I've talked about the idea of What Good Looks Like a number of times here. I usually apply it in the context of helping people see how they want their business to operate, though it applies equally well at the individual level. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Stever Robbins, The Get-It-Done Guy, talking about the same thing with different words on his recent podcast, Where Can You Improve to Get the Most Career Boost?.
The quick and dirty tip is to identify your “moments of truth”—when you create the most important results in your life—and concentrate your improvement efforts on those moments.
What I really liked in the podcast was the individual focus and the several general examples he gave.
The concept is fairly simple - most of these ideas usually are. Think about the work you do. What is it that is unique or the core aspect of your work? What do you get paid to do? Stever calls this your "Moment of Truth." I think of What Good Looks Like in terms of describing how things are happening, so this does give a slightly different twist on the idea. Stever gives a number of examples
- Problem solvers: A mechanic's moment of truth is both the finding and fixing of problems. Some consultants are paid just to find problems. Others are there to find and fix them.
- Architects: Their moment is both the design and construction. One without the other leads to unhappy customers.
- Romance: The moment of truth is when you deal with conflict - and survive it.
I'd love to hear about other examples like this.
But then what do you do with this information? It is really helpful to know why people are paying you (or why a relationship is working), so that you can think about how to improve your own work - and give your career (and life) a boost.
[Photo: "NYC: New York Public Library Main Branch - Truth" by Wally Gobetz]