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Give a person a list of tasks.
- The good do each task on the list to the standard required
- The bad do part of the list or below standard work
- The ultra do the list to or above standard plus work at additional value-adding tasks.
If this is straight line work, it is quite easy to monitor and assess the good and the bad but the excellent offers much more challenge. Intuition tells us that the ultra will stand out of the pack and be obvious but this does not seem to be the case.
Perhaps this is because our attention is drawn more strongly towards danger than comfort. A 'bad' worker offers more obvious and direct risk to results than the good or ultra and therefore draws more attention by encouraging a need to investigate and intervene.
Much of the ultra however, goes unnoticed because it doesn't push for attention, often lays outside of official job responsibilities and is therefore not measured by standard indicators.
If it ain't broke, understand why.
Normally we spend resources investigating negative resulting actions rather than focusing on understanding the process of successful attempts. This sets up the 'no news is good news' idea as, when information does flow in, it is slanted much further towards problem areas than success.
And when the successes *are* highlighted, they are usually given simple causal relationships that fail to factor in even the most basic of influences let alone attribute much to external, uncontrollable circumstances and nothing to the notion of dumb luck.
Understanding why something is strong means investigating the external forces that play a part in its success and helps build a more complete picture. This aids in further and faster adaptation of the strong and improvement of the weak by applying the learned rules across the good and weak alike.
Often, what is discovered, is that the strongest and highest performers are those that utilise simple, natural formulas that offer consistency. Complexity and increased conditionals create more room for error and narrow the probabilities of successful outcomes and are therefore more likely to have increased variation in result and suffer negative impacts from external pressures.
If everyone in an organisation falls into the bad category it will obviously be an environment that is unsustainable in even the short term. Only parts of action lists are completed and the standards are haphazard at best.
What many organisations aim for is stability. The good provide stability. Everyone does exactly what is asked of them to the agreed standard. No more, no less. Fulfilled list-based actions are predictable when the environment for which the list was designed is unchanging but, can experience fatal errors when dynamic, unpredictable stressors are applied.
Plus, if the given list contains errors itself, they are systematically and often blindly propagated throughout the system and are therefore much more costly to correct, if you find them - as these errors often become culture and replicated through same as yesterday thinking.
Because of this, once stability is obtained, change within this environment can be difficult because the organisation becomes set in its ways. Change is always a constant and if it isn't driven from inside the organisation, it will definitely be applied from outside.
The ultra is the aim for at least a significant percentage of the organisation. In this situation, more movements are made towards improvement with many small movements being made autonomously by individuals who are specialised in their area.
Each player takes the responsibility for action that is directed at improvement of self, others, environment or process and this personal investment drives commitment, integrity and continued drive. Mistakes are still made (in fact many times more), but they are low level mistakes that are quickly identified, located and corrected with small cost before becoming systemic.
As successes are discovered through failing small and fast, they can be constantly introduced to the entire organisation. By setting up a culture where change is consistent, all players become accustomed to it and are more willing to participate. In this system, the bad become a resource that provides a wide range of information that helps feed the improvement engine and the good become willing testers.
Being an ultra is not a role for everyone but an ultra could be working in any role, as the personality isn't position specific and could be found at any level of an organisation. To actively benefit from them, first they must be found and as said, they often lay outside of the usual indicators. This of course doesn't mean that they aren't already benefiting the organisation as often they can't help themselves but improve what they can.
A lit of my writing focuses on business areas but can be applied or ,considered across many platforms. even Steemit. Fro the organisational standpoint, each of these three categories exist here.
Currently, due to the infancy of the system, the bad might be the people that take out more than they put in. This of course isn't just capital investment in and out as content in is also regarded. Whereas all money in is essentially the same, not all content is.
The good here may be the people that add decent content, add value, and consistently do what is necessary to build the system steadily. Good content, reinvesting a portion of their rewards etc.
The ultra are the ones that go above and beyond. They have their minds working everywhere and apply their skills to many regions. They not only add the value to the system through their content, but also through their gap fixing, solution development and encouragement of others.
Where do you fit into your organisation, your community, your family? Where do you fit in at Steemit?
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
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