THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO AND STANDARD WORK

August 23, 2011

 By Sam Maniar, Ph.D.

On a recent trip to visit a PRADCO client, my wife suggested I grab one of the business books she was reading The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande or Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized by Sally McGhee.  Given that The Checklist Manifesto looked like a very quick read, I chose that one.

After reading the book, my initial impression was that although the anecdotes were staggering, the book was simple and obvious.  Clearly checklists are important tools in helping us remember the crucial steps involved when taking complex actions.  As Gawande points out, using checklists can help us avoid errors of ineptitude.

Once my colleague and I arrived at our client’s office and began coaching various employees regarding their leadership effectiveness and productivity, though, the value of the book became clear.  The client, Modine Manufacturing Company, preaches the importance of standard work.  The concept of standard work is nothing new to manufacturing organizations and/or companies that embrace the tenets of lean or Six Sigma.  By standardizing your work, you help to ensure you focus on the most important things and waste less time on the trivial aspects of your job.  It also helps to improve consistency.

Modine not only advocates for each employee to identify their standard work, but they encourage people to measure their adherence and identify reasons as to why standard work events did not happen.  In essence, standard work is a checklist of sorts.  It allows Modine’s employees to stay on track and to remember the most important things they need to do.

But standard work is different from checklists in that it is not intended to be a compliance tool.  It is intended to be more of a key element for improvement.  According to the Director of Modine Operating System, Jeff Uitenbroek:

“Using Standard Work allows us to create a bit of order out of the chaos that is normal business, but the most important function of Standard Work is as a tool for learning. It is the Plan of PDCA [Plan-Do-Check-Act]. As a template for what is normal, we easily see problems or deviations from normal.  By identifying obstacles that prevent us from accomplishing the work we plan to do, we can adjust and overcome those obstacles.  This is the key element in rapid improvement.”

In many ways, our role as coaches at PRADCO is to help our clients identify and plan for their standard work as well.  For example, if someone is working on developing their bench strength, we help them identify who their targets might be and how to incorporate a regular mentoring cadence with those people.  From there, the coaching is about style and approach, such as how to motivate and inspire people to do more.

It’s easy to say, “My work differs from day-to-day, and there is nothing standard about it.”  Nevertheless, as our CEO Terry Owen likes to say, “I’ll bet you a nickel that…” there are more standardized processes in your job than you think.  By taking a closer look and making a checklist of your monthly tasks, for example, you are less likely to make a mistake and more likely to be prepared and efficient.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and/or feedback.  What are your thoughts?  How do you implement standard work at your organization?  How do you incorporate coaching into standard work?

3 Comments | Coaching, PRADCO, Sam Maniar, Standard Work, Time Management | Permalink
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Similarities Between Sports and Business

May 4, 2010

By Sam Maniar

As I mentioned in my first blog entry, my background is in sport psychology. I often get asked about the overlap between my previous role as a sport psychologist and my current role at PRADCO. So, today I’d like to discuss the similarities between successful athletes and successful business people.

Successful athletes must possess some key attributes in order to succeed:

 Drive
 Ambition
 Goal-Directed
 Focus
 Discipline
 Confidence
 Mental Toughness / Resilience

You can probably see where I am going with this. These same characteristics apply to successful people in business—whether they are an administrative assistant, engineer, salesperson, manager, or executive.

Athletes are always looking for a way to get an edge on their competition. For the most part, they all practice the same amount of time, they know the same drills, and they have access to the same resources. But sound mental training (i.e., sport psychology) can often make the difference between a winner and a loser. Therefore, many athletes utilize sport psychology techniques on a regular basis, such as:

 Goal Setting
 Imagery/Visualization
 Relaxation Training
 Thought Management
 Pre-Performance Routines & Plans

These same techniques can help a non-athlete become more successful in business and life. For example, there are countless studies documenting the performance improvement that comes from spending 5-10 minutes a day visualizing an upcoming competition. So, my question to you is: How often do you visualize important meetings or events in advance? My guess is not very often. Think about the performance improvements that could occur. It could make the difference between you and your competitors, or even between you and a peer going for the same promotion.

Sports can be a great metaphor for business, but we can and should apply more than just a story about a favorite athlete or team. If you want to get an edge on your competition, utilize some of the same techniques athletes do.

That’s all for now. For the month of May, I’ll be passing the PRADCO blogging reins over to Dorne Chadsey, who I’m sure will inform, entertain and amuse you with his insights.

2 Comments | PRADCO, Sam Maniar, Sports and Business | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Call Center Hiring

April 26, 2010

By Sam Maniar

I was recently reading Adrienne Fox’s “The Ins and Outs of Customer Contact Centers” in the March, 2010 issue of HR Magazine. Ms. Fox does a great job of discussing the importance of considering people issues before making the decision to outsource call centers. Clearly, there are many costs associated with outsourcing that are not always considered, such as the negative impact on brand, loss of control, etc.

In the article, Jared Fletcher, VP of Strategic Sourcing, recommends that call centers ask outsourcers about several areas, such as their ability to identify fit with the customer’s unique culture and their retention rate. Below, I’d like to elaborate on these two areas.

Whether you outsource your call center or not, it is extremely important to identify fit with your specific culture. When PRADCO developed the Call Center Index (CCI) last year, we found that there were many similarities as far as what most call centers said they wanted in their applicants: dependability and punctuality, service to customers, ability to articulate thoughts and listen to customers, and attention to detail. However, we often find different or contradictory evidence when we compare top and bottom performers in a given organization. For example, though we were told that Service and Communication were two of the most important behaviors to identify, in some centers, high scores on these dimensions are also correlated with fewer calls, longer hold time, and lower results. In many call centers, that would drastically hurt the bottom line.

Thus, we tried to take all of our survey and statistical findings into account when creating the CCI. We ended up with 16 key behaviors that are assessed, but the most important behaviors differ from one organization to another. The same candidate may be a great fit for one call center and a poor fit for another.

If you have an objective system in place that helps you hire people based on fit, then retention numbers should naturally improve. Yet it is still common to hear of annualized turnover rates of 100% – 200% in some call centers! Some call centers tell me that the cost of assessment is too high. Yet, what are the costs of turnover rates this high, and how much would be saved by reducing turnover? Are you willing to pay a few dollars up front in order to significantly reduce your turnover and improve your productivity?

So whether you outsource your call center or not, remember all the costs involved. But also keep in mind the cost of objectively evaluating your candidates versus not doing so. If you outsource, many outsourcers will include an objective assessment as part of their process. If you keep your call center internal, make sure you are using a valid and objective pre-hire assessment. Though this may cost you additional money upfront, it can save you thousands or more in the long run.

6 Comments | Call Center, PRADCO, Sam Maniar | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Listening to Our Customers

April 16, 2010

By Sam Maniar

As I mentioned in my previous entry, one aspect of my role at PRADCO is business development.  I quickly realized that my psychology training did not prepare me for such a role and decided to attend some sales and customer service workshops.  One of the things that seemed to be mentioned repeatedly was the importance of getting feedback from your clients, so I came back to the office one day and suggested we do just that.

Now, it’s not that we hadn’t gotten feedback from our clients in the past. Because of the feedback our clients previously gave us, we made several changes, such as:

  • Adding suggested interview questions to our Index reports;
  • Adding coaching suggestions to our assessment reports;
  • Making all of our reports easier to read and interpret; and
  • Offering a high-potential coaching package.

We just hadn’t done it in a large-scale, structured process.  I’d like to share with you some of what we learned from the data and some of my take-aways.

The first area that I was intrigued by was how our clients came to find out about us.

 

I was surprised to see that the majority (82%) of our clients either joined an organization that already used us or were referred by a colleague. This told me that it is extremely important to stay in touch with our clients and to stay at the front of their minds.

The second area of interest to me was how satisfied our clients were.

I was at first happy to see that 91% of our clients were satisfied.  However, if we continue to maintain a 91% satisfaction rating and lose 9% of our clients each year, we would only retain 76% of our clients after 3 years.  This would mean that we would lose ¼ of our clients by 2013!

The old adage about it taking 10 happy customers to refer you to just 1 person but only 1 dissatisfied customer to tell 10 potential customers makes a lot of sense with regard to these numbers.

So, 91% satisfied might be good enough for some companies, but it certainly is not good enough for PRADCO.  As a result, we have started to contact everyone who ranged from “somewhat satisfied” to “very dissatisfied” to see what we could do.  In many cases, the issue was a misunderstanding, but without the data and the follow-up call, we may have lost that person as a client.  In other instances, we received great feedback on how to make our products and services even better.

The third area that stuck out was the way our clients utilize us.

 

To me, this was shocking.  We knew that 91% of our clients were satisfied, and yet, most of our clients only know us for one thing: pre-employment assessment.  We clearly need to do a better job of communicating the other ways we can help organizations, such as coaching, 360s, training, job modeling, etc.  My guess is that many of our customers have no idea that we even offer these services.

In sum, I learned quite a bit:

  1. It is important to stay in touch with our clients.
  2. We need to continue to listen to our clients’ ideas on how we can improve.
  3. We need to do a better job of sharing and communicating additional ways we can be of service to our clients.

If you conduct customer satisfaction surveys, I’d love to hear what you have learned.  Or, if you are a customer of ours and have additional feedback, we’d love to hear that as well.  Until next week, take care.

1 Comment | Customer Satisfaction, PRADCO, Sam Maniar | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Meet Sam Maniar

April 9, 2010

Tell us a little about yourself and your role at PRADCO.

This is my first blog post, and I’m looking forward to writing more over the next month.

I serve as the Director of Talent Assessment at PRADCO, which means I oversee all of the pre-hire assessments that we conduct for our clients.  In addition, I am involved in coaching, training, and business development.

Prior to joining PRADCO, I was a Sport Psychologist for The Ohio State University.  I also provided sport psychology and corporate consulting to various other organizations as well.  Because I was in the unique perspective to observe and work with many elite coaches, athletes, and teams, I often incorporate lessons and metaphors from sport into the consulting I do with organizations and clients.  It is truly amazing how much overlap there is between sport and business! I am a Licensed Psychologist as well, though I try not to tell people this when traveling on airplanes.

What do you like best about your job?

Without a doubt, my favorite part of the job is interacting with people and helping them find solutions to their problems.  I feel a great deal of satisfaction from helping our clients reduce turnover, make better hires, increase revenue, and develop high-potential employees.  In 2009, we noticed a big uptick in coaching for high potentials.  Given that the “new normal” is “doing more with less,” I expect this trend to continue.

Tell us something about yourself that even your co-workers don’t know.

While in high school, I was a member of a U.S. track team that was competing in Scandinavia.  One day I woke up late for our morning run and couldn’t find my contact lenses.  During our run, I somehow managed to get separated from my team and ended up getting lost, with no money, no contact lenses, and no ability to communicate with the locals in Copenhagen.  After running 25 miles, arriving at the wrong hostel, begging for money, and taking two busses and a train, I got back to my team who had been waiting 2 hours on the bus for me to return.  I never got to thank the woman who generously gave me $20 to pay for transportation, but I often think about her act of kindness.

What is your favorite travel destination?

I have too many favorites to choose just one, especially since I like different places for different reasons.  Italy has such a rich culture, history, and food, the Canadian Rockies (Banff & Jasper) are breathtaking, Ireland has amazing pubs, and Las Vegas is just a whole lot of fun!

What are you currently working on?

I feel like I’m working on a little of this and a little of that.  Much of my attention has been focused on the analysis of our PRADCO customer satisfaction survey and on implementing our newest selection/development tool, the Call Center Index, in various organizations.  I’ll discuss both in upcoming blogs.

1 Comment | PRADCO, Sam Maniar, Staff | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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