The Quality of Your Work Contributes to Your Reputation
You guys know that every once in a while, I see a comment on Twitter that deserves further discussion. It’s one of the challenges with Twitter. Some discussions/comments take more than 140 characters. Here’s the comment I saw the other day:
Hard #leadership lesson: the quality of your work is vastly less important than who wants to participate in your work.
In my experience, the quality of your work determines who wants to participate in your work. People like being associated with winners. People want to work with individuals who are professional and get things done.
If your work is half-baked, no one will want to work with you.
Here’s a simple visual of how the process works [click to enlarge].
It also offers some insight toward how high performing teams get started. Groups of people who work hard to accomplish things join resources to make something big happen. If you need to find a group to collaborate with, which group would you choose?
GROUP A: The group is cordial. Sometimes the group disagrees. They don’t do anything socially, only business. Every project the group has worked on has been recognized by senior management as outstanding. All projects were delivered on time and within budget.
GROUP B: This group is friendly. Everyone on the group likes each other. They have fun, hang out together, share jokes. Every project the group has worked on has been late, over budget, and eventually what the group created is abandoned by senior management.
Years ago, I was asked to coordinate a huge project for one of my clients. The project was too big for me to handle solo so I needed to call in a couple of colleagues to help out. One of the people I called was a friend. I’m thinking, this is great, I get to work on a project with a friend. We’ll have fun.
Two days before the project was due, she called me and said she couldn’t work on the project. No warning. On the other hand, the other consultant I asked to help was someone I would consider an acquaintance. I hate to say it but he drove me crazy with questions and comments! But he delivered – on time and excellent quality. Guess who I’ll call next time I’m in a bind?
The quality of your work speaks volumes about who you are professionally. And who will want to work with you.
Image courtesy of HR Bartender
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