Three Step Performance Improvement

If you’re looking for a professional edge, then you’ll enjoy this three step performance improvement strategy. It’s designed to help you focus more on the things you do best.

We are living and working in the Age of Competence. Most people are good at their jobs or can learn to become good. But how do you reach that next level?

That can be a challenge and if you’re not careful, growing workloads, bad habits, or ineffective shortcuts will limit your potential.

Consider and share this three step process with your team:

Identify Your Top Three

What are the three best things you do for your organization? I’m not asking what are the things you enjoy the most. Those are good things but where are you truly exceptional or irreplaceable?

Also, are these activities where performing them more would help your business?

In this step, we want to identify three and only three things. If every activity is perceived as a top priority, then you’ve just bought real estate on Frustration Boulevard.

What are the Barriers to Performance Improvement?

What’s preventing you from spending more time on these three activities? Have you inherited a lot of other tasks that monopolize your day?

For these second tier activities, are you the most qualified person for them? If you don’t have an advantage, then can they be passed to someone else? The idea is to free up time for your top priorities.

You want to avoid a mass dumping of activities onto other people. Part of this stage should include a review of tasks to decide whether they still have value.

Successful organizations understand that time is a limited resource and you have to be selective in how you invest it.

How Can You Move Faster?

Is there an element of speed that could allow you to focus more on your top three tasks? Don’t underestimate the importance of getting things done in less time.

Let’s consider how things have changed when it comes to sharing a document with someone in a different place:

In the 1980’s, you’d send a courier, which took hours.
In the 1990’s you’d send a fax, which could take five minutes.
Today, you attach the document to an email and hit send. That’s an investment of about 30 seconds.

All three delivery systems accomplish the same task but do so in different amounts of time. Think about whether you need to change to a faster system.

Sometimes, this is a software solution. It can also involve performing certain activities at different times.

When you’re at your most productive, don’t invest your time in menial activities. Save those things for when you may feel tired or it’s the end of the day. Remember, doing these things when you’re at 100% or 50% does not affect the outcome.