HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF INDISPENSABLE AT WORK
OUT
WITH MUNDANE, REPETITIVE TASKS, IN WITH CREATIVE BREAKTHROUGHS, SAYS
KARA MILLER, HOST OF INNOVATION HUB.
Kara
Milleris
not afraid of the impending robot takeover. As the host of Innovation
Hub,
a popular radio show on WGBH, Miller thinks a great deal about
automation. She regularly interviews guests who describe how
computers can do increasingly complex tasks once performed by highly
skilled workers: tax preparation, legal research, even writing news
articles. ("Ouch," says this reporter.) "Robots are
going to take over jobs in ways we’re only just beginning to
understand," Miller tells Fast
Company.
"They’re replacing solidly middle-class jobs and
service-industry jobs alike. Experts say self-driving cars are going
to replace the entire fleet of truckers and that fast food
service will
be entirely roboticized in the next decade."
From
Miller’s perspective, jobs that can be easily replaced have one
thing in common: they are rote and repetitive. On the flip side,
creative work is irreplaceable. So the key to making yourself
indispensable is to find ways to move beyond the inevitable routines
and checklists in your job and focus on those parts that allow you to
innovate. "We should be making our jobs as creative as possible,
because the more your job is different every day, the better off you
are going to be in the long run," she says.
In
her line of work, this means taking the time to make each show
unexpected rather than falling back on generic patterns: she strives
to interview guests from a wide variety of fields, vary the subject
matter as much as possible, and throw her audience curveballs by
occasionally changing the show’s format. "It would be hard to
write a program to do that again and again. Software is great at
repetitive tasks, but it has a harder time automating processes that
are different every day," she says. She says that most job
descriptions, across industries, include a mix of both mundane and
creative work; the key is shifting the balance so you spend most of
your time and energy on
that latter. For lawyers, this could be using the law in new and
interesting ways to win cases; for journalists, it might mean pushing
yourself to write in new styles; for teachers, it could involve
experimenting with new approaches that might help students learn
better.
Miller
says that one good way to nurture creativity is to cut down on
unnecessary busy work that takes up so much time and psychic
energy.
For instance, she urges people to rethink standing meetings. On her
own team, she has banished the daily morning meeting, which is
sacrosanct in the rest of the radio world. Instead, her team meets on
an ad hoc basis when there is something pressing to discuss, like
when a news event has occurred or someone has a brilliant new concept
for an episode. "When three or four people are in a room, you’re
often checking in on things that you really don’t need to check in
on," she says. "There is too little time in offices where
people are really focused and thinking deeply."
She
also makes the case that people work best at different times of the
day, so the 9 to 5 schedule can be a major hindrance to creativity.
We all know of colleagues who send emails at six in the morning or
eleven at night. While some companies are easing up on the rigid work
schedules, the vast majority still use face time as a proxy for
productivity. Miller encourages her team members to think about what
times of the day they get their most creative ideas, whether that is
early in the morning, late in the day, or within traditional workday
hours. "To me it matters what the result is, not how you got
there," she says. "It’s about figuring out when you can
do your best work."
If
you work in an office where a flexible schedule is not part of the
culture, Miller says it might be worth having a conversation with
your supervisor about changing things up a bit. "The key here is
to understand, as much as you can, what your manager wants from you,"
she says. "If you’re able to accomplish desirable results but
do it in a different way than they expect, that can be the start of
larger discussion about how you work best." Of course, these
kinds of conversations tend to be more effective once you have built
some goodwill at your company and demonstrated your value. Miller
says managers will respond to these requests to varying degrees, so
it is always best to proceed with caution and read their expressions
along the way.
But
it’s not just schedules that get in the way of creativity; office
environments, which are so full of distractions, can also kill deep,
innovative thinking. While Miller thinks that open plan office spaces
are great for collaboration, they are not always ideal for the kind
of concentration necessary to come up with brilliant new ideas. "I’ve
hidden out in conference rooms and closets—anywhere to get a little
bit of space," she says sheepishly. "A lot of time gets
taken up making small talk with colleagues; they may be very nice,
but it can really interfere with getting into the zone."
Sometimes, when she needs to get away from the endless chatter that
surrounds her desk, she takes walks or works in a quiet spot outside.
While
there is some research—such as Nikil Saval’s recent
book, Cubed—that
indicates open-plan offices tend not to be conducive to productivity,
Miller also acknowledges that there is great diversity in people’s
working styles. Some workers are able to think better by bouncing
ideas off other people, but others need time and space alone to be
creative. In some ways, there is no silver bullet that will allow all
workers to be as innovative as they can be.
Miller
says the onus is on us to think carefully about how we work best and
be brave enough to ask our managers to support us as we move outside
the confines of traditional work schedules and spaces. And if someone
asks why you are sitting on a park bench in the middle of the
workday, you can tell them about the job-stealing robots on the
horizon.
BYELIZABETH
SEGRAN
http://www.fastcompany.com/3038776/most-creative-people/how-to-make-yourself-indispensable-at-work?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-manual-newsletter&position=anjali&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=11292014
No comments:
Post a Comment