We’re midway through summer and there’s been a lot happening for sports fans out there – major league baseball (Go Jays!); World Cup soccer, Wimbledon, the Commonwealth Games… and we still have so much to look forward to the rest of the summer.
It’s fascinating to see the stadiums packed to the rafters, with countless fans cheering on their favourite teams and players - faces painted, rally caps firmly in place, cringing and hiding their faces as they try to will their team to a comeback, or revelling in the throes of a win. Fans unite in the boundless, even if vicarious, joy of victory, and commiserate in the agony of defeat. But why? Why do we invest so much emotion and money, attending games and buying merchandise, in the seemingly superfluous past time that is professional sports?
It’s the dream.
We put ourselves in the players’ place, or what we perceive to be, their reality. Think about it, to get paid millions of dollars to play… a game. What could be better than that?
Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely worse ways to earn a living – but I think that the day-to-day work lives of professional athletes are far more similar to ours than we care to believe. I mean, listen to any athlete during an interview. When posed with the question, “What is the key to your success?” - I have yet to hear even one of them say, “It’s completely because of my incredible talent that I was lucky enough to be born with.”
No. Every one of them uses words like:
Hard work, Commitment, Practice, Effective routines,
Attention to detail, Consistency
Hmmm. Sounds a little boring to me.
But really, it’s the boring, behind-the-scenes stuff that makes the big moments and the glory possible; and so it is in all walks of life, no matter what you do.
Which brings me to our call centre.
The past few months have been challenging. We enjoyed a lot of glory in 2013; in fact with our new management team, we enjoyed an 11% overall revenue increase and 4% productivity per hour growth over the previous year. But frustratingly, as with your favourite professional athlete from time to time, we recently found ourselves in a slump.
What happened? Well, it wasn’t one big monumental, obvious thing. No, it was a series of small, even innocuous events. Key callers left. Campaigns started at different times, with different strategies. Recruitment ad response dropped. Those can all be problematic. But the biggest problem? During all of this change, consistency was not maintained.
You’re probably asking yourself, “Well, how can you keep doing things the same way when all these factors changed?” It is true – nothing ever stays the same and we should not, and cannot, expect it to. We must be prepared for, and even embrace, change. But the key to navigating change and adapting to it effectively is to maintain consistency in the fundamentals – those unwavering factors in your success.
It’s kind of like watching a major league hitter during a slump; the stance isn’t quite the same, the swing is a bit longer as they try to overcompensate and hit it out of the park. They chase at pitches that are clearly out of the strike zone – they’re impatient, trying to hurry themselves out of the slump. And when they hurry, they take shortcuts, they ignore the fundamentals – all the little details that have brought them success; all consistency is lost and so continues the slump.
“Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.”
- Bruce Springsteen
So how do you get out of the slump?
Don’t panic. When panic sets in people usually do one of two things – they freeze and do nothing, or they go into busy-work mode, and burn themselves out while still accomplishing nothing.
Take it step by step. Multitasking is a fallacy. Keep doing it if you want to accomplish many things in a mediocre fashion.
Prioritize. In order to focus on one thing at a time, but still move forward and effect positive change, you must prioritize and fix the most important things first.
Stay the course. You know there’s a fundamental recipe for your success; those tried and true, proven systems, policies and guidelines that throughout the years and all the change that has taken place; have seen you through successfully.
Be flexible too. Even though you want to maintain the systems that have consistently brought you success, you must also recognize those that don’t work, and be open to changing them.
Evaluate. I cannot stress ongoing evaluation enough. You must take inventory of your day-to-day operations on a regular basis to ensure that everything and everyone, is performing at a satisfactory level – that all the fundamentals are in place.
I know, I know. All this talk about staying the course, being steady, scheduling, being consistent – sounds… boring. You may wonder to yourself… “Is it a good idea to be so scheduled and routine?” The key is to know when to be scheduled and routine and when to let your creative juices flow. Remember…
“Variety may be the spice of life, but consistency pays the bills.”
– Doug Cooper, Outside In
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