How often do we hear praise offered to someone with words like, “They’re all in! They give more than 100%!”
If only I had a dollar for every time I heard a sports coach or manager praise one of their players with statements like, “She really stepped up and gave 110%!” Often as a fan, I’ve agreed with those statements wholeheartedly – and then have said wistfully to my sports-watching friends: “If only my team had more players who give a hundred and ten percent!” Of course, I do realize that it’s not possible to have more than 100% of something.
Or do I?
Recently, a high-performer who I coach expressed an interest in making herself more valuable to her company. She has responded to coaching extremely well. Her coworkers have told me that they’ve seen her growth. She and I had discussed how coaching often helps a high-functioning person take their performance from “good” to “great.” So I asked her, “Mary (that’s an alias), what things can you do to take yourself from “good” to “great?”
She pondered, and I waited. After a long pause I began thinking of ways I could re-phrase the question for her. I thought of asking her: “What would it look like for you to go from giving 100%, to giving 110%?”
Fortunately, a loud voice inside said: “NO!” Mary had recently and repeatedly expressed joy with her work and with her life balance. She was already a hard worker with a strong internal motivation to do well.
“Mary,” I finally broke the silence. “From all you’ve told me and from other feedback I’ve received, I think you’re already giving 100%. I don’t think it makes sense for anyone to try harder than that. So – how could you expand what your 100% means to your company without working harder?
That unblocked the conversation. We collaborated to list some things she might do to make herself more valuable without necessarily increasing her stress or sacrificing her work/life balance. Here’s some of the ideas we surfaced:
Volunteer for a needed task or project that would require her to learn a new skill or new aspect of the business.
Build a closer relationship with a teammate, client or other stakeholder that would allow her more insight into the bigger picture, and thus stimulate more ideas on how she could improve the business.
Bring her best ideas for continuous improvement to the attention of teammates or managers who could provide feedback, cooperation, guidance, or authorization for her to give a try.
Be more intentional about preparing for meetings; so that the time saved through more efficient meetings could more than offset time spent on better preparation.
There’s nothing magical about this list; ideas for “expanding one’s 100%” would look different for different people. But notice some things the list DOESN’T include:
We didn’t mention the possibility of staying online later in the evening or getting online earlier in the morning to increase her work effort.
We didn’t propose that she call for more meetings.
We didn’t think about raising her productivity targets by reasoning, “If current goals are being met, there must be a way to squeeze out more.”
How do we even determine whether a person is “giving 100%?” A manager I recently worked with told me he thinks the key to getting the most value out of people is to “push them to their breaking point, and then when they complain, to ease off of them.” Is a person’s 100% effort the point at which they cry “uncle” due to their workload? Is a person’s 100% the same from one week or month to the next? What about when their kids are home sick from school, or when they’ve lost a loved one?
Times for Extra Effort?
I thought about sustainability and human performance. Basketball and hockey seasons persist over six months and 80-something games, with travel and injuries on top of it all. And only after all that do the highest-stakes contests begin: Playoffs! Is my team in the best position to compete for a championship if the coaching staff pushes players to consistently give “110%” in every game, every practice? If you follow these sports, you know that’s unsustainable. So what can we expect from our work teams if we, as leaders, set the expectation to consistently work near their breaking point?
There certainly are times when it is right to have an honest conversation with someone on the team because they’re noticeably under-engaged. A good leader addresses those situations through direct and constructive feedback for the sake of all involved. And there certainly are times when it is right to revise the standard of success upward for a team or individual.
There are also times when extraordinary effort is truly warranted to seize upon a sudden opportunity or to deal with an unexpected challenge. It’s part of the game for any business to have short, infrequent stretches of needing one or more people to step up and give extraordinary effort for an evening here, a weekend there. When this happens, we hopefully acknowledge such efforts by providing some meaningful recognition or reward to the people who have stepped up to fill the need. And, if the same kind of extraordinary efforts are needed on a frequent and recurring basis, hopefully leaders are aware of their responsibility to investigate whether there’s an underlying problem that needs solving.
A Nuanced Conversation for High Performers
Back to Mary, and how to help her to grow even more in their contributions to the organization. If there is a better approach than asking for more of her effort, what is it? If Mary were on your team, how might she react if you were to challenge her this way:
VERSION 1: “Mary, I’ve noticed that you bring a lot of energy to your work. Your efforts have made us a better company, and you are important to me. I wouldn’t ask you to work harder than you are now, yet I think you’re capable of making even greater contributions. Can we take a few minutes to think together about what you could you do to be an even bigger part of our success story without making your workdays longer or harder?”
Of course, you could change a bit of that language around to formulate a different approach. For instance, how do you think it would hit Mary to hear you say something like this:
VERSION 2: “Mary, I’ve noticed that you bring a lot of energy to your work. Your efforts have made us a better company, and you are important to me. And I think you’re capable of making even greater contributions. Can we take a few minutes to think together about ways you could be an even bigger part of our success story by working 10% harder than you’re working now?”
I think of Version 1 as asking for the “healthy stretch” – the kind that benefits both the employee and the organization. I think of Version 2 as an invitation to stress and burnout. That may clear to many of us! What might be less clear – and hopefully thought-provoking – is whether the things we actually communicate to people as we invite them to advance their careers by increasing their value, conform to the version we’re intending!
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