Monday, November 4, 2019

Justified Work

Do you feel the need to defend and validate what you’re doing or the role you’ve been given?

By André van Heerden, Communications Director

It was a number of years ago, but I remember the game clearly. I was yelling and gesturing and coaching my soccer team to the max. The other coach was sitting still and not saying a word. Clearly I was the more engaged and passionate coach. So why was my team being so outplayed?

Were my many instructions meant to improve my team’s play and to help them do better? Yes. Could some of the encouragement and pleading have been more about showing that I was a good coach, despite what was happening on the field? Maybe.

The other coach didn’t need to prove anything. His team looked controlled, organized, and efficient. His players knew if they were on the right track by the substitutions that were made and the quiet talks on the bench. His work was being justified on the field. Unfortunately, mine was not.

Sometimes, usually in moments of insecurity, we feel the need to defend and validate what we’re doing, or the role we’ve been given—even if no one is asking us to do so. And sometimes, we do this by making more of what we’re doing or by making others’ lives or work more difficult.

I remember encountering this while working with a lawyer for a well-known actor. The lawyer was also serving as the actor’s agent. The actor and I had worked together before, so we had come to a general agreement that he’d take on a major role in our next feature production. He asked me to work out the details with his lawyer.

As soon as this process began, the lawyer made it very clear that he was in control and said that he “knew everything I was trying to pull.” Previous conversations and relationships counted for nothing and I was told that what I was offering wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Despite making a few more concessions and arguing the production’s case—including the stated interests of his client—the lawyer said that this was a waste of his time. I told him that out of courtesy, I’d need to talk to his client to explain why the deal wasn’t happening. He said to go ahead and come back to him when it was worth his time.

I called the actor and explained what was happening with his lawyer. When I finished, there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then he simply said, “I’ll take care of this. We’re doing the deal.”

The deal was done. And the lawyer was fired.

Instead of trying to prove his worth and authority, the lawyer should’ve just listened to what the actor really wanted and then done it. It may have felt simple and overly administrative for someone of his stature, but he would’ve served his client well, made them both money, and kept his job.

Recently, Crown workers in Saskatchewan went on strike to demand a better contract. After 17 days of walking a cold picket line, their union said they should accept an offer that they initially said they’d never accept. In an article about the strike, a worker said, “It feels like a slap in the face from the union and the company. It seems to him like the union just wanted publicity for its own messages against the government, instead of working for the members."

How often might we feel that we need to do more, or make someone else jump through hoops, to prove we’re worth something? For me, the warning signs are when I feel I’m doing something more for myself than for something or someone else. This isn’t always easy to discern, especially if I’m feeling worried about the quality of the work or necessity of my role.

But if I can do the job well and help others without yelling about it, that’s probably a good thing.

Justified Work

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