As with a lot of things in life, work can be seen from many different angles. By extension, this provides organizations with several approaches to assess how valuable their members are individually and collectively. This can affect certain decisions, such as whether to promote them or give them a pay raise.
The thing is, a lot of the approaches or angles that are still in use today are woefully outdated and can hinder you from discovering the true value of your workers. Changing these perspectives can help you get a more realistic pulse on how important your people are as assets to your organization. And when you know how valuable they are and treat them accordingly, you’re more likely to retain them.
So what are these perspectives that you can change to better understand the value of your workers? Each week we will examine one of them and tell you all about how to turn these blind spots into vantage points.
FROM: ASAP
TO: At the best timing
We are way beyond the point in time that everything is about the early bird getting the worm.
Being first used to mean being the best. It used to mean getting the best opportunities, reaping the best rewards, getting the most recognition. Getting things done at the fastest possible time has been said to provide full satisfaction to those waiting for the results.
But the chance to go first also comes with the chance to make the first mistake. The eagerness to capitalize on a premature opportunity might not lead to the projected outcome.
It could be an unreliable preliminary investigation, incomplete details, or a proposal made in haste. For whatever reason that it might fail, taking the initiative is not a guarantee of success. And rushing through a process to meet an arbitrary deadline is a risky road to costly errors.
At times when it seems that going first or going fast won’t allow you to foresee the outcome, don’t pressure your people to rush or struggle for the lead. Encourage them to study the situation and plot the best time to act for optimal results. Scenarios like these are more common than we might think, and it’s important to learn how to identify them.
Proper timing is one of the most effective tools for any modern enterprise. It enables them to maximize opportunities and mitigate the associated risks. This is because opportunities might not yet be at their best form right from the beginning. There could be developments along the way that make them either more or less beneficial.
Opportunities could also have different outcomes depending on when they are seized. An organization and its people would benefit from knowing when their desired result can be achieved during the period that an opportunity is available.
Today’s industries are producing opportunities at a faster rate than ever, and it can get frantic when you think about missing them. At some point, you will choose one and commit to using it to further your goals. You could find yourself considering an opportunity that has various outcomes, depending on when you take your chance.
In order to get the greatest benefit from it at the least amount of risk, think ahead and visualize what will happen to that opportunity when you task your people to act at certain points in time. Study how various factors within the context of the opportunity can change how helpful or harmful it can be to your objectives. Predict what mistakes are likely to be made, and prepare solutions for the new challenges they might create.
In other words, learn to use timing to your advantage. Encourage your people to think and plan ahead, before they act. It could mean the difference between a chance well used, and a wasted one.