Expecting "Above and Beyond" is just not nice

because you only paid for "even and within"

When I was a teacher, my goal was always for all of my students to get As. Not all of my colleagues agreed. But I felt that if an A means “You learned everything you were supposed to learn! You can do all the skills we practiced!” why wouldn’t it be my goal—if not the definition of my job—to help all students get there?

Of course, education (and business) loves a good forced ranking, and some argue that we need to define B as “good” so that the students who want/need extra challenge can go “above and beyond” to get the A.

As so often is the case, the norms of school bleed into the norms of organizations, and all companies want those A-student employees who go “above and beyond”. Or in performance review parlance, who “exceed expectations”.

This has always given me pause.

It’s one thing to expect that of students who are learning for their own benefit. It’s quite another to expect that of employees who are working for the benefit of their organizations.

DID YOU KNOW… one of the most common academic definitions of employee engagement is whether employees are devoting “discretionary effort”?

On the surface it makes sense: you see an employee going “above and beyond” the role, devoting time outside of work hours—discretionary time—and you say to yourself, “That employee is engaged! They’re SO into it. Gotta get more of those folks.”

It’s no wonder why organizations want the Above-and-Beyonders: it’s literally free labor! But we shouldn’t kid ourselves where that discretionary effort comes from. It comes from the bedtime stories that employee is not reading. From the exercise class that employee never went to. From the sleep that employee never got. It comes from somewhere, we just don’t like to think about the cost.

As an employer in this position, I might say, “They wanted to! I didn’t make them” and that may be true. It’s possible they really were that in to their work, that they took pride in it, that it was meaningful to them—and you know those aren’t bad things. The trouble comes when, as an organizational baseline, employees are only seen as meeting expectations when they are exceeding expectations. Or more simply, when overwork is expected.

The thing is, that wasn’t the deal. We have employment contracts for a reason. I’ll give you this time/effort and you give me this money.

How funny would it be if we expected employers to “exceed expectations” with their paychecks? “Ugh… just the usual two weeks pay. I expected more… my company is just not going above and beyond like I hoped.”

Now that I’ve exhaled that rant, let me say I also believe in doing great work. Impactful, captivating, generous, needle-moving work. I just believe that that work should be accounted for in your day job. It’s the employer’s responsibility to realistically consider what it takes for an employee/team/function/organization to do that kind of powerful work, and then set up employment contracts, OKRs, and deadlines that allow for that kind of work within the confines of the work day; or in other words, without breaking their promises.

Otherwise, your business runs on extracting more than your fair share from employees. It runs on breaching your employment agreements. It runs on baiting and switching employees, often with a story about how purposeful their work is, ignoring that their time spent on family, friends, health, leisure, and rest is also purposeful. The solution is hard but simple: hire more people or reduce the work.

Huh, look at that… I guess my rant was not over.

Ok, I’m taking a deep breath and now I need to say that this riles me up because I’ve been an Above-and-Beyonder all my life and often still am. My feelings above are hard to reconcile with my desire to go the extra mile for a client, even when that means putting on my figurative running shoes at 10pm when I finally have time to focus.

From a leadership perspective, I take it as a personal failure when my project teams run hot. I scoped the work. There’s no one but me to blame. Every project I scope I try to bake in time for us to uphold the incredibly high standards we have for ourselves and our work and our clients. But it doesn’t always work out that way. As much as this article is a little grumpy towards leaders, I’ve been a CEO, and I really do get how hard it is. “Hire more people? With what money? Reduce the work? How will we keep our business afloat? Oh, just raise prices? Ha!” But, ultimately, I do believe that’s why they pay leaders the big bucks: to figure things like this out. The “how” will be unique to each team, each organization.

In the meantime, my provocation to you, no matter where you sit on the employee-employer spectrum:

If you’re an Above-and-Beyonder, Whew! You must be tired. Take some time today to point that A-student energy towards something other than work. Send a text to a friend just to say something nice. Take your partner or child or friend on an impromptu date. Make the recipe you love but takes too long for a weeknight. Have yourself a massage or take the scenic way home or take a nap. Your body will thank you for being an A+ sleeper!

Your time is yours and it’s the most valuable thing you have.

Give it away wisely.