When you are given an assignment at school the goal is to complete the task, provide the correct answer, and hopefully learn something along the way. These are all excellent objectives but the are ultimately self centered. Continuing down this path in the work force typically leads to you producing crappy results. Unlike school, the right answer to a question is always changing depending on who you work with and what you are doing.
If you are asked to provide a report of the weeks activities you can do this in hundreds of different ways, many of them would produce quality results, others will produce crap. There are a few things you can do to try and produce a quality result when tasked with any activity.
- Ask for sample work that the requester considers good. Having an example of what someone considers as quality work is immensely helpful in understanding what expectations they have for you.
- If the requester has time, ask them what about the work makes it good. It could be the presentation quality, it could be the content, it could be the ease of reading. One person’s trash is another person’s gold. Understand where the gold lies so you don’t spend time focusing on the trash.
- Understand the purpose of the task and what it will be used for. If this is for a client presentation, it had better be well researched and look good. If it is so you boss can stay on top of the work being performed, your information should be concise, to the point, and cover any information your boss should hear from you first as opposed to someone else.
- Add something of value that has not been requested. On one of my projects, a good friend of mine was responsible for weekly reporting. In addition to the PowerPoint report, Brian would include a satirical story. Everyone looked forward to Brian’s weekly story and always had a great laugh. Not only did this raise everyone’s spirits, Brian’s stories often circulated around executive leadership and gave him exposure to people who would not interact with him on a day to day basis.
As you gain more experience, you will have a better baseline for what quality work looks like making these tasks easier to accomplish. In the mean time, these tips will accelerate you along that path.
