What Steve Smith teaches us about handling trivial tasks at work
Though it got over just a month or so back, Cricket World cup 2019 seem like such a distant memory. Ashes series between England and Australia is grabbing all the attention these days.
Going beyond the results, which often makes up for headlines, there are these seemingly small moments that make sport interesting, and memorable.
Once such moment is captured in the video that i share here.
What Steve Smith is seen here do is making a trivial job of leaving the ball interesting. For those that have followed this sport, the act of leaving the ball helps a player to set his eyes in, but is also considered one of the boring aspect of the game.
There's nothing really to comment about, to be excited about by seeing the batsman leaving the ball. Not till Steve Smith came up with distinct ways to leave the ball and added a bit of spice to this aspect of the game.
What can us professionals learn from this act of Steve Smith ?
No matter how cutting edge our job may be, there are certain elements that doesn't excite us or something that we find boring. Let me give a few instances from my career:
- One of the projects that i was involved in, at a crucial release stage, required an engineer to do the installation of the product almost countless times (more than 100) in different platform to debug an issue. To put it in other words, she needing to setup OS (5-6 supported), setup browser (again 5-6 versions), install the third party products, install the application under test and wait for the error. Though this was a monotonous job but was important to ensure a seamless customer experience.
- Sending a weekly report when nothing significant has happened can be considered as boring and needless when it still serves important status needs of the recipients.
- For a manager, meeting his team regularly may be a routine affair and if not done may lead him to be quite out of sync.
- Sending a weekly report when nothing significant has happened can be considered as boring and needless when it still serves important status needs of the recipients.
- For a manager, meeting his team regularly may be a routine affair and if not done may lead him to be quite out of sync.
And many more.
Steve Smith's way of approaching the monotonous tasks teaches us to elevate our desire to drive improvements in the tasks that are monotonous but does add value to eventual outcomes.
Is it one of those things that are easier said than done or Is there a method that can be followed to achieve the same ?
I would be sharing some perspectives on this in the upcoming blog. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, I would love to hear in the comments section.
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