If I were a business owner and had to choose between Avery or Jaime, I would prefer to hire Jaime. Since this is an essential position, having a reliable employee who consistently produces the same quality results would be preferred over someone who occasionally does an excellent job but most of the time is “a little below average”. If Avery is not consistently performing to her ability, and there was no way to motivate her to do so, then I would choose to hire Jaime. The company could then support Jaime in her growth and development to hopefully increase her performance ceiling in the future.
A job that would be better suited to Avery (i.e. high potential, low consistency) would be jobs that are more independent (less team based), or focused on completing single projects where one could be less busy at times and push hard at other times to complete tasks. This allows those down times as well as the (hopefully) high performing scenarios where the phenomenal work is done.
A job that would be better suited to Jaime (i.e. low potential, high consistency) would be a job that requires a variety tasks to be completed frequently and competently. These might be reception type duties, or accounting, or any jobs where you are required to show up and do a reasonable and consistent job daily.
I currently work with a Jaime. She is a very experienced veterinary technician. She is extremely thorough, and I know that the tasks she does will be done well. However, she is not expedient in her duties, and tasks take her longer to complete than for others. Other technicians can do more in a day, but call out sick frequently or make errors often. The reliability is something that is really nice to have in an essential employee.
2 responses to “Typical vs. Maximal Performance”
Hi Kristy. Like yourself, I would lean towards hiring Jaime more often than hiring Avery. I agree, consistency is a valuable employee trait, particularly when working in an environment where collaboration and teamwork is key to success.
I appreciated how you related this scenario to your current work experience. I’ve also experienced working with both Jaime type and Avery type performers. Both performance types have their respective pros and cons, but I have found that over the long term the Jamie type performer is more productive and a lot more pleasant to manage.
Kirsty,
One thing I forgot to mention during my post that you were able to highlight here was the fact that people like Avery tend to need jobs that are individualistic so they can do what they do best and excel when the deadline is near. I might push back against that original thought as people like Jaimie could also arguably need more individualized jobs because they don’t need team members to be consistently effective in the workplace. Having your personal experience with someone like Jamie is a good piece of supporting evidence that shows how sometimes these people might not always complete tasks the most efficiently or quickly but are almost always reliable and consistent with how they do things. These are the types of people to “march to the beat of their own drum” where what they do best can most effective when they are left alone and doing tasks they know will get done.
Great post!