Jeff Gonzales - Lower Standards, Lower
Performance
Recently I read an article
about injuries for rookie firefighters on the rise after they lower their
physical performance standards. This is my surprised face in case you are
wondering.
THE NEEDS OF THE MANY
The funny part was I came
across that message as I was leaving Oklahoma where I had just given a
leadership lecture, which had a major focus on standards. While we talked a lot
about leadership traits and the importance of all the cute leadership quotes,
the part regarding standards seemed to be the most engaging from the audience.
These were the people in charge of the standards for a huge federal agency with
a very important mission. You bet I was doing my best to get the point across
because quite frankly it benefits me and my family.
BACK TO THE JUICE BOX AWARD
What is the downside to
lowering standards, what does it really mean. I think from one point of view it
means diversity. More people can live out their dreams from childhood, dreams
like in this case being a firefighter. That means people who might not have had
a chance now have a chance. It’s all about the “me” instead of recognizing it’s
about the team. I sat there and told the audience there were times I didn’t get
picked for a mission because I wasn’t the best choice. Yah, it pissed me off,
yah I didn’t like it, but rather than cry about it, I did something about. I
figured out my weaknesses as it pertained to the mission and worked to improve.
That is the beauty of standards, the work when implemented, enforced and
followed. I know it is silly logic, but it works.
THE DEMAND FOR HIGHER
STANDARDS
There’s an old saying
everything works until it doesn’t. So, if you lower standards what do you get?
In plain English you get a watered down product. There was a time when we aimed
for the moon, literally. It was the Space Race between the former USSR and the
US. So many amazing things occurred and I believe the Apollo 11 mission of
landing a man on the moon is still one of our crowning achievements as a
country. The standards in place to make the cut as an astronaut are there for a
reason, a damn good one. I get it, do we need to see the same level of
standards if we are say going to run into a burning building. I’m going to say
probably not, however what is the same is the development of standards as it
pertains to each field.
BREAKING IT DOWN
It doesn’t matter if you
are strapped into a rocket or running into a burning building the objectives to
achieve peak performance from each field are pretty much the same. You identify
a task, you establish the conditions and then you determine the standard. The
standard is establishing the expected outcome for everyone. It is the most
important part to the objective formula, you have to put the most time into it
ensuring it is relative, realistic and repeatable.
SOMETIMES AND MAYBE ARE NOT
STANDARDS
Integrity is component that
is often misunderstood, but when I apply it to performance objectives it means
they are the exact same across the board. As a training company we go out of
our way to ensure our performance objectives are exactly the same. Without
that, we become subjective and not objective. It is critical to remain
objective when evaluating anything, there are no favors, backdoors or
mulligans. There is just performance, you either pass or fail. Recently as we
were establishing our 2015 calendar I had a host who wanted us to use their
readily available targets. Our response was of course we can do that, but here
is the cost of that decision. We will have to tell the students their final
grade will not count since they were not measured against the standard that all
others were. That is why people come to us to train, it is because of our
relentless pursuit of standards.
I’m sure everyone can talk
a good game until it is their ass strapped to 4.4 million pounds of rocket
fuel. Hopefully there is some comfort knowing standards were not lowered
because someone had a dream to work for NASA who didn’t get all A’s in school.
- Jeff Gonzales
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