Closing the Loop

It is the personal appraisal time and managers all submitting their evaluation for this year bonus consideration.

There is one factor when rating the staff performance which I rate higher weightage besides the person’s capability is their ability to Closing the Loop.

My definition of closing a loop is when a person working in a system and start a duty (either assigned or volunteered), he is able to complete the loop and return the result and information back to the system. The ability to closing the loop also make the person RELIABLE.

A simple example would be when you use a public staples/glue and put it back to its original location when done. Push back the chair after the meeting. To a medium task such as someone ask you to pass a document to the other person, and you making sure it is received by the receiver and informed the giver when it is done. To a more complex, your team assigned you to make a dinner reservation, and you called the restaurant and found out it is closed. And you informed the team about the situation, or even go one step further to propose a new location, which you already checked it is available.

Us Shinryo in a construction line, closing the loop is even more difficult, when you duty is more complex and the system is more complicated as the requirement to complete a project required the cooperative of many parties. However, when you are given a duty/goal, the first thing is to breakdown the goal into multiple tasks (How to do this will be another topic for another day). By closing the loop of each task, you will then achieve to complete the goal.

Also take note closing the loop does not require you to be an expert or a professional at all the tasks, it does not require to solve all the problems, and fulfill all your promises all by yourself. There are situations which are out of your control, problems or difficulties emerged which you do not have the ability and resources to deal with. In this case, by feedback to the system in time, you are closing the loop and reduce the risk for the whole system.

When all the team members develop this habit of closing the loop, a good team will formed. All the team members are connected, all the tasks handled from one handover to the next handover, a very effective action network will be form. And it happens when you notice these 2 characteristics of closing the loop:

     (1)    Stay unbroken (maintained connected)

•           When receive an information/task from the system, after the action taken, status must be informed back to the system – to the center and to the next knot for follow up. In short, feed back to the PM and to the next Person in charged.

     (2)    Predictable

•           Other people know to what extend you can handle the duty.
•           Other people know where to find you and expect to find you there.
•           Other people know when can find you. (Hence we often said those who are unreliable when they always take emergency leave on Monday or Friday).

      Predictable does not means you have to have great personal ability or knowledge. It means to let your co-workers knows for certain to what extend you can perform the task.

      A predictable/confirmed contribution from a person is better than a person with great knowledge & ability but cannot keep promises.

To be a reliable person, you need to close the loop. Good news is ability to close a loop is not borne. It can be trained and self-learned.

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