Girls, boys, and “inefficient overwork”

My son isn’t big on homework. He does what he needs to do to stay out of his teachers’ and his parents’ line of fire, to keep his grades in the just-fine category. He goes above and beyond when he loves something, like building a rocket for science class or practicing till he can get his throw from first to third base. Other than that, he’s the kind of kid who will work just hard enough to get what he wants, but not an iota harder.

In other words, according to this opinion article in the New York Times, we are raising him just like a boy: “School is a confidence factory for our sons, but only a competence factory for our daughters,” the author says. That is because we are socializing our sons to do only what is necessary to reach their work goals, while we are socializing our daughters to aim for perfection, to go the extra mile, to exceed expectations – and not to feel confident until and unless they have. Seeking perfection and exceeding expectations get girls lots of gold stars at school, but it runs them aground when it comes to work. The article calls this “inefficient overwork.”

From the article:

“When it comes to work-related confidence, (researchers) found men are far ahead. “Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in,” they wrote. “Overqualified and overprepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect.

That experience — of (boys) succeeding in school while exerting minimal or moderate effort — is a potentially crucial one. It may help our sons develop confidence, as they see how much they can accomplish simply by counting on their wits. For them, school serves as a test track, where they build their belief in their abilities and grow increasingly at ease relying on them. Our daughters, on the other hand, may miss the chance to gain confidence in their abilities if they always count on intellectual elbow grease alone.”

How does this relate to our workplace? Well, we are an organization of girls, as a look around any meeting will tell you. And we are an organization currently wrestling with how to encourage work life balance. This article made me wonder whether some of our socialized girl traits could be hampering our search for work life balance.

If we (regardless of our gender or socialization) feel that we can be confident and valued at work only if we are perfect, only if we are exceeding other people’s expectations, we will stay in this mess. Excelling at work does not come from exceeding other people’s expectations or producing perfect products across the board. It comes from exceeding a few people’s expectations on the most important parts of your job description, and figuring out what doesn’t need to be done so you don’t spend any time doing it. In the work world, figuring out just how much you need to do in order to meet your goal, and adjusting your effort accordingly, is a critical skill.

Does this seem theoretical (or heretical)? Take an example. Say you have a proposal due in two days, and you are working with the Unit Head on that. You also have a slew of meetings: four standing team meetings, a committee meeting, plus a Community of Practice meeting. You also have email to do, of course. In total, you have 16 hours of “work day” before your proposal is due, but you have 8 hours of meetings, 4 hours of emails, 2 hours to eat and pee and stare blankly at the computer screen, and you haven’t even started the 7 hours you know the proposal writing will take you. So, 16 official work-day hours, and 21 hours of work. Looks like you are staying late and taking work home, I’m afraid.

Stop it, want-to-do-everything-perfectly girl. That is not the way you go about this. Try this instead:

Ask yourself: what is the most important thing I must do in the next two days? (Clue: if you are doing something for/with the Unit Head, that might be the most important thing).

Pull out your calendar, and put the time in for your most important task. Ignore how it tramples all over standing meetings. Get that time in there. It is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL DO. Give it respect.

Now then.

What else might you do? All those meetings are might do’s. Some of those emails are might do’s. The eating, peeing, and staring blanking at the screen are must do’s – you can either chose to take a break, or your brain will take one for you. Leave a little breathing room. Go through your to-do list, or look at your calendar, and decide what you can do in the time you have, making decisions based on what is most important to the organization, to your boss, and to you. What doesn’t fit into the time you have will not get done, at least not right now.

(If you don’t know what is most important, ask your supervisor to look at your to-do list for the week with you. Tasks truly are not all equally important, and if you don’t know how to rank them, or if you think your supervisor has a different ranking than you do, you must sort that out.)

Now imagine later in the week, when your proposal has been handed up the chain and the rest of the week is behind you. What happened? Well, you did awesome on the proposal. Gold star, A+, exceeds expectations. Your Unit Head says to her boss “gosh, Betty did a nice job on that proposal. Have we considered her for that new job opening?” You did okay on your emails – you scanned them for important stuff, and read and answered the ones you had to. There are no major fires raging as a result. You declined all of the meetings but one, where you were presenting the results of a study to the group. Your boss said you did a nice job with the presentation, so you were glad you were there. A couple of your colleagues grumbled and asked why you weren’t at the team meetings, but since there are notes you were able to catch up.

This week, it turns out, you earned yourself a B average. Your work for your boss and your unit head earned you an A, but some of your other work was sub-par, and earned you just a C. The thing is, the grades you get on your most important tasks count vastly more than the grades you get on the least important tasks. Letting the little stuff go this week may have just earned you a promotion.

The message here is that truly excelling at work doesn’t come from doing all the work one can possibly do. It comes from knowing what work to do and what work not to do to get where you want to go, and then doing the important stuff really well.

Maybe we teach that to boys earlier than we do to girls, but it’s never too late to learn.