No matter how hard we try to keep things running smoothly in our workplace there is always the chance that somehow, someway, someone throws a monkey wrench into the day that unexpectedly causes a “collision” (metaphorically speaking) that changes the course of efficiency and productivity for the team. When this happens it may be hard for some of the team members to recover and be able to get back to a productive work routine, which can then throw off their whole day completely. Working with the public we know that this can happen, but when it comes from within the troops in the workplace it can be a bit of a sticky situation if not handled right and right away. Today we had one of these situations in our office, apparently somehow there were two clients scheduled to come in for foot spa services back-to-back, without giving time to turn over the room and also not leaving enough time for the services to be completed without having one client wait. Making people wait for appointments is bad enough because we need to be respectful of others time, but our co-worker who was rendering the services was taken away from her routine duties much longer than she should have been, thus causing her less time to complete what she normally needs to do. The staff discussed this situation right away trying to figure out how this happened, so we could make sure it did not happen again, but we still had a tough situation that was caused internally. Had we been using Consequence-based thinking at the time these appointments were made we could have avoided this “snag” in the day. When you use Consequence-based thinking members of the team are weighing their decisions against the impact they will have in the practice or business. It means being pro-active to control the outcomes instead of being reactive after the outcomes (which is what happened to us today). Thinking this way at work is “seeing the bigger picture” understanding how our individual decisions will affect the good of the many or the bad. Many times we do not allow ourselves the moment that it will take to see the bigger picture and therefore our decisions may not be the best for all involved. It is important for the team members to see how what they do is connected to the rest of the team and that their decisions do affect others and the business as a whole. Take a few moments in your next weekly meeting to discuss how your team members need to see the bigger picture and understand that their decisions individually affect the team as a whole. Thinking about the consequences first before making decisions really can make for a better day and workplace for all. Get on the right track.. toot..toot..all aboard for consequence-based thinking.
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