The Danger of Going Above and Beyond

In a recent interview I was asked to describe the last time I went "above and beyond" for the customer. It seems a fair question, after all, we want people working with us who are willing to "go the extra mile" to serve the customer, right? I want to say both "yes" and "no".

I'll begin this journey by saying that for me, this question triggered a bit of a flashback to my first job not long after university. I was engaged to develop and implement the user training program for a new payment system. I spent hours testing the beta version of the software on all the platforms it was offered and wrote both the user and instructor documentation (including creating the graphics). As the second employee (the first was the person who wrote the software) I also did a few other things - all user-focused - like creating the inventory and supplies management system and some support software our customer service people used. One day as I was having lunch with the COO (Chief Operations Officer) he shared with me two management (related) ideals he had followed since his days with the US armed forces:

1. Even if someone gives 100 percent - and few people give 100 percent to their employer - the most you will get is 80 and the other 20 percent of the time they will not be productive
2. Don't keep an employee after you hear them say "it's not my job"

We all need down time. Sometimes the down time we need is a break during the day after we've spent hours working a particularly complex problem (been there, lots). Sometimes the down time is a couple of days off after working 80 hours in a week (been there too...more than once). As managers and team members we need to recognize that none of us give 100 percent. Are there some team members who are "more productive" than others? Yes, and no. It's much more common that we're all equally productive, just producing different things. We all need to recognize more than our own contributions (or our own kind of contributions - contributions of team members with roles like ours) and we all need to adjust our perception a little so that we're not only recognizing the 20 percent others are "not productive" but our own 20-percent time as well.

That second bit of advice still seems harsh to me, all these years later, but I can see how that construct shaped my perspective after having been introduced at such an early stage in my career. That does not mean that I mistakenly think that anyone can do anything and that all members of a team are interchangeable.

Team members each have their own strengths and they're not interchangeable. To put this in role-playing game terms, all good teams need a rogue (to help the team overcome obstacles and protect the team from danger), a fighter (to take care of the danger when it comes), and a healer (to restore the team after a dangerous encounter). This same general format works whether you're crawling a dungeon or launching a product (more about that another time).

If, in the midst of danger, the rogue said "hey, it's just my job to tell you about the dragon, not fight it" the rogue may find that he is crunchy and good with ketchup. If, in the midst of danger, a healer who says "my job is to heal the bite and claw marks after the battle" may find that she does not survive that long. In the same way, an engineer who tells the dev ops team that a failure was caused by "something in the way the build was deployed, and that's not my job" when there's an issue is not likely to survive long - and rightfully so.

As I said earlier, I stepped out of my role developing and implementing the user training program to work on other, related customer-facing issues at that first job. Was that going "above and beyond"? Some might say yes, but the correct answer is "no, not really". Was it going "above and beyond" when the COO instructed me to act as courier to redistribute the workload for another department in the same company? No. My job is to serve the customer, and in this case, as in many cases, "the customer" was my employer.

One of the things we have forgotten, misplaced, or perhaps discarded is not the mistaken ideal that "the customer is always right" but the very correct ideal that the customer deserves satisfaction. There was a time when companies employed slogans that were some version of "whatever it takes" but now it seems we have descended into a "give us a good review on Yelp/Google/Facebook/<insert your marketing here>" approach and we have lost a portion of what we were.

And here I am, back at my original premise - saying both "yes" and "no" to "going the extra mile" - and so I'll sum up as clearly as I am able. As soon as you define something as "above and beyond" you've categorized yourself and everyone else according to your perception of both productivity and job description. That, my padawan, is a dangerous road. A road visited by those who are eager to steal your reputation, your customers, and your livelihood. Don't travel that road.

Happy coding.