A very common mistake people make is delegating or outsourcing (both very good things) without setting up a system or even a simple reminder to make sure what was done was done the way you expected.
I recently had our gutters cleaned by a young ambitious contractor with some top-of-the-line pressure washing equipment. I explained that it was a bit tricky around our pool and courtyard as the roof tiles extended almost all the way over the gutter.
When he was picking up to go, I grabbed a ladder and looked down the long gutter on one side of the pool and saw that it was still chuck full of leaves, pine needles and live oak seeds.
He was happy to correct it even though it took him as long or longer than the rest of the 300 plus feet of gutters. But if I hadn’t inspected it myself, it wouldn’t have gotten cleaned.
Now you might say that inspecting what I expected was just common sense in this situation. And it was.
But how many times do we charge someone with a task or project but fail to properly monitor the process and/or the end result? We often just assume people know what we want and don’t take the inspection step on our expectations.
When initiating a project, ask yourself what the process will be for monitoring and inspecting the result.
A simple tip for sure. But also important.
Best Life Tactic: Inspect what you expect.
This article was originally published on SuccessNet.org in May of 2017.
