When You Shouldn’t Give 110%

[photo by Julian Mason]

[Note: You can also listen to this post as a podcast]

I have to tell you I’m sick of the whole notion of giving 110%, and here’s why: it’s a meaningless phrase without a timeframe.

In order to figure out what 110% is you first have to know what 100% is and if you’re talking about a person’s ability to perform, the very idea of knowing what 100% looks like is dubious. It’s highly doubtful the person themselves know what they’re capable of so it’s impossible for anyone else to know.

To back up my point on this let me refer you to Holly Brooks who said, “…I suppose you could say that I didn’t know what I was capable of.” And Lindsay Dominguez, “I didn't know what I was capable of until I dove right in the deep end and swam to the surface.” And to countless others who would say the same thing.

We have no idea what our physical, mental or emotional limits are.

Some would say, sure you don’t know what you’re capable of but saying give 110% means give it all you’ve got. Push yourself until you’re at what you think is 100% and then push some more out. That’s what it means to give 110%.

“Our maximum sustainable capacity would be something much less.”

Okay, let’s go with that premise. So, 100% would be the maximum we’re capable of. We should be striving for our maximum capacity and then, since we don’t really know what that is, go a little further. Our perception of what we can do is the theoretical 100% and when we give 110% we’re really just reaching our actual 100%.

Seems pretty sound as a theory, but let me point out this maximum capacity is only achievable for a very short time. For all physical activities we can perform at such high levels of intensity for a few minutes at best.

It’s unlikely our boss wants to see maximum performance for five minutes out of the day. More likely she wants our maximum sustainable effort which would be something much less. As we have all experienced, the less we push ourselves the longer we can perform at that level.

It would be wonderful if we could perform at our level of maximum capacity indefinitely but sadly this is not the case. There are limits to everything, including our ability to think in a focused way.

I would venture to estimate a level of about 60-70% of maximum effort to be sustainable for an entire day. And repeatable the following day ad infinitum assuming we get a full nights’ sleep.

Added effort comes at a cost

Because I’m giving 65%, when my boss says, “Folks, I need you to give 110% on this,” I’ve got some reserves. I can pull out the stops and surge ahead. The question now is, for how long?

There’s a tradeoff between extra effort today and my ability to give extra effort tomorrow. The general rule in running is to rest for one day for each mile you race. So, for example, I may run several miles every day at my 60-70% pace but if I race a 5K on the weekend I should take three days off running for recuperation.

Presumably in the race I’m going all out, 100%.

Following this formula, marathon runners should not run for almost a month after a competitive race. I don’t know many marathoners who follow this guideline (but then I don’t know many competitive marathon racers) but a lot of my friends take a couple weeks off and then only run very light days. Short runs at a slower pace than normal training runs.

“Both come at a cost to future performance.”

The same thing happens with our mental capabilities. We can exceed our normal, sustainable limits for a while but only at a cost. The payback comes over the days or weeks following the intense effort.

Even while we’re exerting ourselves we need to know how long it must be sustained so we can pace ourselves. I don’t run marathons at the same pace I run 5Ks. I’m capable of running faster than my marathon pace, but not for 26 miles.

When your boss says, “Okay folks we’ve got to step it up. Everyone give 110%.” The next thing to follow should be a timeframe for how long maximum effort needs to be sustained. This rarely happens.

Instead we’re left to wonder whether we should be running our 5K pace or our marathon pace. Both are faster than our indefinitely sustainable pace, and both come at a cost to future performance.

When do we recuperate?

The unfortunate thing about putting in maximum capacity performance at work is we usually end up having to recover on our own time. That means our evenings and weekends are full of substandard capability if not all out lethargy. Our families end up paying for the cost of increased productivity for the company.

The bottom line is that old economic saw, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Any performance beyond our maximum sustainable level is going to cost us capacity later. Someone has to bear that cost, the company in decreased performance later or our family who suffers from decreased capacity during our leisure hours.

So, when should we not give 110%? That’s up to you to decide. But when you’re making the decision take into account the fact you’re increased performance is a subsidy to the organization. In most cases I would make this investment.

“Yes and no are not concepts on a graduated scale.”

But if you don’t think the investment will be compensated later, either in decreased workload or increased compensation, I would seriously consider maintaining a sustainable pace.

Just because you’re capable of increasing your performance doesn’t mean you’re obligated to.

On a side note, I wanted to point out to Randy Jackson (whom I suspect reads this blog), there are cases where exceeding 100% makes sense. If we define 100% as the maximum sustainable effort then clearly we have the capacity to achieve 167%.

But when we’re talking about “yes” and “no” these are concepts not on a graduated scale. We can have less than 100%, as in 60% yes, but we can’t have any more than 100%.

In this case 110% yes doesn’t make any sense, nor does 10,000%, 1,000,000%, or 1,000,000,000% yes. Once you’ve reached the maximum, you’ve got all there is.

On a related note, I wanted to point out to my daughter, repetition of the word “please” falls into a similar category. Once you’ve said please once, additional instances do not add to the politeness of the request and do not increase the likelihood of it being granted.