Exceptional Performers and the Locksmith’s Paradox

Imagine this: An inexperienced locksmith takes about an hour to fix a lock and charges $100 for his work. The?customer pays up happily. As the locksmith gains considerable skill and experience over time and is called by the same customer to make the same type of repair. This time round, he fixes the lock in about?fifteen?minutes.

You would think "That is great!", but when the locksmith now hands the customer the bill still at $100. The customer becomes upset. The locksmith made it look easy, and the job did not take very long. "How could this job be worth $100?"

That's the Locksmith's Paradox - A locksmith who gets better at his job after moving from novice to expert, ends up upsetting customers because of how quickly he can fix their lock issues. Although he achieves the exact same outcome, the customer perceives the value much differently because of the shorter time involved.

The Locksmith’s Paradox is becoming more evident at the workplace. The true value of the employee should lie in the time or the results they produce since jobs are usually structured with emphasis on tasks. Rightfully the measure for success is accomplishing those tasks yet in reality, most managers’ perception of value is on the time it takes to accomplish the result, instead of the result itself:

• Managers evaluate the employee's hours worked or percentage of their time at work spent on each task. Employees who come in early and stay late are perceived to be more valuable.
• Managers decide that the employee who solves problems or completes projects quickly cannot be worth their salary or their scope is ‘not large enough’ because the fix or project is too ‘easy’.

As a result employees feel better to have greater time input than the actual results. We all know of someone who put in long hours but accomplish?very little.

Performance Should Not Be A Moral Dilemma

Bob (a pseudonym) leads a high-performing process improvement team supporting various verticals. The highly motivated team saved the company over $500,000 the last calendar year by going above and beyond to optimise for costs, and standing up to processes that involved senseless cash burns. Needless to say, not all leaders were happy, but Bob and his team believe that they must be accountable to investor dollars. The company's interests must come before business leaders' hunger to claim short term top-line performance for a pat on the back.

Over time the team had optimised numerous processes and operated on an extremely lean headcount without putting consumer experience at risk. The team was able to also support ad-hoc projects and experiments while (somewhat) accommodating to most business leaders' demands in a sustainable way. The timelines do not always match but projects scaled in a sustainable and cost-effective way.

When executives scrutinised bottom lines, asking for more cost cuts, Bob was asked to cutback on headcount spends since the team appeared less busy. Apparently senior management feels his team is too big for a small scope. His manager told him, this was just business. Those who show that they can cut (costs) will be expected to cut more - the current-day version of the adage Flog the willing horse. "You are merely a victim of your own success," he said and advised that one should not always go above and beyond, rather time the efforts towards the end of an appraisal cycle to reap maximum impact.

Why should high performance be a moral dilemma?

Managing Exceptional Performers

Companies expect to hire the best and the brightest employees but once they are hired, managers expect them to conform to a one-size-fits-all expectation rather than respecting them to play to their strengths. These exceptional employees communicate their thoughts and ideas only to be gaslighted by mediocre managers who fail to understand that each person is unique. It would be unrealistic to expect every person to work the exact same way and be equally productive so managers must change where they look for value. By growing in trust and letting go of fairness.

It is natural to be as fair to your employees as possible. If employee A has to work 40-hours, it is only fair that everyone else in the team does so too. If employee A has to work from the office, the whole team must as well. But life is not always fair and having 'butts on the seats in the office' are irrelevant.?Tangible, valuable results are king.?

Attempting to drive fairness based on time instead of output will end up causing more harm than good. Exceptional employees who are highly motivated and efficient will get frustrated and will eventually do the average amount of work to ‘just get by’. The key to solving the Locksmith's Paradox is to separate hours from cost.?What matters most is the value of the outcome, not the amount of time taken to get there.

Recognise Value

If you hire someone who gets their job done to a quality and value you desire, should you really care how long it takes them, or when, or where they accomplish it? Exceptional managers do not advocate letting employees work as little as possible - their focus is on the quality and value they receive as the manager, not how long it took for the employee to create that same quality and value. The fact that exceptional employees can do more, better, and in less time -- because of their hard-earned expertise and experience, should not result in them getting paid?less, or deemed to be under-loaded.?When employees are really good at what they do, an hour of their time may actually be worth more than ten hours of someone else's. Recognise that value.

Exceptional managers give their employees a reason to do their best work every day. Everyone operates differently, and does their best work differently. Does it really matter how people are getting their job done, as long as it’s getting done? Allow people to work to their strengths, and you will give them a reason to do their best work for you.