HOW CAN I DO MY BEST?

(5 Steps to Answering the Question: How Can I Do My Best?")

During my career, I've had countless opportunities to discuss personal and team performance with employees, their supervisors and senior managers. Sometimes, these discussions were casual and in the form of my responses to employee's questions. At other times, the discussions centered around an employee's error in judgment or failure to follow policies and procedures. In some instances, the discussions occurred after an arrest, a failed drug test or some other potentially career-ending or significantly detrimental action(s) by an employee. From time to time, employees asked me how they could do their best. In other instances, I brought up the subject of doing one's best.

Unless an employee approached me in a casual setting and asked questions about employee performance improvements, the likelihood was pretty high that I was the one that made the venture into the "Are you doing your very best?" discussion category. When a fire chief or senior executive gets involves in matters that involve folks that aren't his or her direct reports, the probability is high that someone wasn't doing the very best at something ... or even several things.

There's no simple, short nor easy way of answering the questions "How can I do my best?" or "Are you doing your very best."

One of the things that I often try to determine is whether or not an employee was doing his or her best at a given time or when something occurred.

Not every supervisor, manager, administrator - nor fire chief - thinks to often ask employees if they are doing their best. If you do, then you have to know how and when to gently but appropriately raise the subject. The quest to find out if someone is doing their best doesn't end with a question followed by either "yes" or "no" answers.

Striving to do one's best doesn't make us immune to mistakes or omissions. However, it certainly lowers the probability that we might make them.

It's essential that we keep in mind that employees may not be able to do their very best if we have work environments that are replete with problems, unsafe equipment, inadequate tools, broken equipment, poor or insufficient training programs, or require employees to work with other employees whose performance is substandard.

When we sincerely want to do our very best, or if we have been told that we haven't been doing our best, we need to know how we can get to the point where we are doing our best.

The following five steps should help you answer the question "How can I do my best?"

1. Understand that no one will know if you are doing your best - except for you. You - and only you - will know when you are at the point of doing your best.

2. Understand that no one will ever be the best at everything. Few people are likely to be the best at most things that they do. To state it another way, even Olympic Swimming Multi-Medalist Michael Phelps isn't the best at every single swimming event. But, that doesn't mean you can't strive to do YOUR best. Ignore internal or external forces that propel you towards trying to be THE best. You may succeed at becoming the best at a few things, but you will spend a massive amount time and energy (and possibly a lot of money) pursuing something that isn't likely to return much for your vast investment of your life devoted towards trying to be the best. And, your "record" of becoming the best is an example where someone else is likely to come along and shatter your record. Life is full of many examples where achievements are topped and records are surpassed. Focus on doing YOUR best.

3. Understand that you may have a lot of latent talent, and you may build up your talent pool over time. But, talent without desire and personal drive is like a spare tire on a car that never has a flat: it's not needed and is essentially unused. If you want to do your best, you must have the desire and the drive to reach the level where your performance reflects your best. Many firefighters soon realize that they may die or be severely injured if they don't strive to do their very best. Regardless of your objective (what you want to achieve), you must want to do your best.

4. Understand that you need to be motivated before you can do your best. We each are motivated in a variety of ways. Fear of this or that can be a powerful motivator. I tend to stress positive reasons for being motivated rather than stressing negative reasons for being motivated. For example, people are often motivated by fear of failure or fear of embarrassment. Early in my life, I made a pledge to myself that I would do my best to avoid allowing myself to become embarrassed. With a few exceptions during my life, I have kept my pledge to avoid becoming embarrassed. Don't allow the fear of embarrassment to force you to change your life and keep you from achieving your best. Focus on what you can already do, what you believe you can do and what you need to do in order to do your best at a particular task or to achieve a particular objective.

5. Understand that no one else is going to create a plan to enable you to achieve your very best. You are 100% responsible for establishing and monitoring your plan to do your very best. You may have mentors, and you likely will pick up a few critics here or there. Take the recommendations of your mentors, and evaluate them and implement their recommendations where you can. Don't ignore what your critics are saying. But, at the same time, don't freak out over criticism. Sometimes, the hurtful moments of unwarranted criticism can lead one to see small glimmers of light that can provide great insight into what one might change to achieve the better and then ultimately their best performance at particular tasks. Don't reply to criticism in a way that reflects, "I'll show you. Watch this." Don't personalize or become consumed by negative criticism. Those who really care about you will deliver constructive criticism in an appropriate way, and those that are wanting to slam you or embarrass you don't have your best interests in mind. You will soon learn which people around you are interested in seeing you succeed at your plan to do your very best. Devise your plan. Pursue the benchmarks in your plan. Examine your performance. Determine if you truly are doing your very best. Revise your plan as needed, and make sure that you don't slip down from any areas where you have made great strides and are doing your best. Once you achieve the gain, you must take steps to maintain the gain.

If you really want to do your best, you must make a personal commitment to develop a plan, determine how you will achieve the plan's objectives, document your progress, decide how you will increase your progress, and devise effective ways to maintain your best performance while you seek new areas of your life or job where you can make further strides towards doing your best.

Only YOU will know when you are doing your very best. Only you.

I am available to reply by email if you have questions about improving employee performance.

Sincerely,