Productivity Priorities

Today, Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr. Lee Yi Shyan said Singapore is giving $86 million SGD ($69 million USD) to boost the retail sector’s productivity 25% by 2015. The money will be pushed into the process, people and service with automation being the key emphasis.

While I applaud the effort and the amount of money for our small city state, I question the push to automation VS. true eduction and development of retail workers. If local stores benchmarked against Nordstroms in the USA where daily education and motivation prior to store opening about products and service standards is the norm, our retail workers in Singapore are woefully ill equipped. That is not the fault of the employees.

Retailers, manufacturing, banks, insurance companies, property agents all get sent to training, mostly on an ad hoc basis. We see at SIM the numbers of attendees soar in Q3 & Q4 when budgets need to get used up and drop like a stone in Q1 & Q2 when money is gone or there is ‘still time’ to execute training.

The key is DAILY training. DAILY reminders. DAILY discussions. DAILY pep talks. DAILY targets. DAILY leadership by example. Where to find the time for such a shift? Fewer LONG meetings. Fewer text messages. Fewer emails. Fewer interruptions. Fewer fault findings and blaming. MORE fixing by those who cause the problems to learn through doing.

Spending money is great. Automation when appropriate is wonderful. But I rarely buy on-line or from a machine. I buy most often from knowledgeable people who engage me and in whom I share reciprocal trust and respect. People who know the benefits of what they are selling, how to share those benefits and care about other people.

My new McGraw Hill book, “Productivity: Winning In Life” due in June 2011 shares how every individual can become as productive as possible, achieve their goals, lower stress levels and get home on time. Stay tuned for further announcement.

Got comments or questions about productivity priorities? Just leave your comments to the blog post.

Find Your Quest in Life… An excerpt from my BOOK,  ’Making Better Choices for the Rest of Your Life’ which is published in 2006.

Into the classroom where I was speaking, walked a young deaf girl with an interpreter. Her interpreter was signing or translating my words into sign language for her.

I looked at the young girl and signed over to her, `Hi. Sorry I sign slowly. I am a big dummy. YOU are a beautiful lady.` I had dated a deaf woman for 3 months and learned some basic sign language. What I told her was about all I could remember.

She was so surprised and signed `Thank you!` back to me. From there I proceeded to share my talk…

After the presentation, her interpreter came up to me and said, `I need to speak to you in private for a moment.` I was so nervous. Had I made the wrong sign?

The interpreter shared… `She always felt different in this class being deaf. But today, you made her feel special. You really changed her life.`

WOW! That was it. I felt my heart swell and my energy went up 100-fold. I had always talked AT people. I had never, to my knowledge, changed anyone’s life before. Amazing!

I went home after the talk… and erased all my financial goals on my chalkboard. I replaced them with this single statement of what I was to do with my life. `I will serve God and humankind, and the success and the money will follow.`

Guess what? It did!  From that moment on, everything was different. Instead of focusing on what I could get FROM a client or an audience, I focused on CHANGING LIVES. Once the focus was on service, those who needed the service started flocking to me…

Over time, my Quest statement evolved. Today my Quest is, `To positively influence one BILLION people in my lifetime, for the greater glory of God.` Now THAT gets me out of bed in the morning.

QUESTION: What gets YOU out of bed in the morning?

Got comments or questions ? Just leave your comments here.