Archive for December 2019
Setting Up Systems Can Empower Your Productivity
“Setting up systems”, you say. “How would that empower my productivity?” It can. Let me tell you more. How much time do we waste every day at work telling people the same thing time after time? The next day we do it all over again. We explain procedures to our clients over the phone twenty times a week. We explain to at least 2-3 of our colleagues every week how to do something that is integral to our business.
Why haven’t we got a system that does that to which we can refer our colleagues and clients? We could have a flyer or brochure on it – online and hard copy – to which we could refer them. We could have a video on the intranet to which we could direct our colleagues when they don’t understand that issue or situation. Sure it takes time to set up systems, but it also takes enormous time – if we add it up over a day, a week or a year – to explain the same things over and over.
Read MoreAre You Valued in Your Workplace?
Do you feel valued in your workplace? If not, why do you stay there? Why wouldn’t you move to where your expertise is valued?
In my work, especially as a mentor, I constantly talk with people who don’t feel valued at work. What keeps them there, however, is a doubt about their own ability. Part of them believes they are making a valuable contribution, but because no one actually acknowledges it, they then feel that maybe they are not as valuable as they think. They rely on the people around them to validate them. Because that doesn’t happen, they then fear to go elsewhere, feeling they have nothing to offer.
That’s one of the great things about mentoring. It validates you even while it challenges. If it is one-on-one mentoring, the mentor does that, but if it is group mentoring, a whole group of like-minded, equally motivated people share their experience with you and you find it validating yours.
So if you want to discover your real value, ask the right people. A mentor is one of those people.
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