Inspect what you Expect

How do you know if your team is delivering high-quality product if you’re not checking the quality every so often?

Quality matters.

This tells us that if you are expecting a certain outcome, you need to check to make sure the outcome actually happened.

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You might get to your goal when the end of the quarter comes round, but if you have not focused any efforts on improvement and quality then at some point the wheels are going to come off, as you’re attempting to build something on weak foundations.

Inspection is critical, it will help you evaluate if your team are delivering a quality and sustainable service or product.

Don’t wait for the customer to tell you it’s no good, find out yourself and fix it.

Why is inspection important?

• If you do not inspect, you cannot measure = you don’t know how you’re doing

• If you do not measure, you cannot manage = you don’t know what actions to take

• If you do not manage, you cannot improve = you don’t know how to improve

• If you do not improve, you cannot get better = then we’re not doing our job

Every week I inspect around 15 different data points.

Every one of these tells me something different.

Data points are just indicators of whether something is healthy or not, depending on your existing benchmark for health.

If customer satisfaction is usually at 95% but this week it’s at 80%, then I know something is up.

The data point is my indicator to dig in and find out what the root cause is driving the unusually low customer satisfaction.

Inspecting your team’s work provides you with a ton of benefits, here are 4 of the best:

• Prevents problems - catching stuff early before it becomes a bigger problem. Be in the business of preventing problems, rather than solving them.

• Employee development - inspecting your team’s work helps you identify development opportunities, how can you help them grow?

• Untoward - it helps you identify process gaps, leaks in your service and things not being followed correctly. Is someone avoiding a process or step?

• Temperature check - it helps you assess your environment and the experience you’re providing to your customer or end user.

Leaders find inspection difficult because it’s not something that necessarily gives us instant gratification like putting out a fire or resolving a situation.

But it proactively prevents fires from happening further down the road.

Problem prevention will drive up your effectiveness as a leader x10.

Try some problem prevention today, available from all good leaders.

Your leader will love you for it.

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

• App - Blinkist. Do you ever read books and think there was a lot of fluff in there? This app saves you hours with its premium book summary app which condenses hours of reading down into a 10-15 minute summary for you to read or listen to. Try this app to save you time.

• YouTube - The Best Productivity Hacks of All Time by Ali Abdaal. This is gold. Ali is a popular YouTuber who has been studying Productivity for over a decade. In this video, he brings together the best productivity hacks to help you to be more effective and productive with your time.

• Book - Oz Principle by Roger Connors. The Oz Principle is the groundbreaking work that demonstrates the vital role of accountability in the achievement of business results and the improvement of both individual and organizational performance.

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