I was at a grand opening yesterday for a local emergency care facility. Very much needed and valued for the community. The primary benefactor began his few comments with words to this effect: “I thought about what I could say that you would remember. Well, here are my notes.” He then held up a piece of paper with a number of slash marks on it.
His comments, and his point, were that there were 26 stop lights between this location and the nearest emergency facility — 26 stop lights that would not have to be navigated now as a result of this facility being built; 26 stop lights that would not now slow down the process of saving someone’s life.
I’ve been thinking about how this relates to [tag]good managers[/tag].
Good managers know there are 26 stop lights — not just that there are a “bunch of stop lights that cause problems.” They know there are twenty-six of them. And they work to find ways to either minimize the number of times employees have to navigate through those stop lights, or to find ways to eliminate them altogether.
Good managers know that employees who have to navigate through 26 stop lights, may still be good employees but have difficulty delivering the desired results because of the stop lights. They know there is a difference between employees who aren’t performing well because they (1) don’t want to, (2) don’t know how to, or (3) have 26 stop lights slowing them down.
However, good employees also learn how to wisely, cautiously, yet aggressively work through those 26 stop lights. They know that it doesn’t matter that there are 2, 26, or 56 stop lights in the way — they figure out how to deliver [tag]business results[/tag] that matter.
In fact, great managers and great employees deliver as much as 30%, 50%+ more results to the business even though they have to deal with the same 26 stop lights as everyone else!
In today’s new economy, there are plenty of stop lights for every business, including yours. What are your managers and employees doing? Are they seeing only the stop lights? Or are they finding ways to create greater value for your business?
Oh, one other thing. The CEO of the health care system said in his comments, this emergency care facility is only the start. They planned for expansion both organizationally and physically to add additional office space as well as full hospital services in the future. Sounds like sound planning to me.
Look for your great managers, great employees, great leaders who use the 26 stop lights to build a future, and then duplicate them to build your winning organization. Faster.
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