7 Steps to Success

Step 7:  Develop a Patrol Pattern and Inspection Sequence.  Success depends on correct performance in many locations in the new job and at many process points. Once you know the 20% of tasks that must be performed 80% of the time and also know the 20% of the faults that occur 80% of the time, you soon realize that you can prevent serious problems by patrolling your job territories.  It makes sense that you should raise your head on a regular basis and move around the different people and points of processing in your job to check that things are running, as they should.  While doing this patrol, you should look for symptoms of developing faults.  When you find a fault developing, address it appropriately to restore things to controlled conditions.  The difference between a successful operator or manager and an average performer is the ‘Patrol Pattern and Inspection Sequence’.  Top performers stay on top of things by using this technique, as you’ll see in the later chapter on this topic.

Step 6:  Compile a list of the faults that may occur in the job.  In every job, things go wrong.  Some things go wrong more often than others. The Pareto 20/80 principle is true in the study of faults on the job.  It’s important to be proactive and ask people who know the job about the typical fault conditions that might occur.  When you schedule time to talk to people with experience in your new job and anyone responsible for oversight and quality control for the job, you’ll find that you can compile a list of job faults.

Step 5:  Compile checklists for critical processes.

Step 4 in the 7 Steps involves creating INs and OUTs charts for each of the process steps in a job -or at least the 20% of Steps that are performed 80% of the time.

This podcast introduces Job Entrants to Pareto’s 20/80 principle that applies to all frequencies of tasks in a job.

In this short podcast, Les Cowie introduces new job entrants to the concept of “Flow” in the job and the importance of charting the typical and non-typical process flows.  This is Step 2 of the 7 Steps outlined in the book:  “New Job? Fast Start! 7 Steps to be seen mastering your new job quickly.”  (Available on Amazon) or www.lescowie.com.  “Flow” follows after the Step 1 podcast in which Les discusses charting the internal and external territories in the job.

Step 1:  Define the job’s environments.  Every job operates within definable environments.  You can describe these as internal and external environments. Internal Environment The Internal Environment is the space where the job happens.  We define the internal environment by all the ‘things’ that are within that ‘unique’ space.  These things can include equipment, furniture, utilities, appliances, electronics, books, computer applications, paperwork, and signage used in that ‘definable space’.   Space may be an office, a workshop, a floor space (as in retail or restaurant), even a cockpit (as in the case of a pilot or vehicle driver).  As simple as it might sound, one of your first tasks is to establish “What’s the space in which my new job functions and what are the things in it I’ll use to perform the job?” External Environment Every job has its own definable external environment.  In most cases, this relates to how you interact with other people. It includes how you relate to departments and facilities within your new organization and outside of it.  Plotting the external environment requires an understanding of all the relevant interactions the new job requires and how much time is typically spent interacting with other departments, functions or people.  In your new job, you’ll interact with some people more than others.

The book, “New Job? Fast Start! 7 Steps” offers seven simple tools to accelerate the time between starting the job and being in command of the position.  We encourage you to reach out and not wait for someone to take you by the hand.  Instead, actively seek answers for the things you need to know.  The 7 Steps in this book will assist you to capture a quick ‘picture’ of the job content.  The 7 Steps Process is like taking an X-ray view of the job from seven different angles.  Even if you’re moving into a position similar to the one you held in another company, your new company has its differences.  Most companies have their unique cultural and procedural differences. If you use these 7 Steps and apply them carefully, you’ll be able to focus on the critical elements in the job with the correct perspective.

Awesome!   You have landed a new job.  Now what?  Are you like most new job entrants who want to get off to a good start? Do you want to make favorable impressions quickly?  Do you have an action plan for how to understand what will make you successful early in the new job?  Most job entrants approach the first few days hesitantly.  Typically, they wait for someone to set them up and get them started.  They expect people in the organization to step forward and enthusiastically offer explanations, training and help.  If you intend to approach your next job in that way, you’re headed for a rough, uncomfortable start.

Do you fear being dumped in your new job, left to learn the job through trial-and-error?  This happens to the majority of job entrants, even after a well run corporate sign-on and onboarding process.  If new job entrants are equipped with 7 X-Ray videos of a job and are then given the minimum ‘Things-to-Do’ and ‘Questions-to-Ask’, they will very quickly capture the job content and be seen to be successful quickly.

Most job entrants want to get off to a good start. They want to make favorable impressions quickly.   However, most job entrants approach the first few days of employment hesitantly.  Typically, they wait for someone to set them up and get them started.  They expect people in the organization to step forward and enthusiastically offer explanations, training and help.  Usually they become disillusioned and anxious in the first few days.  What can an organization do to bring new job entrants to an effective level of productivity and customer satisfaction quickly?  Les Cowie, author of the book for job entrants:  “New Job? Fast Start! 7 Steps to be seen mastering your new job quickly”, and a special edition for In-Company Mentors “7 Steps for Employees to Be Successful Quickly” explains the 7 X-Ray views he uses to capture the most relevant job content.

In the book:  “Job?  Fast Start! 7 Steps to be seen mastering your new job quickly”, author Les Cowie shows how job entrants can quickly learn to be effective in any job.  Cowie shows how any occupation can be viewed from seven different points of view.  Job entrants learn how to identify the 20% of activities that will occur 80% of the time in the job and 20% of faults that may occur 80% of the time.  Job entrants learn to know with whom they should build relationships to be effective and thriving in the job.  Each job entrant is encouraged to create a mini reference manual to help implement critical activities in an occupation.  Employees prepare to be upwardly-mobile in their new company. This version of the 7 Steps approach examines the value to a corporation for introducing an in-company 7 Step program to distribute the tasks of job research and content capture.  The book illustrates the application of the 7 Steps to different types of occupation up the organization tree.  It recommends the training and appointment of In-Company Mentors to guide employees applying the 7 Steps to their jobs.  It shows how the implementation of the 7 Step approach drastically reduces corporate costs in capturing job content and developing effective training programs.

Les Cowie offers solutions to executives, managers, and supervisors who wish to make job entrants productive quickly.  Recruitment is one thing.  On-boarding is another.  But providing specific job training for new job entrants is a challenge for most organizations, whether commercial, manufacturing, healthcare, service, education, or government. Cowie explores the difficulties faced by Talent Developers in getting relevant job content on which to build and package effective training programs.  Cowie introduces “Distributed Content Development” by contrasting a “page from the past” with a “page from the future.”  He states that organizations can capture relevant job content by training In-Company Mentors from experienced people already employed and teaching them to guide job entrants in the use of his “7 Steps to be seen mastering your new job quickly”.  He states how this can be done economically and very quickly; and in a way that will enhance customer satisfaction, employee loyalty, job productivity, and bottom-line improvements.