Deliver Results – Be productive. While effort is appreciated, we reward and celebrate results. Set high goals, use measurements to track your progress, and hold yourself accountable for achieving those results.
The 5 Game Changers that Ensure a Manager Delivers Results On Time:
- Great Organizational Skills – a manager who gets results is one who can plan, outline, delegate
- Good Enough is Good Enough – the best managers don’t try to be a perfectionist and have learned to recognize when a job that is not perfect is still done right.
- Team Work – an effective manager knows that effective leadership is never done alone.
- Fast Work Pace – the successful manager knows that time is of the essence, and what a powerful competitive advantage it is.
- Laying out the Process – knowing where you’re headed is key to achieving your goals.
Effective leaders who deliver results on time are among the first to deliver on their objectives, frequently exceed many of their target dates and exhibit a faster work pace than most. Best of all, they never suffer quality, cost or morale issues.
Getting the Right Things Done to get Results
What do these 5 “game changers” all have in common with each other? They focus on getting the right things done. The most successful individuals and organizations are able to focus their attention on getting the right things done. As Peter Drucker highlights: ‘Productivity for the knowledge worker means the ability to get the right things done. It means effectiveness. Knowledge work is defined by its results.’ Organizations get results when individuals are equipped with the appropriate skills and are energized to do the right thing at the right time. Achieving results means being effective or productive which is different from being efficient as demonstrated in the following definitions:
- Productivity = Effectiveness (Doing the Right Things)
- Performance = Efficiency (Doing Things Right)
So what are the ‘right things’? These could be described as results that contribute to organizational goals, client satisfaction and ‘the bottom line’. One key behavior in doing the right things is distinguishing between important and urgent tasks and prioritizing effectively, even from apparently equal demands. Somehow we are all drawn to focus our attention on activities rather than results. Being busy does not necessarily imply being effective.
Consistently Deliver Great Work
The reason any of us are trying to improve our productivity is to deliver our construction projects more consistently. Delivering is all well and good, but if you deliver stuff that is less than what you’re capable of, then you’re letting others – and yourself – down. Here are three things that you can do to help you deliver great work time and time again.
- Start before you’re ready. Good things happen when we start before we’re ready. For one thing our blood heats up. Courage begets more courage. You can’t deliver what you don’t start. You’ll find reasons to delay starting if you’ve got a propensity to not finish as well so start. Now!
- Say “yes” to less. Every time you add a new idea or project to your plate, you crowd the plate. That makes the plate far more daunting to deal with, let alone enjoy. Before you say “yes” to something, put it through the wringer. Check it against your current commitments and how it fits in. The goal is to deliver quality results.
- Review regularly. It’s imperative to look back at your successes and failures so that you’ll be able to move forward int he right direction on a consistent basis. Block out time on your calendar to review the week. Reviewing yourself allows you to better measure yourself and your progress. That’s how you’ll improve consistently…and deliver great work consistently as well.
Flashes of Brilliance and Long Spans of Mediocrity
Which is better, delivering consistent results that meet expectations or being less consistent while sometimes exceeding expectations?
Foreman, Superintendents, and Managers need consistent results that they can rely on. They also need exceptional performers who can solve the tough problems. Ideally, supervisors at every level want someone who can do both, but that is a rare find.
Most supervisors have more than one person on their team, so they may strike a balance of employees who consistently deliver but struggle with the tougher assignments versus those that are less consistent but can handle the tougher challenges. Definitely those that can do both will rise to the top and be noticed. But over the long term, in my opinion an individual who delivers results consistently and makes a conscious and active effort to improve should do better than the person who delivers less consistently but shows remarkable achievements from time to time.
If you are the inconsistent star, that means you’re letting your supervisor down far more often than a coworker who falls closer to the “always consistent” side of the spectrum. At some point your inconsistent behavior will tarnish your supervisor’s reputation as a consistent performer which will get noticed, and that’s when it will catch up with you.
