Yesterday I went to buy fruit at my local market. Picking out some nice peaches, I noticed that the cherry boxes were empty. So I walked over to a man in a white shirt, who was feverishly stacking lettuce, and asked about the cherries. He had on a nametag that read "Stan."
When you rank problems
according to total cost,
think short term
and long term"I'll go look, be right back, sir," he said, and disappeared through the swinging doors at the back of the store. Stan is always helpful.
Meanwhile I went looking for grapes. They were low, too, as were the nectarines. Unusual, I thought. I moved on, and got lost in thought picking out sweet corn.
A few minutes later, Stan returned and called to me: "Got the cherries, sir."
"Thanks, Stan," I said, as I met him at the cherries. "A little behind today, eh?" I asked.
"Yeah, the morning guy no-showed, and I just can't catch up."
As we chatted, a woman approached and asked about the grapes.
"I'll go look, be right back, ma'am," he said to her, and left again through the swinging doors.
Now I understood: Stan was behind because he had been spending too much time with singleton service requests, and not enough time on catching up. I didn't blame him — he was probably following instructions — but it's a heck of a way to run a produce department.
And that's how many of us deal with similar situations. When we're flooded with problems, and the rowboat is taking on water, we tend to bail with buckets rather than take time out to plug the leaks. Here are some tips for dealing with floods of problems.
- Understand present value
- Rank problems according to total cost — the short-term cost plus the present value of the long-term cost. Giving too much weight to short-term cost can keep you from finding a more effective approach. In the produce department, making a single trip to deal with several stockouts at once could have helped Stan catch up.
- Manage the escalation process
- Why are you flooded? Are problems coming to you when they ought to be dealt with elsewhere? Monitor escalations to ensure that they happen only when they should.
- Detect before affect
- Measure the incidence, resolution, and escalation rates at all levels that deal with problem triage. This alerts everyone in the escalation chain as a pulse of problems moves along. It helps them plan, and prevents the false starts that happen when they have to drop one problem to solve another.
Sometimes the feeling of being flooded is a problem in itself, because we can't think clearly under pressure. Accept that in a flood, you're bound to get a little wet, and focus on clearing the flood as best you can. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
The Mind Reading Trap
- When we think, "Paul doesn't trust me," we could be fooling ourselves into believing that
we can read his mind. Unless he has directly expressed his distrust, we're just guessing, and we can
reach whatever conclusion we wish, unconstrained by reality. In project management, as anywhere else,
that's a recipe for trouble.
If Only I Had Known: II
- Ever had one of those forehead-slapping moments when someone explained something, or you suddenly realized
something? They usually involve some idea or insight that would have saved you much pain, trouble, and
heartache, if only you had known.
Coping and Hard Lessons
- Ever have the feeling of "Uh-oh, I've made this mistake before"? Some of these oft-repeated
mistakes happen not because of obstinacy, or stupidity, or foolishness, but because the learning required
to avoid them is just plain difficult. Here are some examples of hard lessons.
Problem-Solving Preferences
- When people solve problems together, differences in preferred approaches can surface. Some prefer to
emphasize the goal or objective, while others focus on the obstacles. This difference is at once an
asset and annoyance.
Why We Don't Care Anymore
- As a consultant and coach I hear about what people hate about their jobs. Here's some of it. It might
help you appreciate your job.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Problem Solving and Creativity for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming December 11: The Rhyme-as-Reason Effect
- When we speak or write, the phrases we use have both form and meaning. Although we usually think of form and meaning as distinct, we tend to assess as more meaningful and valid those phrases that are more beautifully formed. The rhyme-as-reason effect causes us to confuse the validity of a phrase with its aesthetics. Available here and by RSS on December 11.
And on December 18: The Trap of Beautiful Language
- As we assess the validity of others' statements, we risk making a characteristically human error — we confuse the beauty of their language with the reliability of its meaning. We're easily thrown off by alliteration, anaphora, epistrophe, and chiasmus. Available here and by RSS on December 18.
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