Cost

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Questions for this week: Can you explain Where you can find hidden costs wasted on your time? Can you explain this question? What is your act of play? What to do if we cannot produce 2X outcomes every day??

I write this article based on the insight of my conversation with my team in our monthly 1-on-1 call. I speak with each one of my team members. This article is a compilation of a whole week's takeaway. You can subscribe to the Building our Team newsletter (1500+ subscribers)

Can you explain Where you can find hidden costs wasted on your time?

A hidden cost is a cost imposed by a transaction or activity that is not immediately apparent simply by looking at the trade occurring.?

In my understanding, with respect to the course. Something for which we are not getting as much value, result or outcome for the efforts we are putting in.?

In the U-I-T Frameworks, it's called urgent and non-important tasks.?

Some real-world work examples:-?

1. Overrunning of meetings or Unnecessary meetings.?
2. Time spent attending a complaint.?
3. Manager’s time to decide how to handle the complaint.?
4. Delays customer service.?
5. Frustrated employees (that still need to serve the next customer)
6. The rework we have to do
7. The errors and mistakes we make while making decisions
8. Delays due to slow laptops?

Now coming to the question here, you have to observe all the tasks that you think don't produce the outcome of Getting things done good enough in half the time.?

So you will identify jobs that are not adding value to you or the client and also taking a lot of your time.?

Once we identify them, we can make some decisions to find an easier way to do the task in half the time, remove the tasks, say no to the clients, automate it by writing some code or always keep it at the lowest priority.?

Can you explain this question? What is your act of play?

I don't have to tell you the meaning of the play. You do it in your downtime without any serious or practical purpose. It can be closely related to any hobby you have. You don't do it for any health, knowledge or career.?

The best example you can see is kids doing all day long, like jumping in the puddle of water during rain.?

Plays always help energise us even after we get tired. It's a beautiful experience if you are lucky to have gone through something you want to do from the heart even after your body is tired. The question here has multiple purposes. One is you can identify your strength and get the answer to what you are good at and love to do. Thus we can pick work that you are good at and have a chance to enjoy your work.

Here is another signalling point because the goal sheet is shared with the entire team, you can see other team members that share a similar act of a play that you have picked. It also has a business purpose because the play helps you better creative thinking as a group.?

I will not give any examples of play to make it easy for you to answer. This can be a good opportunity to open up your mind and think for yourself. A good crossroads for self-awareness and self-reflection. Go back to when you were a child and what was your act of play. I would like you to think and share your answers. You can also share something you wish you could do or would love to do.??

What to do if we cannot produce 2X outcomes every day?

It is an Excellent question. Our brain thinks about results and success. If you have read our culture charter in the wiki, we mention the outcome: "2X revenue in 2 years (Dec 2023) is a short-term milestone."

This is the source of the thinking to be productive and produce 2X outcomes each day. Let me share a truth with you and try to make peace with it.?

You can never give 2X results every day for the rest of the year.?

Some of you may not like it and may even challenge this. For those, I am not talking about busy work or the one where you did your part, but either the client is not happy, or the company is not happy. I am not talking about agreed efforts.?

In our current culture goal, we focus more on what you have complete control of, and the goal is "Getting things done good enough in half the time."

Once you change the focus, your action will automatically bring results without hard work or more effort. That's the key here. If you have a day where there is no ticket and no urgent work, focus on learning and improving your skills, knowledge about Probench, prep work for the typical work that comes to your plate etc.?

The game we are playing here is a long-term game. It's called the infinite game; the objective is to keep playing it as long and sustainably as we can.?

That will mean we will have few losses, in the beginning, the dip in the learning curve will be more extended, or we will struggle with the mindset shift. You have to keep faith in the process and method. We will have lean in on the revenue cushion we currently enjoy or trust the leadership.?

As Albert Einstein famously said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

So if you complain that you don't have enough time and don't know how to fix it, then you can join the achievers who have participated in the culture goal and are already getting results.?

For the curious ones who don't see our goal getting met and we getting 2X revenue. The answer is in the system we are implementing, which you already see in the culture charter. We have to find 20% of those tasks that produce 80% of revenue without effort. Find 20% of team members who already have taken charge of their time. Give them jobs to implement systems that will produce income for us even when we are not working for our clients.?

If you do not understand the above paragraph, no problem. During the next two years, you can experience it with real examples; some of our team members will implement it to gain the 2X revenue.?

For now, if you want to be a part of the 20% achievers group and don't know how this all adds up, focus on the actions you have control over to achieve the goal of?"Getting things done good enough in half the time."

1. Watch the Course video completely (The main course is about 55 mins, the Audience Question is about 38:18 minutes, and 10-day exercise is about 7 mins so the total is 98 mins)
2. Do the 10-day exercise of time log?
3. Fill in the goal sheet?
4. Read the 1-on-1 like this I post on the Skype group
5. Work on the action plan assigned to you on the 1-on-1?
6. Connect with like-minded colleagues from the goal sheet
7. Apply the 7 pillars of our Team First culture to make progress

Do you care to share these insights with others in your team?