Max effort: Don’t let ‘em know
In 2017, I traveled to another city for fitness instructor training. The reputation of the training preceded it, and prior to going, I increased my workout regimen as the dates approached. The lady in charge of training the fifteen potential instructors was named Erin. Because I knew the way I conditioned and because I knew the way the training might go, I never let Erin see what I could actually do. I never loaded my bar to the potential I could. And I never led the group on runs; I was always strategically second or third. And all of this was intentional. I didn’t ever want Erin to see my MAX EFFORT.
In some workouts, a rep is acceptable. That is, you don’t have to try very hard; you just have to do that one rep. In an organization or team, what if there is a range of weight that your team members can perform, from 5 pounds up to 100 pounds?
For example, a 5-pound rep is acceptable. But rock stars can do 100. Here’s the big idea: What are you doing to incentivize the rock stars to give you their rock-star efforts? Conversely, how are you incentivizing a mediocre effort? How are you squelching rock star effort?
In an organization, there is usually a wide range of acceptable behavior. Very rarely do team members receive a “grade” or a quantifiable value to quantify or substantiate their efforts.
The employer is powerful, sure. But both parties are incredibly powerful. It’s a given that the boss is powerful. But what is hidden is the power of the team members.
What the organization says they want versus what they actually want are two different things.
And sometimes, there is a disparity between what an organization says and what they really want. School districts claim that they want innovation, but do they? Really? Do you want creativity? Do you really? Or does control overshadow all of it? Does the budget overshadow it all?
Your rock stars will hide their identity and their efforts and their capabilities. They will find an outlet to perform a MAX EFFORT rep, but not for the subpar team and subpar leader.
Here’s the truth: These people will always find a way to do a max effort rep, even if it is outside of the organization. These people find the pleasure in pushing the envelope and testing what they can do. As a leader, how can you tap into that MAX EFFORT potential?
And team members and employees have untold power over the MAX EFFORT phenomenon. Because what is a leader going to do if you have 10 employees with different effort capabilities? If the baseline is 5 pounds and everyone can lift 5 pounds, how can you punish an outlier for not lifting 100?
Does this sound mean or mad? Of course it does! Because people could be performing so much more and they’re being stifled because there’s no reason to do any more and we’re getting a cheap version of leadership and a diluted version of what other team members could do.
And maybe everybody in the team has a superpower in some area. How do leaders tap into their MAX EFFORT potential?
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@victorfreitas