The Fear of Doing a Great Job
This may sound like madness. But believe me, doing a great job at work can be more scary than you think.
A really great job is one that breaks barriers. That’s the scary part. These barriers have been put up by someone else in the organisation. Whether they be expectations, procedures, hierarchical relationships or pretty much anything about the culture of a workspace. They were put there by people other than you and are the constructs you are expected (and sometimes required) to work within.
Want to do a great job?, you have to break through some of these. And people aren’t going to be happy about that.
You’ll be called arrogant. You’ll be called disruptive. You’ll be called a do-gooder.
“Hey, can’t you just play ball like the rest of us!”
And if you try and overly manage the stakeholders in advance, you’re also at risk of trying to please too many people and dilute the great work you know needs to be done.
Its really scary. What if my performance suffers; what if I lose credibility; what if I lose my job? It’s way to easy to take the easy path of just doing it their way, even when its not the right thing.
Studies show we are walking into a workforce of passive and less engaged workers, who could add so much more value, but don’t. Gallop suggests that 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. You can find their research here.
In my career, I’ve tried to be the person who strives to do it better, not just for me, but for the company’s benefit. In my experience there’s a minority that wants you to act this way and a majority who just wants to to work hard and deliver activity and predictable safe results, rather than strive for new and step changing results.
The case for Resilience (Big R) is huge. To be resilient in the face of your own company’s behaviours is the single biggest barrier because its an emotional one. You may fear it much more than the difficulty of the tasks in the job itself.
I don’t have the answer, but I recognise it.
And this is one small step towards the courage to continue with a continuous improvement mindset. You might be the lone voice, but it is your voice. You might be wrong sometimes, but that’s ok if you’re also right sometimes. Because those times will be step changes for you and your business.
I’m a global corporate Talent & People Development leader trying to ‘get out more’ and share my experience with those looking to learn and develop their careers.
If you’re here to learn, I’m here to help.
You can find out more at www.careeringtosuccess.com and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/robert-craig-cts
