Fixing the "Always on" (and Always Mediocre) Approach to Business

I recently read “Never Not Working – How Why the Always-On Culture is Bad for Business – and How to Fix It” and it brought me back to some of my own experiences.

At one point in my life, I experienced some of my best performance ratings, promotions, salary increases, recognition, etc.? At the same time, I was severely limited in my mental and emotional capacity resulting from crisis after crisis at home.? Some of these personal challenges included my wife and daughter getting cancer, my wife fighting for her life due to her heart condition, and division in my community between some friends that I highly valued.? Emotionally, I bounced in and out of situational depression for a few years.? While I always have brought my best self to work, my best self was in a sorry state.? The question is why was I recognized as a high performer at work?? My answer to this question has enabled me to perform at a high level ever since and build high-performance teams.? But, before answering the question, I am going to look at the Agile Methodology as it captured some of what I learned into an effective way to manage projects and initiatives.

The Agile Methodology was born out of the recognition that the traditional approach to getting things done has been to plan everything out over a long period of time by throwing everything that needs to be done into a massive project plan and then execute.? The traditional approach results in a lot of excess overhead, rework, and wasted time.? The end result is often sub-optimal or not aligned with how business needs evolved during the project.? Some of the key principles of agile include:

• Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.
• Build projects around motivated individuals.? Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.
• Deliver capability more frequently in terms of weeks or months as a time horizon for completion.

During my time of crisis, I stumbled on some of these principles out of necessity.? Having my bandwidth being consumed by the volume of work at the office and the scale and scope of the personal crisis I was experiencing, forced me to focus on only the most important things that had to be done.? My mantra became “If it is not done, it is not important” and at the same time “If it is important, it better get done.”? Another principle for me was “Don’t do anything someone else on my team can do.” And my third was to ask myself am I “consistently delivering value every day?”? This approach ensured I was doing what was essential and needed to be done, focused my team on specific time-bound outcomes, and got out of my team’s way and focused on creating the conditions for success.? As a result, I and my team excelled at everything we took on. I and my team were recognized for our performance, and no one realized I felt like the best self I was bringing to work was a ragged shadow of what I am at the best of times.? While a very difficult period in my life, my situation forced me to cut out a lot of unnecessary effort which resulted in me and my team delivering a tremendous amount of value to the company and our clients by working smarter and effectively managing our limited human capacity to produce.

Never Not Working , by Malissa Clark professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Georgia, looks at the current culture of work and how many of our behaviors intended to drive results are actually unhealthy and counterproductive.? While we equate business and overworking to being more productive, her research shows the opposite.? I find it interesting that the software development community in coming up with the Agile Methodology, while coming at the problem from a different direction, addresses the productivity problem, among other things, by doing less to do more. ? Seven Habits of Highly Effective People also has similar themes.? In particular, habit #3, Putting First Things First, and habit #7, Sharpen the Saw, which says that one should balance and renew one's resources, energy, and health to create a?sustainable , long-term, effective lifestyle, align with what I have discovered and are reflected in Agile and taught by Malissa Clark.

I think that the reason why more people do not apply some of the principles I learned, is that there is a lot of discipline and a long-term view required to simplify, focus on the important, empower teams, and consistently deliver value every day.? A hair-on-fire workaholic approach can get immediate recognition that reinforces the behavior but is not a sustainable path to excellence. (In the end, it is more looking good than being good.) In my case, the crisis I experienced in my life forced me to adapt to a different way of doing things or fail.? Once I came out of that period, the lessons and disciplined approach to work have served me well and have been easier to sustain than start.? I would encourage anyone who is looking to have success to take the longer and harder path as it will supercharge your personal and professional life.