Where is your Energy Directed?
This Father’s Day, I was invited to buy my family breakfast at the local pancake house. We weren’t the only ones in town with this idea, and were placed on a waiting list with a promised fifteen to twenty minute wait. I took mental note of who looked like they were there the longest and asked them how long they had been waiting.
“15 minutes,” they said.
I took my place in line and looked around some more. Empty tables not bussed. Patrons sitting with waters but no food or coffee. Two frazzled looking waitresses and a manager running around the expansive restaurant. It was clear that it may be 20 minutes to get a table, but it was going to be longer than that to get fed. I looked at my hangry teenage boys and made a decision to leave, inadvertently encouraging half of the patrons to walk out with me.
The pancake people were obviously working hard, giving 100%, but that wasn’t enough.
It happens in your company too. Your team members giving 100% of their energy is a given. What I want you to consider is where your team’s 100% effort goes. They are directing some of their energy to what’s going on inside the company, and they are directing some of their efforts to what’s going on outside the company.
Quick self-assessment. Out of the 100% effort that your team gives to your company, what is the breakdown between energy spent internally versus energy spent externally?
What happens if we dedicate just 10% more externally? Specifically, 10% more energy spent thinking about our customers?
It’s an exercise I do with my clients on a regular basis. You need some internal focus to get things done, but if you take it too far, customers suffer.
Back to that pancake house. What if they had just a little more external focus? What would they think about?
Father’s Day happens once a year. Staffing will be a problem. Customers will be cranky while waiting in line. Every restaurant will be facing the same thing. What can we do to take advantage of that traffic? What can be done to deal with the inevitable crank who gets out of the house just three times a year? What can we do to make sure we can turn the tables as fast as possible?
A few hours spent thinking about their customers would have altered my mid-morning visit for everyone.
Where is your team’s energy directed?