When is the last time you said no to your boss about an assignment?  You have to think hard about it, don’t you?  Of course you do because in your quest to get ahead, you’re likely not to say no to any requests.  In fact, you’re going to take on as many tasks as possible to prove your worth to your boss and your company.  While on the surface taking on more work and responsibility looks like a good thing to do, it’s not.  Let me explain why…

Attending meetings, following manuals, doing exactly as you’re told and doing a lot of work, exactly as someone is telling you to do it is a recipe for disaster.  Not for your company of course, but for you personally.  Why?  Because the moment your work can be broken down into simple steps and can be measured, in most cases your work can be outsourced or automated less expensively. 

If you looked at yourself objectively, you’d see that you’re operating like a machine.  Being a superhuman at the job and close to a well-oiled machine used to be something to take pride in, but it’s only a positive thing if you’re doing the right kind of work.

Here’s what I’m getting at – If all you do is work, work, work, you can be replaced by someone cheaper, younger, harder working or even a computer, but you probably already knew this.  Instead you need to focus on doing that value-added, creative type work that most people never step up to do in an organization.

More on this in a second, but first I want to go back to a post I wrote a while back called The Last Ten Percent.  In the post I was talking about the importance of powering through the last ten percent of your project in order to get it done.  In the post I had a quote from Seth Godin:

“The last ten percent is the signal we look for, the way we communicate care and expertise and professionalism. If all you’re doing is the standard amount, all you’re going to get is the standard compensation. The hard part is the last ten percent, sure, or even the last one percent, but it’s the hard part because everyone is busy doing the easy part already.  The secret is to seek out the work that most people believe isn’t worth the effort. That’s what you get paid for.”

I believe that the CREATING type work is the same as the ten percent of work people often don’t want to undertake.  Everyone just signs up for the DOING work, the work that makes up 90 percent of the work done on a daily basis in any company on any given day.  If all you do is take on more and more work, without sharing your creative ideas and your point of view on things, you’ve in effect become a DOING MACHINE.

A Doing Machine is what it sounds like – a cheap, easily replaced machine that just does the work people want done.  If  you’re the only one raising your hand to do the last minute tasks and you’re the only one “taking it for the team” then you’re missing out on the opportunities to do the breakthrough type of work.  Why?  Because you’re too busy doing your day job.  In short, you’ve become that dependable Doing Machine that everyone takes for granted.  One day you’ll find that your skills are no longer needed because they’ve outsourced your work to another country or some smart (and cheap) machine is doing it now.

Do you want your ass outsourced? 

I didn’t think so.  If what I’ve written above doesn’t move you toward making BIG changes at work, perhaps this will.  There’s a plea at the end of Linchpin that might get you moving and out of the Doing Machine Trap.

“We can’t profitably get more average.  We can’t get more homogenized, more obedient, or cheaper.  We can’t get faster either.  It is our desire to be treated like individuals that will end this cycle.  Our PASSION for contribution and possibility, the passion we’ve drowned out in school and the corporate world – that’s the only way out.”

CREATE your way out.  THINK your way out.  The first step is to stop focusing on DOING MORE WORK and find the RIGHT work to do more of.  Hint, it’s the kind no one else except for senior leaders seem to want to do.  Go ahead and raise your hand for that kind of work and I’ll see you at the top!

By the way, I highly recommend that you read Linchpin by Seth Godin.  It’s a kick in the pants to the DOING MACHINE set.