family and the patience required to face the constant changes and developments of a great career. In both cases, you can plan for every contingency you can think up and you'll still inevitably be faced with challenges, frustrations, and puzzles that seem unsolvable. Though planning is important, it's really what you do when unexpected circumstances arise that really separates you from the pack. To have a great career, or a great home life, you need both preparation and improvisation. Only those of us that find a way to balance both sides of the equation will be able to maintain lasting results.

Here are a couple of lessons that I've learned since bringing Naya home that might help you stay balanced when trying to balance your life and career.

• Prepare for the worst-case scenario - I'm a complete optimist, but I always try to have a worst-case scenario in mind so I'm pleasantly surprised when things go better than planned. Naya is a rescue, which meant the shelter didn't even know her exact age (they think she's 10 months old) or whether or not she was housebroken. In order to prepare myself, I thought back to what our other dog, Narin, had been like as a pup. I remembered that a few "accidents" a day was the norm until he learned the rules. The good news is, it appears that did have some house training. but on the flip side, she's still a baby and we've had 1 or two slip ups a day. By being prepared for these, I don't lose my temper when the completely expected happens. When she has a good day, instead of assuming it's the norm, I'm thrilled.

Try the same tactic at the office. By preparing yourself for the worst-case scenario in any of your projects, you can really emotionally insulate yourself from overreacting when things go wrong.

• Stop living in the past - Things change every day, and focusing on how things used to be is totally unproductive. Narin, our first dog, who has always been quite calm, has grown more rambunctious and loves play-fighting and wrestling with his new sister since she came home. At first this was disconcerting, because it was behavior we were unfamiliar with, we worried that it might have been unhealthy or too aggressive, or one dog might get hurt. After a while I realized that were over-analyzing, they are dogs after all, and dogs like to play. It doesn't mean I'll stop watching to play it safe, but the equation has changed some, so the outcomes have changed as well.

This lesson is the same at the office when new people or responsibilities come into the picture. Be prepared that the introduction of something or someone new always has positive and negative on you and your coworkers. Don't spend your time trying to recapture what you had, because you can't. Start enjoying the good things and tackling the new challenges brought about from the new setup.

• Be understanding - Upon bringing Naya home, we had no idea what kind of life experiences have formed her thus far. Unfortunately, we suspect she was abused, but she's in decent health and mind. Over the first few days, she displayed some excessive shyness and aggressive protection of her food. Rather than push her to behave totally differently, we're adapting our game plan to bring her slowly around to our home's way of doing things. I'm well aware that the way we do it around here is probably strange to her, and quite frankly a result of the life experiences we have had.

I use this same strategy at work all the time. When I catch myself trying to make someone more like me, I take a step back and instead ask myself how and why they got to be like they are. You'll be amazed how much tolerance and patience you will gain from the process, you might even start to believe there are methods more productive than yours.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this process has been how much less daunting bringing a new dog home has been this time around. When Narin first came home, I had no idea what I was doing and everything seemed like a battle. This time, there are little hiccups, but most of the process has become old hat. With careful preparation, reasonable expectations, patience and adaptability, we'll manage to acclimatize to our new family dynamic pretty easily. That's another great benefit of staying patient and open to change - every time you work through a challenge, it's much easier to face, and conquer the next time around.

Learn to Love Failure

I know it sounds strange, but I absolutely, positively love failure. 

Don’t get me wrong, I hate losing. But in my opinion losing and failure are only vaguely related.  Whether you win or lose, failure happens along the way...and it’s always a chance to get better at what you do.

I played a lot of baseball growing up. Nearly every time I walked up to the plate, I knew I was bound to experience failure in some form.  Every time I swung at a good pitch and didn't hit the ball, I had failed at what I set out to do. In no way did any one of these small failures mean that I would end up losing the game, but each provided me with an opportunity to improve.  Every swing taught me about my timing, the pitchers toolbox, the umpire's strike zone and myriad other variables.  Each failure, if noted and analyzed with a positive attitude, brought me a step closer to my short term goal of hitting the ball and my long term goal of winning the game.

Life is no different. Unfortunately, individual failure gets a bad rap outside of sports.  It’s too easy to get distracted by the negative press that failure brings and miss the opportunity to grow from it. At work, I see people take all sorts of absurd steps to deny, excuse or explain their failures rather than owning them and committing to growth through the experience.

Think how comical it would be if a baseball player stepped away from the plate after missing a swing and blamed his failure on the bat, or the ball, or the pitcher.  Yet in the working world we see these excuses everyday: it was the market, the product, the boss, not me.  In my personal experience, I know that the better I get at admitting when I’ve failed, the quicker I can be at correcting that failure and ultimately succeeding as planned.

We all take crappy swings now and again; in fact, it’s part of the game.  But the ability to embrace your failures in life will define the level of success you will be able to attain down the road.  Try to take a little pressure off of yourself, enjoy the ride a little bit more and learn from your experiences.  Making the most of your job is a messy process full of mistakes, setbacks, and challenges, but also glorious, uplifting wins.  Each failure along the way is a change to become better, faster, stronger.  Don’t miss that opportunity because you’re worried about what people will think about these failures, they’re all a part of the human process.

Just like in baseball, if you approach your life with good sportsmanship, personal ownership and most of all a sense of passion and fun, you’ll be hitting the ball out of the park in no time.

Workplace Myths: "Slow and Steady Wins the Race."

Everyone has heard the old Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. I suppose it’s intended to teach a valuable lesson to children: that life is more about consistency and humility than it is about speed and ego.  In case you hadn't noticed, the world has changed a little bit since old Aesop was around, about 2600 years ago. In the modern workplace, the concept of slow-and-steady will get you run over.

If you took all of the available recorded information in the world during Medieval times, it took that amount of information about 475 years to double.  Through the advent of today's technology, the amount of written information in the world doubles every 8 months. It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.  Clearly, we no longer live in a world where neither slow nor steady work.

Today’s business climate is about speed and efficiency.  A technology that takes a slow and steady approach  will likely be outdated before it’s even complete. The same thing can be said about an employee.  The modern workplace calls for employees who can move quickly and embrace rapid change.  If you want to drive your career into the stratosphere, you had better learn to run fast until you hit a wall, then turn around and run fast in a new direction.

People who fear change or are slow to adapt are getting left by the wayside every day.  Just take a look at the employment outsourcing trend in the United States.  As low-profit jobs get sent overseas where they can be filled with excellent profit margins, we are still adding jobs to the American economy every day. Most of these jobs are much more desirable and much higher-paying than the jobs that we are outsourcing.  Waiting for the outsourcing trend to end would be a disaster, because it won't. If your job is one that is becoming prone to overseas outsourcing, you should start investigating ways that you can educate and protect yourself in this new economy.

If you’re committed to improving your career, you should always be watching where the global economy is heading and taking into consideration how it will impact you over the next few years.  With just a little foresight and planning, the rapidly changing atmosphere of today’s workplace will provide myriad opportunities.   Failure to pay attention to the trends and prepare yourself for what’s coming will guarantee you a nasty surprise.

When it comes to things like dating or schoolwork, feel free to apply Aesop's teachings from his famous fable to your life.  The images of that committed tortoise lumbering his way down the road to eventual victory may serve you well in those situations. Just don’t try to apply the idea to today’s workplace.  Remember, a lot of things have changed in the 2600 years since Aesop. In most cases today, that turtle would probably be roadkill.

In the News: Look on the Bright Side

Here's a great story about how to turn a negative into a positive when things go wrong on the job. In my career, I’ve had some great experiences where something that seemed like the end of the world ended up being a fantastic opportunity.

Any of you have stories to share about turning lemons into lemonade?