There are important places to visit in your organization. Have you been there?
Over the last few days I’ve run into a few articles regarding “best places to travel to in 2011.” Of course this usually involves a sun-soaked beach or hip European metropolis. However I began thinking about this concept and wondered about the positive benefit of applying the same approach at work. So here are my choices as “places to go” in your company. If you take these trips over the year I promise you that you will learn a lot and be able to do your job better. Ok, we’d all rather be in Maui but work with me on this:
- Customer Service. See if you can meet with someone from CS to learn about the concerns expressed by customers. Even better… get on the phone with them for an hour or so. Customer complaints are great vehicles for learning.
- Order Processing. Someone processes the orders customers make. Do you know how that happens? What can you learn from seeing an order fulfilled?
- Accounts Receivable. What is it like to follow up with customers who are late payers? What process is used? How is this done with respect?
- IT Helpdesk. What is it like being on call at the help desk? What do they do daily?
- Coffee with a Senior Leader. Pick one leader you’ve not spent much time. Tell them you’d like to learn about their leadership philosophy. Ask for 15 minutes over coffee.
- What other “vacation” spots, unique to your company, can you visit?
You and I likely have our hands full with our own work assignments. It may seem presumptuous to want to spend time to learning about other areas. However I believe “traveling to another viewpoint” over coffee or lunch is very rewarding. It is very respectful to genuinely learn from others in our workplace. It helps us understand our work more in relationship to others. We’ll all be better because of it.
- Action: Let’s you and I get our passports stamped around our workplace. Let’s learn by visiting colleagues.
Live the Triangle,
Lorne