Last article, I started writing about a framework I’d created for a coaching client. The first part of the framework is Involvement Levels.1
Today, I’ll get into the next part of the framework: affinity for the task or project.
This part of the framework is pretty simple. Unless you overthink it. (Don’t overthink it.)
I’ll cover the Affinity Level model, give a few examples, give you a caution about overthinking, wrap up, and you’ll be on your way!
The Affinity Level Model
This model labels the affinity a person has for a task or project. Or maybe even a role. For now, we’ll focus on tasks or projects.
Affinity means how much they like it, as a whole. There’s a bit of a hint of skill mixed in, too. In common use, “he’s got a real affinity for running” means that not only does he like running, he does it reasonably well. Much different than “he’s such a talented runner; as long as we can talk him into joining the track team next year and convince him to train a bit he could win state!” or “wow, he really seems to enjoy his slow jogs through the neighborhood”.
Focus on the liking aspect initially, and only then mix in skill.
| Level | Description of Level |
|---|---|
| Embrace | They like it a lot. They would gladly choose to do this. The work, the things they’re doing, the goals the project is after—they like it all. |
| Accept | It’s something they don’t mind doing at all. It’s probably not something they’d seek out to do, and maybe it doesn’t really energize them, but it also doesn’t drain them. |
| Tolerate | They do not like it, but they can handle doing it without too much disappointment. If you ask them to do this long-term, it will wear them out. |
| Avoid | They actively dislike doing this (even if they are very good at it). |
This model deliberately has four levels, that roughly boil down to Strongly Like, Somewhat Like, Somewhat Dislike, Strongly Dislike. There’s no “neutral” option. Having to decide between liking and disliking forces deeper, more careful thinking.2
This may seem like a lot of thought to answer the question of “do you like this work?” Agreed, if the Affinity Levels model stood alone, it’d be a lot of work for not a lot of value.
It’s worth pointing out that this can be applied to teams, but it’s most useful at the individual level.
More on both of those points in a future post.
Some Quick Examples
A few years ago,3 I was in the life stage where most of my friends were moving into new houses.4 I was pretty darn good at Tetris-ing stuff into the back of a U-Haul5 truck. It was a chance to help friends. And when my friend Ben was co-Tetris-ing, it was a lot of fun. Embrace.
Pope Leo XIV is the head of the Roman Catholic Church.6 He has skills in public speaking, performing religious rites, and looking after the needs of his flock. If he were offered large amounts of money to use his skills to develop and promote a new religion based on the deity of earwax, I suspect his answer would be Avoid.
An engineer I know7 is a true full-stack developer: good at both backend and frontend development. They are happiest when working on backend and non-visual parts of the frontend. If they were put in a role that made them focus on visual frontend development for a while, they’d do excellent work. But at best, their affinity would be Tolerate.
Overthinking It
When first trying to determine affinity, there’s a temptation to overthink things, trying to be rigorous and analytical.
Don’t get too far into rigorous analytics.
If you’re trying to figure out Charlie’s affinity for a project, you might try to break down every piece of the project. You might find yourself saying “well, he embraces analytical work, but the project is about kicking puppies and he likes puppies, and we know he tries to avoid kicking puppies, so maybe he’s right between accept and tolerate, but oh, he’ll get to learn new skills and he likes learning new skills a lot so let’s put him at Accept for the puppy kicking project”—you’re overthinking it.
Don’t spend a long time breaking down the work, rating individual bits of it, then trying to add up or average out the pieces, and assume it’s an accurate result.8
Humans don’t work like that.
There are dealbreakers and automatic clinchers, pros and cons. People have days they’re willing to do anything, and days when everything sucks.9
Don’t get carried away trying to analyze it. Ask yourself: for this human10 and this work, overall, how much do they like it?
Overall, do they want to do it? Kinda? Not at all?
There’s your answer.
They’d love everything about it, but they won’t kick puppies?11 Avoid.
They love working on this stuff and the team is amazing, but they’re not excited about writing the weekly reports that’ll take them five minutes and you know they really won’t care once they’ve started? Probably Embrace.
Don’t overthink it.
Wrapping Up
Tagging on to the previous section, defining four levels for “do you like this” seems like overthinking things.
And I agree. If this stood alone, it would be overthinking—although common language can be useful, as can simply acknowledging that some people like or don’t like certain work.
I have an upcoming post that will use Involvement Levels and Affinity Levels together, in a way that can give some useful insight into projects.
I also plan to address (maybe in that post, maybe in yet another post) how and whether Affinity Levels can be usefully applied to teams.
Leaders: not everybody likes everything. Take preferences into account when you’re assigning tasks or planning projects will help you get better results. You don’t have to make everyone happy,12 but it’s worth thinking about affinity as well as skill or availability.
Affinity is the part of the overall framework that most reminds me of Working Genius. It’s certainly not a replacement, but it can lead to greater joy and fulfillment in work, better morale, and help you get better results.
- A friend semi-jokingly referred to it as OSCDB, which I realized could be pronounced as OSCDaB. Do with that what you will! [↩]
- Think of all those surveys you get where you really don’t know, so you mark whatever answer means “meh”. Usually it’s a 7 on a 10-point scale, or 3 on a 5-point scale. Humans are weird. [↩]
- Narrator: it was more like fifteen years ago. [↩]
- At least where I live, it’s pretty common to live in an apartment or a “starter house” when single or newly married. Then when a few kids come along (or a few nice raises), the family often moves into a larger home with a larger yard, maybe in a quieter part of town. [↩]
- Technically, it could have been any sort of vehicle, whether U-Haul branded or not. Aside from a few trailers that various folks owned themselves, it was almost always U-Hauls. Huh. [↩]
- You may have heard of it. [↩]
- There are actually a few I know that fit this description, come to think of it. There was a specific one I had in mind when I started writing this example. [↩]
- It’s not integral calculus, where you break something down into an infinite number of areas or volumes and sum them! And if this footnote is meaningful for you, you most likely need the Overthinking It section! 😉 [↩]
- “And this’ll be the last time / you hear me complain”, for those of you that have mid 90s ska/punk lodged in your brain. [↩]
- Or maybe team. Though I think that gets a bit fuzzier and harder to give useful answers. [↩]
- “…but I won’t do that!” – Meatloaf [↩]
- “…as the philosopher Jagger once said, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’” – Dr. Gregory House [↩]
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