How You Measure Productivity

image: https://pixabay.com/photos/premium-premium-shirt-polo-shirt-991221/

Productivity is a loaded word that is thrown around as if it means unlimited quality. It's not. Like most words, productivity is a relative term.

While you can always improve productivity (if that means doing more with less) there will also be a cost. That cost is usually in quality. Unless you develop a completely new way of doing something (or at least revolutionize the process) when you do more of it you inevitably reach a capacity limit. Approaching that intersection, the traffic heads for trouble.

We see it all the time: a relentless race to the bottom to make things cheaper and more plentiful at the huge sacrifice of quality. That loss feels like a real human loss. Yes, a phone-cue is faster than waiting to speak to a human, but there has been a significant loss in human contact in the business world. Long before AI started doing work for us, we let customers do their own heavy lifting. That results in a lot of dropped balls and a lot of unhappy customers.

How you measure productivity might determine your character. It will reveal your values. It will expose your mission. If you want all that to be positive, measure productivity in ways that acknowledges your customers are human.

Unless you don't care about your customers. And if that's the case, your customers will always find a way to cut the cord.

-- doug smith

Comments

Goals with Bonus Benefits

Goals are important, but if you haven't achieved a goal does that mean that you've failed? Not always and certainly not completely. It's possible that a better goal opened up while you were working om the one that you left behind. Maybe you simply prioritized something more valuable. We shouldn't expect to achieve every goal because if we do either our goals are too small or our priorities are too rigid. A goal can be successful without being achieved. We learn. We grow. We adjust. We connect -- many ways that we are enriched by working toward something whether or not we achieve it. Of course we do want to achieve our goals. Even when we don't, though, we learn. What has your most recent unachieved goal taught you? -- doug smith

Bright Spots

We need to know how to improve, so as leaders part of our job is to provide the feedback-for-improvement that our teams need. Specifically, timely, kindly. It's easy to remember that if not so easy to do. We should also remember to call attention to what is working. Let people know what is great. Share our stories of how the team is excelling. Sharing the bright spots lights the way. The more we see what works, the better we can make it work. What positive bright spot can you share with your team today? -- doug smith

Surprise!

What have been your major changes? What magnificent visions have you had that you eventually released? Sometimes, to make room for the next great thing, we need to let go of the less than great wish we're holding onto. What looks like success at one point in our lives because less convincing as it slips away, hides, or becomes impossible. Life goes on. New dreams form. Greatness always welcomes us to new opportunities. If your vision of success changes, that is also success. You are now free to be great (and happy) in another direction. Life goes on; the joy in it is up to you. -- doug smith

Something Else

We do it frequently -- blame people for what's wrong. And when we blame people for something they did not cause it often makes things worse because now they feel bad about it and maybe even defensive. Even though it feels like people get i the way of perfection, it's usually something else. Fix the process. Fix the rule. Fix the presentation. Fix the product. People are better than we realize, and seldom to blame for service breakdowns. -- doug smith Training Activity Make a list of the three most recent service breakdowns that you have experienced. For each breakdown, score on a scale of 1 - 10 how much of that breakdown was caused by: Process Rules Presentation Product People Now you know where to start fixing things.

Miracle Service?

Training is important. Service is a priority. But you just can't train someone to provide great service and satisfy a customer if the product is bad. Maybe for a moment, but not for long can you keep anyone smiling when the product is poking them in the eye. The best customer service rep in the world can't fix a bad product. Once you realize that you're dealing with a bad product there's no reason to be angry with the service rep. They know it's bad, too. They'd fix it if they could. They likely can't. When the product is bad, find a better product. -- doug smith Training Activity What if that assumption is incorrect? What if you really can make things better with superior service, even when the product is broken beyond repair? What would that look like? What would you train your people to say? What would it look like for someone to create such a great relationship with a customer that the product was inconsequential?

Service Appreciation

Delivering excellent service is tough enough and sometimes it's not enough, according to our customers. With some customer wanting a miracle, or a policy change, it mean that even when we do our best it may not be perceived as enough. We could have always done more. We should have somehow changed the world in order to change their outcome. Other times, customers are generous in their thanks. Our extra steps are appreciated, our efforts are more than enough, and our customers are happy to do business with us. We should work as if the second group of customers -- the real appreciators, the happy ones, are the norm and hold onto the joy they share. There are no guarantees that our service will be appreciated, but that's not why we do it. We serve because that's where the joy lives, in helping others. -- doug smith

Too Much Advice?

What happens with unsolicited advice? Probably nothing. If you didn't ask for a piece of advice, why would you take it? Well, then what happens to advice that you do ask for? Isn't that a whole different matter? Different, yes, and yet often the outcome is the same: advice given and then ignored. It's easy to give advice because we all have opinions on everything, even stuff we don't know anything about. Taking advice is harder because A) the advice we get is often wrong, B) the advice we get is usually hard, and C) the advice we get often doesn't work. As someone who is sometimes paid to give advice I've had to learn the primary consultant's rule of advice giving: first ask the questions and then let the client determine the best advice. It takes longer. It can take much longer. It's not immediately satisfying, but it works much better. I'm working on slowing down my approach to giving advice and yet I still go too fast sometimes. How about you? He...

Face Up To It

What;'s the longest you've ever gone without working on a goal that you were sincere about setting? Maybe your intention was true, but your execution was lacking. I don't think there's an absolute rule about this, but this feels right: If you haven't worked on a goal for over a month ask yourself why it's still on your list of goals. Maybe it's not really a goal at all. Just because a goal seems impressive doesn't mean that it's worth working on. Face up to it: do the work, or let it go... -- doug smith

Follow The Script?

Have you ever had a conversation with a customer service representative and you could tell that they were simply following a script? How did you feel about that? Sometimes the script works, but usually it doesn't feel human to the customer. As we get more and more responses from actual robots, it's worth considering how much better we can give human responses as humans. Quick Service Do's and Don'ts: Don't just follow a script when you hear it's not working. Don't assume that the customer is wrong. Don't take it personally when the customer gets upset. Don't argue with the customer. Instead, do these: Do listen to understand the customer's needs. Do empathize with the customer. Do collaborate rather than dictate. Do think creatively, even if you need to pause, in order to find better answers. That's not the whole list, of course, but it's a useful place to start. No matter who we're talking to we should always be better than a robot...

Positive Choice

Yes or no? Certainly not maybe because that takes you nowhere. Yes or no? I don't always get the answer right, but I feel sure about this: yes is better than a guess. Yes gets us moving. Yes opens doors. Yes starts the experiment and learning begins. Yes is better than a guess. And, if you need to guess, guess yes! -- doug smith

doug smith training

Search This Blog