Doing "enough to get by" vs. "hard work"

October 21, 2009 11:32 AM

When is it actually worth it to attempt to do any better than average?

:::A disclaimer::: The nature of my question may frame me as an "underachiever." Not true. I understand the value of hard work and not cutting corners - trying to the best of ones ability to get a job done right. My question has more to do with going beyond "trying hard" to the point where "hard work" seems to be producing diminishing returns - insofar as time, money and energy are concerned. Hours of overtime keeping people away from their home, their exercise, and their relationships in order to get something that is already "good enough" (like...the client will pay for it) to "perfect" seems to me to be a waste.

____

I work in an industry where perfectionism runs rampant. In most cases 'Good Enough' for the client isn't 'Good Enough' for my peers - and going that extra 10 percent in pursuit of perfection usually involves considerable amounts of time, energy and overtime - which I personally see as reprehensible.

So...

Are there studies that show that the extra 10 or 20 percent of work actually contributes that much to your overall return on energy? Is striving for average rather than striving for perfection better for the bottom line (as I suspect it is)?

Also, on an individual level...are there any studies that indicate that going "above and beyond the call of duty" actually results in more overall objective success. Will working OT, taking on extra work, doing more than is expected of you ACTUALLY, OBJECTIVELY pay off when contrasted with doing just enough to get by?

I already know that anecdotal evidence suggests this to be the case, but I suspect that perhaps objective data might challenge this notion. Maybe I'm wrong....but I'd LOVE to be right.

posted by jnnla to work & money (16 comments total)

Diminishing Returns. Econ 101 stuff really.
posted by GuyZero at 11:36 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

You don't come off as an underachiever so much as someone who is in the wrong field or working for the wrong organization.

Also, the people who obsess and work those endless hours do it not so much because of the "objective" returns on putting in that kind of effort, but because they are getting something out of the effort itself (they are "workaholic" and actually enjoy the insane work environment, they don't have the connection to home / exercise / relationship you do, they are getting peer professional recognition that they value, etc.) So looking for "objective" studies (as if there were such a thing) confirming your feelings might or might not mean anything to anyone except you.

Good luck, in any case.
posted by aught at 11:40 AM on October 21, 2009

Also, the people who obsess and work those endless hours do it not so much because of the "objective" returns on putting in that kind of effort, but because they are getting something out of the effort itself (they are "workaholic" and actually enjoy the insane work environment, they don't have the connection to home / exercise / relationship you do, they are getting peer professional recognition that they value, etc.)

Or because there is a culture of workalohism that makes them feel that if they don't sacrifice their other interests, others will view them as less passionate and less dedicated, and they won't advance in their careers.
posted by shaun uh at 11:49 AM on October 21, 2009

Astute observations, aught...that I am in the wrong industry is absolutely true given my priorities - but that is another issue entirely. I also understand that for other people, the payoff is personal and not objective....

...still the thrust of my question has to do with whether or not, objectively, this culture of perfection / or workaholism as you call it adds up to anything over a culture of shooting for "good enough." Data on the issue would be of use to me - even if it means something only to me :)
posted by jnnla at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2009

There's nothing wrong with average. If you are content with average that is. And it's easier which you've noticed.

I dealt with something similar a few years back in college. I was better in some subject matters than others and was basically thinking "what's the point of being really good at it?". What's the point of being so good at what you do that you are in a league of your own?

A friend of mine wisely replied that I should indeed strive to be the best that I can and do the best that I can do if for no one else but for myself. At some point you will come across an opportunity that had you not been trying harder all along may not have presented itself to you and you'll be in a much better position to take advantage of it.

I would do it for professional integrity and to know that I am capable of doing/being something other than what everyone else is doing.

I do agree with you though on the fact that it seems like "good enough" is good enough in most cases. Why would a client pay top dollar for something amazing when good enough will get the job done at a lesser cost?
posted by eatcake at 12:01 PM on October 21, 2009

Also, on an individual level...are there any studies that indicate that going "above and beyond the call of duty" actually results in more overall objective success. Will working OT, taking on extra work, doing more than is expected of you ACTUALLY, OBJECTIVELY pay off when contrasted with doing just enough to get by?

Pay off in terms of career advances, bonuses, etc? Or in the quality of the final product? In either case, I suspect it matters a great deal on what particular industry you're talking about.

I found this study which says that people who worked 55 hours per week did worse cognitively in a variety of areas than those who worked 40 hours. That might indicate working harder makes you less efficient, but even inefficient working may advance goals further than not working at all. Again, probably depends on what the work is, how important cognition is, and so on.
posted by losvedir at 12:13 PM on October 21, 2009

THe average in an industry where everyone is trying for perfection is a pretty high standard. When I interviewed someone and they asked what the "average" trader at my firm made, I rarely hired them. I wanted the guy asking what the top trader made. It is one thing to settle for less than perfection at a point of personal diminishing return, but as a regular goal, not so much in my opinion.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:22 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

In some cases, it's a CYA thing. In government, the likelihood of being criticized for something that happens, or something to wind up in the paper and embarrassing the minister, means that most departments make damn good and sure that their work is 110%. Good-enough-ism just won't fly in that environment, if only because it means that you leave big huge loopholes most journalists would delight in pointing out to all and sundry. So, expend the extra 20% effort to close those loopholes, and protect the department and the minister.
posted by LN at 12:24 PM on October 21, 2009

Well, once you've gone through several rounds of downsizing/layoffs and watched dozens of good, hard-working, give 110% people let-go simply to improve the company bottom-line, you do start to wonder whether it's ever worth it to work any harder than is necessary.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:31 PM on October 21, 2009 [4 favorites]

This is not exactly what you're looking for however, but there is a recent study that examined the impact of working fewer hours. It was covered in the following wsj article (Shellenbarger, "To Work Better, Try Working Less," Wall Street Journal, 2009-09-22) and on the authors blog.

The study examined the impact of a mandatory time off policy at Boston Consulting Group.

In a nutshell:

Making sure each consultant got some time off forced teams to communicate better, share more personal information and forge closer relationships. They also had to do a better job at planning ahead and streamlining work, which in some cases resulted in improved client service, based on interviews with clients.

In this case, they may not have been working to a lower quality target, but instead using the change in preceived resources to optimize their efforts.
posted by cheez-it at 12:49 PM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Cheeze-it and losvedir...that's the stuff I'm looking for! Thanks and keep it coming if you have it!
posted by jnnla at 12:52 PM on October 21, 2009

Not quite about the amount/quality of work, but Wired recently published The Good Enough Revolution. There may be something useful to you there.
posted by Joleta at 1:33 PM on October 21, 2009

I think it depends on the likelihood of you moaking more money based on doing better than average. I used to care so much about outperforming and no matter how great I did, it didn't result in more money.
posted by anniecat at 1:41 PM on October 21, 2009

I've found the best way to get ahead is to advance the goals of the group you work with, rather than your own personal achievement. This means you succeed as a team: you give your group something to take pride in, and create loyal allies. Also, this means you are more focused on the big picture.

In my current job there are many high achievers, but they seem to work "harder, not smarter".

However, in my career, excellent simple and clear solutions are highly preferred, and a way to get to these is to not be chained to the desk, but to wander the halls thinking out of the box.
posted by niccolo at 6:35 PM on October 21, 2009

Slightly tangential, but you may want to read up on Zipf's Theory of Least Effort and the (related) Pareto Principle.

From Zipf:
Humans have an innate tendency towards "economy of effort" - choosing a course of action that will require the least effort (or as Zipf states, “the probable least average of... work"). Least Effort shows up in language all the time - word use in literature falls into "harmonic distributions" where the same subset of words are used many more times than the outlying words. Least Effort also shows up in information seeking: asking your co-worker how the dongle works, rather than pulling out the manual, because it's a lot easier to yell over the cubicle wall. Least Effort actually applies in a ton of places, but most of the research that's easy to parse is in LIS (Information Science) or literature (there's an analysis of Gravity's Rainbow using Zipf's harmonic distributions on Google, IIRC).
Zipf's book is Zipf, G.K. (1949). Human behavior and the principle of least effort: an introduction to human ecology. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press.

Related to Zipf is the "Pareto principle", that 80/20 rule: 20% of stuff makes 80% of the difference. For example, the same articles tend to get cited again and again: 20% of the documents get 80% of the use. Microsoft claims that fixing 20% of the bugs in a program solves 80% of the crashes.

Zipf and Pareto really highlight that "Good Enough"/"Least Effort" is SOP for human behavior: a counterpoint to consider when everyone around you is working through lunch and staying 'till 9PM.
posted by alex.dudley at 10:53 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

alex.dudley - JUST the stuff I was looking for. I was familiar with the Pareto Principle but had never heard of the theory of "economy of effort" - I had naturally assumed this to be the case but had never found data buttressing my hunch. Great stuff!
posted by jnnla at 2:22 PM on October 22, 2009