Just doing their jobs

Every employee faces emergencies. Some of them are life-threatening, most are not. Some risk loss of money and markets, many do not. Some workplace emergencies are caused by natural disasters. Others are caused by people  under-performing or over-reacting.

The difference between companies who thrive after emergencies and others is often how its people respond to emergencies.

Think about your typical responses and reactions when faced with a crisis.

When faced with life-threatening emergencies, what do you do? When faced with an emergency in which your organization could lose money or market position, what do you do? When faced with minor inconveniences, what do you do?

A few examples...
In a financial services office, a financial adviser slammed his office door and threw his laptop when the market closed down recently. At an advertising agency, the creative director yelled at the account services manager when the client delayed the project again. At a restaurant yesterday, I noticed someone yelling at the host for taking too long to seat his group.

My first thought yesterday was that the restaurant patron obviously would not do well in a crisis. The others probably would not either. They can't handle themselves professionally, or even kindly, in the less-than-life-threatening situations they were in; therefore, they probably cannot control their emotions when faced with a real crisis at work or in life.

Thankfully those people not one of the 180 in Japan risking their lives confronting the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

There are 180 people whose jobs it was to stay behind when the rest of the plant, and nearby town, evacuated. These people are highly skilled and thoroughly trained nuclear scientists, engineers, and operators. They knew in training that it would be their jobs to stay behind to prevent, manage, and combat a disaster such as what they are facing today.

The 180 are being hailed as heroes in Japan and around the world. In their culture, they are just doing their jobs.

In American culture, would we consider putting our lives on the line for coworkers part of our jobs? Oh, sure, the military does. But, what about the rest of us? Would you risk your life to save your boss? Department admin? Sales team? Accounting department? It takes a special person to be willing to do that.

Maybe the rest of us could simply include being more patient, responsive, proactive, and positive with our coworkers as just doing our jobs. Patient, responsive, proactive, positive people are quite rare in workplaces today. It takes a special person to be willing to be those things every day. We could take a lesson from the 180 Japanese heroes to make being selfless just part of our jobs.

(Information from www.CNN.com)