Before embarking on improving the performance and time management skills of any of your team members you must determine where the deficiencies are contained. Because business is essentially evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the economic climate, our products and services and the competition, to be effective we must evaluate our staff if we want to help them improve in their time management.

What any one person can accomplish with their time is a net result of the application and time usage as it connects to the four probabilities of success. If, as a manager, we want to raise performance we must understand and apply the four probabilities of our success to the equation. The four probabilities are knowledge, skill, attitude and activities. If we can raise performance in any one of these areas we can increase the chance or odds that production will increase for our direct reports. You can virtually guarantee your success if you can attack all four with an organized plan for improvement for each.

Knowledge:

If you can increase your staff’s overall knowledge of time management you can increase the volume of work they can complete in their eight hour day. Their knowledge of their hourly rate, goals for their life, fundamental time management principles like the 80/20 rule can all influence their success to the positive. Some evaluations to consider are:

• How well defined are __________ life’s goals and business goals?
• Are the business goals mine or his?
• Do I talk about goals frequently enough?
• On a scale of 1 to 10 where does he fall on the basic knowledge of time management?
• Does he understand the principles of the 80/20 rule?

These are clear evaluation questions that should be repeated with each person who is on your team.

Skill:

There is more than knowledge of time management strategies. There are plenty of things that you already know to do. The question isn’t, do you know time management strategies? That isn’t the valid question; it’s do you have the skill to pull it off consistently day in and day out? People who are skillful acquired their skill through use, practice, drilling and rehearsal, as well as failure. Some evaluations to have about your staff are:

• Do they have the skill to divert interruptions that come at them?
• Do they skillfully prioritize their day for tomorrow before they leave today? How frequently?
• What are their organization skills and how would you rank them from 1 to 10 for office cleanliness, paper organization, customer and prospect organization?
• Do they time block their schedule?
• What percentage of the time are they on their time block schedule?

Attitude:

Most human beings feel that attitude is the most important factor in success. Attitude also dictates how we utilize our time as well. I would not argue that a poor attitude will lead to negative results and more wasted time. I would make the argument that attitude is a function of choice by one individual each and every day of their lives. Each day we can decide to utilize our time well through the application of our skills, knowledge, and specific activities.

• How is their attitude toward time management?
• How is their attitude toward learning new things that are as tough as time management?
• What is their attitude toward accountability in this on a scale of 1 to 10?
• Where is the biggest problem attitude wise with time management?

Activities:

My view is that activities in business are king. The biggest increase in productivity as it relates to time is selecting the right activities to invest your time into. Focus on the activities that administration people, salespeople, owners and executives must do with their time to produce greater results faster and more efficiently. If you are evaluating someone who fits into one of those categories you might want to review what those tasks are. Evaluation questions might look like these:

• What activities does Bob invest his time?
• What is the percentage break down of each per his eight hour day?
• Has that changed or improved in the last six months?
• What activities is he most comfortable doing and are those the best for the company and department?
• How do I increase the activities I want out of him to a great portion of his day?

By raising performance in the four probabilities of success of knowledge, skill, attitude and activities we’ve increased the chance or odds for production increase in our team members. Now that you know what to look for, put together an organized plan for improvement based on your evaluations and guarantee your success.