Professional Discomfort is a phrase I have used many… many times during my world-of-work career.  And I know it has been included as part of past TRIPLE III TIME messages… but I know I have not separated it and explained the drive and purpose for this special combination of two words.

To me Professional Discomfort is a unique continuous improvement activity for personnel at all levels within an organization or business.  More specifically it requires workers to place themselves in a new, different, challenging role… that yes purposely causes them Professional Discomfort.  Some examples that come to mind include:

• Attending a meeting where you will be expected to address a group of people… when that is not a regular part of your day job.
• Taking a service position on the “front-line” of your company… when you typically just work in the fiscal department.
• Travel and service other locations that are within your company’s geographic area… when you only usually cover one single town, county, or district.
• Asked to draft a new policy document… when customer service is your specialty.

Professional Discomfort is designed to strategically remove you from your traditional workplace comfort zone and drive you to see and understand the realities of other components of your company or organization. Occasional Professional Discomfort motivates you to not take co-workers or your place of work for granted.  It also forces you into a “place-of-diversification” that facilitates new learning and realization of the production activities that surround you. Finally, Professional Discomfort works to dispel the “it’s not my job” personnel notion.  I know you know what I mean.