I am writing this to highlight some dangers behind a very popular and well intended motto and frame of mind; the “can do” attitude. Many people have probably realized my theory, but the majority of people may find it useful to reflect on this thought.
With the popularity of can-do attitude as an attribute for success in today’s corporate (and otherwise) world, we tend to miss on opportunities because this attitude really narrows our chances for spotting the better ones. I will explain this and give a few examples as I go.
While the essence of this quality is to have “the ability and willingness to do whatever is necessary for success”, the focus of people is shifting to demonstrate that they can do almost anything that is thrown at them. This state of mind is seeping through organizational layers and badly staining influential people; decision makers and leaders. The victim of this obsessive focus on “can do” is the “necessary for success” part of the deal.
Companies small and large will get engulfed in this short sightedness and try to become everything for everyone. They are stretched too thin and can barely achieve their potential in identifying their real value and focusing on that.
An Engineer will be driven by a can-do attitude and end up developing more than is needed to prove their can-do-ness. Or, at the negative side of the spectrum of delivery, they will be driven by their capacities rather than by the need at hand and end up delivering something that is inferior to the customer need. And usually the issue here is that the customer on the receiving end of the falsely projected can-do-ness is unwilling or unable to clearly think or articulate their needs.
Drilling into another level with this dilemma, a keen interest from the "engineer's" side in exploring the customer's real needs more so than projecting or proving their own capabilities, holds the key to the solution. In this case the customer is encouraged to think and articulate their needs by the engineer who is now free from the can-do constrained state of mind.
More gravely, nations will be obsessed with the idea of can-do industrialization (for instance) so they will dump their agricultural edge, ruin the environment, torment their culture and demographic identity for generations, and still miss the target of growth and prosperity.
I am found of the motto “everything is doable given unlimited time and resources”. It immediately makes you pause and take a step back to examine your priorities (rather than your abilities or willingness to prove those) and to make sure that you are heading in the right direction. Come to think about it, this non-macho perspective is a lot more empowering than the classic run; it is driven by humility and clear vision rather than ego and self proclamation.
If you want to have a can-do culture, make sure it is clear to everyone that identifying necessities, and setting priorities, are indeed part of this misleading “can-do” abbreviation.
Taking this a step further, I would identify the can-do more accurately into “the ability and willingness to do whatever is necessary for success as long as it is ethical, legal, and environmentally friendly”. But this is a subject for another discussion.
Just a thought…
