Everyone has run out of time. Energy is often overlooked, and yet time and again people will become too worn out to finish something even though they still have time. Emotions use energy—living uses energy—so every action is a choice on how to spend time and energy.
You can spend time and energy looking for someone to blame or you can spend it looking for a solution.
A person worrying about problems at home, promotions, raises, or layoffs is not spending that energy being creative or solving problems.
There is the old tradition, almost 100 years at this point, of saying “My people give 110%”. Anyone who demands 110% is a liar, a fool, a sheep, or incapable performing basic math skills. Now, I know this is a figurative expression—or at least it is supposed to be—indicating the referenced team members are dedicated and will go the extra mile, but often it is taken too seriously. 100% means everything; therefore 110% means that 10% more than everything must be provided, assuming that it is even possible, the extra 10% needs to come from someplace.
Now if you can’t do math, than I suppose you might expect people have 26.4-hour days. If you can do math then you must expect the time and energy to come from some other place. A person who hires a person for a 40 hour week, and demands 110% is really asking for the employee to work 44 hours for 40 hours of pay—in other words: lying about the actual terms of employment.
Sheep use the concept as a motivational expression. Some technical writer friends of mine traced the written use of the expression back to 1918 and people have been rehashing it ever since. I suppose what they mean is that they want dedicated people with a sense of commitment and craftsmanship. If you think using this hackneyed phrase is having any other effect then undermining your credibility, you’re a fool.
The first two laws of thermodynamics apply. You can not get more time or energy out of people than the time and energy allocated and you can’t even get all of the time allocated. People talk, worry, make mistakes and have to go to the bathroom. The extra 10% must be taken from time with the family, time sleeping, time eating, or some other activity.
There is within each person, a reservoir of energy that can be tapped in emergencies. The problem is that when it is tapped, this deep resource takes a long time to recover. Tapping it too often leads to burn out and poor health. I personally would not demand that extra 10% unless I was willing to take the responsibility for helping the person through recovery.
Ignoring its dubious motivational use, the concept is dangerous because it blinds the speaker to ways to improve the situation.
To increase productivity, remove the distractions. The major distractions are not the Internet and talking in the hallway—which many times re-energize people—but the concerns and worries that can be changed such as avoiding blame and fear of failure—which can lead to time spent talking and searching the Internet to alleviate the stress.
This leads to the Law of Rewards and Punishments.