UdyamGita

In an organization, roles and responsibilities are often clearly defined. Organizations hire people for specific work. Planning, scheduling, product launches, and customer deliveries are all designed based on employees and their availability. Many times, employees, due to personal relationships, the desire for higher visibility, or to impress others, take up work assigned to someone else and focus on completing that, while neglecting the work assigned to them. Since time is always limited, they either fail to complete their own tasks or deliver poor quality work. This tendency often derails overall planning and execution.

If an employee is interested in working on something else, they should clearly discuss it with their supervisor and formally take up that responsibility. But once a task is assigned, they must put one hundred percent effort and attention into completing it. Even if the initial output is substandard, it can be improved over time, as the employee is fully focused on the task. This is far better than divided attention, where neither task is done well.

During performance reviews, the supervisor’s first focus should be on how well the employee completed the primary task assigned to them. Only after this is evaluated should additional achievements beyond their core responsibility be considered. Often, supervisors make the mistake of giving equal weight to all tasks performed. This can result in rewarding or promoting employees who neglected their primary responsibilities but worked on other tasks, thereby disrupting planned activities.

Therefore, organizational culture should encourage employees to focus first on their primary responsibilities. This helps the organization plan effectively and execute work smoothly and on time.

Krishna delivers a decisive principle of action: it is better to perform one’s own duty imperfectly than to perform another’s duty flawlessly. Even failure while walking one’s own path is safer than success achieved by imitating someone else’s role. One’s svadharma—natural, assigned responsibility—carries stability. Deviating from it creates confusion and risk.

Business Insight

Organizations are built on clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

Planning, scheduling, product launches, and customer deliveries are all structured based on who is responsible for what. When employees, driven by personal relationships, visibility, or the desire to impress, start picking up tasks assigned to others—while neglecting their own—it creates silent damage.

Time is limited. Attention is finite. As a result:

• primary tasks get delayed or poorly executed,
• dependent activities break down,
• overall planning collapses.

If an employee genuinely wants to take on different responsibilities, the right path is discussion and reassignment, not silent role-hopping.

Leadership Lesson

Execution quality improves when focus is singular.

When employees put 100% attention into their assigned responsibility—even if the initial output is imperfect—it can be improved over time. Skill compounds only when attention is undivided.

This principle must reflect strongly in performance reviews. A supervisor’s first assessment should always be:

How well was the primary responsibility discharged?

Only after that is fulfilled should additional contributions be evaluated. When supervisors reward side achievements while ignoring failure in core duties, they unintentionally promote a culture of misalignment.

Key Takeaways

• Primary responsibility always comes first.
• Role-hopping disrupts planning and execution.
• Imperfect focus is better than divided excellence.
• Clarity beats visibility-seeking behavior.
• Performance reviews must prioritize core duties.
• Strong culture rewards depth before breadth.