Service Description

Doing things right vs. doing the right thing Is there a difference? Absolutely. A manager is preoccupied with making sure rules are followed correctly and work is done accurately. That weekly business report? Better get it in on time and with the precise title, formatting, and metrics, or there will be blood. Be prepared to have answers in your back pocket for when higher-ups pop a question or two. Doing things right vs. doing the right thing Is there a difference? Absolutely. Managers don’t want to make waves, so they want to ensure existing processes are respected. This isn’t to say managers are wrong; it’s merely to state that managers are typically risk averse. Managers manage you the way they want to please their superiors — that is, by following directions so no surprises (good or bad) pop up. Doing things right is another way of saying “minimize risk.” And while that’s not necessarily a bad quality, it certainly isn’t very inspiring. Leaders do the right thing, even if it means breaking convention. If you launch a new product and it makes no sense to put together a weekly business report for it, a leader will not automatically require you to do it. They will actively make a case and set the proper expectations for either altering the reporting cadence more appropriately or dispensing with the practice entirely. Leaders who focus on doing the right thing manage people by encouraging them to think critically about why a task should be done, rather than mechanical follow through. In their minds, it’s more important to do tasks that return good value on the time spent than it is to just tick another “required” item off a checklist. Therefore, a leader will appropriately challenge the status quo by taking actions that make sense, rather than make the system happy by default.