Quick response is key to success
In the many years I have worked in various organizations and institutions, I found that responding fast to people - whether in need or just a simple query and direct communication - is a most valuable and indispensable ingredient to success. For policy planners, decision and policy-making need quick pick up of accurate facts and data pertinent to analyzing situations and context—fast access to timely information help in crafting responsive decisions and plans for an organization. A fast response helps create a healthy social and communication environment.
Everyone values responsiveness and quality. In business, companies committed to fast response are more successful than those without. Responding quickly to customers about their feedback on your product or service will make your enterprise grow. Business studies show that clients or customers are willing to support and spend more with a company or institution that responds quickly to their concerns. Simply put, a fast response translates to more satisfied clients. Quick response generates considerable revenues or sales. Delayed responses and late replies generate hatred, stress, and losses in business. That was my first big lesson in business.
When I first set up JaimEliza, a homegrown family company engaged in food and merchandise in Canaman, Camarines Sur, in 2015, I failed to apply this essential organizational principle in practice. I was a Jack of all trades but not a master in business. I was more engaged in my other priority work in Manila for the first two years. In business, that won’t work. Start-ups need focused and full-time attention to detail. Being grounded in the company’s daily life is critical to have more accurate and timely data to know and correct mistakes without waiting for high-level signals that something has gone awry. One can respond faster to problems and concerns on the ground if the entrepreneur is hands-on and fast in responding to problems before they crop up. Years of grounding and fostering an effective response system within and between JaimEliza and its clientele and partners have brought significant changes, including store development, a bigger market, and higher sales.
Aside from business, I also belong to the education sector. Schools are like a business. There are standard interconnecting operational lines of convergence. With enrolment ongoing, schools are busy devising enrolment strategies to compete for enrollees! They create for marketing and promotion, knowing student course choices, and what school to enroll in. School Management Committees or ManCom strategize to induce interest and generate enthusiasm among students to enroll in their schools. Other schools have their PR or marketing teams. What is it that schools have that others do not have? How do we market the schools? Enrolment strategies need a comprehensive school approach. Like business, schools have the exact social requirement to function effectively and succeed: effective social marketing and a response system within and among crucial managers and people. The exchange of information and feedback is communication at the highest level.
My time-tested advice: the best decisions are based on accurate, timely information and sound research, not on personal, out-of-date, and fake news from dubious sources that lead to costly mistakes. Read up on national events and policy declarations from government. They affect us.
Civil society groups and NGOs have the most vibrant communication and fast response system. Being one of them, I take pride in knowing that it is from them that business and schools may learn a lot. They are a critical, research-based and solution-oriented groups of people who value fast response to a problem as their mission in life.
Fast response reflects strong connectivity
Whether in business, schools or NGOs social media has played an increasingly vital role in promoting the image and life of every individual, group, place, event, or product. What better way to promote business and the school? It’s through the website, the FB page, and the traditional forms in print like Bicol Mail, Bicolandia’s only regional newspaper, radio programs like Buhay Marinero, soundbytes like “Sarong Marinero sa kada Pamilyang Bikolano.” We put our best foot forward.
Sharpening the flow of information and heightening consistency, quality, and frequency, therefore, helps create an active communication and response system in the organization. Optimizing the use of social engines enhances efficiency to share information and response system within the organization. Precisely because it is social, it involves peers and the public. The delay in one’s response affects the other and the entire operation. It piques me!
An essential ingredient to success is to nurture a positive organizational climate and culture, which puts a premium on responding to each other’s needs and ideas. Part of this environment is having a fast response system that inspires and motivates members to participate and be involved. With a robust response system among the leaders, there is stronger connection and unity for success. It reflects one’s values of teamwork and ability to solve problems. Be quick on the draw!