Let’s be blunt for a second: work should be about performance goals, and essentially nothing else. The time you sit there shouldn’t matter. How you achieve the goals shouldn’t matter (so long as it’s not unethical). The process should be followed, but if the process is jamming people up, the performance goals should supersede the process.
I think we all know this stuff inherently, but most workplaces do not operate according to these principles. Rather, most managers choose to be hair-on-fire, sense-of-urgency-driven all the time. That does nothing but burn the hell out of employees, which ultimately costs the company money. (Although those lines of the balance sheet are dismissed as “a HR thing.”)
In a utopia, managers would be “thought partners.” They’d present a problem, ask you your opinions on the problem, and you’d co-solve it almost (even though one of you makes more money). That’s an ideal managerial relationship because you’re respected, you get to learn/grow, etc. Unfortunately, most managerial relationships are not that. They’re usually pretty awful. Amazing that we spend the majority of our middle lives at work and no one has seemingly mastered the art of directing the work of someone else, eh?
And now: some research.
Read the full article @ Medium
