Responsiveness
People spend lots of time building their hard skills in management and business but fail to give enough attention to the softer skills. The soft skills really are the foundation you need to build on to let your hard skills shine. Everyone knows no matter what kind of building you bring up on an unstable foundation - it ain't gonna stand for long. I'm a strong believer in responsiveness at work. When I scan the channels for the most effective people I work with the best ones have responsiveness as one of their top 5 professional qualities.
Responsiveness is measured two fold. It's all about how quickly and with what quality you respond to the people you work with, you work for and most importantly who work for you. This means how fast you respond to emails, voice mails, how fast you provide information promised to others and how soon you send out post meeting reviews. If it's fast your gotta make sure its valuable. The quality of the responses is just as, if not more important, then the quick delivery. The response has to be something that the receiver can use. If you're providing quick, insightful information and feedback to people you are going to be the come-to-man. The man people know that they can get answers from.
Responsiveness gives a a solid view into someone's organizational skills and the quality of their management and business skills. If you're not organized one of the first symptoms is a slow response time or, even worse, no response. Couple this with a shabby response and you're doomed. Without a doubt I can tie the overall quality of a manager or a business colleague into the time and quality of their responses. The key is to get yourself organized and realize that your responsiveness tells more about you and your skills then you think.
Interesting article, The Responsiveness Paradigm, that kind of compliments what I aim trying to get at.
Responsiveness gives a a solid view into someone's organizational skills and the quality of their management and business skills. If you're not organized one of the first symptoms is a slow response time or, even worse, no response. Couple this with a shabby response and you're doomed. Without a doubt I can tie the overall quality of a manager or a business colleague into the time and quality of their responses. The key is to get yourself organized and realize that your responsiveness tells more about you and your skills then you think.
Interesting article, The Responsiveness Paradigm, that kind of compliments what I aim trying to get at.
