Embracing Excellence at Work

The calendar days have started counting and sooner than later, we will start the countdown to the end of the year. As we reflect on how the last year ran, we might be considering resolutions moving forward into 2012. In addition to the resolutions you could be contemplating, I would suggest an extra one. Seek to embrace excellence in whatever you do this year. 

Excellence is a state of mind that involves seeking to be the best we can be. We get to appreciate our inner capacities and the requirements of certain jobs and tasks and commit to be the best we can be at them. We draw energies and motivation from within to produce results that amaze both ourselves and those around us. The pursuit of excellence is one known means of reflecting intrinsic motivation at work. We determine our own goals and means of achieving them and get down to doing what we desired to do.

The passion to be excellent at work pulls us from cocoons of self-pity and disillusionment when we realize we can produce results that make our work environment a satisfying place. There are however two main reasons why many workers today struggle with the pursuit of excellence.

Dislike for what one does

 A study undertaken among Kenyan university students a couple of years ago indicated that more than 50% of the sampled students did not like the courses they were pursuing. Many felt like they had been coerced either by the Joint Admissions Board or by their parents and guardians to pursue the programs. With this experience, many did not appreciate what they were doing for the 4 years they were on campus. Unless a miracle happens to such persons, they carry over the dislike to the jobs they eventually land.

I have heard many staff indicate that they are just holding on to what they are currently pursuing as they have no other option. This can be a time wasting season and denies the staff passion for what they do. Excellence is never a concern since they feel misplaced and mismatched. These staff hence just work to earn the pay cheque with no motivation to do more than what is barely expected of them.

Dislike for where one works 

Do you like where you work? Do you feel motivated to produce better results for your employer? Assuming there are no performance targets, would you do half of what you do at your workplace? There are many workers who love their field of work but have no attraction for their employer. Due to this psychological removal from their employer, the staff never think out of the box and never work to produce better results than what is on the job description.

 

Regardless of the motivation for the lackluster performance, the worker denies herself the opportunity to grow and shine and fails to become what she should. You lose the chance to learn and impede your chances for career progression. Failure to pursue excellence also robs you of the satisfaction that is drawn from excellent performance, whether appreciated by your employer or not.

Career Growth yet not Upwards

How has the year been? Would you say there has been any progress along your career path? What are marks of progress? Might you be closer to where you wanted to be than you were at the start of the year? A look back at the year that is ending raises critical questions in the minds of many. Career progression has always been equated with vertical growth up on the organisational structure. Moving up from being an assistant to becoming an officer, or from being an accountant to becoming the chief accountant. That is great and clearly motivates many employees.
 

There is however a cohort of employees that has gotten content with lateral career growth. This is growth that is horizontal. Such employees would not die fighting for a promotion up the company hierarchy. They have found satisfaction in growth that is horizontal. The fight for the upper echelons at the company has been substituted with the desire to seek for challenging tasks, seeking for innovations to perform task and running with the task. These staff have realized that career growth can be as rewarding horizontally as it is vertically.

This trend has been necessitated by various reasons. In many companies, most of the high level positions are already filled by the baby boomers who are permanent and pensionable, aka P & P. It is therefore not wise to sit and wait until the bosses vacate the seats since it could just be they are with the employer till death or ill health or retirement do them part.

The upcoming young generation realizes it requires seeking for satisfaction not in vertical growth but in actual tasks accomplished. This has produced a high flying workforce that is running after tasks, seeking for challenges as they are easily and quickly bored by routine. They actually abhor most of the available vertical promotions since they realize that the vertical growth comes with more responsibilities and less time for innovation and fun at work. They hence seek to remain ‘down here’ where they can make all manner of trials and errors since they know they have the space and time to be creative.

Due to the fact that many employers will normally make salary adjustments every year, the lateral career ladder enthusiasts will bask in ever rising salaries at their levels yet with more time on their hands to remain true to their inner desires. At this level, they have fewer or no staff to supervise on a top bottom approach hence have better opportunities to mentor on the job. They hand-hold their mentees since they work on the same level on the same tasks, and not necessarily sending tasks downstream for the lower cadre to implement.

Handling mistakes at work

In all spheres in life, we make mistakes. Is there room for forgiveness at work when mistakes happen? We mess up a great meal at a family function when we over-salt the meals. We pour water on the sofas or leave taps open only to find our homes flooded upon return. We buy the wrong shade of paint and forget to pick change from the local market. In other words, we live in a world where mistakes are a common fabric.

However, mistakes at work are among the most dreaded due to the repercussions that accompany them. Mistakes have cost people promotions, while others have had to be laid off. Some of these mistakes cost the employer great deals of revenues hence the reason why many employers will not want to be seen to be tolerating mistakes. This coupled with the presence of many perfectionist bosses only serves to make the workplace a branded mistake-free environment.

Mistakes are however not evil. Every progressive workplace should learn the art of celebrating the mistakes of its staff. Just as in day to day living, mistakes are a common indicator that learning is ongoing. Mistakes generally happen when staff are either experimenting on some concepts or are interacting with a phenomenon for the first time. This is how learning happens both for adults, just as for children. A work environment where staff make no mistakes is a cause to worry for management. It might just reflect the lack of interest in growth or discovery or could just be that staff are overcome with fear hence would rather maintain the status quo.

This is however not a ticket to go on a mistake-making spree. Mistakes are costly and learning should be evident through the experiences. When you make a mistake at work, you may want to consider the following remedial plans.

Admit your mistakes. This is one of the most difficult things to do. From the very early age, we are not socialized to accept our mistakes. This was due to the consequences of admitting wrong doing. We would rather die than admit our mistakes. Admission of mistakes is a brave and intelligent step towards appreciating the lessons accruing from the experience.

Don’t blame anyone else for your mistakes. When God asked Adam whether he had eaten of the forbidden fruit, he quickly turned the heat on Even who comfortably passed the blame to the serpent. This is human nature. We never mind finding a quick scape goat to blame for our mistakes. Senior staff would always place the blame on the juniors while the juniors blame the bosses for the mistakes. This trend leads the company to nowhere. It never shows the source of the learning curve.

Don’t stay on the floor after the fall. Falling may not be the problem, remaining on the floor is. After admitting you have made a mistake, rise from the floor and move on with life. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Learn the lessons, develop ways of remedying the consequences of the mistake and live your life. Mistakes are lifelong experiences that we must seek to celebrate and learn from.

Juggling between work and school

The schooling wave has hit the streets. A keen observation in the evenings in the main cities and towns reveal a heightened flow of traffic from the educational institutions, an indication that Kenyans have conspired to go back to school. And they have gone back in droves. And the motivation for getting back to the classroom is as varied as the working students. As we draw towards the end of the year and the start of another, many workers are bound to make resolutions to head back to class or to complete studies abandoned mid-way through. However, as we make those great schooling considerations, it is necessary to consider a few thoughts from those who have gone through the path.
 

It is important to ask ourselves the simple ‘why’ question. Why are you considering going back to school? What is the push or what is the pull? What motivates you to become a student after those years and is the motivation internal or external? Internal motivation could be factors like a desire to become great in your area of specialization or a push to meet your well-articulated personal goals. The motivation could also be external in which you find yourself seeking to study so that you are not ‘left behind’ by your peers or seeking to impress your significant others.

Whatever the motivation, for a working adult, who may have been out of school over the last couple of years, just a reminder that schooling is no joke. It is a hard and serious engagement that requires commitment from start to end. For a working student, it is a challenge since you will have to make time either in the evenings or over the weekends to get to class and other associated engagements like the group work to complete assignments and projects. 

This means denying yourself time to relax after work or the weekends to join your family and friends for social events. This can wear out even the strongest of the persons. Having pressure at work and pressure at school in addition to the pressure at home can easily tear someone apart. Only the strong and daring consider engagements. And I hear some of you say, yeah, it’s not easy.

Being a working student is never a ticket for getting to work late or leaving early. It is rarely a consideration when job roles are worked out hence the worker needs to find mechanisms to ensure he develops a schedule with the other team members to ensure they give the best to their jobs even as they pursue their studies. Rapport with your boss and team mates is critical. Increasingly, many employers are providing for flexible working hours where such persons can report early to work and leave slightly earlier to be in time for their evening classes. This flexibility however requires great discipline since you will have slept relatively late and yet have to be among the first to report to work.

Finally, as much as it depends on you, seek to pursue your studies or your project in a line not so far removed from your daily engagements. Spreading yourself so much could be detrimental to your mental and physical health. In case you must undertake a research project, consider one along your daily work so that you won’t have to move out of your path to complete the task.

Who is looking for a job?

As Bob sat on the couch reflecting on how the year has been, his mind flew back and forth through the various interview panels he had faced over the last couple of months. In most of the cases, the job was too close yet too far as none of the highly anticipated opportunities generated into employment. He had raised his levels of faith and hope through the year only to feel disappointed when none of them turned out to be what he expected. To him, the year has been dragging its feet towards closure and is longing for the Groove Party at the end of the year to bid farewell to this year.

Apparently, talking to Bob, it sounds like he has been over confident about himself and wonders why no one seems to notice him. He is an honest young man and is committed to keeping the job he finds for as long as the employer can keep him. In spite of being a Generation Y fellow, he has made an agreement with himself that he would pursue consistency in his chosen career path and would not be as jumpy as his peers. And yet, even with this inner commitment, no job seems forthcoming.

On the flipside, as the year wore on, there are several employers who have been struggling to fill certain positions. The HR management has posted several job adverts and facilitated numerous interviews but they still don’t seem to land on their candidate of choice. The teams have even moved beyond the competitive process and considered head hunting and are still yet to land a good candidate to fill the positions. 

With these scenarios, something then must be wrong. How come there are many job seekers who like Bob, are busy seeking for employment while there are employers who can’t find appropriate candidates to hire. Where are the jobs and where are the job seekers? These are critical concerns as we draw to the close of the year. What could be some of the reasons why job seekers are not linking up with the jobs?

In certain incidences, job seekers are straightjacketed in their job search. They only wait for the adverts through the mainstream media for them to send in their applications. And with the setting in of frustration, the job seekers often find themselves applying for virtually any available position regardless of whether they are qualified for it or not. Others never want to reveal to other people that they are still seeking for jobs for fear of being laughed at. With this approach, they lose great opportunities of networking for job search. No one around them knows that they are seeking for jobs hence no job references are made to them.

Finally, as a job seeker, be like a job seeker. Job seeking is not a joke and the process should be honored. I have encountered job seekers who walk into an interview room seemingly wondering why on earth they were invited for the interview. They fail to impress the panel by not being conversant with what is expected of them should they be hired. In other cases, they behave in relatively immature ways like dressing in fancy hairs and clothing as though they were on their way to a fashion show. This leaves me wondering where the true job seekers are since some jokers are spoiling the show for genuine seekers of jobs.