The concept of success has been around for tens of thousands of years, as recorded by pre-historic man celebrating life and the hunt on cave walls in France and Spain. Through the ages man has had various aspects of his life up for evaluation: Was he or that outcome successful or not? So many facets of life are evaluated for success: children, jobs, relationships, careers, our skills at gardening, sports teams, and of course political processes. Arguably, these evaluations are largely subjective, molded in the mind of each observer. So the assessment of success is not an objective process.
When laws and regulators came into the business arena, many turned their attention to a new measurement: “Are we compliant?” The business focus was not always on doing the right thing, but on doing what was required, meeting the minimum standard. The approach was often to do just enough to fend off potential penalties, liabilities, and enforcement action. Many of us old-timers saw this practice decades ago with the new OSHA regulations. Some in the regulated industry fought back, and company safety policies were implementing only what was required, the bare minimum to meet the new regulatory standard.
I talk to my students and clients about being successful with their organizations, companies, or municipal programs by concentrating their efforts on having evolving, functional policies in place, as opposed to agonizing over compliance as the one and only goal. I get a certain amount of pushback with that approach of pursuing success versus being compliant. Their argument typically centers on the stance that we cannot be successful if we are not compliant. How can we be successful if we are not compliant—are they not mutually inclusive? Students and clients may view success as either a tangible reality or a state of being, but they feel they cannot attain it without first being compliant. To help separate the two, I offer up various real-life and industry-specific examples for their consideration.
Let’s say that at your workplace, you have a pretty solid safety program. You are compliant with all the OSHA requirements, but employees still get injured on the job. Is that a successful safety program? Have you fostered a culture ofsafety if employees are still getting hurt, if they don’t feel safe, and if morale is poor? Clearly in that example, compliance and success do not match up.
Let’s reverse the scenario. Perhaps you have fostered a culture of safety, but aren’t really concentrating on following OSHA guidelines and requirements. There are no injuries, so you may feel you have a successful safety program. Most business professionals now recognize that worker safety is a good thing for operations, not just a regulatory requirement. Having a safe work environment is important for the bottom line and great for employee morale. Many recognize that those two items are directly linked as well.
Consider some of the aspects of our lives, our daily activities, and evaluate them for success and compliance. “When I came home from work today, I was feeling pretty happy and successful. I managed to get through the entire day without killing anyone at work; I didn’t break that law today, so I met the standard again.” However, there is a groundswell of support for a concept where it may actually be beneficial to go a little further, and be nice to people (something about winning friends and influencing people, I hear). Human Resource personnel and most employers will note that there is nothing exceptional about “meeting the standard” on the job. You may find it difficult to excel in your career with that approach to your work.
I have a dog, Flash. My backyard is fenced in; I never let Flash in the house or take him for a walk. He seems to be happy and healthy, I’m not cruel to him, I feed him, and he’s still alive. I’m meeting the standard; but does that make me a successful dog owner?
On my drive into work today, I was noting there were some pretty rude and irresponsible drivers on the road. They weren’t breaking any traffic laws or rules of the road; I guess they were compliant at meeting the standard. Do we consider them successful drivers? On the other hand, can I break several traffic laws and still be successful if I was avoiding an accident in the process?
In the world of stormwater management, a municipal, industrial, or construction permittee can have an upset condition and, if justifiable, not be liable for enforcement action. There can be impacts to water quality, offsite releases thatcan’t be retrieved, and yet the site is not prone to enforcement action. Can we say this permitted site has a successful stormwater program? Did it meet the intent and focus of good environmental stewardship by meeting the minimum standard and avoiding enforcement action?
From professional experience, I know the regulatory stormwater inspection process rarely reveals sites that are fully compliant. There can be numerous items that are noted as noncompliant during a site inspection. At a minimum, there are typically deficiencies, which are still instances of noncompliance. Does that mean that they are unsuccessful? Many regulators don’t believe so; there is no expectation of perfection. However, without egregious instances of noncompliance, there may be no enforcement action. The site certainly had instances of noncompliance; does that mean that the program is unsuccessful? If success and compliance are the same thing, then no stormwater permitted operation will be successful unless it is perfectly compliant, a rarity.
Conversely, is it not possible to have a functional stormwater program with fully operational controls and still be out of compliance with the construction, industrial, or municipal permitting conditions? What if inspections were not conducted within the required frequency or documented, or there were no installation details for the BMPs, or all of the potential sources of pollution had not been documented? These are all permitting requirements, so compliance has notbeen achieved. However, in the process, the site may very well have achieved success by meeting the core objectives of environmental stewardship with a functional program. Of course, I am not promoting this approach as a good business model, merely fostering some discussion.
There are still industrial operators, contractors, and municipal personnel that cringe or cower at the mention of the stormwater regulations and permitting requirements. Others may roll their eyes or just return a glazed look. The regulations are a reality for municipalities and industry, and I would hope that the players needing to be stormwater literate actually are. The regulations are not that complex and have been around for decades, and we have been talking, training, and writing about them for a long time.
The contractors that I have seen mastering stormwater management are the ones bringing regulatory requirements into their company culture. They do not look at permitting requirements and other regulations as a paper exercise ofchecking boxes to verify they met the basic permitting provisions. They know the requirements, they have changed their approach to business operations, and they educate staff and subcontractors to ensure they understand, too, and become contributors to the process. They recognize that environmental responsibility is personal for them and has positive rewards for achieving success. Success is a state of mind and a business model that does not need to be tied to a legal measurement.
Success is having effective programs through fully functional operations. An evaluation of our business processes and procedures guides us to identify areas for improvement and shape strategies for behavioral and process modification. Through this business assessment, we discover what operational adjustments are required to achieve the desired objectives. This is nothing new for successful professionals; they learned this approach from the philosophy and process of Total Quality Management as far back as the 1980s.
Can we only be successful if we are compliant? Or can success be separated from compliance? Do we take the approach, “We don’t have to do that; it’s not required,” versus “We are embracing the spirit and goals of the program,because we recognize the personal and professional rewards being successful will bring us”? It would appear that we can break laws and still be successful. It also appears that we can be completely lawful but not achieve success. Success is a perception; we define it with our own standards. Regulations aside, it is more functional to have a successful stormwater program focusing on the spirit and goals of good business practices, environmental stewardship, and not just meeting the standard. Or do you feel it is better to focus exclusively on the stressful endeavor of pursuing compliance, rather than a more positive, fulfilling approach of striving for success?
