ideasarehere

November 12, 2012

The comfort of knowing you’ve done your best

Filed under: business,creativity,marketing,personal — Erik Dobberkau @ 11:11

It’s fear of failure in disguise, and it’s strong within organisations (and their people) who don’t give much room for failure yet do not reward people for not commiting it. As I pointed out earlier, the underlying mistake is a fuzzy definition of failure (and conclusively, an even fuzzier or lacking definition of success). And because we’re so afraid of failure, we avoid going even near it.

As a result, people bury themselves in their daily business, making the chunks as small as they can so they won’t choke, because that’s where a certain kind of safety is. There are defined processes they’ve been knowing for years, and they know they’re up for the task, because if push comes to shove, they just have to work a little harder. In the end, even if there’s no external reward for their effort, they know they’ve done their best and saved their day.

To them, the alternative is horrendous. They feel by taking (official working) time to stray from the beaten path, they put themselves in a spotlight where everybody will watch their performance. So their inner fear is beefed up by external pressure. But guess what, in most cases, there is no pressure, because people don’t care. They’re so caught up in their own business they just can’t bother.

Of course, the biggest challenge (as in most cases) is calling your own bluff, not the other’s.

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