The importance of sucking at a new job for a year or two
You suck.
Also: I suck.
I don’t know what it is that you suck at, but you suck at
something very important. You suck at things you will someday not suck at. But
for now, you are not good at these things. In fact, you suck at them.
This must be accepted.
It might take a while. So I’ll wait.
You know what? I’ll do it too.
While we’re both accepting that we suck, let’s talk about
failure.
Failure is huge right now. It’s being studied. It’s being
written about. It’s being blogged about. “Fail early and often,” we’re told.
“Surrender to the pain of failure.” “Failure is fundamental.” The latest key to
success is to fail but to fail in the right way.
But is there a right way to fail? Is there a right way to
submit work you know is half-baked, like I did during my first few months at
Esquire? Is there a right way to stumble through a presentation to the sales
staff, like I did during my first few months at Esquire? Is there a right way
to indiscreetly talk about another magazine at a party and then turn around and
two editors from that magazine are right behind you, like I did during my first
few months at Esquire? Is there a right way to have a story killed? Is there a
right way to do shit work?
I don’t think actual failure is what’s being discussed.
“Failure” is just the word that makes the books and articles seem more
intriguing than they actually are. Actual failure is awful and expensive. It’s
devastating. Failure teaches you nothing. You should not consider “failure” a
positive outcome. Not early. Not often. Not ever, if you can help it. Really,
what’s being discussed is: mistakes.
All of the studies that the books and blog posts cite
basically boil down to two messages. 1. Humans hate to make mistakes. 2. A key
determinant of success is both accepting that you will make mistakes and paying
attention to the mistakes that you make.
One of the most cited experts on this topic is Stanford
psychologist Carol Dweck, who pioneered the idea of “mind-sets.” People with
“fixed mind-sets,” she says, believe their abilities are unchangeable—a belief
that causes them to shy away from situations in which they might fail. By
contrast, people with “growth mind-sets” embrace challenges because they
believe they can become smarter and more capable even if they don’t succeed.
They’re willing to get things wrong, but more important, they’re ready to
listen to the feedback. Screwing up is not a defining thing. This is such a
useful attitude to have. I’ve been at my current job for 10 years and I’ve only
just recently adopted this mentality. It’s made my work better. It’s made the
process more efficient. And I have a lot more time to spend with my family.
What people with a growth mind-set know is that mistakes are
useful when you’re willing to have a conversation about them, when you’re
willing to be corrected.
But actual failure? Humiliating, devastating failure?
Aside from teaching us that certain decisions are bad
decisions and that we should not make them twice, failure totally blows. But
mistakes are amazing.
The main failure of my first couple of years in New York was
the shame I felt at making mistakes. If I have a regret, this is it. I was too
caught up in the fear of making mistakes. I sometimes acted timidly. In the
short term, I probably did “better” work, but in the long term I did worse work
because I didn’t allow myself to get my mistakes over with early. I would stay
at work until midnight working on a headline. I would refine a single joke over
two or three days. There is nothing wrong with focusing on the details. But
focusing on the details at the expense of your personal life is not a good
idea.
Now that I’m a manager, if I see someone hanging on to
something for what I think is too long, I will tell them to give it to me. As
is. Just turn it over. Doing work too fast is a bad idea. But doing work too
slow is a terrible idea. The last thing a boss wants is to be left without any
options if the work isn’t good enough. Being fastidious is possibly the worst
thing a young worker can do. The work is probably not going to get to where it
needs to be no matter how long you hang on to it. So turn it in early and then
make corrections. You’re supposed to do bad work.
Everyone wants you to do bad work.
Everyone.
Your boss wants you to get it out of your system and learn
what not to do. He’s certainly expecting it.
And your peers want you to make mistakes too. Either they
understand the value of a fearless colleague or they just want to feel
superior...if they even notice. Loads of studies have shown that we tend to
think people pay attention to us twice as much as they actually do. This is the
spotlight effect. (Turns out my mom was right about this, which she repeated to
me on a weekly basis during my adolescence.)
And you don’t realize it, but you want to do bad work too.
Because in every bit of bad work, there is always a kernel of something good.
Bad work is 2 to 13 percent good. Your job is to pick through the mess you
create and find that good. Other people will help you find it. Let them.
Neteller here: www.ituglobalfx.com.ng
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