No Time – I'm too busy!

Alright, I’ll give you that excuse during the year, but it's December and most businesses, government agencies, Universities and Non-profits have a tendency to “slow down” during the end of the year. It’s up to you on how you choose to use this available time when your calendar is not packed with 8 hours of back-to-back meetings. It’s time to recharge those batteries! Maybe catch-up on your reporting? Get a head start on performance reviews? Finish your 2008 Goals and Objectives or just sit back, gazing into thin air and wonder how you are going to handle your existing demand for services plus all the NEW projects, technology rollouts and application development work scheduled for next year. For me, it’s time to reflect on all that happen in the past year; both the good and the bad - and find some learning and lessons in it all.

Service Leadership

I also think it is a great time to be a Service Leader, taking the time to thank everyone personally that has played a role in supporting your customers and business on a daily basis, often without thanks. Spend quality time out of your office and with your team over the next few weeks. Make time to get to know them better – as people, not just as workers. Make sure you celebrate their successes over this past year. Take the time to invite peers and customers who have helped you and your team be successful this year out to lunch! Thank them and tell them you appreciate all of their support and efforts during the year. No better time then the present, my principle Al Sophia used to tell us as we always looked for ways to procrastinate! While you’re at it – please make sure you do something that gives you the opportunity to experience the true meaning and spirit of Christmas.

The Scouts of Pack 1253 visited the seniors at the Brighton Gardens in Yorba Linda for a tree decorating celebration and some good old fashion Christmas Caroling. I remember the feeling of joy as the A Cappella Choir sang and I had the opportunity to reflect on Christmas’s past. But the real satisfaction was in seeing the joy in the faces of the senior residents, who were enjoying the company, the attention and the spirit of Christmas. Joy in being there for other people – satisfaction in servicing others who are not our customers. Take the time – reflect on what you did well, what you didn’t do well and the things you did not get done this year. What are your take-aways and what can put into YOUR Continuous Improvement plan for the New Year? And how about your team’s performance, are you going to do anything different next year to reach new levels of maturity and business value contribution. Let’s get started with the reflection of what you know, or at least what you think you know!

How do you know?

How do you know what you know? Can you point to hard data that was collected, analyzed, and verified? Or are you taking someone else’s word for it? Are you willing to bet your career and the credibility of your organization on what you think you know, or on what you confidently know and can demonstrate? At best, a well-run support organization is the very definition of controlled chaos -- a proactive team with a sense of urgency yet cool, calm and collective in their approach to managing demand with harmonious processes mapped into a tool set that allows their well trained and highly motivated professionals to respond and resolve issues and requests in a timely manner.

Given the many distractions and “noise” during your daily management routine, it’s critical to develop a process to know what you need to know. Ask yourself these questions; the answers will help you create that process:

Devil in the Details

In every support environment, there are details that the Service Leader needs to always know off the top of their heads. Some suggested Devil Details to know off the top of your head are:

Engaging your team to get better results

An engaged team delivers better results - consistently. But getting them committed to taking accountability and ownership is often difficult, and often challenging. It requires some risk/reward component. There has to be some gain or loss as a result for success or failure. An engaged and empowered team focused on the details, results and better status communication can only be successful if they have:

Follow through and follow up

Let’s talk about closure! Successful executives sustain accomplishment by being relentless about closure. Service leaders need to hold their teams accountable for achieving closure with every customer experience, transaction and peer and executive interaction.

Excellence is achieved only by the uncompromising pursuit of closure -- following through and following up -- as discussed in the wonderful case-study book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. The key learnings in the book are simple, logical, and proven: Ensure there is reality behind your numbers and that you know what processes were involved in generating those numbers/results… Sleep well at night knowing you’ve exhausted all possible resources and ideas to ensure that your results predictable… Work well knowing that your unyielding pursuit of closure puts the rubber to the road.

Practice “Done? Done!”

Are you a “checklist manager”? If not, why not? How else will you know if you were successful at the end of the day? But do you merely put a check in the box or do you really know that this task has been completed successfully and achieved the desired outcome?

Using a rigorous, daily checklist routine is a practice and an art that I call “Done? Done!” -- always asking yourself these questions before you rush to mark an item “complete” on your To-Do list:

Remember, making and using a checklist does not magically make results happen. It’s a tool for ensuring due diligence. Don’t ever settle for assumptive or anecdotal data! Deming stated, “In God we trust, all other must bring data.” Don’t ever think you have fully maximized the value of any initiative or project based upon a checkmark against a line item on a To-Do list.

And to all a goodnight!

It’s a perfect time to appreciate all that we have to be thankful for! Enjoy the simple things that don’t involve email, hand-held devices, text messaging, gaming or the internet – spend time re-engaging yourself with those people who somehow never seem to make it onto your busy calendar. I would like to wish all of you and your family Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I toast to all of your past successes in 2007 and your future successes in 2008.