Photo by NESA by Makers on Unsplash
I first heard the expression “work rate” from Greg Bohannon, Managing Partner at Greenrock Capital, while talking about Bryan Brister, CEO of Voltea, and his high rate of productivity. Following our conversation, I googled work rate because it sounded like a thing and I wanted to learn more.
Work rate comes from professional soccer and refers to the extent to which a player contributes to running and chasing in a match while not in possession of the ball. Work rate, as a metric, is generally indicated by the distance covered by a player during a match.
Applying this to a workplace, think about work rate as the contributions you or your team members make to the company that lie beyond your core responsibilities. Examples might include preparing follow up information for your manager that will help assist in making a second level decision, or maybe sitting in on an interview panel for potential hires outside of your department. Additionally, you might attend a networking event and share potential customer leads with the head of sales or notice an opportunity to curtail a waste stream, which you share with the head of manufacturing.
Obviously there is an overlap here with traditional business systems: Toyota, GE, Danaher, Kaizen, Lean, etc. but this is something more than a process, it is a mindset. Can you rearrange how you look at your position in the context of how you might serve others? If you have a track record of making good decisions, building strong peer bonds, and seeing what might create value, perhaps others around you and the company at whole would benefit from increasing your work rate.
Very importantly, so as to prevent any confusion, this is not about doing more or working harder at your core work. It is about being a team player who looks for the opportunity to make a pass, draw off a defender, point out a weakness in the defense of a competitor, or step up to emotionally support a team member who is flagging.
How can leadership track and highlight work rate? How could an organization be transformed if leadership lead by example and encouraged teams to take the risk of trying to be helpful by thinking beyond just self? In a more and more collaborative world, can you imagine the most potent companies not embracing this concept?
I think this is an important concept and one that I want to develop further. Please share any thoughts or comments you might have on this topic! Sharing examples, tools, and philosophies would be appreciated.
Written by: Austin Meyermann, Founder and President of Hunter Crown, LLC
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