Effort is a zero sum game

Being judged based on results is scary. There are no guarantees. Sometimes creators feel that being judged based on effort is better. The problem is that effort is taken from a limited pool while results are not.

We’ve all spent a week working on something and then it turns out that that wasn’t at all what the client had in mind… well, or at least I have. This is when it’s tempting to ask for credit on all that work. The problem is that being judged on effort is bundled with a few things that you probably don’t want.

The most straight forward way to judge by effort is to use hours worked. The problem with hours worked is that you max out at 168 a week. Also the more you work the less time you have for fun, family, and friends. You add to effort, and you must remove something valuable you have in a one to one trade-off. Don’t get me wrong, there is an upside. The upside is that payment is guaranteed. You put in the time, you get the gold star. You get the gold star whether that client is ever going to ask you for anything else, whether your project is maintainable, whether you just sat in your chair the whole week browsed reddit while collecting toe jam. That sounds like a sweet deal when you first start to work. But eventually you’ll want a raise. So you start working more hours to get it. Then you want another raise, and eventually you don’t have any more hours left to work.

On the flip side of that is getting judged by results. How happy is the client? How much revenue does your code generate? When you first get hired this sounds terrifying. You can barely log onto a server or write a few lines of code, so it’s much safer to count hours. But as you gain experience, you realize that you can ship product, and hopefully you’re even getting a little better and faster over time. Of course getting judged by results is still always scary. The payoff is not guaranteed. Sometimes you think everyone will love that wonderful widget and no one can even use it. So there is uncertainty, but the payoff is bigger. If you think hard, or you’re just lucky, you can make an awesome app or feature quickly, or you can slam out that month’s worth of maintenance by switching libraries and upgrading before lunch.

So, if you can deliver and you have the stomach for a little uncertainty, you should trust in the long game and get paid based on results. Sure, now and then a project will flop, but the more experience you have, the fewer will, and the better your results will get on average. With effort you can increase your pay right away by working crazy hours, but you max out and burn out, and you hit your max salary potential very quickly.