Stand & Deliver

For the sake of argument - and probably everyone thinks they are anyway - but let’s say you are a hard worker, you know your stuff, and you are highly motivated. Mainly, you deliver. But in spite of this, some boneheads still treat you like you’re Otis, the Mayberry town drunk (from the Andy Griffith Show.)

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about work, school, a social club or a church group. You prepare yourself, get educated about the work you do, have good experiences, and think you really know your stuff. One day a project comes your way that is right up your ally and it excites you so you dig into it.

This particular project, hypothetically of course, mostly affects other people that you are assisting. You jump on the problem, make contact with those who are involved directly in the issue, research the situation and then go out and show initiative by coming up with a real good potential solution and then go one step further and take steps to get the problem solved. Are you with me? Basically you see a problem, feel you are uniquely qualified to get it fixed, dive in, come up with a solution, and even start putting into place things that will fix it. Initiative, I think it’s called.

Since we all have someone that is the boss of us in every area of our life, this person at some point or other shows up on the scene. Our “solution” also affects them and maybe even more directly than it affects us. They want to be briefed on what’s up. So you brief them and tell them what you’ve done and the initial steps you’ve taken to solve this problem. As you do your update, the boss of us starts peppering you with questions about details of what you’ve done. You start getting nervous wondering what they are really after. So you restate the facts succinctly and end by explaining that you feel really good about what you’ve done and that you think you’ve come up with a real good solution. Then the boss of us asks a couple of questions you’ve already answered. This is starting to get irritating so you dig your feet in and reiterate what a great solution you think you’ve come up with.

The boss of us still seems unsatisfied with what you’ve done and asks you to compile some of the data involved with the project and look into some other aspects of this problem. Then they tell you they want to see some comparative information about how others are dealing with the same issues so we can verify you are on the right track. Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh! When the boss of us leaves, you are irritated that you didn’t have all the information at your fingertips they wanted, you are frustrated that you maybe didn’t communicate it all a little better, and you mostly are just ticked off because you feel you just got jerked around and you don’t know why. In a nutshell you are a little angry and a little confused, to say the least.

This is all theoretical of course. It would never happen in real life.

When this happens all you can do is “stand and deliver”, like the movie title says.

Anyone risks making a bad impression because of failure to understand what is expected. For example, usually an inexperienced newcomer is not expected to make major decisions and change the direction of an organization. As a newcomer, a person usually does what the boss over them wants them to do. In this situation, if you want to make an impression, do what “the boss” wants done and tells you to do. Focus on collecting the applicable information on an assignment or an issue and presenting it in a way that an important decision can be made. Usually you won’t want to try and make decisions yourself or solve problems independently.

The flip side of this might be the situation when you have a lot of experience and are expected to make decisions and facilitate changes in an organization. The boss of you might be expecting you to solve problems and take appropriate action on your own and when necessary. In this instance, if you want to make an impression, you shouldn’t be bouncing every detail off the boss of you and asking others what you should do. Focus on the decision making process, make good decisions, and know how and when to present updates to the boss of you.
It really is all about service, isn’t it? The same principles that go into providing service to an outside person or group apply to how you provide service to those inside your group. With outsiders you have to manage expectations, so also with those inside. Any organization that produces a service that nobody wants is not going to have a purpose in life for long.

I will sum this up succinctly with the aforementioned movie title: stand and deliver. Deliver the bosses of you what they want, not what you want them to have, and while you do it, stand up and be confident and deliver the right thing for the circumstances.

The inability to figure out and then deliver what is expected is a byproduct of many things but the reasons are irrelevant because they still lead to “personal need” suicide or at the very least ruin your peace of mind. Shrinks attribute our helplessness in failing to understand expectations to part anxiety and part erroneous assumptions about productivity as the following examples illustrate. (I lifted them from a shrink handbook and put them into english):

Fear of failure can be real and causes us to not deliver correctly because we don’t want to look stupid. Wouldn’t we all rather be thought of as non-motivated rather than lacking in ability? Revealing as this is, looking back on school, I’d much rather someone think I didn’t study hard or long enough on a test than to think I needed some tutoring or extra help. We create defense mechanisms to avoid this tendency. Instead try to overcome it by simply being aware of it and avoiding the defensive behaviors. After all, now that you know we are onto you, being defensive isn’t very fun anymore.

Perfectionism is a great excuse to do whatever we feel like isn’t it? I know well that most perfectionists do so out of insecurity. (Oh no, what is everybody going to think of me saying that?) But we have to get over our insecurity if we truly want to do our best in every circumstance. We overcome it by taking measures to know beforehand what the expectations are in a situation and then focus on delivering them rather than critiquing expectations downward. You’ll have to think about the last part of that for awhile before you get it.

Self-control is the opposite of perfectionism (which is all about control.) If we are impulsive and lack discipline, I love unclear expectations. (I mean we love unclear expectations.) This allows us to ebb and flow wherever we want in or around assignments or projects or issues and never quite deliver exactly what is wanted or needed. What is needed in this situation is focus and self-discipline to do what is wanted.

False beliefs about what is wanted and needed can limit us. Couple this with false beliefs about what we can and do deliver will result in frustration and confusion. Finding out the expectations and being aware of the quality of our delivery will help us through this.

Sometimes we just enjoy the adrenaline rush of moving like a bull through a china closet. This is the roller coaster methodology and let’s face it some have a wicked joy in approaching life and work in this manner. Sometimes you will deliver in this manner but sometimes you won’t. It’s hit and miss many times because nobody catches up with you until you are a mile down the road. Either way you’ve left an indelible mark. Usually and fortunately this tendency will be beaten out of you soon on your journey through life.

Sometimes we are just being human which means we go to extremes to avoid being bored or to tackle the difficult. Whatever our reasoning, just like service, we have to get over all of it and deliver regardless of the consequences. We just have to.

Key to the whole point – as I see it:

Forget about your internal evaluation of how good you are. There is a time and a place for that (like a personal journal) but it’s not good to do in the heat of battle. Pay attention instead to what is really wanted and what is really expected. Many times the task at hand requires far less skills than we might have. Just because we can do something or are capable of doing something doesn’t mean we always need to do things at that high level.

Sometimes we need to be in touch with the realities of our organization and adapt our responses accordingly. We may be the most capable person on earth but if that is out of touch with what is needed or expected, it will be irrelevant and work against your success.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you realized this after the fact, sit down with the boss of you and inventory the things you should pay attention to and the things that are truly needed from you. As far as I know, Otis, the Mayberry town drunk was the most likable guy on the planet but he never seemed to deliver anything and could seldom stand up. It wasn’t Andy's and Barney’s fault. It was Otis’.