Saturday, July 14, 2012

Make It Easy

A philosophy I've tried to work by is to make it easy for people to work with me. If I need something from somebody, I try to do as much as possible except for what they need to do that I can't.

When I left one job in 2008, several of the people I needed to work with to get my job done paid me the highest compliment I could think of: "You made it easy".

Yesterday I came across some training I needed to take. I couldn't find it on the site. The site was completely non-intuitive. I tried to ask the person who I needed to turn the training into for help. He was busy, and said that everybody else has already taken it, and it has to be there.

I did get some help, and figured out what the problem was. The email that told me I had to take the training called it one thing. But it was buried in the list of training on the site under a totally different name.

When I went back to turn in my certificate, I explained to the gentleman what the problem was. I offered to email him the title the training goes under, since it has to be taken every year. Everybody in the organization spends a considerable amount of time each year searching for it. He liked my idea.

Now the email template has the correct title, so next year when the email comes out, we can go straight to it with no fussing. I got a thank you with my supervisor copied.

I was able to take a situation that was hard for everybody and make it easier for everybody.

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