Sunday 5 November 2017

#303 The value of following up

First-time experiences tend to seem more magical. That moment a couple of weeks back, when I walked past my old house and spoke to the new tenant, who'd only just moved in cause they took a year to let the place out again. It's far more romantic than going back a second time two weeks later. There's nothing sensational about a follow-up. Most of the time.

Follow-ups can be hugely impactful though. I did actually walk by that house again this morning and for some reason, the exact same girl was stood in the doorway drinking what I only assume was the same beverage. I looked at her and just started laughing. There was no effort involved.

With the conference earlier this week, I had to really wring out the impact. We had a talk about it with the group. I got to give examples of what the sessions had covered but at the end of the meeting, all we'd done was talk. There were no solid actions written down. So I started the discussion again, managed to get some more attention on the notes I'd taken and eventually arrived at the makings of a commitment. The charity would try to post at least one video on its channel each month.

That might seem really insignificant. I'd spent a whole day and thirteen sheets of paper learning the ins and outs of how to use marketing software and all that had come of it was a slight improvement in the frequency of video uploads. It was a start though. We were changing something. Some of the conference attendees probably didn't even get that far. Spending a whole day attending talks. Paying attention. Talking it over with their teams. Then failing to follow up and ultimately changing nothing.

2 comments

Fizzfan said...

OMG You have just Hi-lighted one of my oft repeated (sometimes quite aggressively) beefs about meetings, conferences and totally valid gripes about just about anything, but particularly business.
SOLUTIONS, and more importantly, putting them into ACTION!!!

We have underwriting guides at work that are almost incomprehensible unless you’ve been working there years. They were of course written by such people.
What’s needed is for them to be written by people who are still at their learning phase, because they have heightened awareness of things making sense.
It’s taken 20 years of me moaning (along with quite a few others) but my current manager has finally agreed ‘something’ needs to be done. Can’t help but think it’s soemthing to do with the imminent influx of 7 newbies from outside the company who will have the bewildering task of understanding how to navigate the mind crushingly complex system before they even have a chance of successfully extracting the information they need.
I’m a great fan of concise, scenario based, step by step, bullet pointed procedure. I am not a fan of whys, wherefores and links unless absolutely necessary, especially when I have someone on the telephone on hold.
Be interested to find out how long ‘something’ will take. I’ll probably have retired.

Well done for bucking the trend of talking to no end. Follow ups are hugely importance! Massive thumbs up!!!


Profound Familiarity said...

I sympathise because joining a new team can be so daunting anyway. When you recruit someone, the amount of preparation you do for that new person effectively tells them how much you care about them.

I'm not denying that good people can forge their own path but nobody's good at everything. Presumably there could be a new joiner who would potentially be a very good underwriter but would really hate the thought of deciphering outdated training material.