When pride in one's work can take you step too far

I hope this might be an article that all of today's young and ambitious office staff would want to read. It's not very polished, and completely lacks context, but hopefully it will be of use to someone.

Many of us take great pride in our work. Many of us will work overtime to see that our work is done, and done well. Many of us take pride in our companies. We may take on extra work to help ensure the success of our companies.

Particularly in consulting, middle management often rely on the juniors to carry out a great deal of the analytical work. The same is true in accounting, although I think the workloads better understood.

It's routinely common that junior staff in such an organisation end up working long and hard to complete tasks. It is a situation where exceeding expectations is pretty much taken as the norm, and perhaps seen as a necessary demonstration of commitment.

Staff with the 'right attitude' who will progress fast will be the ones that work hard, produce quality work, are consistent, and can be depended upon to help out when needed. Skills demonstrated will be attention to quality (thereby requiring structure and discipline in work) , stamina and dedication (to get through volume of work), proactivity and empathy (to understand when and what help might be needed).

A problem which I faced previously and others may well face, is if you take this to an extreme. Take a person who understands the critical importance of a volume of work, recognises that there really are no other resources who can help, and who then rises to the challenge of carrying out the work. Typically this person is patted on the back for an excellent job, and life goes on. But if the volume of work is such that it is infeasibly large and potentially every growing or changing in nature, then the 'hero' can find him or herself fighting an uphill struggle.

Pride in work, ambition, and dedication to the success of the company, can drive the employee to continue to fight as hard as possible to manage the workload. Staff will often push themselves hard in order to do this. It is often not the explicit direction of their managers which leads to this, more the implicit expectation for juniors to demonstrate themselves by showing the right skills and attitudes.

Less experienced staff may not be so aware of their physical and emotional limits. The stress associated with trying to carry out high volumes of complex work, whilst still guaranteeing quality, can be overwhelming. Even if staff were aware that they were reaching breaking point, they may not have sufficient experience to upwardly manage, or strongly communicate the extent of their position.

Reaching this stage, staff can gain a new understanding. It comes as a self awareness that their behaviour to such an extreme is no longer beneficial to the company. Driving themselves to nervous breakdown, or to making significant errors in the work, or being physically unable to complete work in time, are the last things that managers want.

Pride, loyalty and commitment are one thing. No-one would promote a lazy employee after all. However knowing how to display the positive values, without losing control of the workload, is a step in the evolution from analyst to manager.