They send big signals about who we are and what we care about.
Take action to build an organization where every employee can thrive.
Pressure has become an inevitable part of daily life. It’s unavoidable. But the best leaders and organizations adapt promptly without getting thrown off course by the uncertainty and the rapid rate of modern business.
The one thing that sets the…
I can honestly say my career goals have never changed. Even as I’ve grown older, become a mom, and started a company, I’ve always wanted to be mostly all work, most of the time. My version of “work-life balance” is happily u…
It feels good to cross things off of your to-do list—especially when you’ve got a heavy workload. Taking care of quick tasks, such as answering email or sending invoices, at the beginning of the day can give you a sense of accomplishment. But tackling the easy stuff first might actually harm your productivity in the long run, according to a new study.
“In the short-term, the person could actually feel satisfied and less anxious,” says Maryam Kouchaki, associate professor of management and organizations at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. “But avoiding hard tasks indefinitely also cuts off opportunities to learn and improve one’s skills.
The idea for the study came after Kouchaki had a conversation with Bradley Staats of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Francesca Gino at Harvard Business School about their own tendencies to delay hard tasks, such as writing a paper, in favor of easy ones, such as prepping for a routine class.
“We were curious if this was something the average person was doing and, more importantly, what were the short- and long-term effects,” she says.
Easy task bias
Kouchaki, Staats, and Gino collaborated with Diwas KC at Emory University to study data that had been collected about emergency room doctors’ case choices. While factors such as specialties, patient waiting time, and bandwidth were considered, the researchers discovered that doctors were more likely to choose easier patients during times of higher workloads. In fact, each additional patient under their care was linked to an 8% higher chance of selecting a lower-acuity case.
To confirm the results in another setting, the researchers conducted an experiment, giving participants a sideways picture of a book page to read, asking them to type as much of the text as possible in three minutes. Half the participants, dubbed the “high-workload group,” were also asked to simultaneously listen to a song and count the number of times that certain words were used.
After the task was complete, the participants reported their sense of progress, fatigue, and stress level. Then they were asked to choose a second task, one of which was easy while the other was somewhat difficult. Seventy-six percent of the high-workload group picked the easy second task, compared to 64% of the low-workload group.
Why we like easy tasks
Finishing tasks provides a sense of progress and makes us feel good. “We all have limited time and attention,” says Kouchaki. “In any moment, if you have a choice of doing an easy or difficult task, most of us tend to pick the easy task. Easier tasks are often quicker to complete, and they are more likely to be chosen first when people are busier. We call this ‘task completion preference.’”
The problem is that when you create a habit of choosing easier tasks over hard, you can impact your long-term productivity.
“This preference for easy tasks pays off in the short-term with high performance; the department is more likely to finish more tasks,” says Kouchaki. “But in the long run, the most learning happens through difficult tasks. When you avoid them, you escape those benefits.”
What to do instead
While you might think that it’s best to fill your day with harder tasks, a better strategy is doing a combination of both.
“Saying that we should always do the difficult task first can be extreme,” says Kouchaki. “We don’t have data, but my intuition is if people start with a difficult task and try to stick with it until they finish it, they could become demotivated without a sense of progress and super fatigued. Having a combination of easy and difficult is a more effective strategy. You get sense of completion but at the same time mindful focus on difficult tasks as well.”
You can also tackle complex projects by breaking them down into smaller, simpler milestones. This can provide the reward you feel from completing an easy task, while staying on track to address and learn from challenges.
Difficult tasks often provide more learning opportunities, but Kouchaki points out that it doesn’t mean that easy tasks aren’t important. “What’s more important is the psychological sense of completion and that it matters,” she says. “Ultimately, the goal should be to be aware and be more intentional and mindful of what you do.”
Many of the habits you develop that influence your work productivity are shaped by your education. Unfortunately, for most of us, education was an individual sport, while our professional life is a team sport. As a result, we have to learn to work with…
My business partner, Caroline, and I don’t always agree. But this isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is what we love about our relationship. The bulk of her experience comes from the creative world, while my background is in business. We each…
When presented baldly it can seem self-evident, but it is remarkable how few managers really adhere to the approach that when you treat people well, with respect, and give them some responsibility, they are more likely to perform better. This is the core of people-centered—or human-centered—leadership, and it works.
A swathe of academic and consultancy literature supports this proposition. The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For outperforms the longitudinal average performance of quoted U.S. businesses by nearly 4% a year over two decades. That is a remarkable return.
Barry-Wehmiller Industries—a conglomerate led by the champion of “Truly Human Leadership,” Bob Chapman, that purchases underperforming and dysfunctional businesses and turns them around with their people-focused approach—reports a CAGR of 18% since its first acquisition in 1987, compared to the S&Ps corresponding average of 10% over the same period.
So why is everyone not just being nicer, more helpful, and more supportive to their employees? In short: Why aren’t we becoming more likable? Karen Cates, a leadership consultant and adjunct professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, observes, “My concern about being over-focused on ‘likability’ is that this becomes a prescription for just being ‘nice in the workplace,’ and while being nice, and being civil is a good thing, it is not how to be a good leader.”
In fact, Cates suggests that merely “putting on a happy face” in an effort to appear likable not only brings limited to no tangible benefits; it may actually lead people to mistrust you, especially if this is a clear change of behavior from a previous one. Cates makes the distinction between how leaders are perceived. Likable leaders may be perceived as good leaders, but they may not fully be achieving what is required of them.
Emotional intelligence studies suggest that adaptability to different contexts is a key capability for effective leaders, and those who can change their approach depending on the shifting demands of a given situation are going to be much more effective.
Leaders should not put likability above effectiveness. There are times when the humor and smiles need to go and a let’s-get-this-done approach is required. Cates goes further: “Even the ‘nasty boss approach’ can be really effective—but in short, small doses—to get everyone’s attention and say ‘Hey, we’ve got to make some changes around here.’ You can then create—with an earnest approach—that more likable persona as you move forward. Likability is a good thing to have in your leadership toolkit, but it shouldn’t be the biggest hammer in the box.”
Cates recognizes, however, that in a simplistic world, likability is clearly better than a fear-based leadership approach. “Fear-based leadership takes up a lot of energy—keeping people on their toes, always worried about interacting with the boss—and it drives things underground; people hide themselves and hide issues, to keep out of the spotlight. Likability can be the opposite side of that coin as it draws people out. They’re glad to see you because they know something good is going to happen from the exchanges that you have.”
For Cates, this highlights an issue that people sometimes struggle with. While leaders must react in a consistent manner to situations, that does not mean their reaction has to be the same every time. Rather only that they cannot be erratic in their behavior. Urgent situations may require urgent responses, complex ones may require thoughtful analysis, and enduring ones a different approach altogether. All are different reactions, but leaders need to maintain their style of response and apply that to each consistently. “Likability can contribute to a sense of safety, a sense of trust, and that’s really important—as long as it’s consistent. You don’t always have to be likable, but you have to be likable when people are expecting you to be likable.”
While likability is therefore not a panacea or silver bullet for leadership it is still a thing well worth fostering. Cates notes that it is not difficult to be likable with people you get on with, and like-minded with yourself, but the task becomes a lot more challenging with people who you do not click with, and who may rub you up the wrong way.
The first trick is to try and identify commonalities that may not be, and in fact likely will not be, work-related such as places you have visited, sports you are both interested in, and shared hobbies.
The second trick is to increase your mindfulness of the workspace around you. Increase the sensitivity of your antennae for others. “Remember to acknowledge people when you see them. Acknowledge their work, acknowledge their successes. It’s surprising how many folks don’t turn around in the middle of a really tough job and go, ‘Hey, you know, we’re making some great progress here. Thank you.’”
Keep in mind that your colleagues are individuals with lives beyond the workplace as well as in it. Good leaders remember to ask after children who were ill, for instance, but also understand their people’s individual career goals and aspirations. “When people feel that their leaders are trying to help them with the things that are personal to them, not just their personal lives, but their personal career goals, their personal strengths, that mindfulness can make a huge difference to likability.”
The next level beyond this mindfulness is to build your empathy with both individuals and the team by being aware of their current energy. “I’m a big fan of saying, ‘Boy, this group seems frazzled today,’ or ‘You seem really angry about the situation. We better talk about it.’ Just acknowledging that can make people feel more a part of the team and more effective as a member of the team,” says Cates.
As with any behavior change, these things need to be practiced and iterated to make them essential habits. Being likable is clearly to be encouraged, it helps on a number of fronts—but it is not sufficient in itself to achieve high performance. Alternative leadership behaviors and responses are also needed. The best time to start acquiring and practicing this mix is, as always, right now.
Roddy Millar is a cofounder and editorial director at IEDP Developing Leaders.
This article originally appeared in IEDP Developing Leaders and is reprinted with permission.
P20 Education Councils form local leadership networks streamlining educational communication from preschool to white-, blue-, pink-, and new-collar careers, and much more.
As the first female CEO at Air France, Anne Rigail says she needs to cut costs, lift profits, solve labor turmoil to get the airline flying high again.
