Sunday, July 10, 2016

Don't Do Your Best

Today’s topic is Don’t Do Your Best. School consciously and unconsciously teaches us that we should “do our best.” If we’re a C student, that’s okay, as long as those C’s are the product of our best efforts. That’s right for school, but wrong at work. Unlearn it.

Example: I once served on a team making water quality predictions for a national park. My role was to construct a numerical hydrodynamic model of the system, using data supplied by the park. At team meetings, Andre, responsible for getting the data, reported week after week that he couldn’t get the park to respond. I was happy to postpone the effort until a milestone meeting with our Director, Georgette. When she asked me about progress, I answered that I couldn’t start until Andre got the data. She turned to Andre. “Why don’t we have the data?”

Andre swallowed hard. “I’ve written and called the park multiple times, and they keep promising to send it, but they don’t. I told them how important it was, and they said they would, but they haven’t yet. I’ve done my absolute best.”

Georgette leaned into Andre, and he leaned back. “You weren’t asked to do your best. Stand up, get in your car, and drive to the airport. Now. Don’t go home to pack. Fly to the client office. Stand there until they put the data in your hand. Don’t come home without it.”

As Andre staggered out the door, Georgette turned to me, a baleful look in her eye. “Your job, McAnally, was to build the model, not sit on your backside using Andre as an excuse. When he gets back, you’ll do whatever it takes to build that model and meet the next milestone on time. Understood?” I understood, and so did everyone else on that project. Doing our best wasn’t good enough. Only getting the job done was good enough.

I don’t really care for the comedian Larry the Cable Guy. He reminds me of my crudest junior high school friends, but he created the perfect catchphrase for this topic – “Get ‘er done.” In your work life you must be the kind of engineer who gets the job done.

We have to temper this message with some caveats, of course. For an engineer, getting the job done means getting it done right – safely, on-time, on-budget, and fulfilling our professional responsibilities to the client and the public. More on that later. For now, Git ‘er done.

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