In the mid-1990s, grunge ruled the musical scene, “Friends” and “Seinfeld” ruled the airwaves, and consultants ruled the business landscape. To the latter trend, I was working at a major trade association outside of Washington, DC when the consultants (Bob and Bob?) swooped into town!
The consultants met with each department, exposing inefficiencies, offering streamlined processes, and generally making suggestions on how to improve the operations of the association. As young peon in the organization, I felt more apathetic than threatened. But some of the officers were a little more defensive about the inevitable changes.
One fine day, I had the thrill of sitting in on a brainstorming session with another division of the organization. The consultants placed a giant pad of paper on an easel and explained the goals for the meeting. Each member was to come to the front and write down one idea that would help improve the performance of the department. Seemed relatively innocuous to me!
The head consultant started by asking the Division Chief to kick things off. Any little improvement or suggestion would do. But the Chief just sat there with his arms folded tightly over his chest.
“Um, could you pretty please come to the front of the room and write down one suggestion on what you could be doing better?”
The Division Chief let out a long exhale.
“There’s nothing more we can do!”
Come again? Even as a low-level employee in the back of the room, I knew this would not go well for the Chief. The consultant was flummoxed.
“Isn’t there anything you wish you could be doing better?”
The Chief shook his head and started to protest. The consultant cut him off.
“Let me give you some advice. You never went to be on the opposite side of that question. There is always room for improvement.”
And that is good advice for all of us. Regardless of the state of our work or personal lives, there is always more we can do. There is always room to improve!
Sometimes, We Have to Step Back from Our Routines
In our work lives, we can settle into comfortable routines. We call the clients that we know will respond favorably. We take the cases that we know we can win. We only shift responsibility to one or two trusted employees. We do not look beyond our own department for the greater good of the company. There is nothing wrong with establishing routines and trusted processes. If it is working for us, fantastic! But we can’t remain stagnant. There is always more we can do!
Sometimes, we have to step back and look at the bigger picture. Are we missing opportunities to discover new clients? Are certain skills withering away because we don’t test our comfort zone? Are there other potential superstars in our company who haven’t been given a chance to prove their worth? Are we hyper-focused on our own patch rather than the overall trajectory of the company? We all have a routine that works for us. But we can’t become myopic in our approach. We don’t want to be on the opposite side of improvement.
Constantly Moving Forward
The same is true in our personal lives. It is important to establish routines with our spouse. It is critical to maintain strong relationships with our inner circle of friends. It is crucial to exercise and stay fit. There are rarely consultants for our personal lives. But every now and then, we have to mix up our approach.
We never want to settle for “good enough”. We never want to stop growing. We can never have too many friends. We can always try a new restaurant. Or mix up our exercise routine. We need to take stock of our lives and assess what we could be doing better. Improvement is not reserved for dark and difficult times. With a healthy perspective, “good” can always become “better”.
Why Does This Matter?
Self-awareness and self-improvement are powerful allies of resiliency. If we understand that improvement is a spectrum that we are constantly pushing to the right, we are more insulated when adversity strikes. We view these setbacks as temporary and, at times, welcome. It allows us to re-calibrate our lives. It allows us to tweak established routines which may have been holding us back. And because we recognize this need to improve, we embrace rather than resist. We move on rather than languish.
The consultants at my old trade association may have been a threat to certain departments. But that was likely a good thing. Every now and then we need to step back and look at the bigger picture. We need to assess our lives and our progress toward our goals. We need to examine the areas of our lives which may be holding us back. Regardless of how well things are going, there are always things we could be doing better. We never want to be on the opposite side of improvement!
There is always more we can do.