Ann hates John, he is rude and offensive. His jokes are cruel and he does a lousy job. Ann is picking up Johns slack all the time. Ann is building frustration and snaps at Jane that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jane is a complainer and talks to the manager about Ann. Ann and Jane are called into a meeting and Ann apologizes and explains that she is just under a bit stress. Ann is even more frustrated.

Who has the worst experience at work?

When you have personal conflicts at the office, there are normally two or more people that dislike the other for some reason. How their day is moving along is depending on the level of frustration and anger inside Ann. John is happy optimist that does not worry too much. If he makes a mistake, he knows that someone else is fixing it, so if he gets an extra sale, well good for the company he thinks. Jane has an outlet of her frustrations and confronts trouble and moves on. Jane do not carry bad luggage around and gets rid of her bad feelings and return to happy land. Ann is even more frustrated because her root cause is still out there.

Do you hate someone at your job?

If you do hold a grudge toward someone at work, you are the only one suffering. You fill your mind with bad feelings like anger, hate, jealousy, envy and contempt and you are starting to project these feelings onto your job as well. Your results will drop and you will be the Grinch that stole the coffee pot. You see all this trouble is reflecting back on you.

How to fix it

Think about what you hate; it is all attributes or actions of the other person. Ann does not hate John, she dislike that he files the contracts wrongly. She hates his jokes and she hates the way John talks to her. This is not John, this is actions John performs. So can John change?

A day at the office

Ann had enough, she had a falling down moment and got into an argument with John. Ann throws a stapler at John, hitting his hand just to break his coffee mug. The manager jumps out of his fox hole and drags them into the office. “What is going on here?” Ann cries, says that she cannot take it anymore. John is shocked, he could never in a million years guess that Ann was feeling this way. John apologizes about his jokes, and promise to be careful with his out of line humor. He also did not know that he filed his contracts wrong, why did you not tell me? He said. The manager explains to John that it might be a good idea to ask for help or communicate in polite way.

John changed his attributes, and Ann and John kept working together for a long time. Turns out that John is an ok guy, not husband material, but he is alright with a bit twisted humor. Jane got fired for fraud, but that is a whole different story…

Do you see how you could treat the attributes of the problem? Think about it; do you hate the person? Or do you hate something this person does? So talk to this person in a polite way about the attributes that makes you uncomfortable and have a great day!

Imagine getting in trouble at work. Imagine that your project failed or imagine that someone is always opposing you. Are you pointing fingers? Will that solve anything for you? Think about the difference between these two small words, who and what.

How would you react if Paul Projectmanager always disagree with you and makes your day miserable by being negative and destructive? Is Paul a problem? Are your ideas better if you get rid of Paul and fire him?

Stop thinking about who is causing the problem; start thinking about what to do to solve the problem.

By removing the person behind the “who”, you might just get a new problem as a new alpha member of the tribe steps up and becomes the new head of annoyment and source of all evil around the office.

What is causing the problem might give you a total different answer. It might end up with a who, but at least you are displaying ability to think first. Paul Projectmanager might just feel ignored; maybe you are being a bad manager? It might be an Andy Accountant that is being the problem because he smells and this is so annoying to all the other co-workers and nobody can fathom why you’re not doing anything about it. Or you might just need a candy bar vending machine to get the sugar levels rising?

I figure you have gotten the point by now.

Are you currently reading my blog, while being at work? Chances are that 1 out of 4 other employees are goofing off as well right now. 25 % of office time is wasted doing personal stuff like checking personal e-mail, chatting, using Facebook or reading news, according to several questionnaires. Since you are reading my blog, you are not wasting office hours; you are currently investing in future employee productivity enhancements, time well spent.

My conclusion is simple; you will with this knowledge get an easy head start of winning at the office, and creates a momentum that will get your results to the top in no time.

So what can you do?

• Do not check your private e-mails at work.
• Do not use your company e-mail for personal e-mails.
• Do not log on Facebook or other social media, unless you use it for work related issues.
• Create a MSN account for use at work, with only co-workers and professional contacts in it.
• Read news in the morning before work or/and after work.
• Use online banking service, instead of leaving the office.
• Do not play computer games, or online games. – What feels like one minute online, is five minutes in real life. Do not play even at breaks or at lunch hour.

If you manage to follow these few steps you will gain a upper hand on your fellow co-workers.

Real life example
I have been working at a call center since February 2006. Call center metrics has become a fascinating subject in my life. In this line of business we focus on seconds. Talk time, in between calls time, handling time, response time and time on breaks. All of these measured in seconds. So what do the best call center employees do? Let me show you some examples:

Agent A
Average handling time: 320 seconds
Average wrap up time: 30 seconds
Numbers of calls handled: 50

Agent B
Average handling time: 260 seconds
Average wrap up time: 45 seconds
Numbers of calls handled: 52

Agent C
Average handling time: 200 seconds
Average wrap up time: 25 seconds
Numbers of calls handled: 60

Which is doing the best job? At first it might seem that Agent C is doing the best job, handling 60 calls. Great job! But as a call center manager I have learned that looking at one number only will get you lost.

Lets add up their time:
Agent C has spent 3 hours and 45 minutes handling the 60 callers.
Agent B has spent 4 hours and 24 minutes handling the 52 callers.
Agent A has spent 4 hours and 51 minutes handling the 50 callers.

This means that Agent A has spent most time with the customers, and using most of this day effective.

Improvements: Agent A needs to shorten handling time. Agent B needs to shorten his wrap up time and improve time on the phone. Agent C needs to spend more time working.

These examples prove that improvements can be done.
If Agent C spends as much time available on the phone as agent A, Agent C will handle 17 more calls. An improvement of 28 % – Maybe we will find a lot of facebook activity at Agent C’s profile?

Lets debate
Some will argue that Agent C still does the best job, as she handles most callers, and Agent C deserve to have some fun in between. My experience is that that I agree to a certain point. The agents that are spending a lot of time available, feels that Agent C is goofing off leaving the rest to do the work. A mental change needs to be implemented at the office for a result only environment.
The point of this article is not to debate this either, but to show you that improvements can be done, and by eliminating time thieves you will be able to spend more time doing a great job. Imagine Agent C delivering 77 calls and the rest averaging at 50… Agent C would be a legend in no time.

Think smart, improve tremendously…

Tell me your worst story of wasting company time, or have you experienced great improvements by eliminating time thieves? Please share.

I have been reading again, this time about sports psychology. And I have been watching the TV-show “Air Crash Investigations”. So I have been thinking lately about what I am getting out of this. My mind is continuously returning to two things that keep grabbing the attention of my cortex, visualization and checklists. How can I use this in my job? And can you benefit from this in your job?

Visualization
To improve their own performance a pro athlete use visualization in order to imagine their own movements. How should they move their arms what does a great performance look like? I like the thought of bringing this into the office. How should a great day look? How should you close the sales? What does a great dialogue with a customer feel like? Can you picture yourself having a great day at work? What are you doing? What should you focus on, to get the outcome you want? After you have found out what a good day at work looks like, analyze it to find out the things that you contribute with and just do it.

If anything goes wrong, or for any other procedure you will find a checklist in aviation. I have been watching Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic Channel lately, and no I am not scared of flying. What I see in this TV show is all the work they are doing to prevent these things from happening again; it helps me feel more secure in a plane. So what can we learn? Checklists are a good thing. It will make sure that things run smoothly. Let’s bring this into the cubicle nation. Imagine that you hire someone new, have you ever forgotten something? Like providing stationary, or username for the local network or access to some program, or maybe even forgot to provide a desk? If you miss a thing or two, your first impression will suffer and you might see a drop in motivation. I got feedback from one of my employees that the first time alone on nightshift was scary, – Note to self, put into my checklist that I will be here the first time someone new is alone on night shift. It will never happen again, if you use a checklist.

Imagine someone leaving your company, have you made sure to shut down access to your customer database? Or to forward e-mail from their old address to the main address of the department or company? If a customer e-mails someone that left a long time ago, and they do not get an answer, your company is the one that suffers.

Imagine how you should have a great day at work.
And then write down the things you can do or influence. Voila you got your first checklist  

Writing a blog post about checklists and visualization; Checked.