Public Safety Insights Newsletter – November 20, 2013

The Power of Asking, “What’s Your Job?”
Public Safety Insight:	To increase performance, re-focus employees’ attention from their tasks to the agency’s purpose by asking, “What’s your job?”

 

If you ask your employees, “What’s your job?,” what percentage of them would respond by listing their ranks/titles, or the tasks or functions they perform? What percentage would tell you how their efforts contribute to achieving the agency’s mission or purpose?

 And why should you care how they answer?

Because it’s easy for public safety professionals to get so consumed by the details of their work that they lose sight of their purpose: to create safe, healthy, and economically viable communities. Especially when employees feel burned out from working back-to-back shifts, overwhelmed by ever-increasing call volumes, or stressed by the pressure to meet public expectations that they will maintain their service levels despite having fewer resources with which to work, it’s difficult for them to see beyond the task at hand.

You can help them maintain a healthy perspective, remain fully engaged, and be energized by their work rather than drained, by focusing their attention on the agency’s purpose instead of on the tasks that enable them to achieve that purpose.

This is not to say that tasks don’t matter; they do. And a strong task orientation, such as that which characterizes fire and rescue professionals, helps keep employees safe in the field and makes it possible for them to safeguard their own well-being by compartmentalizing the disturbing things they experience on the job. However, when this focus prevails back at the station or in the office, it becomes dysfunctional: people lose the ability to see beyond the task(s) at hand. As a result, over time they forget why they are putting their lives on the line every day. Without the touchstone of the agency’s purpose to serve as a reminder, they often find it easier to see obstacles than opportunities.

The first step in improving performance is to direct or re-direct employees’ attention to the agency’s purpose by assessing how they view their work. Asking staff at all levels, “What’s your job?” is an easy, quick way to determine where their focus is right now so you can decide whether, or to what extent, you need to shift it from tasks to purpose.

To learn six steps you can take to ensure that your employees remain connected with your agency’s vision, take a look at our article Improve Performance by Re-focusing Attention from Tasks to Vision.

To find other articles and resources that may be of value to you, I invite you to visit my web site at www.PublicSafetyInsights.net.

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