Lakshmi was a hungry Product Manager. She had enough work on her plate but still sought more work where she can learn and grow. Her boss, being appreciative, gave her more features to own and build. I.e. more of what she was already doing.
In a couple of months, Lakshmi became tired of taking up more work and some sort of raw boredom set in. She got very mechanical pushing through more work. Her boss noticed this and couldn’t understand why this is happening. “Did she take up more than she could chew?”, he wondered.
The boss referred this to his mentor who helped him understand what went wrong.
The mentor said – “When people are hungry to contribute more, you can satisfy their hunger in two different ways or using a combination of the two.
One – You can give more of the same work that they are already doing. We call this horizontal loading which can get boring and makes people feel stagnant after a point.
Two – You can give them work that is not on their current list of responsibilities but can expand their horizons, and can also help them grow to the next level. We call this vertical loading.
When Lakshmi sought to do more, you loaded her horizontally which led to too much repetition in her work. This got her tired and frustrated after a point”.
The boss understood the issue and went about correcting the same. He first removed the extra horizontal load he added to Lakshmi’s work.
Instead, he involved her in OKR planning and constructing product strategies for the group. He also delegated certain team-building activities that he felt would help her groom into a better leader for the future.
The result? Lakshmi’s motivation improved and brought back the energy and enthusiasm she had earlier.
Learning: When a good performer voluntarily looks forward to contributing more, leaders need to give them work that has variety and that is different from their regular day-to-day stuff. They should preferably be the ones that enable them to learn and grow to the next level. Motivation sky rockets if this is done right.
In what ways do you enrich the work of a direct reports who are hungry to do more? Please leave them in comments.
