The Locksmith's Paradox
This is why many workplaces want their staff in the office and not working remotely, because their perception of value is skewed.
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Last week, someone reached out to me for freelance work and rather than be excited, I was at first unsure I wanted to do the work. It was a client I earned $400 from the first time I worked for them; they did enjoy the first work (5-star rating) but there was a little problem.
The first work I did for them was research into specific aspects of megascience, an area which I occasionally nerd-ed about quite often. What happened then was that I did the work (and accompanying slides) so fast, that the client could not believe it; they asked me to do a plagiarism check and to allow them some time to confirm the quality of the work.
So, when they returned this time, I was a bit sceptical to take on work from someone who doubted the quality and originality of my work because I delivered too fast. It was not until later in the week that I discovered that this was not an isolated behaviour, it was patterned, and there was a name for it—
Meet Dan Ariely
A professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University, Dan Ariely was attending an event one day when he met a locksmith, whom he had a small talk with— small talk that became a theory.
The locksmith told him that when he just started out, it would take him a long time to help people pick their locks, and in many cases, the locks would be damaged. So, people not only paid for the locks to be picked, they had to buy new locks.
But as he progressed over time, he became so good that he did not only deliver good work in lesser time, he also did not damage locks as he used to. But he suffered a little bit of challenge: clients were starting to doubt if the money they paid him was worth it for a job that could be done so well in so little time.
And thus, Dan had an idea that would eventually become the Locksmith Paradox.
Patrick Kelly, who writes about the future of work, observed the practicability of the paradox in workplaces:
“This paradox isn’t unique to the locksmith, but rather applies directly to so many companies today about where the true value of the employee lies, in the time or the results. Look at how most jobs are structured, there is no doubt the emphasis is on tasks and objectives that must be accomplished on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. The measure of success in the job is accomplishing those tasks.
“Yet the day-to-day perception of value all too often gets put on the time it takes to accomplish, not the result itself. This perception creates an unofficial measure of ‘doing your job’ and is built by both peer and supervisor perception. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to get your job done, but in many organizations, looking busy is just as important as being productive.”
The culture of work across several organisations continues to show that organisations typically do not care if you only have thirty minutes of work to do, as long as you do the one hour commute to and fro, pretending to be working on a megascience project while burning productive time idling away. This is why after COVID-19 lockdowns were lifted, many companies could not understand the appeal of remote work— especially those who saw their staff vacationing in the middle of the year.
Game the system
There are those who will always appreciate quality work even if it is done in minutes. I freelance copywriter for a company headquartered in France and the owner is one of the people who would never question the quality of my work even if I deliver right after a phone call where he describes the company’s needs.
But there are those who are orthodox and will question the quality of work done. For my returning client who questioned my work because it was too fast, I told him this time that it would take me 16 days to do the work. Of course, I will deliver two days before the deadline (to impress on delivery time).
But the truth is that the research and writing will take me two to three hours at most on the day I finally decide to write the work. Like the first time, it is a topic I am familiar with and most of my work is revisiting academic papers I had visited before, to validate and reference.
Tweak your ‘time on the job’ to fit the appreciation level from person to person and from place to place. Let those who value good work be rewarded with swift delivery and those who prefer longer time be given longer time deliveries. Whichever way you choose, do your best work always.
TEA
I have been meaning to share this post from Mark Manson since the Will Smith Oscar slap saga happened but it eluded me for weeks. For those who do not know, Mark Manson collaborated with Smith to write his 2021 autobiographical book, Will. Read Manson’s commentary here.
Here is a thread that I really want you to visit. Please do not air me:
SuperNAN, I look forward to seeing you next month. For Nigerian readers, a super long holiday is on its way, prepare… for WINTER IS COMING!!!
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