When performance becomes personal
For most of my career, I was very comfortable being evaluated. Give me the criteria. Tell me what success looks like. Show me the target, and I can work with that.
Performance is measurable. Did the project succeed? Did the team deliver? Did the organization improve? Did I meet the objective? Did I do what I said I would do? Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes it wasn't. That's performance, and I've never had much difficulty with the idea that it should be assessed.
But somewhere along the way, many of us learn to make those results mean something much bigger. We stop simply asking, Did I do well? and start asking, What does how well I did say about me?
That's when performance becomes personal.
When the Scorecard Moves Inside
Most of us understand intellectually that our work can be evaluated. In fact, evaluation is necessary. Leaders need feedback. Employees need accountability. Organizations need standards. Students need assessment. Businesses need results. I don't want a world where nobody is accountable because we're afraid someone's feelings might get hurt.
But there's an enormous difference between evaluating what I did and determining what I am worth, and humans are remarkably good at collapsing the two.
A great presentation doesn't simply mean I gave a great presentation; it can become evidence that I'm good at this. A promotion can become proof that I'm going somewhere. Recognition can tell me I'm important. Being needed can reassure me that I matter.
Failure can travel exactly the same road in the opposite direction. The project struggled. I made the wrong decision. I didn't get the promotion. Someone criticized my work. Something I created wasn't received the way I'd hoped.
Suddenly, we're no longer examining an outcome. We're examining ourselves.
When Did Doing Well Become Evidence That You Were Worthy?
That's the question I've been sitting with:
When did doing well become evidence that you were worthy?
I don't think most of us consciously decided this. There probably wasn't a Tuesday afternoon when you announced, “From now on, I shall determine my human value according to my professional performance.” Although, knowing me, I probably would have created a spreadsheet for it.
It happens much more quietly. We learn that good grades get celebrated, competence gets trusted, achievement gets recognized, usefulness gets appreciated, reliability gets rewarded and expertise gets invited into the room. None of those things is inherently wrong. In fact, many of them are entirely appropriate responses to good performance.
The problem isn't the reward. The problem is what we sometimes make the reward mean.
Once success becomes evidence of worth, failure becomes dangerous. It's no longer simply disappointing. It's personal.
The Problem With Making Worth Earnable
There is a logical problem with trying to earn something that should never have been conditional in the first place. If I can earn my worth through achievement, then presumably I can lose it through failure.
If being useful makes me valuable, what happens when nobody needs me? If being accomplished proves that I matter, what happens when someone else outperforms me? If knowing the answer makes me credible, what happens when I don't know? If being strong makes me worthy of respect, what happens when I fall apart?
This is why the relationship between worth and performance matters so much. It isn't because performance doesn't matter.
Performance matters enormously.
We should care about the quality of our work. We should take responsibility when we get things wrong. We should develop competence, learn from feedback, repair harm, improve our skills and honour the commitments we make.
But none of those things requires us to put our humanity on the scorecard.
Your performance can be excellent, mediocre, disappointing or in serious need of improvement. It can even be unacceptable. You can make a terrible decision, fail spectacularly or discover that you simply aren't very good at something yet.
And you can still be a human being of inherent worth.
Those truths can occupy the same room.
Worth Is Not Immunity
This distinction matters because intrinsic worth can easily be misunderstood as an excuse. If my worth cannot be evaluated, does that mean nobody gets to criticize me?
Absolutely not.
Your work can be criticized. Your decisions can be challenged. Your behaviour can have consequences. You can lose the opportunity. You can fail the course. You can be wrong. You can need to apologize. You can discover that you are nowhere near as good at something as you thought you were.
Worth doesn't protect us from consequences. It protects us from turning those consequences into a verdict on our humanity.
And strangely enough, I think that can make us more accountable, not less.
If criticism of my work doesn't threaten my fundamental value, I don't have to defend myself quite so fiercely. If failure doesn't make me a failure, I can examine what happened. If being wrong doesn't make me worthless, I can admit it. If somebody else's excellence doesn't diminish me, I can learn from them instead of competing with them simply to protect myself.
Maybe uncoupling worth from performance doesn't lower the standard at all. Maybe it gives us enough safety to look at our performance more honestly.
Two Different Questions
So the next time something goes particularly well — or particularly badly — notice which question you ask.
How did I do? is a useful question. It can teach you something. It invites reflection, feedback, learning and improvement.
But if you notice yourself drifting toward What does this say about me?, stop there for a moment.
Perhaps the answer is much smaller than you've been making it. Maybe it says you prepared well. Maybe you need more practice. Maybe you made an excellent decision or a terrible one. Maybe you're developing. Maybe you weren't ready. Maybe you absolutely nailed it.
All useful information.
None of it is a measurement of your human value.
I've spent a long time thinking and teaching about this distinction, and more recently I've been writing about it too. It sits underneath much of what I've come to understand about identity, leadership and what it means to remain human in environments that are constantly measuring us. You'll see a little more of that work appearing here over the next few weeks.
For now, this is where I want to begin:
Your performance can be evaluated. Your worth cannot.
Forward, with purpose.
— Amber
Your performance can be evaluated. Your worth cannot.
If this reflection stayed with you, explore The Feisty Human: Recipes for Becoming Someone You Don’t Have to Negotiate.
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