Big Brother is Calling and Watching

One doesn’t need to attend a continuing education class or read a book that’s on the Best Seller’s List to learn something about their profession.  The next time one of your loved ones comes home from work and shares a story with you, take five minutes out and analyze how their story relates to your job.  My wife came home after a meeting last night and shared a story with me that made me go ah, interesting.

My wife is a nurse at a local hospital and recently attended a staff meeting where performance data was being shared.  One of the pieces of data was how often patients call lights were on in a month and how long it took to respond to each patient. The following month the incidents of call lights were cut in half.  What changed?  Were there new procedures placed into effect?  Did the hospital increase staffing?  Was the patient load lighter for the month?  

These are all good answers but the correct answer is none of the above.  The amount of call lights were cut in half when the staff started to realize how the data was being tracked  and that “big brother” was watching.

As independent contractors it’s very easy to allow outside forces to get in the way of caring for our business.  The hospital staff were paid the same for say 50 call lights as they were for 10.  If we as Realtors don’t keep our nose to the grindstone and stay disciplined we may very well be looking for jobs replacing the light bulbs in those call lights.  So I ask you, who is watching your call lights?  It’s a good life.