Should 80/80 be the new 50/50? How much effort are you putting into your relationships?
In his latest opinion piece, CEO of Coastline Allister Young ponders radical generosity and how it could impact life both at work and at home.
It was National Volunteers’ week last week and we held a week packed full of fantastic events to celebrate volunteering at Coastline. And, given how generous volunteers are with their time, what better time to talk about generosity?
I was really struck by a concept I heard about recently called ‘radical generosity’. It stems from an idea about how to help your marriage/relationship succeed, by not thinking about it as a 50/50 effort where all the work is shared equally, but as an 80/80 relationship where both people embrace ‘radical generosity’ and aim for an 80/80 split. The idea might have come from thinking about how to make relationships succeed, but I think it can apply to work as well.
Some background first. In male/female partnerships, most men think they do at least 50% of the housework, when they actually do 50% less than women (sorry to have to break it to you guys…). In a similar way, I’m sure most of us have sometimes thought at work that we have the broadest shoulders and carry the burden of most of the work. But it turns out people overestimate what proportion of a task they have done compared to others (if you add up the % that everyone thinks they’ve done, it comes to 140%!). This phenomena has been given a name: ‘overclaiming’.
The way we tend to react to this belief that we are doing more than our fair share, is that we aim for a 50/50 situation: “I’m going to do 50% of the work, but no more, and they can do the other 50%”. It seems fair and rational. But it can sabotage your happiness and mental wellbeing. You end up keeping a mental note of what you’re doing, trying to keep track of whether you’re doing 50% or not, and then trying to keep track of what others are doing, and getting angry/frustrated if you don’t think your effort is being matched. And your colleagues? They’re probably doing the same. We forget that while we are very aware of all the work that we do, we don’t actually see all the work that other people do…
I see links in this to the wider phenomenon where we tend to overestimate the headwinds that hold us back in life, and undervalue the tailwinds that help us. This can be quite damaging, because it feeds into the myth that we live in a meritocracy, which can lead us to judge others unfairly.
But what I’m interested in is what we can do to change it, so that we don’t spend our time trying to aim for some sort of 50/50 balance, creating a situation that frequently puts us in conflict and into a downward spiral of contagious blame and resentment.
So what can we do? This is where the idea of ‘radical generosity’ comes in. Instead of aiming for a 50/50 balance in what we do, we should aim for an 80/80 balance.
Obviously, there is no way two people can achieve 80% of what needs to be done. But in the same way that aiming for a 50/50 split is contagious, so is an 80/80 split. But instead of a downward spiral, you create a positive upward spiral of connection and appreciation. The 50/50 model is all about individual interest, individual success, it’s all about ‘me’. The 80/80 model shifts that into thinking about the common interest, how do we win together, it’s suddenly about ‘us’.
So how do you do it? By taking the extra step for your colleagues and customers. Making sure things get finished. Making sure work is done to a high standard. Making sure data is handled in the right way. Making sure communication is effective. And giving each other positive feedback when you see something good. Go on, give it a go, you might be just be pleasantly surprised by the results.