- [Instructor] Work is actually a series of building blocks.
We use our skills to perform tasks
so we can solve problems and generate results.
Now that's true if we're digging a ditch
or if we're leading a company.
If we think of work as these four elements,
we can better understand the basics of performance
on an individual level.
In some kinds of work, the most important way
to think about performance is its end deliverable,
the results that are generated.
In that context, whatever the worker did
to deliver those results, the skills the worker used,
the tasks that were performed,
and the problems that were solved along the way,
they may not be as important to the person
who's paying for the result whether
it's a customer or a manager.
Think of activities like cooking food
in a restaurant or writing a manual.
Performance in that context is more about that end goal
and less about the journey to get there.
The person who's paying you may not want to tell you
how to dig, they may just want a hole in the ground
and let you figure out the best way to get that result.
Now moving one level down, in other kinds of work,
the problem to be solved is most important.
Workers encounter a range of problems
to be solved in any given day,
and the specific results that are needed
may not always be clear.
Simply being good at solving problems is
a core skill in any work environment,
especially problems that may be unanticipated
when things inevitably don't go as planned.
This kind of work is especially prevalent
in early stage startup companies
and in new product initiatives at large organizations.
In a rapidly changing world, successful workers will
increasingly be the ones who seek out
those problems to be solved and the ones
who come up with creative ways to solve them.
Moving into the layer down the work food chain,
next comes the tasks that are performed.
In certain kinds of work, think of a manufacturing floor
or a dance routine, performing a prescribed set of tasks
may be the most important activity
for a manager or a customer.
Performing customer service on the phone
usually means following a set of pre-determined activities
often with scripts that guide the worker
through specific steps.
Here workers are typically responsible for execution,
making sure that an activity is performed correctly.
The worker often doesn't have control
over what they do, but they usually have
a lot of responsibility for how they do it.
And increasingly workers are responsible
for tasks that are interwoven with the tasks of others,
meaning that we're increasingly embedded in team activities.
Now last in the food chain of work are skills.
Here workers are responsible for bringing
their own unique capabilities to the tasks
and processes they perform.
Performance in this context is about using
and continually improving our abilities to do our work.
So skills, tasks, problems, results.
The context for determining performance can be
at any of these layers or at all of them
depending upon the range of activities
that a worker performs.
So here's your homework.
Take out a sheet of paper.
Break down your work into each
of these four categories.
What are the results that are expected from you?
What are the problems that you regularly need to solve?
What are the most important tasks and processes
you perform to solve those problems?
And finally, what skills do you use
to perform those tasks?
Now go back down that list.
Put a check mark next to every element on the page
that you think you're especially good at.
Then put an X next to every element
that you love doing, whether it's generating
a particular result, solving a certain kind of problem,
performing a set of tasks, or using specific skills.
Going through this process could give you
a pretty good overview of how you think
of your performance and for bonus points,
consider showing it to a coworker or to your manager
to see if they agree with your breakdown
and with your self assessment.