For those who have seen the 1984 mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap, the phrase “up to eleven” takes you back to one of the most humorous moments of the film. In this scene, the band’s leading musician proudly shows off their amp to the documentary director. According to the band’s lead, what makes this amp so special is, unlike most amps that stop at a volume nob of 10, this amp goes to 11.
Yet, if you stop to think about it, the premise of a knob that goes to 11 is ridiculous—the number 10 is arbitrary and signifies the loudest sound the amp can make, regardless of many decibels that respective amp produces. Thus, even as an amp increases its maximum volume, the loudest noise it would ever make is at a level of 10. Just as coaches belabor their teams to work at the cliché of 110% effort, it’s impossible to give more effort than you have the capacity to give. 100% is the maximum. That’s it.
The problem is, we’ve spent our lives working at maybe 75%, or even lower. Our knobs have been set to a 6, yet we think we are working at 10, and to get better, we need to give 110% or go to 11. We seek to build new amps, when we aren’t even playing ours the loudest. So how do we turn the knobs and increase the effort, and subsequent quality, of the work we produce in our roles as young professionals? Below, I will detail three of the many potential opportunities to help get us closer to the 10th knob we always have hoped to be:
Increase your Industry Knowledge: The understanding we have of our job, our employer, our industry, and general workplace best practices can always expand. By gaining more information, we have a wider perspective and can benchmark our performance with greater accuracy, develop ideas that are inspired by best practices, and cross-pollinate methods from other sectors. Each day, I have a goal to take time to read, whether an article from Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, or FiveThirtyEight, or even as simple as reading information from my organization’s intranet. The more knowledgeable I am, the more I am motivated, and the better work I can produce.
Work Better, Not Longer: The traditional belief was that the more hours you put into your job, the more work you would produce. Thus, to increase outputs (work), you needed to increase inputs (hours). Although this is true to some extent, the longer you spend at work in addition to the normal time you are there, the less productive you most likely are with that time. So, how should you work better and not longer?
My theory is simple—you should get to your job when you are in the prime condition to work at peak performance (for me, that’s early in the morning, before others get to work), leave when you can no longer deliver results (personally, typically around 4:00 pm), and then recharge by whatever means necessary (a tasty dinner does the trick for me). Although this requires a flexible office environment, it has helped me improve the quality of work that I produce.
Attitude Means Everything: Approaching work with a positive attitude drives our success, according to Shawn Anchor in his book, The Happiness Advantage. Anytime a colleague asks me how I am doing, I make sure to let them know that I am “living the dream” or “fantastic”, depending on how the day has gone so far. My positive attitude consistently reminds me that I am willing to work as hard as possible to produce results because I enjoy what I do.
As we recognize our what our knowledge, skills, and abilities are, we can better understand our opportunities to improve our outputs. By acknowledging that we don’t need a new amp that goes “up to eleven”, we can improve our work by following simple and generally reliable principles, guided by common sense and research.
