Have you ever forgotten something you accomplished? It sounds strange, I know, but when you’re a jack of all trades who’s worked in as many fields and on as many projects as I have—from corporate communications to social media management—it can be all-too-easy for something to slip your mind.
The last time it happened to me, I was talking to one of my former managers about a potential new project.
She mentioned that her department was still using processes I developed years ago. I was flattered and genuinely gratified to hear that my work had been so impactful but, at the time, I could not for the life of me recall which processes she was referring to.
Here’s the thing: I’m a process girl. Flowcharts and spreadsheets are my jam. That might sound counterintuitive coming from someone who writes for a living, but it’s true. It turns out that my ability to step back to see the big picture and lean in to see the fine details serves me well, whether I’m crafting a communication plan (and the attendant deliverables) or building a spreadsheet that tracks KPIs across a span of years.
Numbers can tell stories, too. 😉
Anyway, I thanked my former manager for letting me know that my work had had such an impact and we moved on with the conversation. I never forgot about those processes, though. They lingered on in the back of my mind.
Then, weeks later, when I was kicking off a social media management project and happily building out a brand new set of spreadsheets, I remembered that I’d built a pretty strong set of KPI trackers for that same company that might be of use in this new project.
I went digging into folders I hadn’t opened in more than five years. Lo and behold, there were the process documents—two of them, laying out detailed steps for two processes, complete with control points, measurements, and—of course—flow charts. As I read through them, I recalled the time I spent struggling through inefficient processes and the effort that went into liaising with other departments to understand their pain points and identify alternative approaches.
When I submitted those documents, I didn’t know if they’d ever be used at all (organisational change isn’t easy), but I knew there was a better way, and I was happy to research, develop, and propose one. I closed the documents with a smile, knowing that, if they’re still in use, the staff and customers must be having a much easier time than they were beforehand.
I found the spreadsheets I was looking for in an adjacent folder. They were as powerful as I remembered.
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