As the famous saying goes, “ideas are a dime-a-dozen, but the men and women who implement them are priceless”.
The world is full of people with great ideas motivated with the best of intentions and yet the majority of them never seem to perform. Such people will invariably make poor leaders.
NOTHING GREAT CAN EVER BE ACCOMPLISHED WITHOUT FOLLOWING UP!
What makes a good follow-up?
1. Listen
We must learn to listen. We need to have the patience to hear every detailed concern about challenges that our peers, staff, managers, customers and leaders face in the field. By listening, we can genuinely appreciate what others are going through and become motivated to do something about the problem.
2. Involve others to help formulate the solution
There are many perspectives in life and we all need to hear different ideas or solutions on how we can get things done. After hearing all sides, we can decide what course of action is best to take.
3. Follow-up and follow through
This is only possible if you know where you’re going! It is only possible if you have a goal and you have shared that same goal to the people in your team.
Build a program in your department where you make it a point to hear opinions, comments, or suggestions from your team. Such feedback processes should be programmed into our business culture. This will help us to listen carefully to what people have to say about us.
What is more important is that we gain an indication of an action plan in response to what we have heard. Feedback and following up like this allows us to:
1. Analyse and implement a possible solution
2. Test the solution with selected target groups
3. Take results back to the team
4. Enlist the full support of everyone on the team
5. Implement effective changes
Please take a moment to ponder… if we learn to follow-up and to follow-through properly, then we can all make the necessary changes to improve our company.
A simple follow through of ideas is what will get things done.
Sincerely,
Dear Mr Bismark,
It’s great to see you encourage the need to listen, follow up and follow through.
In my personal experience, sometimes, when we push and follow through and have expectations (high?), we are hammered for having nothing else better to do or being too free.
It kind of wears a person down. We also need leaders/employees who need to stop to listen and understand and value the people who make an effort to follow up and follow through instead of picking on them and judging them. In the race for results, we sometimes fail to stop and listen.
That’s my humble opinion.
Regards,
Malti Johl – Training & Development Manager QI Ltd
Dear Malti,
Your feedback is spot on. It is indeed a shame that those who are conscientious about their job and who take personal responsibility for projects in which they are involved, are considered to have ‘nothing better to do’. On the contrary, following through and following up on projects is an important part of anyone’s job. No one works in isolation and we must be sure that work we have done is being properly utilised and/or being addressed by the next person in the chain. At the end of the day, it is of little use to anyone if we have tunnel vision when it comes to our work projects.
It is a true skill to be able to manage your time so that amongst your hurry to complete incoming work, you do not simply wash your hands of a project as soon as your part of the job is complete. It is the mark of a good business person who can look at the past, present and future of their work ‘production line’. This is important so that we are simultaneously aware of work about to land on our desk; are producing high quality results with the work we currently have in front of us; and are also following through on work we have already completed.
Thank you for your feedback Malti and may we all strive to follow up and follow through within our company.
Sincerely,
Joseph Bismark