You are Kenough: How to Balance Self-Worth & Productivity

The goal for today’s post is to remind you that you are Kenough and that you pick and try a productivity tactic that serves you for the next week.

We'll discuss the traps of performance reviews and how you can use them to fuel productivity and balance in your life. We'll also talk about the importance of setting boundaries, and how to say no to things that don't serve you.

Last week we discussed how to prep for challenging or new conversations. My inbox and ears are open to hear how that went. Drop me a note with feedback on how the frameworks helped or didn’t help.

It’s review season for many employees - the time of year when you receive a numeric score or rank of your performance. A recent article shared that halcyon days are gone. The days of participation trophies and awards have been replaced. Reviews will be more critical and push individuals to do more and to do it more efficiently.

We can forget a few things in this review process. At times I confused the score of my performance as a score of me as a person. I’d also absorb that one person’s subjective opinion about me was more important than what I subjectively thought of myself. My work doesn’t have to equal my worth.?

“Among employees who received the worst grade in their reviews last year, 38% had rated themselves as highly valued, according to data from BambooHR.”

So how can you remember you are Kenough AND process feedback you could do more? Is it possible both of these things can be true? In all my years working, I’ve yet to hear someone say they are overpaid or overvalued. That’s likely because of an egocentric bias. Individuals overestimate their skills with others because they believe they have an advantage others don’t.

I promised you techniques to balance self-worth and productivity ideas.

Let’s start with aligning on goals.?

What can you control? Two things. This wisdom nugget comes from a previous mentor and leader of mine. The two things you can control are your attitude and your effort. What unfortunately happens is individuals are measured on outcomes, often out of their control.?

A few examples on prickly measurements of an individual:

1. Salesperson being measured on revenue closed:Measurement gaps: Revenue closed is a lagging indicator, meaning it only reflects past performance and does not provide insight into future performance.More effective measurement: Track sales pipeline and sales velocity to measure a salesperson's current performance and predict future success.
2. CSM measured on renewal rate or product usage:Measurement gaps: Renewal rate and product usage are lagging indicators that measure the results of past efforts, not current performance.More effective measurement: Track customer satisfaction, engagement, and support interactions to measure a CSM's current performance and identify areas for improvement.
3. HR professionals measured on number of hires or rate of offer acceptance:Measurement gaps: Number of hires and rate of offer acceptance are outputs, not outcomes. They do not measure the quality of hires or the impact on the organization.More effective measurement: Track time to fill, quality of hire, 90 day rating, and employee retention to measure an HR professional's effectiveness in attracting and retaining top talent.
4. Marketing manager measured on leads generated:Measurement gaps: The number of leads generated is a basic metric, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of leads or their conversion into customers.More effective measurement: Track lead quality, conversion rates, and marketing-influenced revenue to measure the marketing manager's ability to generate valuable leads and contribute to overall revenue.

(2 More examples at Substack)

I read an excerpt from Abigail Shrier’s “Bad Therapy: Why the kids aren’t growing up.” The excerpt shared research emphasizing the potential pitfalls of constantly asking children about their feelings, particularly in the pursuit of perpetual happiness. An interesting part was about research outlining the benefits of objective-based goals instead of feeling-based goals.

“Academic psychologists note that people who adopt an “action orientation” are able to focus on a task without getting distracted by thoughts about their current emotional or physical state. Those who adopt a “state orientation,” on the other hand, are thinking more about themselves in the moment: how prepared they feel, that crick blossoming in their neck, the email they forgot to answer. Unsurprisingly, an action orientation makes it much more likely that you actually accomplish the task.”

7 Action-Oriented Paths to being Kenough

1. Pen & PaperThe second oldest tactic to improve productivity. The oldest is stick and dirt. Make a list of your objectives each day. You can do this to start your day or as the last thing you do as prep for tomorrow. Either way works as long as you stick to it. I’m guilty of making to-do lists only when things got gnarly. Egocentrism strikes again. I thought I could keep track of all the things. Fun fact: I can’t. I’m not that good.
2. Align with your LeaderDo you know the key objectives or outcomes you’re being measured on? Ensure your to-dos support progress toward these outcomes. If the tasks don’t align, why are they on your list? If your leader assigned them to you and you don’t see how they connect, ask. If you lead a team, reset with your reports on their mission. You can have fun with this and make it like a mission brief from Mission:Impossible or something else playful. Your objective, should you choose to accept it, is to set a goal for your team and help them achieve it. I encouraged my team to challenge me if I assigned them a task they didn’t see connected to our objective.
3. Calendar and Energy Audit Review the past two weeks of your calendar. What meetings were productive??In terms of energy, which left you energized versus drained your energy??There are fun ways to play with this idea – you can color-code your calendar or one way I use to coach this idea is adding emojis to a screenshot of a calendar. Count your hearts or brains or muscles versus whatever emoji you choose for the draining activities, maybe a battery would be a good emoji. Then reflect on any patterns: times of day, people, size of meeting, in-person or virtual. Daniel Pink has a good book on doing your best work when you’re at your best.
4. Zone of Genius auditSimilar to the calendar audit. I’ll focus a future episode on Zone of Genius, but for those familiar with the topic, look at how much time you spent doing things you are uniquely gifted at doing versus things that don’t light you up or skills other people are better at.
5. Time BlocksWhen do you do the things you enjoy? Do you start with those or save them until the end of the day as a reward??
6. Make time for youDo you make time for your growth? How much time did you spend learning something new last week? How about in the last month? Most of the time I would block time to do something for myself, I ended up deprioritizing it for someone else’s priority. If I blocked time on a Friday afternoon to do something, it was a safe bet it wasn’t getting a check mark by the end of the week. I saw this tendency for people I managed too. It can be easy to put off our own well-being and development, especially if you’re a people pleaser, looking at you enneagrams 2, 3 and 4.
7. Ask for feedbackFind someone who seems to be a productivity machine. Ask how they manage their time. This was how I learned about the Pomodoro Method from a coworker. I saw a cartoon tomato on her screen when I walked by and later asked her about it. Lead with curiosity.Add performance feedback to your 1:1s. Get more frequent feedback to ensure you are moving in the right direction.Another tip for leaders – set “Productivity Hacks” as an agenda item for your next team meeting. I asked a team of 10 to share one trick on a shared doc. Then they each had 60 seconds to demonstrate their trick in a team meeting. 10 minutes = 10 productivity hacks. This is a great use of time. The final part of this strategy is to ask everyone to pick one hack to try for the next week and document their pick. Then ask them how it’s going in your 1:1. #BossMode

Recap + Next Steps

Which of these 7 tips will you try this week?

What’s something you do to stay productive?

Let me know in the comments to help others. I hope this was a good use of your time and you remember you are kenough.