Q #245: Follow-up or follow-through?

Both are very important but essentially different in a significant way.

Let’s say that you stop at a restaurant for breakfast and order ham and eggs. A chicken was involved in providing the meal but a pig was engaged.

Now let’s say you when you arrive at the office and check your e-mail and recorded telephone messages, one of them is from a customer who has a question or problem or otherwise needs assistance.

Follow-Up: You reply with an e-mail or a telephone call and leave a recorded message.

Follow-Through: You reply with an e-mail or a telephone call and leave a recorded message. If there is no response within 24 hours, you call again and then leave an e-mail message. You repeat the process until you speak with the customer. Once you know what the question is, you provide an answer. Once you know what the problem is, you solve it or do all you can to help solve it.

In this instance, the Yoda’s observation to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back is relevant: “Do or do not, there is no try.”

What do you think? Please share.

Q #244: How to align employee and company interests?

Anthony Tjan

That is the subject of an article written by Anthony (Tony) Tjan who is CEO, managing partner, and founder of Cue Ball, a venture and early growth equity firm investing in the information media and consumer sectors. Here is a brief excerpt from his article:

“I spent time with each of my team members recently to focus on the top priorities for our firm Cue Ball and to make sure we were all on the same page. I asked each person to prepare a list of their top five priorities. In our individual review sessions, I asked them to look at those top five priorities and asked three questions:

1. Which of these priorities do you think will have greatest impact for our firm?

2. Which of these priorities interests you the most?

3. Which of these priorities are you most likely to be successful with?

In asking these questions, I realized that real magic for an employee happens when these three questions produce the same answer. When the item someone is most passionate and capable at achieving success with aligns with the item that has the most impact for a firm. The problem, of course, is that many times it does not.”

Tjan then explains how to correct this with three principles: communication, confidence, and aligning interests.

Tjan then explains how to correct this with three principles: communication, confidence, and aligning interests.

You can follow Tjan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/anthonytjan.

You can read the complete article and sign up for e-mail updates from the Harvard Business School by visiting:

http://harvardbusiness.org/