"Inspect what you Expect"
I'm not sure who gets credit for the quote above, but I've found it very helpful in the past couple of weeks. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you've asked a team member to handle something, you delegate it, and then "hope" it's dealt with. Later on, you find that it wasn't, or it wasn't done up to the pre-determined company standards.
In my busy life as CEO of two businesses, salesman, sales manager, real estate investor, father, husband, world traveler, and who can forget pool shark hobbyist, I often forget to circle back and inspect what I expect. I end up abdicating vs. delegating, leaving loose ends and a lack of accountability. This is a fatal flaw. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that one should micromanage people all the time, follow up on everything, and not trust your team to get the job done -- But there is a dichotomy to this. Inspecting what you expect is especially important when building new habits, new processes, or managing multi-step projects or tasks with many moving parts.
By putting in a few additional accountability measures in the project's process in the past few weeks, I have found that we can go further, faster, even with taking more steps. We have greater clarity on who is doing what and checks and balances to review what was done and ensure that there is updated documentation. By going just a little slower, we can go so much faster!
We can build new habits by double-checking, following up, and holding the line. Saying something once, or maybe even twice, and then thinking it will magically happen, is flawed, especially when building new processes. It takes repetition, it takes persistence, it takes practice, and it takes management.
If you are a manager, remember to inspect what you expect.
