Tag: Teams

By Mark T. Burke

Monday morning. You go to your place of work.  You prep for the day.  You casually meet your fellow co-workers as they do the same.  How are you thinking about your day?  About your week?  Do you start to think about all the “things” you have to do?  File this. Submit that. Talk to Matt.  Meet Deanna.  Attend meeting XYZ.  If this list sounds familiar, you’re not alone.  In fact, you’re probably like most others in your organization.  You’ve become a first class DOER.  And…and this is the scarier thing, your work culture is most likely supportive of your “doer” status.

A “doer”  in this case is someone that does things to get through their days, their weeks, their years.  A doer has the mental model that their job…no, scratch that…their WORK is about DOING.  “If I do this, then that, and get this done and take on that, my WORK is good.  My job is safe.  Life is good!”

There’s nothing wrong with being a doer.  Doing is very important to an organization.  Doing gets the job done.  I’ve covered this in a course on Entrepreneurial Spirit I built a few years ago.  We must all balance “Thinking, Building and Doing.”  The issue is that work cultures can take the path of becoming based on doing, thus eliminating the THINKING and the BUILDING.  A doer work culture sidesteps the purpose behind doing for all but a few.  In a doing culture, a few people know why things are being done while the masses go about doing random, disconnected tasks to support the intended accomplishment.  Job trumps WORK in this case.  

Doing a good job is important. But doing good WORK is more important.

Incremental shifts can move mountains.  So for today, your (our) task is to shift thinking from penning a “to do” list to building desired accomplishments.    This is our time to unite and change for the better.  Thinking about accomplishments shifts our thinking to the more important efforts.  It gives us a yardstick to measure our minute-by-minute efforts.  By keeping our accomplishments clearly focused, we won’t get lost in the mundane tasks of the day.  As you begin this shift, share your efforts with your team (your boss and those who report to you, your clients, your customers). Help your organization shift from being a team of doers to a team focused on valued accomplishments, valued WORK.

How do you keep focused on your accomplishments?