Skills versus Challenge Assessment and its Effects on Productivity.

Skill versus Challenge Assessment.

A few steps into a new task, people get sense of how their skills relate to the challenge at hand.

This act of examining the level of your skill against the challenge at hand happens unconsciously. We do not even know we are doing it.

This examination of skills vis-à-vis challenges has evolutionary benefits. It is what enhanced chances of survival for the human species.

Humans for the most part of their early history were prey to many predators. Most challenges resulted to three outcomes: death, conquest, and fatal injury.

The Need for Accurate Assessment.

Given these high stakes in the face of a challenge, there was need to make the right assumptions about the challenge and about one’s skills.

Fight or flight is the result of this assessment today as it was back then. Our nervous system responds by enabling either action.

When the skill is low compared to the challenge demands, we become anxious. This anxiety manifests itself in form of procrastination or total avoidance in case we can avoid the task.

This is the equivalent of taking flight in the face of a challenge.

When the skill is slightly higher than the challenge and vice versa, people put up a fight because there are chances of winning.

This response was critical to our survival. If we won against the threat, It bolstered our species with confidence. It gave us a sense of what we were capable of and fueled our effort to do much more. If, on the other hand, we lost and died or got fatally injured, it provided useful lessons to others.

Boredom as a Result of the Assessment.

The other scenario is one where our skills are way higher than the challenge at hand. In this event, we get bored. Our motivation wanes significantly.

When people are bored, they are wired to seek for excitement.

There is probably a baseline for excitement for everyone below which their excitement levels should not go.

When the task is repetitive and not challenging enough, we go below this baseline

This search for excitement to counter boredom has been adequately addressed in the 21st century. We have digital devices of all kinds and the internet.

This leads to distraction from work and as a result performance suffers.

Call to Action.

When people are made anxious by the prospect of completing a challenging task, they are wired to seek for certainty by procrastinating. Procrastinating makes them feel safe.

When people are bored stiff by performing a repetitive task that is no longer challenging, they respond by distracting themselves.

In both cases the level of productivity declines. For this reason, individuals and organizations should be deliberate about the right assessment of skills and challenges.

This helps individuals and organizations see potential causes of procrastination and distraction and enables them to intervene for the sake of productivity.