The 7-T Success System
In the first blog of this series, I introduced The 7-T Success System, an easy-to-use guide for leaders at all levels of the organization, from supervisor to CEO. As a reminder, the seven T’s are:
- Targets
- Talent
- Technique
- Tools
- Tone
- Training
- Tracking
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
The 7-T Success System is designed as a guide for those who have the desire and drive to become a leader who inspires others to work toward a common goal. The 7-T Success System provides a comprehensive framework to help leaders identify the right things to focus on and provides a roadmap for doing those things in the right way. The 7-T Success System helps employees at all levels identify what comprises great leadership, how to achieve it, and how to leverage it to drive accomplishment and build high-performing teams.
So far, we’ve covered six of the 7 “T”’s, including TARGETS, TALENT, TECHNIQUE, TOOLS, TONE and TRAINING. Leaders at all levels, including frontline supervisors need to spend time every day ensuring they are doing everything they can to optimize the elements that make up each of these organizational components. The final T within the 7-T Success System is TRACKING. It’s not enough to focus on each of the first 6 T’s, leaders must measure and track the results of their efforts to optimize each T to ensure that progress is indeed being made.
“What gets measured gets improved” – Peter Drucker
Each of the seven T’s can and should be tracked, continuously, just as each of the efforts to improve each T should have clear targets associated with it, Talent focused on it, Techniques used to improve it, etc. Each of the seven T’s should be applied to the optimization of the other T’s, including TRACKING.
There are millions of examples outside of the workplace in which measurement has proven to be vital to improving life on earth. Think about where we would be if we hadn’t begun measuring elements of health (temperature, blood pressure, blood cell counts, etc.) or the environment (pollution, carbon emissions, sea levels) among many others. I can think of few aspects of human life that haven’t been improved as a result of measurement, benchmarking and efforts to improve them. Leaders who care about results want continuous progress, and the only way to confirm improvement is through performance measurement.
“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you can be doing it better.” – Elon Musk
The four key steps in TRACKING include:
- Collecting
- Reporting
- Analyzing
- Improving
Collecting and aggregating data is the first step to the 7-T Success System’s TRACKING process. Without accurate and timely data collection, the next 3 steps will not be effective. Most contact centers collect an abundance of data from various disparate systems (ACD, CRM, Sales, Marketing, HR, Recruiting, Payroll, Finance, etc.). However, few have advanced to aggregate that data in a centralized location (data repository/warehouse), which makes reporting, analyzing and improving difficult and less effective.
“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight” – Carly Fiorina
Successful tracking means understanding you KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). In contact center KPI’s can include attendance, attrition, utilization, AHT (Average Handle Time), NPS (Net Promoter Score), QA scores, sales, conversion rate, retention rate, ASA, calls handled, etc. Most organizations will share the same KPI’s (i.e., attendance), but many have KPI’s unique to their business. It is vital that these KPI’s are communicated and understood by each level within the organization and that performance vs. the KPI targets is measured and readily available to each employee in a real-time, or near real-time basis. It is also critical that the leader have the ability to coach behavioral modifications which are designed to improve outcomes and measure the employee’s performance after the coaching session to ensure it was beneficial and resulted in modified behavior and in KPI improvement. Too often supervisors coach their agents yet never track subsequent behaviors and performance to know that their coaching was helpful, or not and if the modified behavior actually moves the needle.
“Feeback is the breakfast of champions” – Ken Blanchard
As you implement the 7-T Success System, leaders should educate their staff about the importance of giving and receiving performance feedback. The feedback process should be standardized, documented, taught and tracked. And, most importantly, feedback is a topic within the Training component of the 7-T Success System because it’s also a teaching opportunity for the leader. It’s not enough to simply provide data to your employees. A leader should also provide suggestions for behavior modification in order to improve performance and results.
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis
If you’re already a leader, or are an aspiring leader, you don’t want to simply manage your team or organization; you want to lead it and build a winning team. The fact that you’ve taken the time to read this blog means you’re ready to accelerate your organization’s success journey and demonstrate your value as a leader. The 7-T Success System can help you accomplish that. Let’s go, leaders!
The 7-T Success System book can be purchased at www.7tsystem.com, and inquiries regarding 7-T Success System consulting services can be made by writing to info@bizjuice.com.
Casey Kostecka is an award-winning thought leader and expert in sales, customer experience management and contact center operations within BPO/outsourcing, healthcare, travel/hospitality, and government arenas. His proven track record in leading $500M+ organizations to record-breaking growth and profitability makes him a sought-after speaker and consultant. Casey’s extensive experience with process engineering, leadership cultivation, and team and customer engagement led him to develop unique, highly effective tools. Casey is the founder of TouchPoint One and its award-winning ACUITYTM Performance Management System, multiple proprietary gamification applications, and the 7-T Success System™ are all of which are employed by Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States. Learn more about his work at www.touchpointone.com and www.7TSuccess.com.