Tricks of the Trade

by Neil I. Clark

When you take up a new position in your organisation, there is usually a job description of some sort. This is helpful, of course, but job descriptions are usually written by a senior person (or the HR department) and cover such things as the broad scope of the position and a list of duties. The "inside information" on how best to perform those duties is sometimes missing.

If you are fortunate enough to be taking over a job from someone who is still around, get some time with him or her. Ask them how they did things. Find out, in particular, what shortcuts they may have developed. If they were successful in the position, they are bound to have worked out some effective "trick of the trade". If they were not successful, it’s still valuable to interview them. In this case, however, you are looking for what not to do!

If you think about positions you have held in the past, you started off knowing very little. Then, as you got into the swing of it, you worked out some ways of doing things that were not in the job description. For example, the job description for a Salesperson might say that you should make appointments with customers. One of the "tricks" of that activity could be: if you want to catch the Fred Bloggs, the General Manager of a particular client, the best time to call him is before 8:30 in the morning. After that, he’s tied up in meetings all day. That’s pretty valuable information for a new Salesperson.

If it’s a brand new position, of course, this approach does not apply. You must develop all of the tricks yourself. More often than not, however, you’re taking over from someone who was doing the job before you. Alternately, there may be other people doing the same job in the company. In this case, get with the most successful of them and quiz him or her on how they do it.

If the previous employee is no longer in the company, you could actually go to the extent of finding out where they are and calling them — particularly if they were highly successful. Handled well, they will not usually object to this. They may even feel flattered that you asked.

In every job there are always better ways to go about things. It takes time to find those "better ways" if you have to start from scratch. Getting them directly from the expert is far quicker and will ensure you get up to speed more rapidly than otherwise.