Doing Things Right or Doing the Right Thing

We find good entrepreneurs among Optometrists. Many are risk-takers, indeed if they chose to own and operate a private practice means that they are taking risk despite the fact that more than ninety percent of new small businesses fail to survive the first five years in business. Another indicator of entrepreneurship is acquiring practices and businesses, indeed Optometrists who own and operate more than one practice are very common. They constantly find new products, create new specialties, and don’t hesitate to return to school to study for a residency program or get another degree. But where is the line? and why it is very important not to play close to the line?

According to Donald Keough “When you play close to the line you are not likely to inspire much trust on the part of your customers or employees. And you will fail”

Gaining patient trust is the most important asset in your practice. It is not easy to make a patient trust you, it is a long process through it you demonstrate integrity but also the proof of doing the right thing over and over again on all occasions. If gaining trust is not easy losing it is very easy. Therefore when you achieve success through doing the right thing you should always be reminded that it only endures if you keep your principles; a fate that most companies that failed experienced. The moment they reach a significant level of success they start to part away from their core principles and core competencies, and when they decide to return to those principles it is often too late. Microsoft Cofounder Bill Gates repeats “Success is a lousy teacher. It makes smart people think they can’t lose.” 

Doing things right is often attributed to good managers while doing the right thing is often attributed to good leaders. Peter Drucker emphasized when we are often worried about doing things right we’re being worried about improving operational performance, reducing expenses, and maximizing profits and revenues while increasing productivity and customer satisfaction. When we are worried about doing the right thing, we are often worried about setting organizational priorities and allocating human and fiscal resources that bring us closer to the vision of the organization.

In other words, when we’re concerned about doing things right we’re doing tactics, and when we’re concerned about doing the right thing, we’re building a strategy. Therefore as Optometrists, we should always be able and prepared to take risks into new challenging projects and experiences however we should not play close to the line or pass the line because this could lead to failure. If we look at companies that are struggling and going bust now, a decade ago they were very successful. While we attribute success to good management, we attribute failure to bad management. However, when we look inside the boards of those companies we realize the same leadership or management team who were once very successful, a few years later they failed.