Are Our Teams Too Busy Being Fancy?
Basics Are Undermining Our Performance
I arrive early before going on stage to present a talk on High Performance at a National Conference for the number one brand (in their category). This is a room full of high achievers. The constant talk over coffee amongst the troops has been about how they will continue to maintain market share. In such situations I like to chit chat with the attendees before my slot and ask about their day, their year so far, and what is generally happening in their world.
On this occasion, I sidled up next to one of the Department Managers. He was discussing how technology was a sore point for the brand, and he started talking about the Sales Team…
“They don’t know how to use their phones.”
I replied to this with a big smile on my face talking about how I am hopeless with my phone too. How I am always fiddling with different apps and trying to get ‘this-to-sync-with-that’. A source of constant frustration in my world. But this gentleman turned to me very quickly and replied sharply…
“No! They don’t know how to use their phones!”
The penny dropped. They were not able to use their email properly, use messaging services, and keep notes effectively. The amount of time being wasted every day on poor calendarisation, and double handling of information would have been crippling. I had to double take. Yet, it is this sort of oversight that inhibits performance for all of us in our workplaces. Coaching and Mentoring Leaders of all sorts gives me insights into the fact that almost every workplace has their version of this story.
My instinct is that this is we can be too proud to admit such things. As the Ancient Greek Philosopher Epictetus said, "It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows." We are denying the fact that we need to be better at the basics and therefore denying some of our biggest opportunities to improve.
I often speak about Mindset, Inspiration, and Motivation. But, what about if we were motivated to be excellent at the basics? If we inspired each other with pure skill of constantly doing the basic things better than anyone else. And if we had a Mindset that to be brilliant at fundamentals would equate to being brilliant at our professions?
Many of us can get carried away with deep discussions about culture, strategy, metrics, and macro-economics. These big topic matter, but so do the small things our people do every single day. And the mini-mess-ups that occur on a non-stop basis create a sizable drag on our organisations.
Questions for leaders to ask:
What are the essential basic skills you and your team need to be excellent at to achieve your goals?
What are the actions you can put into place today to improve them?
How will you know when you are consistently excellent at them?
When will this be done? When will it be done by?
Stop being fancy. Doing basics well is critical. Doing basic brilliantly is excellence. It is an essential step towards building momentum and rhythm which is often missed.
