Original posting November 13, 2015
One of my husband’s favorite quotes is:
You get what you inspect not what you expect!
As a leader, there is really not a truer statement… but as an OBM we have to be purposeful to ensure we are inspecting our team’s execution and performance.
Working with virtual professionals creates a different dynamic as it pertains to ensuring things are getting done and being done properly. Most team members come to the table with a predisposed way they want to execute specific tasks and as they are contractors and experts in their own right we have to give them the lead way to this. However, that does not mean we do not inspect their work.
To be honest, it’s easier to just simply have an expectation and hope that everyone works like us and will exceed expectations without much nurture or time being spent on them. But that is not the reality in many cases. So it is vital that we take on the role of inspector as it pertains to the businesses we lead.
A few things to be inspecting on a regular basis:
- Are processes being updated – if there is not a standing agreement with the team that when a process changes that an update is made, there should be. So get that in place then be certain you are inspecting those processes are being updated as needed
- Is customer service following all the small tasks needed to fulfil the desired outcome? Often customer service tasks are very small admin related elements that may or may not be being checked on a regular basis and because of that, they can end up with pieces being skipped…. This might not be much of a deal if it happens once or twice but if it happens over a course of time you may end up missing key data that simply needed to be entered into specific areas for the customer service recording.
- Is Metrics being collected… if metrics isn’t a part of the business ensure that it is. But from there, an admin team member should be able to go through all the systems and collect the data. Often this data is not the current fire on the team’s plate so you want to ensure they take seriously circling back around to it when there is time to ensure the proper data is being collected for when it is needed.
- That processes are being executed as they written… this happens to us all. The more familiar we become with a process the less we feel the need to open the documentation.. after a little while though small elements can get skipped or deemed unnecessary by a team member who doesn’t have the big picture and then you are losing a piece of your process. That is really frustrating because it will inevitably lead to a mistake (after all the process is written that way for a reason) and then you have to have the undesirable conversation of ‘why are you not following the processes. No one enjoys those convos with team members.
So I encourage you to take my husband’s advice and be proactive in the inspecting because you may not always get what you are expecting!