Obviously from learning what I have from this weeks lecture, I would have to know more about what the company is and what the position for hire entails. But, if I were to hire Avery or Jaime, I would have to choose Jamie. Consistency in employees to get their work done each day and be reliable is hard to come by these days in my opinion and from my experience working. Even the simple day to day tasks that can get boring are just as important to overall company success that Jaime does well at and Avery does not. Also, there can always be training and development when it comes to Jaime being successful and confident in reaching her highest potential – this can get better for Jaime with practice and help from caring management and a good working culture. I would get frustrated with an employee like Avery, each day not knowing what I will get from them, even if they can thrive at their best for the company on occasion – usually this means they’d choose to excel only when it best suits them, and not having an understanding of the companies overall goals. Those actions from an employee can upset employee moral and other employees could get the idea they could act the same as Avery, and then no one would show working consistency.
I feel that Avery would excel in a job that has a lot of variety and different creative elements involved that they could show their passions for when needed. The job would also have less day to day regularities, and more instances where each day of work and product or service is different and unique. For example, these jobs could include being a surgeon or professional athlete, or even a form of an artist or interior decorator. Avery would be more valuable here over Jaime because when crunch time approaches with any of these kind of jobs, Avery would high perform and Jaime would struggle under the pressure.
Jaime would excel at more of an office type of job where the day to day responsibilities are important but very consistent and create minimal opportunities for problem solving. Also, a job that would not be within a leadership realm, as managers/leaders can be pushed to their limits daily and have to be productive under pressure often. Avery would not be valuable in an office job, and it seems they’d get bored and have no motivation to do the same tasks each day, even if they are crucial to business success.
2 replies on “Typical vs. Maximal Performance”
Hi Lindsay,
I appreciate your thoughts and approach. I find it interesting that you would choose Jaime over Avery. Specifically because you felt that you could coach Jaime more so than Avery. I would argue that motivation is easier to coach than ability therefore, I choose to hire Avery. I think your considerations of employee morale and impact on the team are critical. If the team that the employee would be working on is full of people that are very consistent but only at average ability, I can see how frustrating it could be if there was a team member that was inconsistent but had greater ability. Thanks for sharing.
Sara
Hey Lindsey!
After reading your blog and looking at Sara’s comment I would have to say that I am in agreement with parts of both of your posts. I too chose Jamie because I believe that hard work pays off and I would want someone consistent who is performing a little lower than someone who thinks he owns the company because of his gifting and slacks off. I know that ability is hard to coach but I think that having someone there consistently working hard will still help them grow and become a key player in the company. I think you really went in depth on this and did a great job!