As a young Lagos banker, many years ago, from the IT department, I went to the Admin department to understand the workflows and potentially support the development of technologies to make the unit more efficient.
As I spent time in the Admin unit, I saw that courier firms were coming every minute of the day to pick mails and packages. I went to the head of the mail unit and asked him to share his records over the last three months. I noticed many things including that pickups were not optimized. In other words, he could be sending items from the head office to a branch three times the same day; a branch manager could order pencils, head of operations rulers and branch internal controller staplers – and those would be sent separately on the same day. (Purchases were centralized at the head office for bulk discounts).
Using my data, I explained to my amazing big boss, and proposed a policy that would compel branches to plan requests to enable consolidation and cost efficiency. Within months, courier costs dropped by 37%. (My amazing big boss excluded financial instruments from my proposal; so, things like share certificates were not delayed).
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Drawing from that experience, I have a question for entry level workers: “what can you do better in that company?” Can you Rethink The Firm for Success? Do you know that you are there to make an impact? By changing a simple process, you can save a firm money and advance the mission. As you have that professional persona, everyone will notice that anywhere you go, things become better, and a great career will be unlocked. Do It!
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The good employee will do what is demanded of him, the great employee will identify what is not done well and propose a fix. It applies to every aspect of life’s endeavours: those who do only what they are asked and the ones who take the initiative to do things that matter. Greatness will always distinguish itself.