Avis, a car rental company in the States, came up with a slogan that’s been their trademark ever since: “We try harder.” They wanted their customers to know that they didn’t think that they were number one, and they were probably right; however, it was a very effective technique to admit it and then, as a consequence, to tell everyone that because of it, they would try harder.

It’s worth noting, however, just what it was that they were trying harder to do. It wasn’t everything. It was just one thing: To provide the best service they could in the car rental business. So while they told their customers that they were trying harder, they were really trying to be smarter.

Try harder at everything and everyone

In organizations, there are people who try harder than everyone else. There’s just one small difference, and that is that they get involved in too many things. They put forth more effort than anyone else in the wrong things. They try, rather than think. Some of them make a career out of it. The problem with that approach is that you can’t ever do anything very well if you don’t focus on one specific thing.

Imagine what Avis’ profit and loss statement would have looked like if, in addition to renting cars, they also sold cars and did maintenance on them, customised them, attended car shows, and bought advertising that would appear on a Formula One racing car.

You might laugh.

Now think about someone who signs up for everything, who feels that he or she has to be better than everyone else in everything: know more, do more, and be everywhere. Such folks are usually unpleasant to be around. That’s because they aren’t content to so many of these things quietly. They want everyone to know how much they do.

Most of them don’t overtly publicise what they do, but they have a flair for acting in a way that makes it so that you can’t miss them.

You can spot people like this a mile away.

Suppose that you’re like this. Suppose that you feel that you need to know everything, do everything, and be everywhere. A question you need to ask yourself is “Why?” Why do you feel that you must be like this?

You may find it easier to answer these questions. Who are you trying to impress? You see, the thing that tends to lie at the bottom of all this is insecurity about how valuable you feel in your organisation. If you don’t feel that anyone notices what you are doing, and you happen to be unsure yourself whether what you’re doing matters all that much, then there will be the tendency to compensate for that by trying to do everything. The problem with that approach, however, is that you send out the wrong message. To others, it looks like self-aggrandizement; and that turns people off; not on.

You are probably no different from anyone else in your organization. There’s one thing that you do rather well, and the rest of it to a much lesser extent. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s the one thing that you ought to concentrate on. In other words, you should do all that you can to do that one thing better than anyone else, not just in your company, but also in your industry.

If you do that, then you’ll stand out for all the right reasons. You will be valued, which is likely to be the thing that you wanted in the first place.

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