The PMA Blog

Automate your repetitive processes.

Identifying all repetitive tasks in a process is a great way to quickly surface opportunities for automation.

Consider templates, checklists and rules in Outlook, Gmail, OneNote, Keep and other applications as a non-programmers option for automating. With increases in communications, an automated process for client contacts can save a team a bunch of time. Scheduling applications like Fullslate, AppointmentPlus, Acuity, TimeTap and Bookings (free in MS 365) can save everyone on the team countless hours playing phone tag and emailing people with new appointment options when you work with external clients or vendors whose schedules you can't see.

Raise your hand if this scenario sounds familiar: you’re 55 minutes into your one-hour team meeting to introduce a new change, you wanted your team to weigh in, and now you’re heading down a rabbit hole that you don’t think you can get out of.  You know that one of two scenarios are inevitable: you risk running over and making people late for their next appointments, or someone is bound to leave feeling thoroughly unsatisfied. As managers, how do we get in front of this phenomenon while still giving people a voice?

Think back to the last time you suggested a new idea to someone else. It could have been as simple as a new recipe for dinner at home, or as involved as suggesting a new way to solve a complex problem at work. How was that information received? Did people go along with your suggestion, or were you met with resistance that surprised you?

In our Change Leadership and Change Readiness workshops, we often begin by polling the room and asking who thinks that they respond well to change. Here is what normally happens: a handful of hands go up immediately (maybe 1/3 of the room), some people admit that they’re not too fond of change, and most people will say that it depends.  People are open to change when it directly benefits them, or better yet, when it was their suggestion.  So what is a leader to do when a change coming from the organizational leadership is met with resistance? 

In last year's Forbes article, "How To Get Even More From Your Technology:  Turn It Off", Kevin Ready makes the case that in order to overcome the evils of our technology, we should walk away or turn it off.  

He's not wrong about the evils, and occasionally walking away or turning it off creates a much needed techno-break. However, I believe there's a far more valuable answer:  Get control of your technology!

Don't let it overwhelm and distract you.  With a few rules for wrestling it under control and modifying your behavior, your tools can be useful and productive, not your enemy.

At Priority Management Associates, we teach people to take the following approach:

Assess it - Learn it - Control it - Work it

Listening to customers and delivering truly “mind-blowing” service can be a very effective way to engage your team .  The following anecdote has been relayed countless times as a story of great customer service, but the untold story is the one of how a phenomenal team mobilized to make it happen.