İlgimi çeken, altını çizdiğim bölümleri aşağıda paylaşıyorum:
You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it doesn’t matter, that you will rest afterwards, but that moment never comes.
In the old days, if you were a white-collar worker,
the deal was that you worked as hard as you could at the start of your career
to earn the right to be rewarded later on, with security of tenure and a series
of increasingly senior positions.
“The head of audit is in
the office regularly from 5:30 AM until 10 PM, on weekends, too. So is our
managing partner. This is not exceptional. The rest of the firm sees the senior
people working these hours and emulates them.”
The insecurity is
exacerbated by the rigorous “up or out” promotion system perpetuated by elite
professional organizations, which turns your colleagues into your competitors.
How do you convince your boss that you’re worth more than your closest colleague?
Insecure overachievers
discover that the rigorous up-or-out policy exacerbates their insecurity and
their fear of being “exposed” as inadequate — and ultimately rejected.
Work exceptionally long
hours when you need to or want to, but do so consciously, for specified time
periods, and to achieve specific goals. Don’t let it become a habit because you
have forgotten how to work or live any other way.
And notice how you judge
colleagues who are working less hard than you — they may have discovered
something you need to learn.
Eğer konu ilginizi çektiyse ve içeriği tüm detaylarıyla okumak istiyorsanız, şöyle buyurun:
If
You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?
by Laura Empson
February 01, 2018
Executive Summary
In the old days, if you
were a white-collar worker, the deal was that you worked as hard as you could
at the start of your career to earn the right to be rewarded later on, with
security of tenure and a series of increasingly senior positions. This is no
longer true. Today, many senior leaders work longer and harder than ever. At
the heart of it is insecurity, and indeed, elite professional organizations
deliberately set out to identify and recruit “insecure overachievers.” Insecure
overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet are driven
by a profound sense of their own inadequacy.
If this sounds familiar,
you should try to work exceptionally long hours when you need to or want to —
but do it consciously, for specified time periods, and to achieve specific
goals. Don’t let it become a habit because you have forgotten how to work or
live any other way.
“I really became a
robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues
worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal.
It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under
increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it doesn’t matter, that you
will rest afterwards, but that moment never comes.”
Through my research, I’ve
heard stories like this over and over again from people in accounting firms,
law firms, consulting firms, and other white-collar jobs. We all know that
chronic overwork is bad for our mental and physical health and can seriously
jeopardize the quality of our work. We wish we could change the way we work,
but we don’t really know how.
Long hours are most
common in managerial and professional occupations. This is something of a
recent trend. In the old days, if you were a white-collar worker, the deal was
that you worked as hard as you could at the start of your career to earn the
right to be rewarded later on, with security of tenure and a series of
increasingly senior positions. In professional organizations, such as law
firms, accountancy firms, management consultancies, and investment banks, the
prize was partnership. The competition was relentless, but once you won the
prize, it was yours for keeps. Partners had autonomy to choose how and when to
work and what to work on. Of course, some senior partners spent a surprising
amount of their “business development time” on the golf course, but that was OK
because they had already paid their dues to the organization.
This is no longer true.
As a director of HR in a leading accounting firm told me, “The head of audit is
in the office regularly from 5:30 AM until 10 PM, on weekends, too. So is our
managing partner. This is not exceptional. The rest of the firm sees the senior
people working these hours and emulates them.”
My research, published in
my new book about leadership in professional organizations, shows that our
tendency to overwork and burn out is framed by a complex combination of factors
involving our profession, our organization, and ourselves. At the heart of it
is insecurity. As one senior business unit leader in a law firm admitted to me:
“I just come in here and work as hard as I can all the time. I feel like I’m
doing a good job, but it’s hard to measure. That’s the nature of what we do:
It’s feast or famine. And we all tend to be such insecure people that we’re all
scared all the time.”
The 500 interviews I conducted
for my book showed a pattern: A professional’s insecurity is rooted in the
inherent intangibility of knowledge work. How do you convince your client that
you know something worthwhile and justify the high fees you charge? The
insecurity caused by this intangibility is exacerbated by the rigorous “up or
out” promotion system perpetuated by elite professional organizations, which
turns your colleagues into your competitors. How do you convince your boss that
you’re worth more than your closest colleague? There is no chance for a
professional to rest on their laurels — or even to rest.
Exacerbating this
problem, elite professional organizations deliberately set out to identify and
recruit “insecure overachievers” — some leading professional organizations
explicitly use this terminology, though not in public. Insecure overachievers
are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet driven by a profound
sense of their own inadequacy. This typically stems from childhood, and may
result from various factors, such as experience of financial or physical
deprivation, or a belief that their parents’ love was contingent upon their
behaving and performing well.
As the recruiters I
interviewed explained, these individuals are immensely attractive to elite
professional organizations because they are entirely self-motivating and
self-disciplining. The firm in effect tells the insecure overachiever, “We are
the best in the business, and because we want you to work for us, that makes
you the best, too.” But upon joining the firm, insecure overachievers discover
that the rigorous up-or-out policy exacerbates their insecurity and their fear
of being “exposed” as inadequate — and ultimately rejected.
In the short term,
insecure overachievers respond by delivering exceptional performance. As the
chair of a consulting firm told me, “My theory is that the best client
relationship builders in our firm are insecure. They are so hell-bent on making
their clients feel good about them that they work overtime. Clients feel their
passion and respond to that.”
The tendency to hard work
is reinforced by the strong culture of social control created by elite
professional organizations. On the one hand, this is comforting. Some
professionals I have studied refer to their firms as being like a “family,” or
something even more intense. As one consultant described it, “When I first came
here, I thought, this place feels like a cult. But now I have been here a
while, I think it is great.” Taken to extremes, the insecure overachiever’s
sense of commitment can lead to extreme conformity and the normalization of
unhealthy behaviors.
Paradoxically, the
professionals I studied still believe that they have autonomy and that they are
overworking by choice. They do not blame their organizations, which after all
have invested in work-life balance initiatives and wellness programs. Instead,
they blame themselves for being inadequate. Their colleagues seem to be coping,
and they take that as further evidence of their own inadequacy. They do not talk
honestly to their colleagues about their problems, thus perpetuating the myth
of the invincible professional, which encourages their colleagues to feel
inadequate in turn. If they suffer burnout, they think it is their fault. Their
organization and its leadership are absolved of responsibility, so nothing
fundamental changes.
As a result, by the time
insecure overachievers become leaders of their organizations, they
unconsciously replicate the systems of social control and overwork that helped
to create them.
If you are a leader who
is wondering “Why am I working harder than ever?,” take a good look at
yourself, the organization that has created you, and the organizational
practices you are perpetuating. Working hard can be rewarding and exhilarating.
But consider how you are living. Recognize when you are driving yourself and
your staff too hard, and learn how to help yourself and your colleagues to step
back from the brink.
Your insecurities may
have helped to get you where you are today, but are they still working for you?
Is it time to acknowledge that you have “made it” and to start enjoying the
experience a little bit more? And if your boss is an insecure overachiever,
recognize how they are projecting their insecurity onto you — how they make you
feel insecure for not being able to keep up with them.
Work exceptionally long
hours when you need to or want to, but do so consciously, for specified time
periods, and to achieve specific goals. Don’t let it become a habit because you
have forgotten how to work or live any other way.
And notice how you judge
colleagues who are working less hard than you — they may have discovered
something you need to learn.
If you are a leader, you
have a responsibility not just to your firm but to the people who work within
it. Help your colleagues to achieve their full potential, but do not allow
yourself to exacerbate and exploit their insecurities. And remember that your
ultimate “duty of care” is to yourself.
--------------------------------------------------------
Laura
Empson is Professor in the Management of Professional Service firms at Cass
Business School, University of London, and Senior Research Fellow at Harvard
Law School. She has devoted the past
twenty-five years to researching and advising professional service firms on
leadership, governance, and organizational change. Her most recent book, Leading Professionals:
Power, Politics and Prima Donnas (2017) is published by Oxford University
Press. Prior to becoming an academic she
worked as a strategy consultant and investment banker.
--------------------------------------------------------
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder