April 4, 2008
‘Is coasting at work OK?’
I have been working in marketing for fifteen years and have always been a bit of a Stakanovite and I’ve always been successful. A year ago my husband and I bought a derelict house and since then I have been a project manager on that - with the result that the effort I put into my job has gone down by half. To my amazement no one at work has noticed. My latest appraisal was my best yet. The house is now done, and I am wondering, did I waste all that effort? Is it OK to continue to coast? The thought makes me feel a little guilty. Should it?
Marketing executive, female, 41
Lucy’s Answer
By accident you have stumbled on something rather important. There is no direct relationship between how much effort one puts in, and how well one does. The more nebulous the job and the more senior you are, the more this is true.
You have managed things well by putting the spadework in early. By digging industriously for 15 years, you have made your bosses imagine your commitment to the job is beyond question. It may take them a further 15 years to notice that it is not.
It’s not surprising that they’ve noticed nothing so far. Nor is it surprising that, on the contrary, they think you are going from strength to strength. Various readers suggest this is because you seem more relaxed, or are working smarter, or because hard work is inefficient. I don’t agree; I think it is because the appraisal process is dodgy. Instead, I’d be inclined to trust your appraisal of yourself: that if your effort is down by 50 per cent, the value of the output is down too.
If you manage things properly, you can go on getting away with this for ages. I know one senior manager in your industry who keeps up his visibility by sending occasional e-mails to important people in the organisation, and every quarter coming up with a really good idea. The rest of his time he spends playing tennis.
You ask if you should feel guilty about slacking. The answer is no. You are not cheating anyone, and if your employer is happy with what you are now putting in, that should be enough.
The only reason to return to your old Stakhanovite ways is if you miss the work. If slacking is making you dislike your job because you hate doing it half-heartedly, you should either redouble your efforts or – better still – buy another derelict house.
The worrying implication of this result is that your work was actually detrimental to the company! If the assessment is correct things must actually have run more smoothly with you out of the picture. If this is the case, then it is only the second best option morally to keep slacking next to reigning. You’ll still get paid and the company will do better, everyone’s a winner.
Posted by: Richard C | April 4th, 2008 at 2:58 pm | Report this commentCould you simply have been forced to prioritise out of necessity?
Posted by: Julien | April 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm | Report this commentI wonder if your recent experience is a snapshot from my version of the ‘work-life’ balance. Rather than balancing over day,week, month, or even year, durations I’ve found that work can be intensive for a decade or so, then you’re coasting for a few years, then 5 years long hard work, a few more years coasting, and so on. (Up to a limit, obviously). If you judge what the situation needs at any time, and act with integrity, then it all balances out. Given a diverse mix of employees at different stages in their career journey, then employers get a fair deal, and society is less stressed overall.
Posted by: John, 55, VP | April 4th, 2008 at 3:13 pm | Report this commentDon’t take yourself so seriously. Love being alive. Have you ever seen an epitaph on a tombstone that read, “Coasted at work”? In the meantime adopt a formula to measure your efforts. If your employer pretends to pay you with a compensation package that is inadequate for the effort and commitment that you bring to work each day then you pretend to work. If your compensation package is adequate then your efforts should be as well. It’s not personal. It’s business. That’s what they’ll say when they let you go whether you coasted or broke your back.
Posted by: Bill, 51, administrative judge | April 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm | Report this commentThere is a reason for the saying “if you want something done, ask a busy man/woman”. When I was asked to be acting head of department as well as continuing my normal job, I found that I appeared to do better all round and certainly was more highly valued by my company. I suspect it is all about prioritisation and the speed with which you operate. When I was out of work following a redundancy, it seemed impossible to summon up the energy to go to the supermarket and the pet shop in the same day, whereas I would have packed in twenty times more chores while working. If the two pronged approach works for you and your employer, find something else to do to pace yourself.
Posted by: Susan, 54, equity analyst | April 4th, 2008 at 4:53 pm | Report this commentAre you sure you have not previously confused activity with achievement? The moniker Stakhanovite is one that only someone with little confidence in their ability to do their job efficiently and effectively would self apply, particuluarly with such evident pride.
I hate to break it to you, but by the sounds of it, the hours of extra effort you have put in down the years have almost certainly been a waste; it’s not that they may not have been noticed - you will undoubtedly have made someone else’s life easier - but rather that they have been unnecessary (potentially even counter-productive - no one likes a try-hard) To do most sensible jobs well, you do not need to devote your life to your employer. It will not make them any less likely to make you redundant when times are hard (”Business is business”), whilst excessive loyalty and hard work are soon taken for granted. Chances are that less dedicated but pushier and more aggressive colleagues will be better remunerated - it’s the prodigal son who gets the fatted calf.
Instead of feeling guilty, look into why you this is so. You seem desperate to define yourself by what you do, not who you are (e.g. “project manager” - does this mean you decorated your house?) When you’re gone it won’t be your employer that misses you most, it will be your friends and family (assuming they still know who you are). You have renovated a family house - try really living in it for a bit.
Posted by: Jon, 28 | April 4th, 2008 at 4:55 pm | Report this commentYou could be onto something big here. On the other hand, don’t go too much by what appraisals say. I got my best ever appraisal for a year in which I scored a significant internal diplomatic success but otherwise performed well below par. Appraisals are generally tedious to carry out and write up and I would never consider them the ultimate guide to my performance. I think most of us know in ourselves how we are really doing.
Posted by: Andrew, 47, lawyer | April 4th, 2008 at 7:00 pm | Report this commentI had a similar experience several years ago. In my case, I “lightened up” and found that my interactions with people were significantly improved. As a result, my results dramatically improved because people now wanted to cooperate as opposed to feeling like they were being pushed into submission. It was a difficult, but very worthwhile life lesson.
Posted by: Steve L | April 4th, 2008 at 7:03 pm | Report this commentYou say you work in marketing? Then, surely you know the adage that half of all spending on advertising is wasted, but nobody knows which half. It seems you’ve found the half not wasted.
Peter
Posted by: Peter | April 5th, 2008 at 4:21 am | Report this commentMale, Management Consultant.
Hello,
Your agony aunt is off for the week–apparently she is not feeling well. I’m filling in as Dutch uncle.
While Stakonvitism is a British virtue championed by George Orwell, in this age of globalism you have many other possibilities, including the wise decision to dedicate yourself to upgrading a derelict house. The real estate market is booming and, at the age of 41, you could do no better than to coast at your day job and continue to plough the rest of your time into liberating old houses. The fruit of your work, surely, will eventually be realized.
Good luck, and please help free Martin Lukes from his captivity in the States.
Posted by: Investor, male, 51 | April 5th, 2008 at 5:47 am | Report this commentWorking hard is not a virtue and coasting is not something to be guilty about. Assuming that we all work smart and working hard is working more than you are expected to - it has to be for one of three reasons: 1. Your boss makes you do so eventhough you don’t like it; 2. You actually love work and “your work defines you”; 3. Your hard work is intended to achieve more than your peers - get the promotion, get higher bonus etc. All three are somewhat justified. If #1 is not true in your case and #3 does not apply, then your hard work is your way achieving work-non-work balance. Looks like your balance is slightly tilting toward non-work part of your life and you should embrace that as long as you don’t care about #3.
Posted by: UB | April 5th, 2008 at 12:32 pm | Report this commentI’ve been there, and when I started coasting at work, life and work rating improved substantially. The only person at my office who ever suspected me of something was one who came in at 9.30, left at 4.30 and didn’t work Fridays.
I also had enough time to start a side company and Internet business which gave me skills that I never ever otherwise would have had.
Now I have a new job (due to family moving), and everyone there does the overtime bit. They don’t actually accomplish much, though. Seeing that, and knowing a home/work balance from my previous job, tells me that it’s not a healthy place. So, I’m looking for something new while I’m employed.
End result, I know more from doing less, and that’s better.
Posted by: Joe | April 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm | Report this commentReasonable explanations abound for your being perceived as a better worker now. Some involve really becoming a better worker, some are simple changes in perception by your evaluators. For instance, your enthusiasm for managing the house renovation may have carried into your paid job. Enthusiasm is infectious and promotes efficiency and quickness in the workplace. If your time is limited, and you understand your job well, the time and resource allocation problem becomes an efficiency maximization problem. In other words, your previous preparation/action ratio may have been higher than necessary. Or, you may have spent too much time on details yourself, maybe you didn’t delegate them, or are now delegating more effectively, i.e., you may have become a better manager. Or you may simply be perceived as being less of a Stakhanovite plodder because you didn’t spend so much time at the office. But this is a judgment not for FT readers, but for you to figure out. You should be able to analyze your work product yourself. Did you do more, sell more, lead better? In this case, your answer IS in the details, and the analysis is worth doing well.
Posted by: Paul, 60, technical project team leader | April 5th, 2008 at 3:49 pm | Report this commentEasy, the effort you took out of your job wasn’t really needed, so basically you were not really as productive as you thought. Keep going at the same level of coasting and now apply your extra time and effort in another personal project.
Posted by: GS, 40, Corporate Manager | April 5th, 2008 at 5:46 pm | Report this commentSounds like you have developed a sense of perspective
Posted by: Mike, 51, male, retired | April 5th, 2008 at 10:36 pm | Report this commentFellow global citizens,
It’s been gratifying to see that there is a broad-minded consensus developing here that coasting is not a vice. UB summarizes it well: “Working hard is not a virtue and coasting is not something to be guilty about.”
I wonder, though, whether we haven’t confused coasting with surfing. Just a thought, but the not-so-young female marketing executive seems to be suggesting that she is better off spending half of her productive hours rehabbing an old house, not surfing on the coast. It may be a subtle distinction but I assure you that surfing produces a better tan. Any thoughts?
All of you, I hope, continue to keep up the campaign to free Martin Lukes.
Posted by: Investor, male, 51 | April 6th, 2008 at 4:18 am | Report this commentCongrats,
You’ve learned a valuable secret. Seniority is everything in a company. As long as you make yourself more likeable you can reduce your output accordingly…you’ve made it!!
Posted by: George in the US | April 6th, 2008 at 5:28 am | Report this commentBy all means coast, but be warned: It may start to make the job seem boring.
I cut down my hours for my job in order to spend more time as a semi-professional musician.
Result? Loving the music, bored with work and resenting the time I spend in the office.
Posted by: Dylan | April 6th, 2008 at 12:41 pm | Report this commentIn my experience, Joe’s got it right, the issue is the difficulty to evaluate (and reward) the quantity and quality of work of an employee. I believe there is a reluctance to dedicate time to this evaluation as a quick chat with other staff and results from recent tasks will often form the basis for a superficial evaluation that in most cases will be fairly accurate. I’m sure Tim Harford would have some ideas about why this is the case!
The other question is how you personally measure your effort and what you consider effort to be. If your lower effort translates to you spending more time chatting to other staff and doing less ‘work’, you may actually have increased the quality of your work and others through better communication of business related information or improved social/professional relationships leading to better teamwork.
As an example, if the staff in the company I work for sat down more to have lunch together and abandoned a cultural tendency to work through lunch, I firmly believe we would be a more productive company overall despite the apparent loss of, say, 5-8% of man hours.
Posted by: Kevin | April 6th, 2008 at 1:13 pm | Report this commentHow very cheering. is the note from “investor male 51″ As I find myself at my desk at the weekend trying iron out an impossible workload you’ve inspired me to instead write a few sucky up notes about how busy I am and then browse ebay. Life is too short and if my internet connection was working at home I’d probably not be here. I find I do better at work when I spend more time being nice to people and less time actually doing my job.
Posted by: Hannah, 35, Senior Manager | April 6th, 2008 at 4:38 pm | Report this commentI also had a particularly good appraisal in a year when I cut back significantly on my commitment to my work because I was cross about lack of appreciation and inadequate remuneration for what I was doing. I suspect that previously I was over-conscientious and possibly made my managers feel guilty and uncomfortable or possibly that my capacity for overwork brought out the sadist in them. Either way, once I appeared more relaxed and less driven I was praised for being more strategic and a better manager, even though I was paying much less attention to detail and hoping that everything would go OK rather than making sure it would. I think that you could be getting away with it because your commitment is beyond question and you were never really judged on your efforts in the way that you thought.
Posted by: Louise, 44, female, consultant | April 6th, 2008 at 11:02 pm | Report this commentMaybe you have stumbled upon the best kept sectret to success - work smart not hard!!
Posted by: Mr T, 35, Director, Singapore | April 7th, 2008 at 5:49 am | Report this commentMarketing is not a routine work. You boght your dream home and this event so inspired you, that something has left and for your direct work! Now you catch up, how you can be more productive. Skip away routine. It will be good for your family, for your business and, at the end, to the marketing.
Posted by: Arturas, 50, male, 30 years in marketing | April 7th, 2008 at 8:05 am | Report this commentMight your new house / activity have triggered something in you that made you blossom and enjoy life more? May your colleagues have felt that?
Posted by: coco, 36, male, COO | April 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am | Report this commentYes, resting on one’s laurels is always a good idea: there someone nipping at your heals as I type this.
Posted by: Brian | April 7th, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Report this commentGreetings fellow global citizens,
Coco 36 Male hits the hammer right on the head: “Might your new house / activity have triggered something in you that made you blossom and enjoy life more?” Our marketing executive, in other words, might have discovered the “path of immaculate conception,” which has many of the pluses of the “mommy track” without its horrible name and none of the complications of a pregnancy late in life.
Not to rain on the parade but I wonder if there aren’t a few minuses here. We provide mommies leave, presumably, because we are forced to and because they provide us new employees and consumers—why should there be a “house renovation” track? If someone cut her efforts by half and receives her best appraisal ever, well, shouldn’t we give her twice as much work or reduce her salary by a quarter (leaving some incentive)? Just food for thought here. . . no reason at all to feel guilty about coasting, of course, but with gravity at your back and an old house on your shoulders it’s a tough swim to the top.
Posted by: Investor, male, 51 | April 7th, 2008 at 10:32 pm | Report this commentStakonovite? What on earth is this? Even defies the powers of Google to throw up a clear definition. Maybe it meant something once, fifty or more years ago, but nowadays I guess you will be fairly safe to define it any way you want without anybody but the most erudite pedant taking issue, and fortunately you won’t find too many of those in either marketing or house building.
Chris 55 VP Male
Posted by: Chris | April 9th, 2008 at 12:53 pm | Report this commentA true Stakhanovite would surely know how to spell the word. (I guess that makes me an erudite pedant - even if I do work in marketing.)
Posted by: Richard, 44, Head of Marketing | April 9th, 2008 at 5:32 pm | Report this commentNow it’s time to be a true Stakhanovite: coast at work and report the targets are met by 150% (or more!
Or do you really think Stakhanovite worked so hard? 
Good luck.
Posted by: Jarca | April 9th, 2008 at 7:17 pm | Report this commentYour experience tallies with my version of “work/life” balance. Rather than balancing effort over a day or a week, I’ve worked intensely for a decade, then coasted for a few years, then done five years’ hard work, and so on. If you judge what the situation needs at any time, and act with integrity, it all works out for the best.
Posted by: Vice-president, male, 55 | April 10th, 2008 at 9:00 am | Report this commentYou say you work in marketing? Then surely you know the adage that half of all spending on advertising is wasted, but nobody knows which half. It seems you have found the half not wasted.
Posted by: Consultant, male | April 10th, 2008 at 9:01 am | Report this comment“If you want something done, ask a busy woman.” For a while I did two jobs and my performance at both was the best it has been. It’s all about prioritisation and the speed with which you operate. When, at another point in my life, I was out of work it seemed impossible to go to the supermarket and the pet shop in the same day. If the two- pronged approach works for you, find another big project.
Posted by: Analyst, female, 54 | April 10th, 2008 at 9:02 am | Report this commentI also had a good appraisal in a year when I had stopped trying because I felt underappreciated. Once I appeared more relaxed, I was praised for being more strategic and a better manager.
Posted by: Consultant, female, 44 | April 10th, 2008 at 9:03 am | Report this commentI got my best ever appraisal for a year in which I scored a significant internal diplomatic success but otherwise performed well below par. Appraisals are generally tedious to carry out and I would never consider them the ultimate guide to my performance. I think most of us know in ourselves how we are really doing.
Posted by: Lawyer, male, 47 | April 10th, 2008 at 9:05 am | Report this commentWhere can I join the campaign to free Martin Lukes?
Posted by: Tracey | April 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm | Report this comment