Performance
A recent Dilbert cartoon depicts the happiness of a woman because of the bad performance of a co-worker. She reasons that such a poor performer will be the first to be fired so she's safe as long as he's there. Then she discovers that he has a secret weapon: He curries favor with the boss on a personal level and returns to a nap. In one of my favorite web journals, the author says, referring to possible layoffs, that "I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's someone in my department who is worse than me. It's mean. I accept it." Whether meant humorously or not, these thoughts bother me because they focus exclusively on relative performance and take pleasure in the poor performance of others.
None of us can escape the desire to compete: Sometimes we compete only with our own prior performance, sometimes with that of others, sometimes with an ideal, perfect performance, but we all compete with something or someone. And, in a competitive job market, it would be unrealistic of me to say that relative performance is unimportant. But, for several reasons, it's destructive to focus on the poor performance of others as a basis for our own (self-assumed) success. First, it's unkind. We ought to be helping those around us who don't perform as well as they should, not revel in their failure. Second, we don't always see the whole picture. If we want to judge ourselves by comparisons to others, we need to see all aspects of performance. Perhaps someone provides subjective value, such as boosting team spirit or reducing stress or some other intangible, to make up for perceived failure in other areas.
Most importantly, however, it detracts from the critical element of our own performance: Doing the best we can. I more and more find myself remembering an old friend in the restaurant business who received many awards and compliments, all well-earned. He always responded the same way: We're doing the best we can. At first I thought it was humility, modesty in the face of praise. Now I've come to believe that he was saying something important: All we can do is the best we can but we should always be trying to do the best we can. The joy of work, the pleasure of performance, comes from constantly striving to do our best. We can also seek to improve our best but when we cease trying to do our best we fall into smugness, self-satisfaction, into a boring complacency.
Help others do their best. Don't focus on the failures of others. Do your best. These simple rules will make our lives better and improve the lives of others. And not only at work.
12-1-03
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