Are you too Busy to be
Productive?
Why
customers shouldn’t be
your first priority
Copyright
© JC Mowatt Seminars Inc.
Used with permission of the author:
From the series Influence with Ease ®
Author: Jeff Mowatt
http://www.jeffmowatt.com
23
March 2007
Let’s be
frank - if you work for a company, then your primary goal is to
make money. Period. You may have secondary goals to serve the interests of your
customers, employees, and be a good corporate citizen, but your
number one priority is strictly return on investment. Profit.
When I speak
at conventions and meetings on how to boost profits through
customer retention, I often find that business owners and managers
don’t have their priorities straight. The result is they lose customer loyalty, face increasing
operating costs, scramble to replace staff turnover, and struggle
just to keep up to the competition. They may work hard and think positively, but their impact
is marginal.
On the other
hand, by simply realigning their priorities managers can lead
their company or department in a way that builds customer and
staff loyalty, reduces operating costs, makes more money, and
serves as a model corporate citizen. You won’t have to work any harder; just smarter. To find out how, answer the following questions according
to your current practices. Then
read the accompanying suggestion for the best way to optimize your
time and effectiveness.
What is
normally your first task of the day?
-
returning phone calls
-
administrative
paperwork
-
work on
strategic projects
-
dealing
with customers
-
responding
to employee requests
Your first priority of the day should be c. working
on strategic projects designed to prevent problems and increase
profits. Typically, however, managers put off strategic work to do
other work that has a deadline. They confuse urgency with
importance.
It's always
easy to put off work that 's strategic in nature because the
deadline is usually non-existent or not urgent, and strategic work
requires something many of us prefer to avoid - thinking. The
problem is that if you continually put off projects designed to
increase profits or reduce them, then you end up having more crises
to deal with. So you get caught up in the vicious cycle of crisis
management.
“A
lot of managers and business-owners secretly love putting
out fires because it makes them feel like heroes.
In fact, they live in a fools paradise; treating
symptoms every day rather that curing the disease.”
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Doing
strategic project for the first 1-1½ hours of your day puts you
in proactive mindset. Even though crises may spring up during the
day, at least you have the comfort of knowing you’re doing
something to prevent these problems from reoccurring. In other words, doing strategic project work gives you a
sense control and a feeling that that there is a light at the end
of the tunnel.
When
I speak at seminars about the hour and a half of uninterrupted
strategic project work, I often hear a chorus of protests from the
audience. People talk about the emergencies that
require their attention. The truth is, unless you work in
emergency services, there is almost no problem, or 'crisis' or
customer request that can't be handled by someone else in the
organization, or wait a mere hour and a half for your
personal attention. Realistically, you'll accomplish more in an
hour and a half of strategic project work than the other 7 hours
of crisis management combined.
Of
your major project work, which do you typically work on first?
-
the one
with the most pressing deadline
-
the one
that’s the easiest to do quickly
-
the one
that will generate the most profits over the long term
Obviously,
you should work on c) the
project that will generate the most profits over the long term.
That’s what you’re in business for. Ironically, most managers don’t do it. They react to deadlines - submitting to the tyranny of the
urgent. It’s fine to work on projects with urgent deadlines, but
at least spend the first
hour on the long term profit project, then
work on the other projects with the urgent deadlines
Administrative
activities are some of the most important tasks as a manager
-
true
-
false
Answer: b)
false. Adminis-trivia
is the day-to-day organizing of money (cash flow), manpower
(scheduling) and machinery (inventory).
It’s the tedious, mindless reporting and paperwork that
simply has to be done. And it’s the lowest form of work for any
manager. It should be automated, delegated or outsourced.
If you are doing this work yourself, you are a clerk - not
a leader.
The path
of least resistance
The problem
is that adminis-trivia is seductive because it’s easy to do and
it usually has a deadline. Ditto for dealing with customer
requests that should be handled by your employees. They are paths
of least resistance. Long
term strategic project work, on the other hand, requires
concentration, vision, and rarely has an immediate deadline. A classic example is developing an ongoing staff-training
program. You can put
it off indefinitely and still look busy doing paperwork. The consequences are that the rest of your day is spent in
crises management because your front line staff isn’t properly
trained.
The bottom
line is that to be an effective manager, you don’t have to be
the most intelligent, the most enthusiastic, or even the hardest
worker. You simple
need to learn how to organize your working day so that you’re
less busy and more productive.
This
article is based on the critically acclaimed book, Becoming
a Service Icon in 90 Minutes a Month
by business strategist, consultant, and international speaker Jeff
Mowatt. To obtain your own copy of his book or to inquire about
engaging Jeff for your team, visit http://www.jeffmowatt.com
or call 1-800-JMowatt (566-9288)
Short
summary
Planning strategy enables managers to be more effective in spite
of busy schedules.
Keywords and
relevant phrases
Administrative actions, crisis management, leader, management,
planning, strategy.
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