The Most Ignored Factor in Evaluating Self Performance

Has this ever happened to you? You thought someone was not succeeding in their job, and then you saw them succeed beyond your expectations in another company.

The other day, my male friend was referring to another female colleague of ours who had quit our organization to join another similar size competitor.

He noted that she had got promoted to VP in her present organization and was doing in fact very well. ‘I had worked with her here’, he said and added, ‘she was quite mediocre, to be honest’. He seemed surprised and slightly annoyed at his view of the person being proven wrong.

Without thinking much, I said, ‘She was not mediocre, maybe you mean to say that her performance was mediocre here’.

He paused, and said ‘You are right, I never thought of it like that’.

In This Issue: Insights Harvested From Our Discussion | Tools for increasing self-awareness | Wellbeing Assessment

What if I told you... Poor performance does not equal poor capability.

Yes, it doesn't!

Like Halo Effect, But The Opposite

Halo Effect is the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in

another area.

As we grow up, we get praise for doing academically well at school. We get labelled as ‘good’ students depending upon our grades, and quite early in life, we learn to evaluate ourselves based on these external performance criteria.

No wonder then in our adult careers, we end up doing the same.

If the organization does not value us, or what we do and reflects in our performance rating, we label ourselves. Except this is a downward label, the opposite of Halo Effect, the Horn Effect.

“Well, this is a great organisation, and I can see people like me succeeding in the same team. So if I am not succeeding, it’s me who is not good enough”. We tend to associate an individual performance in a fixed set-up of the team or the organization to be a reflection of our capability and even our worth beyond work, thanks to the Horn Effect.

It’s exactly this feeling my friend was unknowingly projecting on our ex-colleague.

Performance Is Not Equal to Capability

It’s the year-end self-assessment time now and some of you may have had one of those years, where even the smallest win at work proved to be difficult.

It’s the right time to remind ourselves that we often ignore the role of the environment in our performance.

Each seed has the potential to grow to a large tree but in the right environment. If it does not grow, it’s the environment that should be changed, not throw away the seed.

The central point is that just because you had a bad year, does not mean that you are a bad performer. It does not necessarily mean that you don’t have the right capability either.

So don’t jump to labelling yourself down.

What do you do instead?

Develop the ability to delink your performance, your environment and your capability.

Use the below to get started.

1. Introspection: Why is it happening?

Is there a genuine skill gap? Is your environment not suited to your working style? Is the culture not conducive to you as a person? Maybe the culture is good, but not what motivates ‘you’.

Some plants need direct sunlight, some grow better in indirect sunlight. What kind of plant are you?

2. Get Feedback: Seek out trustworthy people to give you genuine feedback. Triangulate that about what you know about yourself, rule out issues of skill gap etc. and identify the actual reason.

3. Observe Your Self Talk. Create Self Belief: This is a crucial step, and often the hardest. If you gave your 100% and still did not do well, the tendency of beating yourself up is natural. But it’s a downward spiral. Instead, create self-belief by looking back at your previous wins and accomplishments. Talk to people who knew you then and know your strengths. That reminder will help you realize you did much harder things and still are the same person.

4. Take Charge & Create A Plan of Action: Once you identify the reason, take control. Figure out the root cause & identify what will you do for each. Focus on your circle of influence, not your circle of concern. Have shared some tools below to help you through the above steps.

Reflection & Tools You Can Use

High Performance is driven by various factors. Do a quick check before you label yourself down.

1. Is It Meaningful for You? Three men are found smashing boulders with iron hammers. When asked what they are doing, the first man says, “Breaking big rocks into little rocks.” The second man says, “Feeding my family.” The third man says, “Building a cathedral.” Do you know why your work matters?

2. Organization Culture & Your Manager: Do people with your personality and style succeed in your organization? Does your manager have a track record of growing their team? It’s not all bleak if the answer is ‘no’ for these. It just means you need to deliberately plan to overcompensate for these factors in your plan of action.

The below picture, while not exhaustive can get you started reflecting on what your organization culture is, and how does it match your personality. Can you identify your organization type? Share with me whether you can relate to your organization culture.

Types of Organization Culture

3. Do you have the right hard and soft skills? A lot of functional skill requirements are changing as we go more digital in our approach for most roles. For soft skills, typically organizations will have some tools available for 360-degree feedback. If not, have a chat with your key stakeholder, or you use the Johari Window exercise which you can initiate yourself for a soft skills assessment for free.

4. Wellbeing: Optimize for feeling physically & mentally centred. It’s key for high performance. Take a quick simple assessment here to identify which parts of wellbeing you need to focus on.

5. Your Tribe: Do a quality check on your community. Do people around you inspire you to grow? Do they have encouraging things to say about you? Your tribe affects your vibe.

6. Physical Work Environment: With remote work, we all have experienced a big shakeup in our physical work environment. Numerous studies have consistently demonstrated that temperature, air quality, lighting and noise conditions affect work concentration and productivity. Do you know what works best for you and are you able to access it?

Overall Introspection & Feedback Analysis: Peter Drucker piece in 2005 called ‘Managing Oneself’ was crucial for me to optimize my work. I highly recommend it to everyone. If you are rushed for time, watching this 5-minute video will help.

Don't Compare

However, cliche this sounds, it’s true. Everybody is on a different journey, so don’t copy their goals or compare your performance with them. Set your own standards for both.

Remember:

• Your performance in the organization is not equal to your individual self-worth.

• Different people thrive in different environments. You just have to figure out what that is for you.

Keep Thriving!

Rashmi