Fordham Law alumnus Jack Chen ’05 wrote a piece for Bloomberg Law about self-effectiveness in the workplace.
Many of us face the same fate. We check out of our work when we fail to compare favorably to our peers, perhaps at annual review time or in seeing what our neighbors are accomplishing. Some individuals may simply leave the organization, team, in search of bluer skies. However, the impact may be much more subtle. We may decide that middle of the pack is good enough and won’t try as hard to excel.
The resulting organization will limp along, much as a car engine will when one or more pistons fails to fire in sync with the rest. The vehicle will continue to move forward, but it is clear that its performance will be sub par. Individuals and organizations will fail to reach their fullest capacity unless they successfully identify and address individual inefficiencies and obstacles.
People with disabilities possess a distinct advantage when it comes to identifying and tackling obstacles to performance. Born of necessity, disabled individuals regularly face obstacles and inefficiencies because their condition prevents them from accomplishing a task or accomplishing the task as fast as their non-disabled counterparts. People with disabilities constantly develop strategies to surmount their challenges so that they can compete on an equal footing on the corporate stage.
As someone with a disability (I am blind), daily tasks simply take longer to perform. For example, traveling with a cane causes an individual like me to walk much more slowly. The cane only detects obstacles and hazards four feet or a step and a half in front. Therefore, I walk more slowly so I don’t get injured by doors left ajar, open manholes, support poles for scaffolding, etc. To counteract this inefficiency, I minimize my need to travel. For example, I only book conference rooms within a few feet of my desk.
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Addressing inefficiencies does not stop with the obstacle itself, however. Dramatic efficiencies can be found in optimizing other areas of work/life.
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Each of us possess great strengths and particular weaknesses. To maximize the performance of our teams, our departments, and ultimately our companies, we must regularly identify and tackle our weaknesses.
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The process towards maximal self effectiveness begins with identifying areas for optimization. It begins with actively monitoring oneself to identify areas of frustration, stress, and discomfort. For example, a sore neck might indicate that a monitor angle or height is suboptimal. Needing to reread documents repeatedly may indicate that noise levels are too distracting. Sluggishness may indicate that one isn’t obtaining enough down time or may be handling too many matters to be efficient. Whatever the situation, the response must be to adapt, to counteract the suboptimal circumstance and achieving greater self effectiveness.
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Company leaders and managers must actively encourage employee’s to embark on this personal journey toward self effectiveness. Encouragement must come in the form of Regularly creating space and prioritizing employees to engage in such journeys. At it’s essence, failure of an employee to perform at the desired level may indicate less that an employee is failing to accomplish a task but more that the company has failed to assist that employee at achieving his or her maximal self effectiveness.
Company leaders should understand that the responsibility for an employee failing to perform at the desired level must be born by the company itself.
Too often conversations in manager one-on-ones focus on the substance of the work and not enough on what obstacles lay in the way of employees achieving their highest self effectiveness. Once suboptimal circumstances are identified, leaders and managers must proactively eliminate these obstacles and work with employees to discover new efficiencies.
By not doing so, we allow our engines to limp along and leave value on the table.
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