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Are Professional Standards Diminishing Your Performance?


Not the original paper or grade I received. But this scale might give you just a bit of the impact it had when I saw it.

“A”

“CRAP”

The incongruity of the two stunned me. They were written in big bold red script on the front of my first paper in my third year research class in college. “A” was my grade for the assignment. “CRAP” was what my professor thought of the effort.

Incongruous. Confusing. A bit harsh. But, behind the message “CRAP” contained one of the most important lessons of my life.

A lesson you need to heed for your business. A lesson that every part of your world opposes: your professional association, your friends and family, even your clients. They all think they are opposing it for your own best interest. They are wrong.

What was my professor telling me?

Be Yourself

This is such simple and easy advice. So easy that you probably figure you have nothing to be concerned about. You are loyal to your own personality and individuality. Surely, this isn’t a useful lesson for how to manage your business, right?

Not so fast!

You are probably familiar with the concept that you need to occupy a unique place in your prospect’s mind in order to effectively market and sell your services. If not, I highly recommend Positioning, by Al Reis and Jack Trout for your reading list. If you look like everyone else, why would anyone who needs your service choose you over a competitor?

Even if you haven’t read Positioning, chances are you understand the concept of the USP, Unique Sales Proposition. If you take in the marketing landscape, you will no doubt find strong advice for articulating a unique message in order to win business.

Strangely, this message of communicating your uniqueness permutes once you actually win the business. If you take in the professional landscape, you will also find a strong pull toward conformity. Conformity can lead you to mediocrity.

It never ceases to be absolutely vital for your business to maintain your uniqueness, your individuality. A lesson that was brought to me vividly by the most unique grade I ever received on a collegiate paper.

The “Crappy” A

It was my first paper in my third year research class. This was the class where I had to learn the resources available in my academic discipline, communication studies, and where I first became accountable for following formal academic style requirements.

If I had any aspirations for matriculating into graduate study, this class was the first test to see if I had what it took to perform the research and writing necessary to be successful.

This class was taught by one of my strongest influences in college, George Enell. As I relay to you his feedback for my paper, I think you will begin to understand just how profound and valuable George’s influence was.

George told me my paper was crap because it sounded like every other research paper in every other academic journal in the social sciences. He told me, “You’ve done a wonderful job in meeting the assignment requirements. While, at the same time, removing any sense of personality, humor, or insight.”

George continued, “If you continue to write like this, you may very well turn into a fine automaton of research that permeates the study of human communication. But, you will certainly lose your humanity. No one will be able to withstand his or her boredom enough to want to communicate with you. And you will certainly never see another ‘A’ from me.”

Later in the semester, after I had written a few more papers more deserving of George’s favor, he confided in me, “Because of that terrible paper you started the semester with, I have decided to change the requirements of the assignment so that I will never again be forced to reward such drivel.”

In his typically grandiose, spirited way, George gave me one of the most important lessons I have ever had. He gave me permission to be me—regardless of the situation.

George understood that I was trying to do what I was expected to do. In academia, writing and research has standards. If you meet these standards, graduate school and faculty positions are easier to obtain. George thought enough of me to admonish me to never let the forces of depersonalization limit my individuality, insight, and perspective.

The forces of depersonalization aren’t just present in academia. They are all around you, as well. If you look well enough, you will find them. If you can be mindful enough about how you make decisions and serve your clients you can overcome their conforming influence. If you do not, a career of mediocrity awaits.

Where will you find the pressure to conform?

Professionalism

Maintaining a sense of professionalism, to maintain professional standards is laudable. Most professional associations, or licensing bureaus have constructed some code of ethics or standards for their members.

The emphasis on professionalism is borne out of three worthwhile aims:

  • Setting and meeting customer expectations – This reduces the risk for the customer engaged in a buying experience. If customers know what to expect and their expectations are realized, the profession—and by extension the governing body of that profession—enhances their public esteem. The public takes the profession more seriously, there is greater demand for the profession’s services, and all associated within the profession stand to benefit.
  • Etiquette – At its core, etiquette is a code for making others feel more comfortable with you.
  • Consumer protection – Abusers of the standard are punished and sanctioned by the governing body. By making a public stand for the benefit of consumers, associations and governing bodies have the additional power of a seal of approval.

If professionalism is a set of standards that are established in the best interest of the profession and the consumers of that profession, why are they bad?

This is clearly a case of what makes you good makes you bad. Protecting customers, comforting customers, diminishing buying risk, and educating customers is good. What is bad is the discouragement of individuality and creativity.

At its core, professionalism seeks to normalize the client’s experience. Everyone who hires a tax accountant, for example, can count on a consistent experience. Standards of conduct are in place with the intent of ensuring that the client is not surprised.

However, excellence is not an outcome of normalcy or standards. Normalcy is a pathway to mediocrity. Normalcy will take you away from your highest and best use.

Excellence is the application of your unique skills, vision, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies to deliver in a superior manner.

You cannot have one (superior performance) without the other (You! As in what makes you unique).

By all means, make your clients confident, assured, and comfortable. Treat them fairly and honestly. But, do not take professionalism or professional standards to the extent of normalizing how you perform—making you just another face in the crowd.

Advice to play it safe/Advice to take greater risk

At some point in time, you will be confronted by free advice. Sometimes, this advice comes from a genuine interest in your well-being. Sometimes, it will not.

There are at least three ways that advice will diminish your individuality:

  • It will be based on the advisor’s experience. Experience is an individual construct. One’s experience will not match another’s. Ultimately, the experience of another can be useful. But be cautious that you do not assume the characteristics of another’s experience will predict what happens to you. As they say in the financial services arena, past performance is no guarantee for future results.
  • Advice is almost always grounded in the risk tolerance of the advisor, not the advisee. Ultimately, no one can tell you how cautious or risky you should be. One individual’s “are you nuts!” is another’s “what’s all the hubbub about?”
  • Advice is all too often not grounded in social or economic truth. Instead it is grounded in common assumptions that are held by many, the public, or the media. Which leads to . . .
Conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom has become a commonly accepted term to refer to what is widely believed. It is a media word. The media can provide the public with a great deal of information. Sometimes, this information is flawed. Or at the very least, not scrutinized appropriately before presented.

Unfortunately, what is widely believed and untested or simply untrue can be more credible than what is true and believed by very few. Conventional wisdom attempts to stand in the shoes of truth and benefits from a form of political popularity. This popularity is borne out of a fallacy: the simplest explanation is the right one.

A few examples of conventional wisdom (listed from most recent to least):

  • People are most motivated by money.
  • A hidden cache of weapons of mass destruction is in Iraq.
  • Babies should never be put to sleep on their stomach.
  • Babies should always be put to sleep on their stomach.
  • In elections, incumbents always get more votes than challengers.
  • Smoking is harmful to only the one smoking.
  • The earth is at the center of the solar system.
  • The world is flat.

While conventional wisdom is a media term, it was coined by an economist, John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith’s inclusion of the term “wisdom” was clearly tongue-in-cheek. Galbraith describes conventional wisdom as the truth of self-convenience. Which is to say, conventional wisdom has little relationship with the truth at all.

Conventional wisdom comes from the presence of two components. The first is the presence of an easily understood explanation (true or otherwise). The second is the presence of a high degree of self-interest.

People believe as true what is convenient for them to believe. If you want to believe that you cannot get a CEO to respond to your marketing because CEO’s are always too busy, you will believe it. You will believe it even if the real reason is that everyone makes time for what is personally relevant and you simply haven’t diagnosed what is personally relevant for a specific CEO.

Believing what is not true—regardless of the reason—is a sure and quick path to mediocrity. No path to mediocrity is more conformist than simply believing in something because everyone else does.

Saved From the Burden of Mediocrity

By writing, “CRAP” on an ‘A’ paper, George Enell did something very important for me. He let me know that my best wouldn’t be served by blindly following others. George could see how the pull toward conforming to academic standards was normalizing my writing and thinking.

These normalizing influences surround you: family, friends, clients, associates, professional colleagues, professional associations, and licensing authorities. Some of the normalizing influence is well-meaning. Some of it is self-serving.

Either way, you can never attain your highest and best use by blindly following what others or the masses suggest.

Maintaining and celebrating your individuality is not only absolutely imperative for you to win business, but also to serve that business with the highest levels of excellence.


A rendition of the print, Mulholland Drive, by David Hockney that is on my wall. George gave this to me shortly before he retired. It would be on of the last times I would see him. Read more about my mentor on my blog.

Happy Client Retaining,

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© 2004-2007 Jeff Simon Consulting. All Rights Reserved. Wouldn't you love to peer into your client's head and know what they are thinking and feeling? Could you have better success at keeping and choosing your best clients if you could decode their behavior? Check out the Happy Clients Newsletter at: www.happyclientsnewsletter.com.

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