“‘Doing the best I can’…is actually not the same as, ‘doing everything I can.’ When we tell people we’re doing the best we can, we’re actually saying, ‘I’m doing the best I’m comfortable doing.’ As you’ve probably discovered, great work makes us uncomfortable.” Seth Godin
On the day that this quote came to my email, I was working with a group of employees helping them connect the company’s values with the specific behaviors they do to demonstrate the values. As I circled around the small groups working on the exercise, I heard one group say in full agreement, “We always do the best we can, that’s all we can do.” Everyone was nodding in agreement and I remembered seeing this quote and I asked “how do you define ‘your best’?” Their best was described as “getting the work done” and “meeting the defined expectations of the sales person and the client.” That sounded good but I asked one additional question of the group, “Is doing the best you can the same as Excellence (a stated value of the company)?” A reflective silence resulted.
Excellence demands more than your best. As the quote says, great work and, I’d add, excellence, demand a sense of urgency, an unyielding impatience with the status quo and a laser focus and unrelenting pursuit to “do everything I can” to achieve my/our goals and vision.
This group of employees defined the shifts they needed to make in their attitudes and behaviors … how about you? Do you do your best each day or do you do everything you can to be the best?
