Are You A Short-Cut Master?

We already had a little chat about the dangers of being able to multi-task in an earlier post. (Multi-Tasking, The Troubling Gap.)  Sometimes we get going too fast doing multiple tasks trying to keep up with the unhealthy pace we believe we should be producing.  If we catch ourselves producing that fast moving pace we start performing short-cuts to maintain that pace.  Short-cuts are a dangerous way to perform great levels of customer service.  The risk for losing valuable information is very high when we start using short-cuts to perform tasks quickly.  Slow down, do better work.  The customer is in a hurry, but they will be more wicked off when you foul up their completion expectations.

Do you find yourself becoming a short-cut master?

Stop it.

Short-cuts are guarantees for lost items, incomplete information, missing tools, misplaced keys, mislaid mobile phones, important messages forgotten, inadequate messages, forgotten promises and many other routine duties that get left undone because the effort to complete them was shortened by skipping some important steps.  Here is how it happens.  Some customer at the sales counter says, "Give me a call when you get those new hydraulic tools in stock."  You are talking on the phone with someone else when that happens.  You nod your head in agreement to the customer at the sales counter because they look like they are in a hurry to leave and it 'fit' well to offer a "short-cut" agreement.  They leave believing you are going to call them when the hydraulic tools you have on order come in.  A few minutes later you end the phone conversation with the other party and hang it up.  You walk away and make no note of the request the hydraulic customer made while you were on the phone with another party.  You were trying to multi-task and do two things at once.  Two weeks later they come in to check on the arrival of the hydraulic tools and two of the three that arrived have already been sold to someone else.  You forgot to make a note to call them.  In fact, the head nod you gave them when you were preoccupied on the phone did not do a very good job of customer service.  They seem unhappy about how this deal happened, but they go ahead and ask you to order in the other two missing tools for them to see.  They call you by your name when they thank you for re-ordering it.  You do not want to offend them by asking them their last name, so you do another 'short-cut' by waiting until they leave and ask one of your employees for their last name.  Your employee says, "All I know is his name is Bill and her name is Andie.  I do not know their last name!"  Great, another 'short-cut' headed for doom.

Are you a short-cut master?  Do you do things like this in your business?  Do you write notes of importance on the palm of your hand?  Do you lay the wireless phone down when you are done with it or do you take it all the way back to the sales counter and return it to its base?  Are you a short-cut master?

Do you perform multiple tasks every day by touching a little bit on them here and there, adding a short-cut or two so you can get more done?  Or do you designate specified time slots set aside to do routine tasks so they can receive proper attention?  Do you open the daily mail while you are working at the sales counter and answering customer phone calls?  Do you try to research customer requests for more information while posting your accounting duties onto your spreadsheets?  Do you design your next advertising campaign while you are on the phone handling a tough customer service call?  How many short-cuts have caused you to deliver incomplete work details that have hurt your leadership and your overall business performance?  I suspect more than you are willing to admit.  I know for a fact I have performed many short-cuts that have haunted my quality of production.  Short-cuts can and do kill quality work.  Are you a short-cut master?  What can you do to improve in this area of your leadership?  It may be hurting your customer service rating.  It may be hurting your leadership posture with your staff.  Dropped balls get very aggravating when the customers express their dissatisfaction to your employees.  Customer do not always pass their complaints on to you.  Your employees do not always pass on the expressions customers share.

Are you a short-cut master and unaware of the damage your trail is producing?

If you are a short-cut master, slow down.  You will have plenty of work left over for tomorrow, anyway.  Slow down.

One thing is for sure, you have plenty of work to do to fill up tomorrow.  Your clock is already full.  You do not need to keep worrying about what you are not getting done.  You will always have plenty of tasks to complete tomorrow long before tomorrow arrives.  Quit racing to get more done only to find that you have plenty more to do.  It is foolishness.  Slow down.

The following ideas are some tips on how to over come the desire to be a short-cut master.

First of all, slow down.  Once you slow down, become a master of taking great notes.  Take the time to write all of the pertinent information down, including every piece of promise you offered.  I pack a phone, a pen and a note pad with me wherever I travel inside my business location.  It is amazing to me when and where important information begins to flow that I am expected to act upon.  I do not allow myself to be surprised anymore.  I am prepared to take down an important note when it pops up, especially an inconvenient one.  Become a good note taker.

Next, learn how to make on the spot decisions.  Quit taking information down and promising others that you will check it out.  Make a decision on the spot.  Make sure you allow the proper time to listen to all of the facts, but when you get the facts, make a decision.  No notes needed.  Task done.  No follow-up required so you can move on.  Be a decision-maker. 

Another good idea is to set aside three small time slots every day to review the note pad items you have been collecting.  "Officially" check to see what is on the note pad and determine what needs to be completed.  Many times I will skip doing some other preferred work if the note pad dominates my time.  The promises on the pad are often more important than most of the daily work I do.  Get very good at note taking, but more importantly, do the research and follow-up work that is on the note pad reminder list.  Make sure you get very good at following-up on the work that is necessary to complete the promises you placed on the notes you took.  Help yourself become better at your word.  Your good intentions do not cut it when you keep missing the mark with your short-cut attempts for doing quality work.  Short-cuts and quality work are much like mixing oil and water, they do not mix well.  Set three time slots aside; one early in the morning to take care of yesterday's left-overs, one mid-day and the last one in the afternoon before all of your vendors close down for the day...just in case you need to call them for information or ordering items.

The next and most important item to add to your daily routine is to become better organized.  Quit flashing around and allowing the circumstances of the day dominate what you do from moment to moment.  Get a grip on your time.  Have a plan for how you spend you time each day.  Get an effective and efficient routine going and stick to it.  Haphazard routines are deadly methods for protecting good work.  Be aware of how the best skills you possess for becoming very organized can end up hijacked, over and over.  Manage this phenomenon very well.  The most important item on your list for helping you to eliminate the short-cuts you allow as interferences is to become a better organized leader.  Learn how to organize your work day.  Get some good books on how to streamline the work load you are managing.  Define what you need to be doing and determine what you can live without doing.  Organize a good working plan to help you manage your work stuff better and control that plan diligently.  Get better disciplined.  You may have developed some bad habits that will be very difficult to break.  Break them. 

Finally, learn how to identify what parts of your job can be better performed by some of your employees and delegate them to master that work.  Delegate with grace and recognition.  Delegate with a strong sense of understanding for how you match-up some of the work load with appropriate and competent skills of your particular employees.  This step will help you to become better at the customer relations portion of your business.  You will actually free up some quality time to be able to spend it on the good things you can do for your customers.  This is vital to good business leadership.  You are the 'one' they want to know.  Be transparent with your customers and sincerely do for them what you promise to do.  Proper changes here will lead to some very special customer improvements.  The improved effort for building better relationships will be felt by your customers.

Working on these few improvements above will allow you to improve upon your lack of quality work by eliminating the dangerous and risky short-cut methods you relied on in the past.  Your customers will begin to respect doing business with your business model.  These are good things that short-cut masters usually know nothing about and rarely get to experience.  Work hard on these adjustments so you can enjoy how well your business model performs.  This type of model has the best chance to survive the poor economies we all have to manage.

If you are a short-cut master; good luck changing your habits, do good work with the change, and enjoy the good business you produce by slowing down and performing better.

Until next time...