How are you delivering VALUE in all you do?
VALUE - an interesting word that is often talked about but completely missed in daily activities. This only perpetuates the statistics that projects fail to meet objectives or campaigns fail to meet their targets - they fail to deliver the value expected.
Do you consider how you are delivering value in all you do? If every person on a team constantly looked at how they are delivering value, would the team then end up delivering significant value?
Being part of a volunteer organization where every single activity is done out of one's own selflessness, I found it amazing the energy and effort put into providing value for the members. People who all have full time jobs in addition to their volunteer must absolutely prioritize all that they do. For the service organization, the challenge was put out to ask if every thing they do delivers value, especially board members. You are serving others and if you are not serving their value needs, then your efforts are not delivering the value intended.
Consider every task that is brought up in your work or volunteer organizations and ask "Does this deliver value to our [customer/stakeholder]?" If you have a hard time answering this, you may reconsider the task itself. People in offices often talk about how busy they are. I see it too, personally, that the amount of information moving around seems to create a buzz of activity. However, I find myself asking if what I'm doing is adding value. I found a few simple responses to help me get through my day more efficiently by considering "Am I Delivering Value if I do this task?"
- If I answer "no" then I simply delete it and move on.
- If I think the answer is "no" then I delete it and move on.
- If I answer "yes" then I prioritize it and do it as soon as possible.
- If I think the answer is "yes" then I skip for now and come back after I do the prioritized "Yes" items
"But wait!! Delete? No one deletes ANYTHING around here!!" To this answer - if it is important, someone will bring it up again - guaranteed! And remember what's important to you may not be important to others so you can skip the tasks, but the owner/affected stakeholder may find value and will continue to pursue it. Often if they ask a second time that have more information that provides you the background to turn it into a "Yes" value answer.
What's interesting on the "think the answer is.." options - they are often all No's as either it's clear that you can not articulate the value or you do not have enough information at this time to answer Yes and until then you do not understand the value.
Tricks to try and would love to hear other ideas and thoughts!!!
