Maintaining High Performance at Work
Time to read: 2-3 mins
For years work was a personal relationship that required no explanation. You go to work full of ambition with financial and career goals and if you stay late so be it. At worst it was a mild inconvenience for your partner if you were working late but becoming a parent changes this all. Small things like the exact time you are home matters, perhaps to rescue your partner who is stuck at home with a newborn - it’s the only meeting of the day you can’t be late too, the nursery/school pick up!
The reality is the career progression pre-parenthood had a huge natural advantage: time. You could work more hours than your colleagues who were balancing kids and work and due to this, could gain an advantage. That advantage supported a comparative ‘high performance’. So when I lost my ‘advantage’ I felt like I was simply surviving not thriving at work. There are many emotions swirling around but the foremost thought was ‘will I ever be a high performer at work again?’.
The answer is yes but things have changed and I needed to evolve. Time, not money, became the most important asset and balancing this with personal priorities became key. You have enough time but you need to be far more protective of your time whilst being flexible on how/when you get things done. All these things require changes to a routine you have mastered over years of finessing, it's frustrating! The tip here is to communicate with your fellow parent and find a way of merging your professional and personal calendars to benefit each other whilst ring-fencing time to focus on what matters. This helps you understand what the priority for the day/week is.
The next tip to high performance is a heavy dose of Vitamin N. Say no to more things! It's amazing just how much we do each day that is wasteful, high performance requires removing things; aim to delete a minimum of 5 things from your work diary each week and keep dedicated family time at weekends, make it sacred. This is all about emotional permission to say no, be ruthless to protect the real priorities of life.
Lastly, your appreciation of the impact of your manager and work culture increases exponentially. A boss that ‘gets it’ is far more important than the work you are doing. Seek to work for leaders that embrace you and your work priorities; select less to do, delegate more and watch your high performance soar.
Zoe’s response
I love the tip of saying no to more things and this can jar for a lot of us who have gotten where we’ve got to by taking on more and ultimately making our boss’ jobs a lot easier. Ultimately, it is something we are going to have to master if we have any shot at being a high performer and a present parent.
My concern is for those who haven’t yet reached a mid or senior level by the time they are a parent because realistically they are going to have less leverage to push back. Something that could help is to lean heavily into your strengths - so for example if you strengths are in people management and find relationships easy but not so much in data and numbers ensure you are OVERLY vocal during talent reviews, volunteer to mentor employees from other teams, that way when it comes to data or numbers focused tasks you’ll have a bit more leeway to push back or get support from team mates.
TAKEAWAYS:
You had a time advantage without kids - that disappears. Therefore your ability to manage time through organisation and communication (with your partner and boss) are critical.
Vitamin N – say no to more things, either delegate or delete. This tedtalk has some amazing principles on how: How To Multiply Your Time | Rory Vaden | TEDx
The biggest impact on high performance at work is who you work for, not what job you do. Select your leader wisely, great leaders will understand how to maximise your high performance and motivation regardless of how complex your family life is.
