Where Do We Start? (Part 2: Common Sense)

(Part Two: Do we demonstrate good common sense?) Let’s assume that your organization is an organization with integrity, i.e., that everyone from the top down, understands commitment and does their personal best to assure that their commitments are kept using ethical means. Then the answer to the question, “Do we demonstrate common sense in our approach to problems?” is key to successfully changing your behavior and getting the results you want. You can have good intentions, but if you consistently make the decisions that do not demonstrate good common sense then you need to get some help in doing so. For example, let’s assume that your product is not life-critical, and you are faced with having to comply with a standard that said you had to insure that your product (and its components) met their requirements. You can immediately direct everyone to conduct peer reviews and to begin testing everything in sight. (Remember you have integrity, which means that you do more than just go through the motions and produce a paper trail that can be audited.) Although honorable, this directive does not demonstrate good common sense. Instead, you analyze the nature of your product (and don’t forget- its components), identify what needs to be peer reviewed, determine the nature of the peer reviews, and capture why. Likewise, you identify what needs to be tested, what type of testing needs to be done, and again capture the reason why. This demonstrates that you are capable of using good common sense. Why is good common sense important? The answer is this, if you are an organization with integrity, but do not demonstrate good common sense, then applying the letter of a standard to the same degree in all cases can cause you to act unnaturally. Acting unnaturally can lead to employee burnout and attrition, plus customer dissatisfaction and loss of market.