“Perfection is in the details” – Leonardo daVinci
Perfection may be unattainable, yet perfection must be the goal we all strive for in our operations. Not 99% accuracy, or even 99.99966% accuracy (Six Sigma’s goal), but 100% accuracy.
Setting unreachable goals isn’t an exercise in futility. It’s a proven method for raising performance to a new level of excellence. Becoming a fanatic about details will help you achieve more.
To effectively use a detail-oriented approach in management, a manager must take on the role of a leader who:
“We’re not selling a product, but a process.” These words say a lot about the changes impacting the print/mail industry.
I first heard this comment in 2001 – 15 years ago – at an Xplor Northeast Region meeting in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The speaker was Roger Gimbel. At the time, Roger was the president of Xerographic Reproduction Center Inc. (XRC), one of six divisions that comprise the 500-employee parent company, Global Document Solutions. XRC was the largest on-demand printer in Manhattan. But as Roger explained, output isn’t the most important part of his business; process is. His company’s expertise extended beyond print to systems integration.
After hearing Roger’s talk I published this paragraph in a newsletter the following month:
Title 39 of the U.S. Code states that the mission of the US Postal Service is:
“…to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.”
Before we had a country, we had post offices and post roads. For more than 375 years, dedicated men and women have delivered the correspondence and parcels that helped form and bind a nation together. Many of those same people helped our country in other ways – in business, politics and public service. This is the first in a series of occasional articles profiling their lives and contributions.
In the mid-1990s, I was working at a financial services company. One of my internal customers was a department responsible for producing fund pricing reports. The company’s system would receive information from the stock exchange mainframe computer at the end of the trading day. Using the stock prices, the company could calculate the values of all the managed funds.
+ Read More
From March 20 through 23, 2016, over 3,500 mailing professionals gathered at the Gaylord Opryland Convention Center in Nashville, TN for the 2016 National Postal Forum (NPF). Attendance was the highest in about 5 years, with about 30% first-time attendees. More importantly, there was a noticeably increased presence of mailing professionals under the age of 30 – a great sign for the future of our industry.
Classes were well-attended, with sizes ranging from 65 to 200 people. Even the last class on the last day at 4:30 in the afternoon, still drew a full house. Of course, the event with the most number of attendees occurred on Monday morning, when the entire NPF gathered to hear the Keynote Address from Postmaster General (PMG) Megan Brennan.
The theme of PMG Brennan’s speech centered on momentum and technology. She explained that there was never a better time to reinvent mail. Listening to their customers, the US Postal Service (USPS) will focus on:
The postage rate rollback. Rumors of restarting the network consolidation plan. Invoices based on the Mailer Scorecard. These are just a few of the issues attendees will be discussing at the upcoming National Postal Forum (NPF), March 20 – 23, 2016 in Nashville, TN.
The most anticipated moment of the NPF is when Postmaster General (PMG) Megan Brennan delivers the keynote address to the attendees on Monday morning. It will be interesting to hear her take on the continual financial and operational issues facing the USPS, and the lack of congressional action to fix the problem. PMG Brennan has been straightforward with mailers in the past, and we expect the same next week. We also look forward to the opportunity to ask direct questions to her and her leadership team. And receive direct answers.
For us, the NPF will start on Saturday, as we’ll be part of the crew working on the Habitat for Humanity project. Volunteers will be putting up trim, installing doors and painting. It will be a great way to give back to the Nashville community. (Note: If you didn’t pre-register, but still want to participate, contact Mark directly.)
