Challenge the Process

When I look at my organization, specifically the small chunk of the organization that I reside in, I can see one massive way in which it could improve.

I'll give you some background...

My job is to do simple, routine tasks over and over every day for a group of legal analysts.  This entails preserving data, sending data to external vendors, loading data to a database, and other related activities.  It is not a complicated job, but it does require attention to detail.

Do you know what else is really good at doing simple, routine tasks over and over every day that could entail preserving data, sending data to external vendors, and loading data to a database?  A computer program.

Now, I am not a programmer.  I do know a little about coding, but not enough to write an actual program.  And I can tell that my job could be replaced by a number of specialized programs.  No fancy robotics.  No multi-million dollar deal with a recognized software developer.

Perhaps two weeks with a college graduate working out of their garage would suffice.

That being said, I am glad they haven't done this because then I would have no job.

But really.  It just seems so easy.

The only thing that the program couldn't do is staple and/or 3-hole punch papers sometimes.  And it could probably do that if they got a fancy printer.

More Than Sharing a Vision

For my Leadership class, we were tasked with speaking with someone that we work with, or are close to (or both, if you're just fortunate like that) about their vision for the company they work for.

I noticed a trend.

And it was very counterproductive to my assignment.

Because people around my age don't seem to be developing visions for organizations.  They develop visions for themselves.

After the first individual failed to give me the information that I needed I decided to seek out additional help.  And was met with the same lack of organizational vision.

I don't know if this lack of vision is related to any one specific variable, but I have a hypothesis of a few that I will share here:

-Having lived on this earth for a while now, it seems very easy to believe that an individual cannot change the world.  Or the country.  Or their organization.  Or their own family, even.  It is a dominant state of mind amongst my colleagues to believe that the only real thing you CAN control is yourself.  So why hope and strive to change something else if 9 times out of 10 it is going to be fruitless?  You're much more likely to get a higher rate of return if you invest in yourself than if you invest in an organization.  Only in very rare circumstances can an individual make a large, lasting difference (usually made into a movie or a book or both).

-I associate with a lot of individuals who are lower on the corporate totem pole.  It is hard to develop a vision FOR the organization when you don't even have proper vision OF the organization.  So it is easier to develop a vision for yourself.  Where you will move in the organization and how you and your life will change along the way.

I can relate to both of these things, even if I don't fully accept them as truth.

The takeaway from this?

I need to associate with higher-ranking people.

After all, you are what you surround yourself with, right?

Modeling the Way

I remember in my retail sales experience having many instances of people modeling what they expected of me.

That seems to be the way that retail sales work.

Watch.

Learn.

Repeat.

Monkey See, Monkey Do.

I can recall at my first job at American Eagle upon returning from my two-year church mission that we had to get people to sign up for credit cards.

That was the big deal.

Credit cards.

You could sell 500 pairs of jeans to 500 different people, but if they didn't put it on their American Eagle Credit Card it was almost worthless in the corporate mindset.

We were a good store.

We had fun and we liked each other a lot. (Almost to a freaky, uncommon level for retail)

We even sold well!  Rarely, if ever, did we not make goals for sales.  But we constantly fell short in terms of Credit Cards.

Even the management wasn't stellar.  They were better than most of us regular employees, but they weren't swinging for the fences by any means.

And then there was Nathalie.

Nathalie was amazing at getting people to sign up for credit cards.  I don't know how she did it (TO THIS DAY) but she was always the top sales person each month, and she had the most credit cards!

Now, before any wild accusations are made, yes, she was an attractive girl.  But not overly attractive to the point where she could use her looks to get people to do things.  She also wasn't that shallow that she would stoop to such a level.

She was just really, really good at what she did.

So the managers would stick us with her.  We would watch, try to keep track of what we saw, and then usually fail horribly when we tried to repeat it.

By the time we all left American Eagle I think most of us had a pretty good idea of how to get people to sign up for cards.  So much so that we weren't one of the worst stores anymore!  We weren't the best, but we were further from the worst than when we started.  And that is the definition of progress!

And it was all thanks to Nathalie and her patience in modeling how we should be doing it.