Performative Work

 

It’s simply not a reality that everyone’s career or everyone’s work will be deeply meaningful to them. There are many reasons for this, mostly boiling down to a main aim of capitalism which is that, were it not for the monetary system, no one would perform unsavory work. There are other reasons for this too but it makes sense to focus on one prominent side effect we will likely all experience in our professional lives in one way or another: performative work.

My first encounter with the word ‘performative’ was some time back in the context of social media. People have a tendency to show only their best sides on social media and that plays into this in the sense that what’s being posted on many platforms is what people think others want to see of them and is therefore performative and, in this case, not genuine. Think of all the YouTube and Streamer “apologies” (non-apologies) that you’ve seen on the internet lately. You’ve probably seen brands do this do when they did something wrong. Did you ever feel it was obvious that they had no sincere desire to make the situation right but wanted to post something because “that’s what you’re supposed to do?” I sure have. I hadn’t thought of performative as a word to describe this and other adjacent phenomena but I quite liked it once I had heard it.

In a professional environment, performative plays out much differently. Have you ever felt pressure to be active and responding on Slack, Jabber, or whatever other IM software that your company uses? How about email? How about presenting your best on your working hours? Do you feel like you need to be “always on?” When did work become more about the time people spent working and not necessarily about what meaningful work they’ve actually gotten done? I think it’s also safe to say that the pandemic has worsened this phenomenon as well.

The notion of email and performative work was further enhanced for me by two particular Anne Helen Petersen posts that I will link to here and here (and below, of course). I highly recommend reading those posts alongside her others as well; they are great repositories of information. So much of what we do at work, particularly in the pandemic, has been judged on what we appear to be doing rather then what we’re actually doing. Most peoples’ bosses don’t trust them to do their required work unsupervised so it’s become a sort of game for them to be constantly monitoring employees. Because, if you don’t keep eyes on an employee all the time, their work won’t get done, right? Wrong. (And if this is a persistent problem you probably have a bad hire)

I’ve worked for some types in the past who viewed people as resources and not as people. I didn’t like that for obvious reasons but there was an interesting lesson from that experience: Your workforce is probably only going to be productive about 70% of the time. The other 30% is lost no matter what you do. While we’re at it, another fun fact is that employees will fit their required work into any sized week they’ve got. If they have a four-day week because of a statutory holiday, they’re going to fit five days’ worth of work into that four-day week. You’ve probably done this yourself and yes, it can really suck. But, didn’t you get just as much done in the end? Didn’t you work just as hard? Did you find that you possibly enjoyed this more because you had more time for things that mattered outside of work? It really makes me wonder why the West won’t switch to this (that’s somewhat rhetorical, don’t feel the need to answer me).

So we’ve defined that work will get done in the timeframe of a week, no matter what the week is, and we’ve defined that probably only 70% of that time is used in an average week. Back to the matter at hand and how this relates to performative work, is how that 30% is being spent. It is sacrilege in many companies to admit you needed a mental break or that you wanted to talk to a co-worker (I don’t think that’s bad because that helps you develop your professional relationships and networks better!). So what do we do with that time? We pretend. We do something else and make sure we’re active on IM in order to keep up the illusion that we work “just as much as everyone else does” (or more). And who does it benefit? No one.

Here’s how I would handle that as a manager. Did you need a minute because something stressful happened? Take your minute. Are the kids being very active despite you needing to get some work done? Take care of the kids. Did you have a dentist appointment? Go to the appointment and don’t feel like you have to make up the time. I would understand their human needs and let them address those needs.

People aren’t robots. People need to feel like their managers are people too. They need to feel supported by those managers and that the managers get their perspective. Policing work, demanding what will inevitably end up being performative work over email and IM is a waste of everyone’s time. We’re all human and most of us wouldn’t work if we won the lottery. Why pretend otherwise?

You’ll notice that I never said, “Sacrifice the work,” or, “Just do less.” All I’m saying is, as leaders, the sooner we understand that everyone is human and simply manage like we do, the sooner we will gain the trust and loyalty of our employees which will actually lead to better work in the long-run regardless of hours spent or some other accounting-driven nonsense. We’re not talking about performance issues here.

Before someone points it out, I get that if you’re working on an assembly line or in retail/service that this may not be plausible for you. That’s okay. My advice caters to the corporate world because that’s what I know. I don’t pretend to consult on problems I can’t fully understand and there are many different types of work.

In a more general sense, how often do you feel like you should be performative at work? And by that, I mean this time, feeling like you need to showcase your best, “ideal” work-self. Do you do this whenever someone is watching? I think that would be exhausting. My advice for practical purposes: Do this with your boss, when celebrating a success (marketing yourself internally), or when gearing up for a promotion. It’s exhausting to do this kind of thing all the time, so don’t. Do it when it’s necessary. And yes, I do believe this is still necessary despite telling you above that it’s a waste of time because, as much as I would like to believe that most people will wake up and make the shift overnight - let’s face it, that is simply not going to happen.

But you know what? It might help you figure out if you really like where you work or not as a result. And that’s never a bad thing. So I do still find there is a value in awareness.

Show what and “who” you need to show, when you need to show it. I’d be remiss to not offer that as practical advice. But aspire to more. If you see an opportunity in your career to aim to put performative work behind you, feel free to pursue it. If you know you’ve got a good leader, maybe a frank discussion about it could help your team peel back the veneer. I do think this a healthy thing to acknowledge at work if you know that you are in a safe environment to acknowledge it within. If you’re not, I would once again consider weighing my options and seeing if there is a better one out there for you somewhere.

Food for thought.

 

Citations / Documentation / Read-List:

How email became work (Anne Helen Petersen) Culture Study

Email is a failed state. Time for a coup. (Charlie Warzel) Culture Study