Is that they usually aren’t. There are three reasons:

1. Their impact is too small to register on any performance scale as a ‘win’. This means that the project is never at the top of anyone’s list of priorities and is never fully delivered.
2. They consume more effort than you originally estimate. The lack of progress means that you have to spend more time managing your project and communicating with and influencing your reluctant stakeholders.
3. They prevent you from getting on with more important projects. This is the biggest reason of all. As Apple boss, Steve Jobs, once said, “It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”

So what should you do instead? The simple answer is to get on with the important stuff. If something is valuable, but difficult, that is all the more reason to do it.

Quick Wins are only justified when they are an intrinsic part of delivering a Big Win. By all means celebrate your early, small victories that form critical early steps towards a major business improvement, but don’t get sucked into the vortex of project madness where you end up pursuing quick wins for the sake of it.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

Is Customer Hindrance, and is defined as a company’s ability to make it harder, more expensive and less rewarding for their customers to do business with them.

Perhaps surprisingly, many companies still think that this is the way to go in driving profits and growth. In the last 72 hours, for example, I’ve come across these three examples of ‘excellence’ in customer hindrance:

1. The Post Office. I wanted to send 100 ‘large letters’ first class. The cost per letter was 96 pence, and so I asked for 100 of these stamps. “Oh sorry,” said ‘Cashier Number 2’, “they don’t make 96 pence stamps. You can either get a 90p, 5p and a 1p or buy some 97 pence stamps.” Thinking of the health of my tongue, I paid the £97 and quickly left. But how can Royal Mail impose a standard charge of 96p without a stamp to back it up?
2. LloydsTSB. There was a queue of about 5 people in the bank yesterday. Luckily there were three cashiers and so I expected that I would be seen pretty quickly. What I hadn’t realised was that two of the three cashiers were in place, not to serve customers, but to mindlessly tap away on over-sized calculators and ignore and frustrate the people who want to do business with them. Perhaps I should have known better. After all, this is the same bank that still hasn’t processed the credit card application I completed in December last year - even though I kindly filled out a second form in February!
3. Sports Direct. Yes, I know, what do I expect from a low price, bargain-bin store? Well, foolishly my wife had hoped for a tiny bit of common sense and an ability of the store manager to ‘do the right thing’. My son spent his £10 Sports Direct voucher on a new football (he only had 10 already, poor thing), but two days later it was flat due to a faulty valve. My wife took it back, knowing that if the goods were defective the receipt, which she’d mislaid, was not required. The store manager refused to accept any responsibility, repeatedly reciting this mantra, “Our policy says, our policy says, our policy says….”

Delivering stand-out customer service is not so hard when the competition has such low standards. It simply requires that you remove the hindrances that make it harder for your potential customers to do business with you. Unfortunately, this is an approach that the Post Office, LloydsTSB and Sports Direct have yet to master.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

I am increasingly convinced that success requires a certain level of selfishness that many managers and executives are simply unwilling to reach. Rather than run the risk of upsetting one of their colleagues, or, even worse, their boss, they toe the line and end up focusing on delivering others’ objectives and priorities, rather than their own.

Being selfish is not necessarily bad. By focusing on what’s important to you, you are more likely to improve your levels of performance and, perhaps counter-intuitively, be in a better position to help others. After all, if you’re tired, frustrated and lack enthusiasm how can you really be of use to someone else?

Here are 9 ways in which you can improve your performance and be of more value to yourself, your organisation and other people by increasing your level of selfishness.

1. Clarify your top 3 priorities - and prioritise them. How much time do you really spend on your priorities rather than other stuff? How much more benefit could you provide by ruthlessly delivering on the top objectives you have identified?
2. Block out chunks of time for your priority tasks. Too many executives’ days are split into 5 or 10 minute chunks. The problem with this approach is that you get nothing important done. Progress is made when you devote a reasonable chunk of time to an important issue, say at least 2 hours. How often, for example, do you set aside half a day to single-mindedly focus on moving forward one of your key priorities?
3. Don’t let people put their monkey on your back. The opposite of focusing on your priorities, is focusing on someone else’s. In an organisational hierarchy this cannot be completely avoided, but I feel confident that you have huge potential to reduce your involvement in issues that others should be sorting out for themselves.
4. Reduce your level of guilt. Much of people’s unwillingness to adopt a more selfish approach is a lack of self-confidence and feelings of guilt that you’re letting someone down. Get over it; ask yourself where you can best devote your energies today, and focus on that.
5. Take an 80:20 approach to all your work. Don’t seek perfection, it only frustrates. Brain surgeons may need to give 100%, but for the rest of us, most of the time, other people simply don’t value the perfection we try to deliver.
6. Stop attending meetings you don’t need to be at. Unnecessary meetings are the biggest energy-suckers around. Do what it takes to avoid them – delegate to someone else, influence the meeting owner to change the format, attend only for the relevant bits, but do something to give you the time back that you deserve.
7. Ignore low priority tasks. It’s amazing how often, after you return from a vacation, that you can simply delete a whole stream of emails on issues that resolved themselves during your break. Guess what? They can sort themselves out when you’re back at work too; you don’t need to get involved in low priority stuff.
8. Turn off your phone and your email. We have become slaves to phone ring tones and email alerts, answering them immediately and then getting involved in resolving the issues raised. Why? Virtually all issues can wait an hour or two. I have my phone on silent and review calls every hour or so, and only check my emails two or three times a day. These actions help me focus on what’s important to me, not urgent to someone else.
9. Use all your talents. We are more satisfied and perform better when all our talents are being used. If you like singing, for example, take time out once a week or so to join a singing group. Yes, you may not be available for others at that time, but your greater personal satisfaction will make you a much better person to be around.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

For the past 12 months or so I have added coaching services to my business, and have been helping successful executives become more effective.

There is a lot of mystique surrounding coaching, but it is a relatively simple, common sense process. I have set out 8 steps below for you to improve your own performance.

You do not necessarily need anyone else to make these things happen, but, for most of us, an external partner helps. The two areas where I have been able to add most value are:

• Improving self-awareness. Before setting priorities you should first understand what you would like to achieve with your life or career, and where you currently are in relation to these top level goals. An external perspective or questioning that a coach can bring can help you start to see the wood for the trees.
• Holding people accountable. Steps 5 and 6 below are about working with someone else to keep your feet to the fire, as well as helping you understand when you’ve made progress.

Here are the 8 steps:

1. Clarify your top 3 priorities. What are the areas that you can drive forward to help you achieve your wider goals? Don’t automatically focus on your perceived weaknesses. Take time to assess what will have the greatest impact. If you build on your strengths it is likely that you will make more progress. Why 3 priorities? The point is to focus, make big progress on a few points and then take on your next challenges. It could be two, it could be four, but five or six priorities are generally too many.
2. Turn your priorities into specific, achievable objectives. “Learning the piano” may be one of your major ambitions, but to move forward you need to turn this goal into more prosaic objectives. A goal of having 10 piano lessons in the next 3 months makes this goal real and helps you create action.
3. Set up a 60 or 90-day plan to deliver your goals. You can get a lot done in 2 or 3 months if you maintain focus and commitment. Break down each objective into weekly milestones and commit to them.
4. Make delivery of these plans non-negotiable. Make sure that these milestones are your top priorities. Fit other activities around them, not vice versa. A good way to make this is happen is to…
5. Find an accountability partner. Being accountable to a third party keeps your feet to the fire, and helps you to keep your promises. Your partner shouldn’t be a friend, or a shoulder to cry on, but someone whom you trust and who is willing to give you honest, objective feedback.
6. Monitor your performance. If, for example, you wish to improve your ability to delegate, set yourself daily goals and write a brief journal each evening on what you did well and where you missed an opportunity. Compare your own views of your performance with feedback from others you trust. As you become more aware of your performance you will rapidly improve it.
7. Reward yourself. As you achieve your goals and plans (and even as you complete difficult tasks) take the time to reward yourself. This need not involve a huge financial outlay, but could be leaving early from work one day to spend more time with your family, or enjoying a nice coffee.
8. Rinse and repeat. Once you’ve achieved success repeat the process and, over time, you will transform your personal effectiveness.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.