Exceeding expectations in a Rubric culture
Do you work for a company that has a rubric culture? One of the core principles might be; “everyone advances based on merit alone”. To be more precise, everyone determines, by themselves, how far they want to go or achieve.
I guess you are still asking yourself, “what is a rubric”? According to Merriam-Webster, it is described as;
A guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests.
Since we are at the basics, what then is a culture? According to Merriam-Webster, culture is described as;
The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.
In another life, where my dictionary is the authority, I would have defined a rubric as;
A rubric defines or states what success looks like for a given set of expectations.
Therefore, what we describe as a “rubric culture” is no more an abstraction of the idea in which an organization determines your merit based on specific criteria. In the case of successful companies, this criteria can be very particular. Throughout the organization, all departments might have their own rubrics and these might be accessible to the necessary stakeholders.
A rubric defines or states what success looks like for a given set of expectations. For instance;
“It is expected of the astronaut to do a spacewalk for 5 minutes while connected to a tether.”
This is a simple example of an expectation. If the astronaut manages to do a 5-minute spacewalk, then they meet expectations. What if he does a 7-minute spacewalk or 15 minutes, what about hours, say 3 hours, do they exceed expectations? If the purpose was to stay out of the spacecraft longer, then they definitely exceeded expectations.
Below is a picture of an Astronaut named Bruce in 1984. He was the first person to perform a spacewalk without being connected to a tether (definitely exceeded expectations based on our rubric). If you want to learn more about spacewalks go to this NASA webpage.
The aim of this article is to express my opinion on how one can exceed expectations which are outlined in their own rubric. I will put these thoughts down in the form of pointers and show why they are critical. I also welcome comments on other experiences that can be helpful in making one exceed expectations. You will notice, I am neither going to state the importance nor the benefits of exceeding expectations. I assume these are subjective, due to the fact that they are different for different scenarios, departments, and stakeholders.
1. Break down the requirements from the expectations
At times you may be lucky to have a rubric which has a set of expectations that are atomic (broken down until they cannot be broken any further). In this case you should go ahead and create a todo list with the expectations in the form of tasks. After that you can set aside time to complete them before the deadline. Mark them out as soon as you complete them. One should not complete all items on the list at once, unless they have the bandwidth to do so. Though, this may lead to overworking. It is more advisable to clear the list task after task, where each task has its allotted special time. The time between two tasks should be enough to ensure that you only start a new task if the previous task is completed. It is helpful if you write down the expectations in a word document and then use these tasks as subheadings.
If you have a set of expectations which seem “too large”, then you have to break them down for the sake of your own sanity. As cliche as it may seem, the most efficient way of breaking down this would be to ask the “who? what? where? why? when?” of your scenario. After that, you can treat the broken down tasks as described in the previous paragraph.
Be ware of overworking and procrastination. Overworking is caused by trying to do all the tasks in a list at once because you want to beat the deadline. Procrastination is caused by having a set of expectations that is too large and yet-to-be-broken-down which in turn puts you down. In this case, your mind will put off the work to be done at a later date. But if the work to be done is atomic, your mind will easily take the task head on.
Breaking down tasks is a skill you may not have. To learn it, you need to ask for assistance from colleagues who are good at it or those who have experience doing what you are doing.
2. Meet expectations first before you exceed them
I am not an Egyptologist but I am certain the Egyptians never built the tip of the pyramid before they finished the base first. You may try to finish the tasks that are pointers of exceeding expectation but if in the same instance you fail to finish the tasks that show you met expectations then your work will be considered to be below expectations. Therefore, it is more important to meet expectations before you exceed them. You do this by being diligent in the basics first. You might be good at something but if you cannot display that you have mastered the basics then one might question whether your work is really as good as you claim it to be. Therefore, work on the tasks that satisfy the expectations first, then work on the tasks that make you exceed expectations.
3. Determine how expectations are exceeded and do exactly that
One will never exceed expectations if they do not know what success looks like when they have exceeded expectations. Therefore, before one tries to exceed expectations in their own naive way, they should look at the criterion on their rubric that shows what one should do in order to exceed expectations. When you note what the rubric requires you to exceed expectations, add this as part of the tasks to be completed in your list. If need be, you can also break this additional requirement even further. After you are done with other tasks, then also do complete this task to exceed expectations.
But wait. It does not end there. You will have to take a step backward and review the work you have done and ask yourself whether the general goal has been met. “Why?”, you ask. It is normal at times that when we deal with the details of a project to forget the project’s goal and instead focus on the individual goals of the individual tasks with the assumption that fulfilling each of the individual goals will lead to the fulfilment of the general goal. However, at times one may end up with completed and perfect tasks which are not connected with each other.
For this reason, you need to step back and review the work you have done and ask yourself whether the general goal has been met. You should start by asking yourself, “Have I been able to [insert general goal to be achieved]?”. If it has been met, then you have officially exceeded expectations. If not, then you need to connect the tasks together to meet the general goal.
4. Make recommendations on how the rubric can be improved
Lastly, now that you are an “expert” in this area, you might have noticed defects or flaws in the rubric you used. In this case you will add a-lot of value to your organisation by suggesting improvements. This recommendation should be a statement on what you feel is not right, how it should be improved and the pros and cons that the change will introduce.
That is all for this article. Please don’t forget to leave your comments on other ways one can exceed expectations in a rubric culture.
Now go out there and exceed those expectations.
