The Contribution Delusion
An Interesting Phenomenon In Today's World
The Contribution Delusion
An Interesting Phenomenon In Today’s World
Written by a human, for humans, always.
This article may lean into some uncomfortable territory.
I’ll try to qualify what I am saying as often as I can catch.
But I might make everyone mad in the process.
Such is life and having an opinion.
I was reading an article that was discussing the idea of meritocracy...
Where people are rewarded based on their contribution.
You may love or hate the idea...
You may think it makes sense, or you may see flaws...
I’m not here to tell you what to believe...
And everything I’m about to say applies to everyone, not just one “side” of a system.
What the article was making an argument for is that meritocracy is essentially a myth...
That there are people who contribute who do not get rewarded...
And there are people who are rewarded who (at least appear) not to be contributing as much.
There might be both some level of truth and falsity to these ideas.
We are humans.
We make mistakes.
Sometimes we see things incorrectly and put value in poor places.
Some of that may contribute to the idea that meritocracy could be seen as a myth.
But that is not the point that I want to make.
What I really want to focus on...
Is an idea I’m calling the Contribution Delusion.
What is it?
It is the idea that most people...
Both who are recognized as having more success and those who are recognized as having less success...
Contribute far less than they believe they do.
I have met people in entry-level jobs who believed they contributed deeply to an organization’s success...
I’ve also met C-Suite executives who believed the same...
And I have found people on both extremes who, in reality...
Did little to nothing that actually contributed.
They “believed” that they were contributing at extremely deep, impressive, and important levels...
But it was all in their head.
They were delusional about how much they actually did...
How much impact they created...
As well as what their work actually accomplished.
They believed they deserved more...
But really they contributed little to nothing.
Why is it...
That so many people...
Believe that they contribute at such high levels in the world?
I think it is worth also considering...
What is contribution?
What does it really mean?
The answers to these may provide us with more insight that is important to understanding how we become so heated and argumentative around these ideas.
So, let’s start with this...
What is contribution really?
It is the concept of putting in something with the expectation of getting a result of some sort.
This is where I think we get our first insights into where we begin to have diversions in thoughts around what it means to contribute.
What is it you are contributing?
Is it hard labor?
Or intellectual ideas?
Perhaps it is financial risk?
Emotional labor?
These are all different forms of “contribution”...
And we have a tendency to value them differently.
Some people believe that ideas are more important.
Others might argue that more weight belongs to those doing the day-in-day-out.
There is also the idea of who has more responsibility and the stress that goes with that responsibility.
How do we weigh each of these?
Then how do we weigh them against each other?
It is a very complicated question that is going to differ depending on the context.
Something that we should begin to understand, though...
Is that different contributions need to attain certain results...
And that more contributions should correlate with more results.
To contribute more should mean getting a greater percentage of the overall results based on what is contributed...
At least in theory.
But there is also the idea of contribution toward the future.
Something may not have a high level of contributive results today...
But the expectation is that future results will be some degree higher than what is possible today.
This is often the promise (or lie, depending on context) of technology.
How do we weigh these against each other?
Theoretically, something that could attain significantly greater results in the future should be weighted highly...
But what if the possibility only exists based on what is being done today continuing to succeed?
It is difficult to weigh something in the future if what is here now is still absolutely necessary...
Not to mention that we, as humans, are often completely wrong about what we believe will contribute more greatly in the future...
Or how things might negatively contribute.
All of this to say...
What it means to contribute greatly is a complex question...
One without a solid answer we can rely on between different contexts.
This is at least the first part of why I believe so many people have the Contribution Delusion.
They weigh what they do at a vastly higher level than other forms of contribution.
They might actually work hard in their labor (not always, but we will assume for the sake of an example)...
But does their work actually contribute more than others on their team?
What about their efforts compared to other teams that contribute in different ways?
How about when we look at the responsibility expected in their position compared to other positions?
If it is physical labor, how does it compare to the intellectual labor?
If it is intellectual labor, how does it compare to the physical labor?
Does it only contribute to the present, having little to nothing to do with the future?
Or is it completely looking at the future, perhaps even at the expense of the present?
Does the physical labor outweigh the financial risk that others have taken?
Or do the financial risks outweigh the physical labor being done?
Depending on how you answer these questions...
Or completely ignore them...
May explain how some individuals believe they contribute at delusional levels.
But it is not the only place we see Contribution Delusion.
We can find at least two others we can narrow in on when we look at psychophysiology.
There is the dis-stress factor...
And the perspective factor.
Let’s start with the latter.
The perspective factor has to do with the information that is currently available to us.
What perspective of information is most easily accessible and most constantly available?
Our own perspective.
There is nothing inherently right or wrong about that; it is natural...
But it can create an unbalanced understanding around contribution.
When you mostly or only see your own perspective...
Without true insights from other perspectives...
Your idea of what contribution means can become incredibly distorted.
If you mix that with beliefs such as...
We are the heroes of our own stories...
Then we might just begin to see villains where none really exist...
And value our contributions as the “hero” more greatly than “villains”, “sidekicks”, and “extras”.
That narrow focus of perspective can easily lead to delusional beliefs around our contributions.
I have seen this in C-Suite executive leaders who believed that everyone around them failed to recognize their contributions and were working against them...
When the reality was that their decisions were creating a hostile workplace that caused everyone to fear them...
Negatively impacting and undermining all of their efforts.
They were delusionally believing they were contributing at high levels...
While the reality was that they were decimating everyone’s abilities to contribute.
Then we can add in the dis-stress factor.
When we experience high levels of dis-stress...
We can no longer see coherently or correctly.
We enter into a fight-or-flight state...
Where we begin to see everything around us as a potential threat.
This, inherently, distorts our perception of what occurs around us.
It might make the perspective problem even worse.
It could cause you to see others’ failures more frequently as a tactic to use against them, to prove you contribute more.
It could cause you to overemphasize how much your work is worth because, from your state of dis-stress, your efforts are essential to your survival...
Regardless of whether that is true or not.
This is also a very real problem because over 80% of the workforce is in a state of burnout...
Which is a psychophysiological state of chronic dis-stress.
What is worse about this particular problem of burnout...
Is that our productivity potential becomes capped at 5% or less...
And we can, and frequently do, go into negative productivity.
What does this mean?
You may believe that your efforts are actively contributing...
And you may believe that you are putting more into everything than you can physically accomplish...
But from a psychophysiological perspective, you may actually be accomplishing 95% less than you are capable of...
Or directly making everything worse...
Without realizing it.
This can be made even more difficult...
When the reason you are experiencing such extreme levels of chronic dis-stress may not be entirely your fault...
Or the fault of leaders within an organization.
All stress adds.
What that means is that “every” source of stress directly contributes to whether we enter into dis-stress...
And we cannot physically separate them, despite the dumb common phrase “leave your home problems at home”.
That just is not how reality works.
Maybe you shouldn’t “put” your home problems on your colleagues, but the stress from what happens in your life will impact your work...
As will the stress from your diet...
Or your finances...
And every other stress we each experience.
So we may be experiencing burnout at work, and it may not be caused by leaders...
Though, often leaders do make poor choices that negatively impact human psychophysiology, making the problem worse...
But it is directly destroying our productivity potential, and therefore hurting our contribution...
Making us physically less capable of contributing...
While simultaneously skewing our perspective of how much we believe we are contributing.
When we combine all of these factors...
There is a hard truth that we have to begin to come to terms with.
Most people contribute far less than they believe they do.
They contribute in far fewer ways than they think.
They discount ways they are not contributing or cannot contribute.
Their psychophysiology further creates conditions that distort reality even further.
Truly...
Most people, when you look at it...
Are not really contributing all that much...
And that is without even considering those who actively do not contribute or purposefully contribute negatively.
This brings us to another question...
How do we begin to contribute more?
Well...
We start in the psychophysiology...
Then we can begin to appreciate the greater context of how others contribute...
And from there we can seek to expand our contribution or create new opportunities to contribute further.
Of course, that is an extremely oversimplified account of how to do it...
But it is worth considering and looking more deeply into...
Because if you discover that you are contributing far less than is possible...
Imagine what you could suddenly accomplish if you actually contributed what you truly were capable of?
To Your Sageship,
Cody
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