Doing The Right Thing, Doing Things Right

I believe there is a basic sense of honesty and integrity to the way people behave–though everyday there are stories that test that belief.   I believe that people tend to try to do the right thing.  Yes, every once in a while you get burned, but you move on.  But this is not a post on honesty and integrity.  It’s just a simple post on doing the right thing and doing things right.

When things are going right, we tend never to question this.  Doing the right thing is easy, it’s natural, there’s no problem, no tugging in the back of your mind. 

It’s when things are going wrong that we are tested.  I’m not talking about big moral or ethical issues–though those are very important, I’m talking about the day to day issues, and being true to what’s right and doing things right.

A manager is “suggesting” a strategy or policy that we think is really wrong–we may push back a little, or we don’t.  We execute the strategy or policy because it’s easier than pushing back, or we don’t want to disappoint our managers.  We go along.

A colleague that’s struggling, we can see the mistakes they are making, but we don’t take the time to help them out.

We rush to meet a deadline, we take short cuts, holding our breath, hoping no one will notice.

A mistake we make, we hide it, gloss over it, ignore it.  It’s just easier to move on.

Time, day to day pressures, convenience, lack of attention, laziness sometimes cause us not to do things right or to do the right thing.  We recognize it, maybe say, “I’ll do better next time.”

But then there’s the next time……..

The time to do the right thing is right now—every time.

If we don’t, we start doing the wrong thing—a little here, a little there.  Again, nothing morally or ethically wrong, just short cuts.

At first the impact isn’t really noticeable.  But then the effects start piling up.  Things aren’t going right, we aren’t producing results, we are falling behind.

The wrong thing becomes habit, it becomes what we do every day.

The wrong thing doesn’t produce results.  It makes us less effective, less efficient, less impactful.

How do we know what’s right?  Well, I think we know–but we may have to remind ourselves.

Simply stated, doing the right thing always produces value.  Easy.

The corollary is that doing the wrong thing produces waste.  A little here, a little there….. it accumulates until we are in deep s–t!

In the end doing the right thing, doing things right is just the right thing to do.

There’s no escaping it, there are no shortcuts.

What are you doing?

Oh, by the way, when you focus on this all the time, every time–then the big issues of honesty, integrity, what’s moral and ethical really never become big issues—because you already are doing the right things.  Pretty simple.

(As a side note, to those who have been following my posts on lean sales and marketing, just do the right thing and do things right–then you’ve got lean wired.)