One of the things that perhaps comes to mind in any industry is the extent to which one really cannot influence the ultimate outcome.
My particular industry is biopharmaceutical/medical devices and my roles in it over the years have been in manufacturing and quality and project management, but I suspect that my tale would be familiar to anyone in any other industry: we only have the ability to do the work that is in front of us, without necessarily knowing how the larger game is playing out or if our work will ever be successful. We strive and do: we make product, we test product, we ship product, we manage the inevitable 1001 details that are a part of getting anything accomplished in the commercial world.
And yet, there is absolutely no guarantee that one's efforts go anywhere.
The assumption, of course, is always success: do the work, get the grade, just like things worked in school. However as anyone that has worked for any time in an industry can tell you, great products and great ideas have no more likelihood of success than their mediocre brethren. The best execution can be halted by a simple failures, the best product can fail because it is not available. And yet for myself - and for many - we pour our days and weeks and hours into the parts that we think we can influence, never truly knowing if our efforts will bear fruit or they will become yet another in a long line "it almost worked" business studies.
I contrast this with the impact that one can have on one's own life.
The outcome is never 100% in our control of course: random things like illness or financial setback or just plain bad luck can occur. And yet our effort and our results are almost 100% within our control. For many of the projects or goals that we have, the road to success is both much clearer and well documented: almost every success book will in some form or fashion tell you that the road to success in almost anything is already out there and available, one simply has to pay their dues and do the work. But in these sorts of things, effort almost always translates into visible progress rather than a sort of ethereal "we are going to make it".
So, I ask myself, why do I find it so easy to spend hours and effort on the things of industry and cannot muster the same will to follow the things of my life?
Is it as simple as sloth? Perhaps, although I would argue that without enough recharge time from work related efforts, sloth can also simply be a form of mental recharge. Is it lack of will? Perhaps, but it is not that I have greater will do complete my day job, only consequences.
Perhaps that is it, a lack of consequences. Fail at my job and the results will be immediate; fail at my personal aspirations and the impact is not nearly so immediate, but far more insidious.
Or, I wonder - perhaps is it that I do not believe that I can truly succeed at something, that my efforts will likely yield the same sort of out of control results that I have experienced in my work and so I fail to commit? That I simply lack the confidence that the trail of success will work for me as it has for others.
"Success" is a loaded term of course, and means different things to different people. Success in business is pretty well defined; success in a personal life or endeavor is as widely varied from an achievement to a better relationship. And so it can become a moving scale which we cannot fully assess - except that we know when we have hit the mark.
All of which leaves me with a simple question: If the path to hitting the mark in anything is known (Things under my control/work + effort), why will I not do for myself what I will do for a business? Or perhaps phrased another way, why do I value the impersonal of a corporation above the personal of myself?
I think the difference is the size of aspirations. At work life, things are meted out in small chunks. You don’t strive for being CEO of an international corporation on your first day of work on the production line. But in home life, we mostly look towards the end goal of where we want to be which can be a long way off. I think this affects the effort we use to achieve our goals.
ReplyDeleteEd, that is a good point. 95% of us just start out at our job with what we are given to do (there are those rare few, of course, that have their eyes set on greatness from day one). But yes - for the personal, we see it all in garish living color at the end.
DeleteThe corp goals were fairly easy to manage. No real effort had to be expended. "inventory by X date, work tickets closed by 1700, vacation scheduled in advance, no 24 hour work tickets unless email to boss with valid reasons, 100% utilization +/- 5%." You learn to work within the system. Smart phones made life easier, I had recurring alarms for all my hard limits. I ignored the fact that my "coworkers", Mssrs. Fraud, Waste and Abuse, could violate every one of our goals routinely without repercussions.
ReplyDeleteIn my headspace, there are seventy dozen threads running at once. Just this morning at 0450, I pop awake and it starts right in: bracket for the guy's boat trailer, new account at bank, don't forget the eye doc today, how will I move that 2200 lbs of iron, how many days left on the rental?, yikes! haircut at 0800!!! bath, therapy, COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!
So, to summarize my walk: There was immediate accountability at work. I DID NOT LIKE TO FAIL. Whether the boss gnawed on me or not didn't really matter. I drove myself to meet the goals. Personally, there is so much I need and want to do, that I am distracted into pirouettes. I never understood why that was, until the head injury led to a diagnosis of ADHD. NOW, I understand the why of the past. Education about my atypical brainspace wiring helped leverage the thought threads better. And, to be honest, the hed-meds are important. Without them, I run like a sewing machine: noisy motion, little movement, tremendous personal irritation and dissatisfaction.
Thanks for the near consistent thought provocation, TB. I really have enjoyed more orderly thinking since I began to comment your posts. I want to be cogent and not vapid. Your have really helped me there. It has bled over into meat space.
STxAR - Accountability, at least external. That is an amazing point, and one I had not thought of. At work I am accountable - to my manager, to my coworkers. And it has a direct impact on my life if I do not do my job.
DeleteI am glad that, although this whole thing has been a haul for you, you are getting clarity on why you are the way you are and how you can manage through those issues. To be honest, the "thought provocation" is mutual: your experiences now have me looking through my own life and lenses. For example, I have come to realize that I really cannot have noise - even in the background - when I am going about my daily life. It is distracting. I never realized that before. I am also wondering if I, too, may have some form of ADHD as when I read how you express your experiences, they sound very familiar to me.
Again, the power of the Social Internet. Thanks for always having such thoughtful opinions.
Excellent comment STxAR-
ReplyDeleteOne thing to add- And I have the same problem- there is only so much time, and after busting all week at a real job, fatigue sets in- quite frankly, I am tired at the end of the day, both mentally and physically.
I will take on improvement projects, but I have to be in the mood to do so- otherwise it is a real grind.
People may not be designed to give a corporation the best of themselves.
Raven - There is only so much time, and I at least easily get consumed by what is largely in front me, which to be frank is my current job as I spent a quarter or more of my waking life at it.
DeleteI want to say that in some edition of What Color is Your Parachute, the author made the point that the modern "job" is a relatively recent invention and was not typical of "Work" in past times. Certainly on the whole, corporations have a rhythm and speed that is not designed for the individual.
You pose some interesting questions (as you always do) to which I, of course, have no ready answers. I think the point about accountability is a good one and probably has merit to it. And the discussion about ADHD is interesting. I am fairly certain I have (undiagnosed) ADD, not ADHD. Oh my, how I zone out and daydream, and can remember many things about tests when I didn't know the material because I simply had failed to pay adequate attention. I got through it all, even through law school, but I know I could have done better had I known there was some kind of help available -- if not medication, at least some re-direction. My parents, especially my dad, would have considered all of that hogwash, by the way.
ReplyDeleteBob, honestly posing the questions is half the fun!
DeleteI do not know if it is the overall situation of the world (possibly) or some deep residual scarring from one job effort transmission going horribly wrong, but I struggle even today with attention at work. For me to be at my most productive, I almost have to be locked away from most inputs and ability to deflect my attention.