How to Be Awesome at Work
First, a story from The Big Moo:
Reggie fixes bikes in Mt. Kisco, New York. For every bike he fixes, he does his best (he charges by the hour). Then, he spends five extra minutes doing something special with every bike he fixes.
For the first hour, Reggie is detail-oriented, careful, focused and diligent. He gets the job done and earns his pay.
In the last five minutes though, Reggie turns from a workman to an artist.
Sometimes, all he does is carefully clean the chain. If the bike is for a cute kid, he may attach a horn or some tassels. Other times, he’ll take the bike and test the gears in a parking lot full of potholes.
It’s not a surprise how unusual Reggie is. What is surprising is how easy it is to do what Reggie does, and how many don’t do it.
What does this mean for you and your work? And you can implement this whether you are an employee, freelancer, consultant or run a business.
- Do what is expected of you. Write the report. Complete the analysis. If you did nothing else, make sure your customer (whether it’s a client, boss or colleague) is satisfied with your work.
- After you do what is expected of you, spend 5 minutes improving it in some way. For example, if it’s a presentation, I might try to edit the copy so it’s punchy and pithy. Or if it’s a report, I may look for an opportunity to add a graphic or chart because visuals break up heavy text and make it easier for others to digest a lot of information visually. If a colleague asks me a question, I make sure I answer their question but then check in with them to see how they’re doing.
Use my rule of thumb whenever work passes to me: I try to make it slightly better in some way, above and beyond what I was supposed to do.
This benefits you in a few ways:
- You’ll be known as someone who gets things done.
- If your work gets noticed, people will see the little things you did and appreciate the effort you made. They will also see you as someone who gives 101% (forgive me for the expression — I know it’s not possible).
- If your work gets handed off to someone else, your improvements will look good on that person (for example, your boss’ boss may think your boss did great work). Don’t worry about not getting the recognition for the work.
- Since other people won’t spend the 5 minutes (or less) to improve the work, you’ll separate yourself from those people (in a good way).
