Take a minute and look around your agency. Everybody looks busy, don’t they? But are you making money? Are they making money? If you’re not careful, you may mistake busyness with production. Remember – not all activity is created equal!
In all jobs, including yours, there are only two types of activity:
ACTIVITIES THAT LEAD TO RESULTS AND ACTIVITIES THAT DON’T.
Leaders must be vigilant to ensure that time is devoted to productive activity. The art is to do so without micromanaging.
Activity designed to make people look busy is what we call PTBB – Pretending To Be Busy. To limit PTBB activities, leaders must ask questions like “What are you working on right now?”
If the question is met with a pause, or an “Um”, you have probably just caught out a PTBB. When you identify that a person is working on a PTBB activity, give them a productive task to do immediately, like prospecting.
Whether it’s your receptionist, a secretary, a BDM, a property manager or a salesperson, there are activities that will lead you closer to results, those that are routine, and those that waste time.
Results-linked activities are priority number one. Get these done first. Routine is second on the queue, but never at the expense of doing a results-linked activity.
Waste-of-time activities should not be done by anyone!
Often our offices are called ‘work’ – “I’m going to work” is a statement people use to describe where they are going – the office – but ‘work’ in this context is not a noun – it’s a verb. You don’t GO to work, you DO work.
Activities that waste time are not work. They are an indulgence that comes from unclear job descriptions and a warped sense of priority. Leaders, we must look out for such activities and stamp them out. We must get our people focused on results-producing actions.
That is, if we want to make a good profit.