I’ve long held the belief that private industry is much more efficient than a government entity. However, I need to give credit where credit is due. The Texas National Guard experience I had today was outstanding.
We’ve all read about the number of vaccines available to fight Covid and we read about President Biden’s message on how many doses would be available by May. Being a little cynical I thought it was great news to be able to produce it, but distribution would be an issue. There weren’t really any good sources for signing up for the shots. I was concerned that when the vaccine was available, it wouldn’t get to the citizens in an efficient way.
Last week I was surprised to find a website that allowed my wife and I to sign up. It asked how far we were willing to travel. All of Texas (NO), Central Texas (Yes), only Austin (No). We signed up and within minutes we were set up to travel a few hours from Austin to get our shots. Our second shots were scheduled as well. We arrived at the location and were guided in by the Texas National Guard. They were pleasant and helpful. They signed us in, and we then snaked our way through a well-designed drive through facility, that gave my wife and I our shots. We sat in another area for 15 minutes, and they released us to drive home. In less than 30 minutes, we were in and out.
I’m a process guy. The reason I’m sharing this is not to start a conversation of the effectiveness of the shots or make a political statement. It is purely to recognize the efficiency of the process. A well-designed process makes us all more efficient and effective. In business there are many companies that build strategy and send it out to be executed without giving the team the direction on how to execute it. The strategy is the “what”, but without the “why”, and the “how”, and metrics to measuring leading indicators, the odds of successful implementation are greatly reduced. If you are looking at revenue and profit as the determining factors in execution of your strategy, you are measuring lagging indicators. It has already happened. Failed execution of the strategy may be caused by poor strategy or poor execution. If you are only looking at the results, it’s too late to fix it.
I’m certain things were not as smooth initially, for getting the vaccine at the location we were at today. But they were very strategic and focused, and the experience was outstanding. God bless Texas!
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