Productivity content from Leo Nelson
J.D. Meier talks about three solutions on “How To Avoid Task Saturation”, checklists, cross-checks and mutual support.
Solution #1: Checklists
The key here is the checklists are vital to reducing overload and helping remind you of key actions.
I’m a fan of checklists, not only because of how it helps avoid task saturation, but also because if implemented and used correctly, it has proven to be a great tool at removing inefficiencies in processes. Atul Gawande’s, The Checklist Manifesto, provides a number of examples on how various industries have successfully implemented checklists as a method to getting things done right and at the same streamlining complex processes.
Source: How To Avoid Task Saturation
Judith Ross on How to Ask Better Questions
Although providing employees with answers to their problems often may be the most efficient way to get things done, the short-term gain is overshadowed by long-term costs. By taking the expedient route, you impede direct reports’ development, cheat yourself of access to some potentially fresh and powerful ideas, and place an undue burden on your own shoulders. When faced with an employee’s problem, you can respond in a much more value-adding way: by asking the right questions, help her find the best solution herself. We aren’t talking about asking just any questions but, rather, employing questions that inspire people to think in new ways, expand their range of vision, and enable them to contribute more to the organization. Questions packing this kind of punch are usually open-ended — they’re not looking for a specific answer. Often beginning with “Why,” “How,” or “What do you think about…,” they are questions that set the stage for subordinates to discover their own solutions, increasing their competence, their confidence, and their ownership of results.
Personally, thanks to some excellent feedback over the years, I’ve subscribed to the 5WH line of questioning when trying to get information:
Recently, I’ve had the need to:
With both situations, save the number and passcode as a single phone line entry but use a comma (,) to add a 2 second pause or a semi colon (;) for a hard pause – implying the next sequence of numbers won’t be dialed unless a key is pressed on the phone.
For example, if the number 800-123-4567,,,1234567# is saved as a contact or used in a meeting invite, and you attempt to dial the number on an iPhone, here’s what you’ll observe:
So what this new research tells us, then, is that the one thing that all of you already knew about sleep, that even Galen understood about sleep, that it refreshes and clears the mind, may actually be a big part of what sleep is all about. See, you and I, we go to sleep every single night, but our brains, they never rest. While our body is still and our mind is off walking in dreams somewhere, the elegant machinery of the brain is quietly hard at work cleaning and maintaining this unimaginably complex machine. Like our housework, it’s a dirty and a thankless job, but it’s also important. In your house, if you stop cleaning your kitchen for a month, your home will become completely unlivable very quickly. But in the brain, the consequences of falling behind may be much greater than the embarrassment of dirty countertops, because when it comes to cleaning the brain, it is the very health and function of the mind and the body that’s at stake, which is why understanding these very basic housekeeping functions of the brain today may be critical for preventing and treating diseases of the mind tomorrow.
Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.
Source: Dee Hock on Management
If you’re going to rebuild a company’s customer service reputation and customer experience, good foundations to start building on include transparency, accountability and brutal, yet humbling honesty. Kudos to the Comcast team for starting down this path.
We’re holding ourselves accountable and we are working hard to make real improvements across the board. While it will take us some time, we can and will do better than this.
Source: A Public Apology to Conal O’Rourke.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Leo Widrich, from Buffer, on Bad Customer Service Support
While at a conference recently, a vendor was using a Twitter activated vending machine from Innovative Vending Solutions.
Each Twitter-activated vending machine incorporates a touch-screen interface to display the instructions to the consumer. The consumer is prompted to “tweet” a specific #hashtag to a dedicated @handle from their mobile device. Once the consumer tweets the @ and #, a product is immediately dispensed from the machine. Apparently, the machine utilizes a unique hashtag that is specific to the machine, so you have to be standing directly in front of the machine in order to utilize this functionality.