Sharing something I learned, as it’s #wisdomwednesdays.

A wise person once said to me:

“In Traditional School, they Teach You a Lesson and then you’re Given a Test.

In Real Life, you’re Given a Test, and That Teaches You a Lesson.”

Would you agree?

Let me share with you my personal take on this.

In my experience, I wasn’t exactly the most brilliant guy in school.

There were some subjects that I really despised, especially those that (at that point in time) I didn’t feel had practical use in life after school, such as Philippine History and Theology.

On the flipside, there were subjects that I really excelled at, such as Math, and English, because I thought that these were things that I would be able to use after school.

I think having been exposed to my father’s business at an early stage, and helping with some tasks such as doing accounting for him helped give me a glimpse of what the real world would look like.

Fast forward to today, Math and English are probably the foundational skills that I rely on day in and day out. And I don’t really regret not taking interest in Philippine History and Theology. I found that there are always books or the internet that you can refer to for topics related to these.

But still, there’s something I learned from the experience of having to go through the subjects that I didn’t like, in order for me to graduate.

And that is to get through your journey in life, there are really things that you have to do even if you don’t want to, such as adhoc tasks, project documentation, work plans, etc.

The lesson that I learned is that I should master time-blocking, prioritization, and project management.

That way, I could quickly get through the stuff I don’t like, so I can focus more time and energy on the things that I am good at that matter to me, and bring the most value to my team, the business, and most importantly, my clients and customers.

Ending Note

I hope you found this to be of value.

If you have any questions, reply with a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

And if you think this is helpful and you’d want to get more, then subscribe for updates, and get a free copy of my book – The Business Optimization Blueprint.

The post What is the Difference between School and Real Life? appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

Humility is Not Thinking Less of Yourself, but Thinking of Yourself Less. There’s a difference.

This is my share for #motivationmondays.

Let me give you some specific examples.

Why are there people who are very wealthy, and at the same time are considered to be very kind-hearted, generous, and loved?

Now aren’t there also wealthy people who are considered to be cruel, cold-hearted, and lonely?

Similarly, there are people who aren’t financially wealthy, yet are considered to be very kind-hearted, generous, and loved.

At the same time there are people who aren’t financially wealthy, and are considered to be cruel, cold-hearted, and lonely.

You see, financial capability has nothing to do with having the ability to be kind-hearted and generous.

The only common denominator is Humility. And it’s not about thinking less of yourself, but rather, thinking of yourself less, and more of how you can be of value to others.

If anything, financial capability will only amplify your ability to give value to others.

Would you agree? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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It’s #thankfulthursdays and I’d like to give gratitude to Nevitt Sanford for conceptualizing this.

It’s called the Challenge and Support Model, which, in a nutshell, What Sanford is saying is that you have to establish a balance between Challenge and Support to drive career growth not just for yourself, but for your team members, and even for your children.

Read on to see how it works.

There’s an article that expounds on this a bit but nedless to say, for every Challenge raised, there must be an equivalent amount of Support provided.

That is what will allow a person to grow.

If you give too many challenges without providing enough support, you will experience a lot of failure, and worse, people will despise you for it.

It’s like asking them to go to war without any ammunition. It’s suicide.

On the other hand, if you give too much Support without an appropriate amount of Challenges, people will feel like you are spoonfeeding them. They will never grow.

It’s like giving them all the guns and ammo the world has to offer without training them. Plus they’ll never know how to survive in the jungle.

There always has to be a balance of both Challenge and Support, and according to Sanford, that’s the best way to grow.

The post The Only 2 Things You Need to Supercharge Career Growth! appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

When you’re feeling a lot of stress and pressure caused by external factors, and you let it get to you, in the end, you lose.

But if you’re using that stress and pressure to constantly improve yourself and create a better version of you, in the end, you win.

Break free of your limiting beliefs, keep challenging yourself, be a producer, not a consumer, take massive action.

This is my share for today’s #motivationmondays.

The post If an Egg breaks from the Outside, Life Ends. If it breaks from the Inside, Life Begins. appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

For #thankfulthursdays I’d like to give gratitude to Pat Whitty for teaching me this.

I would say that this information is GOLD, and I’d recommend every leader to have this as a checklist where you will ensure that each and every one of these “employee needs” get addressed at certain intervals.

Based on a study performed by Gallup, there are 12 Needs that Employees Require to find True Engagement and Perform at Their Best:

1. Focus on me
2. Equip me
3. Help me find my fit
4. Recognize a contribution, weekly
5. Care about me
6. Help me grow
7. Hear me
8. Help me find the impact of what WE do
9. Help me feel everyone will be held to equally high standards
10. Help me find and form vital relationships at work
11. Assess my progress and areas for growth
12. Challenge me

It does not have to happen all at the same time. Some may be weekly, some annually or when you set objectives, and some are behaviors that you have to exhibit each and every day.

As a leader, I myself will be implementing this and ensuring these become habits that I live by day in and day out.

And I would hope that you will do the same too.

Share this with a leader who you think would benefit greatly from this!

The post 12 Needs that Employees Require to find True Engagement and Improve Performance appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

For #motivationmondays, do you know how much better you’ll be in a year, if you improve yourself by just 1% each day?

It’s going to look like this:

• Day 0: 100% status quo
• Day 1: 101%
• Day 7: 107.2%
• Day 30: 135%
• Day 90: 244%
• Day 365: 3778% of whopping exponential improvement!

What does this mean?

Sometimes, you don’t have to immediately strive for that 3778% end goal.

Break it down into smaller milestones, and set your sights on daily improvement goals.

That way, all you have to focus on is that 1% improvement each and every day.

That’s a way simple goal to strive for compared to looking at an overwhelming 3778% improvement in a year, don’t you think?

Like for me, my 1% daily goal is to produce 1 piece of content for you each and every working day. And I hope it’s something you find value in. If you do, then subscribe for updates, and as a gift, you’ll get a free (for a limited time only) copy of my book – The Business Optimization Blueprint, so you can start working on improving your processes by 1% every day.

How about you, what’s the 1% improvement you’re looking to do everyday?

Reply with a comment. I would love to hear from you.

The post If You Improve Yourself by just 1% Every Day, How Much Better will You Be in a Year? appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

Some people use the terms Customer and Stakeholder interchangeably. But I would like to argue that they are different.

So for today’s #wisdomwednesdays I will simply draw the line and differentiate the 2.

Customer

A Customer is simply the recipient of the output of your process, whether that’s a product, or a service.

Stakeholder

A Stakeholder, on the other hand, does not necessarily have to be a recipient of your goods or services.

However, a Stakeholder does have a vested interest in how well your process performs.

A Stakeholder, as the name implies, holds a stake in your process.

Let me give you some specific examples.

Examples of Customers

There are 2 types:

1. Internal Customers
2. External Customers

Internal Customers are your process partners. They are usually in the same company or line of business as you, but are your downstream processes or department.

You yourself are an Internal Customer of the process or department upstream of yours.

External Customers are the clients who purchase your company’s products or services.

Examples of Stakeholders

As with Customers, there are also 2 types of Stakeholders:

1. Internal Stakeholders
2. External Stakeholders

Examples of Internal Stakeholders are your Employees, the Management and Leadership Team, and the Owners of the Business.

Examples of External Stakeholders are the Government, Regulators, Investors and Shareholders, Suppliers and Vendors.

What about those who are both Customer and Stakeholder?

There are some instances wherein the lines are blurred. Still, it’s important to make a distinction between a Customer and a Stakeholder.

For example, Internal Customers are also Employees. Therefore they are both Stakeholder and Customer at the same time. However, as an Internal Customer, their concern is the accuracy and timeliness of the output of your process. But as an Internal Stakeholder, their stake in your business is their job security and safety.

Same line of thinking goes for Suppliers and Vendors, like if you outsource work to them.

Another example would be employees, management, and leadership who also own stocks of the company. In this scenario, you can be an Internal Customer (I need the output of my upstream process to match my process’ input requirements), Internal Stakeholder (stake in job security and safety), and External Stakeholder (stake in the company performing well such that I’ll be getting return on investment) at the same time. It’s worth noting that your mindset is different for each.

Ending note

Customers, specifically External Customers, are more powerful than Stakeholders.

This is because these Customers have the power to fire you, your boss, and everyone in your company, including the CEO and all Stakeholders, simply by taking their business elsewhere.

So take good care of your employees, because they will, in return, take good care of your customers.

Once you take care of your customers and your employees, your business process will thrive, so long as you keep improving and innovating, and your stakeholders will be happy.

I hope you learned something today.

If you want to learn more, download a copy of my book for FREE (for a limited time only) – The Business Optimization Blueprint, and learn how you can improve your business process and take it to the next level.

The post I Bet You Didn’t Know the Difference between a Customer and a Stakeholder appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

It’s #motivationmondays!

Remember when you were a child? The world seemed so huge! And every time you laid eyes on something new, curiosity got the best of you.

You want to touch everything, feel the texture, put things on your mouth, find out what it tastes like, and when you grew a little older you start trying to stand up and walk instead of just crawl.

Did you learn all that the first time around? Of course not. You had to experiment until you got it right, and you kept experimenting until you were able to run, until you could ride a bike, until you could drive a car.

You learned all these new skill through a lot of experiments, and you got good at it because you kept learning something new.

But why is it that now that you’re older, you are afraid of failure? Why are you afraid of rejection? Why are you afraid of losing?

Remember, Every Experiment is a Success IF You Learn from it!

So if you’ve been holding back from learning that new skill, what are you so afraid of?

It’s time to become a better version of you.

And if you’ve been wanting to get that Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification, now is the time.

In a few days, we’ll be kicking off the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Flipped Classroom Training. You wouldn’t want to miss this.

Click here for details.

The post Every Experiment is a Success IF You Learn from it! appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

For today’s #thankfulthursdays I would like to give gratitude to the people who have taken me under their wing.

These people have paved the way to me becoming the Business Optimization Expert I am today.

To my first boss in this field – Kalyan, who hired me because he saw something in me through my Robinson Crusoe story, thank you for investing in me and ensuring I have everything I need to become successful in my role, including my learning towards becoming a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

To my former colleagues – Remi, Aubrey, and Mel, thank you for teaching me what you know. Your generosity in sharing knowledge nuggets, and patience in me for constantly bugging you for questions.

If not for these people, I would not have been able to win my first Hall of Fame Award for generating over $1 Million Dollars.

And lastly, to the person who succeeded Kalyan – Marian, thank you for making me feel empowered. I have learned so much from your meticulous level of detail, as well as your coaching and mentoring techniques.

I would like to pay it forward by teaching what I learned from these mentors to others. I will do this by:

There’s an upcoming GoLeanSixSigma.com Green Belt Flipped Classroom session to be facilitated by me.

20% discount applies to early bird enrollees.

Click here for details on how a Flipped Classroom works, and to enroll and get a slot.

The post With Respect to This Thing is Concerned appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

Time for some #motivationmondays.

Ever heard of the saying “Judgment comes from Experience?”

Well the thing is it’s a matter of how you gain that experience, that will allow you to make better judgments or decisions.

And you will only be able to talk from experience if you know what works and what doesn’t.

Have you ever sought advice from an expert? How did they respond?

It would usually go something like “Well based on my experience, this is what works, and this is what doesn’t.”

How do you think they know what doesn’t work?

It’s because they have made poor judgment calls and decisions in the past, and they failed, but never gave up.

Instead, they kept on trying, and made new judgment calls and decisions, until they found out what works, and succeeded.

And from then on, they know what to do, and they are able too make good judgment calls and decisions for that particular subject matter.

Let me give you a more specific example.

Someone once asked me what is the best way to improve Customer Experience or Customer Satisfaction in a Contact Center type of business.

Inexperienced people would give shallow answers or various opinions.

“You should give more empathy, or you should do more rapport,” is what you would typically hear.

But those with experience would be able to talk about what has worked and didn’t work for them in the past, such as:

Here’s an example of what I know doesn’t work – 5 Stupid Things People Do that Impact Customer Satisfaction.

And from my experience, here are some of the things I know that work:

• The 4 Proven Building Blocks for Best-in-Class Customer Satisfaction
• How to improve CSAT with The Recap and Closing Question technique
• How to deal with Irate Customer Escalations

And if you want to learn more about how you can hire the right people for the job, here’s what you can do – The Best Way to Hire for Good Conversation Skills.

And lastly, if you want to learn how you can become good at solving CSAT problems yourself, check out – How to Become Good at Solving CSAT Problems for Contact Centers.

And that’s how an expert can help you.

How did I learn all that? Well it all started from when I learned Lean Six Sigma, and started implementing my learnings.

If you want to learn Lean Six Sigma, I will be hosting a flipped classroom session for a very limited number of students.

If you’re interested or want to learn more, reply with a comment or contact me here.

The post Good Judgment comes from Experience, and Experience comes from Poor Judgment appeared first on Robbie Agustin.