Think of everything your customers do to conduct business with you as a customer experience cycle.

Customers start interacting with you. Then they take steps toward satisfying their wants or needs. Hopefully, they eventually get closure related to their wants or needs. Maybe they want to purchase something, return something, ask about something, or yes…maybe they want to complain about something.

Use cycle thinking to determine how your customers “experience” your organization. Look at the steps your customers must take in the beginning, middle, and end of the cycle. What is the experience like for them?

Say, for example, a customer wants to buy something from you. What are their options at the beginning of the cycle? A phone call, an email, an online inquiry, walking into your physical location, etc.

Look at each of these options and see how you might improve the customer experience. Use the more-better-different-less approach when looking for areas of improvement: what can you do more of, what can you do better, what can you do different, what can you do less? When you finish improving the beginning, evaluate each subsequent step in the cycle of service. How can it be improved?

For those of you who have attended the GO System training course, the more-better-different-less approach should sound familiar.

Have a positively productive day!

Many task sit, waiting on more data to make the next level of decision, or waiting on others to deliver their delegated pieces. As long as the action steps about getting that data and the “waiting on responses” are clarified, recorded, and tracked, you will be able to make the right choice about what to do next.

Being successful at whatever it is that you do requires a lot more than just getting organized. It’s also about paying attention to the part of yourself that has the wisdom to make the best choice. Sometimes that choice is not to take a physical action at all, but to simply wait and listen.

Have a positively productive week!

Sometimes, just getting started is the hardest part.  You might not know where to start or how much time the project is going to take so the unknown keeps you from starting.  Basically you procrastinate.  The next time you’re starring at a project and you don’t know where to begin, get out a piece of paper and write down every task that needs to be completed to finish the project.   Then look at the list of individual tasks and ask yourself ”What’s the next step?”  When you finish a task, cross it off, and ask yourself the same question and keep going through this process until all the tasks have been completed and your project is finished.

Take one project you’ve been procrastinating on and ask yourself “what’s the next step?” and have a positively productive week!

1. Do phone calls/emails go unanswered for more than 24 hours?
2. Do you ever feel like you don’t know where to start working on a project?
3. Do you have action items on your to-do list that have been there for more than a week?
4. Do you easily get distracted by the clutter on your desk?
5. If someone had to fill in for you, would they get frustrated because they couldn’t find what they needed?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, disorganization may be negatively affecting your job performance.

Start by opening your calendar and scheduling an hour every day this week to focus on organizing. Take one item from the list above that you answered “yes” to and tackle it.  The hours you spend organizing will not be wasted because your improved efficiency will quickly make up for the time spent. 

Make it a habit to plan today for tomorrow.  Before you leave work for the day, make sure you have a game plan for tomorrow so you can hit the ground running as soon as you arrive at work.  

Good luck and have a positively productive day!

This isn’t just a NASA or big-government problem. It happens every single day in all size companies and all size departments.  Employees spend hundreds of hours on low-value and low-impact projects, resulting in thousands of dollars of lost revenue.

This story has been repeated many times over the past 50 years.  So many times, in fact, that people believe it is true. It is not true. It is what is referred to as an urban myth. Of course, the message imbedded in the story is true. We often forget to look for simple solutions to our problems. And we often believe things are true that are not true.

Don’t overlook the obvious and keep it simple when coming up with solutions to your organizing problems!

No, don’t just read on yet…think about how hard it is to disrupt any of your current beliefs. People can be pretty stubborn about their beliefs. Belief implies acceptance. Therefore, if you decide to change anything about your behavior, and you are starting from a position of strong acceptance of the belief that drives the behavior, you must un-accept what you currently believe before you can even get started.

Why in the world would anyone bother to deem something they currently believe unacceptable? Two big reasons: frustration and failure.

Frustration and failure can be used as “candidates-for-beliefs-that-might-need-to-be-disrupted” tracking devices. When you sense frustration or fail at something….STOP AND THINK ABOUT IT CAREFULLY! Try to pinpoint the belief that supported your decision to do whatever you did that derailed your positive feelings and/or success. If you can pinpoint the culprit…disrupt the belief and replace it with a new and improved belief.

Good luck and don’t be afraid to admit there may be a few things you need to change!

ACT NOW!  SPACE IS LIMITED TO THE FIRST 20 PEOPLE!

See attached invitation for details!

Invitation August 10

• Getting your boss promoted

• Training your replacement

Think of all the good things – the right things – that will happen as a by-product of executing this strategy. For example, in order to pull this off, you must be a good leader, follower, delegator, mentor, observer, learner, etc. It does not matter if you like your boss or not. Keep your eye on the big picture and long-term results.

This might be a good suggestion to pass down to all your direct reports!

People are usually happiest when their chances of success are about 50/50. Think about it:

• If things at work get too difficult or impossible, excessive anxiety and stress kick in.

• If things at work are too easy, life gets boring.

Embrace reasonable workplace challenges. They provide some of your best opportunities for happiness.  When you go outside your comfort zone, it provides a wonderful sense of accomplishment.  We can all be reasonably successful when we stay within our comfort zone – the true accomplishment is when you succeed at something that challenges you!

Challenge yourself at least once this week!

Some people use the “I’m a busy person” strategy in an attempt to boost their importance in the eyes of others. Unfortunately, to the astute boss, client or co-worker the message received might be:

•  ”This person is not promotable because they can’t handle their current responsibilities” or,
•  ”This person is too busy to do a quality job of handling my business, I’d better look for someone else” or,
•  “This person is insecure about their role and feels the need to make sure others know what they are doing”.

What do astute people likely think when they observe and listen to you? What are you advertising with your words and actions?