Skip to main content

is seeing comprehending?


Oh yeah, visual inspections are why God gave us eyes.  There is not a single machine learning, IoT, computerized environment that can match the skills a human's brain can assess and deliver based on visual feedback. The trick is making sure that the person connected to those eyeballs actually knows what they are looking for!  Face it, aren't the best workers those that can recognize an issue long before it becomes a problem? So instead, is the challenge really not that they can visually see, but instead that they can comprehend and correlate potential challenges? While we have many different definitions for "wisdom" in context of this topic, I think about it as those individuals which have had the most experience, both good and bad. Coincidentally I am a firm believer that the best service people are those that make the most frequent mistakes. When I was in the field I had lots of experience screwing things up. The difference is that I would always check and triple check my work, for the most part nobody else saw those mistakes but me. So we add another dimension to this visual inspection paradox, if I see it and I attempted to work on it but don't double check my work is the third variable, "I just don't give a crap".



Possibly the capability of visual inspection combined with the attributes of comprehending how the pieces fit together, and topped with either a good or bad attitude, can measure up to tell you whether you have a good worker or a poor worker. In essence it's this amalgamation of variables that separate your workforce from strong to weak. A friend of mine, Haig Nalbantian, would describe these in in Mercer's internal labor market model (@mercer) as labor stocks. Value and outcomes are achieved when you can take these labor stocks; punch them through enabling tools, and flow out the other side the right combination of capabilities, attitudes and attributes which positively affect the value you have to your client. Was it Einstein who said "repeating the same process and expecting different results is the definition of insanity"? Isn't that what many of you do day in and day out as we talk about managing and optimizing workforces?  It's time for us to connect the simple act of visual inspection to the valuable components of intuition. For the most part this cannot be accomplished with individuals and instead needs to leverage tools which take in these factors to create "best performer scenarios". If we allow ourselves to only look at things across a single dimension then how are we any better than the human race prior to Christopher Columbus taking sail when the World was assumed to be flat!



-----

Next post:  employees motivated by money?

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

In$pired

As the steam from Avid Andy's coffee fogged his glasses on this crisp January morning, he reflected on last year and thought enthusiastically about the year ahead.   Sometimes the noise of business is deafening, we rarely take the time to contemplate our moves, instead are often thrown one direction or another.   Hey, face it, if you are reading posts to gain perspective you fall in the group of folks who pride themselves as obsequious hoop-jumpers.   We live to help others and expect that all of those around us feel the same way.   I just love Influential Irene.   Okay, it is out in the open, she is an inspiration for me and so many others.   Irene reminds folks every year, without fail, these three statements which she fondly refers to as "the punchline" (although this is no joke).   Businesses, of any size, will be successful if they remember that it is people that make a company.   Put this advice into practice, today: Sincerity |...
Post a Comment
Read more

What happened to Customer Service?

Leaving your customer with the sensation that they are highly revered to your organization, isn't that what customer service is all about? However, in order to obtain that level of connection wouldn't it help if every individual which touched the customer sincerely understood what service you are providing? If we go back to my core belief, expressed in other posts, "people want to do the right thing". Taking that at face value, it leaves our primary jobs as mentors and educators. Many complicate this topic by blaming it on the generations, as a matter of fact that is where I was at when I started to think about composing this post. It is true in some ways that over the years our culture in America has changed. You can experience this by visiting different parts of the United States, for instance go to the deep South and you will get a different level of customer service then you may on either of our coasts. Yet that is really a scapegoat to avoid the root pr...
Post a Comment
Read more