Once you have read the books, studied the research papers and scanned the articles, it’s time to pull together a strategy. This is called synthesis. It involves applying all of the information that you have digested to answer your burning questions. This is where many people get stuck. But, with the right technique, this step can just fall into place.
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⚠️ I wrote this article as an allegory. An allegory is a literary device in which abstract ideas and principles are represented through characters. Examples include George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.” If you want just the major points, they are summarized at the end of the article.
Julie is the SVP of HR at LoyaltyBuilders. She has been tasked by Margret the COO to address the Employee Retention problem in their contact center. In prior articles, Julie has covered how she extracts and organizes her highlights and her notes from eBooks, articles, YouTube videos and even podcasts. In this article, she pulls all the information together into a action plan — one she hopes Margret will accept.
⚠️ This article is part of a 13-part series on the tools and processes that I use to support Accelerated Learning. If you haven’t reviewed the earlier articles, I recommend that you start with Why Speed Reading Doesn’t Work and What To Do Instead.
Richard sits at his desk when he gets a Slack message. It contains a Zoom link from Julie. He clicks it and is instantly connected to her on his laptop. Richard hesitates for a second until he glances over at his calendar, his eyes widening slightly. “Oh, right. You’re working from home today.”
Julie flashes him a grateful smile over the video call. “Hey, thanks for your help on this. You don’t know how important it is for me to bounce these ideas off someone.” She moves her cursor and clicks a button on her screen. “Here, let me share my screen.”
Richard’s eyebrows raise as the shared-screen pops up on his end. “Holy Cow! What do you have on your screen?”
Julie gives a nod, leaning back in her chair. “Oh, we’ve discussed this already. It’s my second brain. I’ve implemented it in Obsidian.”
Richard scratches his head, offering an awkward chuckle. “Obsidian. Yeah, I keep forgetting.” He nods slowly, composing his thoughts before adding, “It’s your second brain… Your brain is… let’s just say there’s a lot going on.”
Julie can’t help but chuckle lightly at Richard’s comment before she continues sharing about her system. She points to various areas on the shared screen as she speaks: “Yeah… Obsidian contains all of my highlights and notes from books, articles, YouTube videos and now podcasts.”
Something catches Richard’s eye. He asks: “So.. you can split the screen and have multiple tabs?”
“Yes,” Julie responds, pointing to different sections as she explains further. She continues: “On the left side here… you can also navigate or search for things.”
With his curiosity piqued, Richard asks: “What’s that part over there… on the right?”
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“Oh, that’s Smart Connections,” said Julie excitedly.
Richard raises an eyebrow, clearly not familiar with the term. “What’s that?”
Leaning back in her chair, “I don’t completely understand it. But, the Smart Connections plugin uses OpenAI to build a vector database for each of my notes in the background and then displays excerpts from other notes based on the one that’s currently active.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Richard admits with a confused expression. “Explain it like I’m five.”
Julie leans back and gathers her thoughts. “So, if I have a note up for dogs, Smart Connections might surface references to cats because dogs and cats are both animals. If you perform a conventional search, you only get back exact matches. Smart Connections works more like a fuzzy search.”
Richard nods slowly as he takes it in but then shifts the topic slightly. “I understand how your highlights and notes get stored in Obsidian from the last time you showed me. But how did the Autonomy note come about?”
Julie lights up, “Oh, that’s a good question. The word ‘Autonomy’ kept cropping up in different contexts so I decided to tag those passages with [[Autonomy]]. Later on, I created a note with the same name and these links right here appeared automatically.”
Richard looks somewhat overwhelmed by this information.
Julie swiftly reassures him saying patiently: “It’s pretty easy to get lost at first but thankfully, much of it is automated now. All I have to do is read, highlight things that resonate with me and it all ends up here in Obsidian.”
“In college, I used three by five index cards for a paper I was doing for my Psychology class. One day, I was running up the stairs and accidentally dropped them. They fell through the crack between the stairs, and separated in the air. I found them spread all the way down to the first floor. Because I hadn’t numbered them, I must have spent the next 30 minutes getting them back into the right order,” he says laughing.
“Yikes. That must have been frustrating.” Changing subjects, Julie says “If it’s okay, I want to go through what I’ve learned from my research and see if you arrive at the same conclusions.”
Richard looks attentive, nodding, he says “Shoot!”
“Okay… Well, it occurred to me while in bed this morning, that Daniel Pink’s book ‘Drive’ is the key.”
Richard raises an eyebrow curiously. “How so?”
Julie runs her fingers through her hair as she speaks. “I don’t want to run the call center. I can’t. I have HR to run. So, I started thinking about what else I need to provide so that they are self-sufficient.”
Richard nods, a look of admiration crossing his face. “Well, I have to commend you Julie. I think that totally makes sense. You know. Others might take this as an opportunity,” using air quotes as he says the last word.
Julie smiles appreciatively at Richard’s words. “Thank you, Richard.” She pauses thoughtfully before changing the subject, “This upcoming all hands meeting that you’ve scheduled…”
“Yep.”
Julie continues, “I’m thinking we should take the opportunity to brainstorm with the agents in order to get their ideas.”
“Oh… I see! Autonomy, mastery and purpose?”
Letting out a small laugh, Julie replies; “You’re catching on fast! Correct; I see my job as trying to frame the conversations and ask the right questions.” Turning serious she adds, “Based on your review of the exit interviews, our agents need to see themselves in the driver’s seat.”
Richard grins widely at this idea as he replies; “I agree Julie! This is super exciting to see things come together.”
“The challenges at the call center will never really be solved. It is an Infinite Game.”
“Simon Sinek. I love that book.”
“Me too.” Julie replies, matching his enthusiasm. Continuing, “When I was building the concept note for autonomy, Smart Connections surfaced another book: ‘Quiet Leadership’ by David Rock. In it, he talks about how energy is released when someone comes up with an idea. This is what convinced me that we should shift the meeting slightly into a brainstorming session where they come up with the solution. This is going to create the right environment for employee engagement.”
Richard: “Perfect!”
Julie leans back in her office chair, eyes trained on Richard as she speaks. “Smart Connections flagged another book. I call it 4DX. But it’s actually titled ‘The 4 Disciplines of Execution’ by Chris McChesney. In this book, the author tells a story about a shoe retailer. The head officed explained their objective, increased sales, and then challenged each store to do whatever they wanted to increase this metric. As it turns out, one store hit it out of the park.”
“Yeah? What did they do?”
Leaning forward eagerly, Julie says, “It’s really interesting. Whenever someone comes into the store with a child, they simply ask if they can measure their shoe size.”
“That’s it?” Richard sounds incredulous.
Julie nods emphatically, “Yup. This made me think that all we really need to do is to redesign the metrics we’re aiming for. I think, right now, they’re judged on call length.”
Richard agrees thoughtfully, “They focus on a couple of KPIs — but call length is the main one.”
Julie frowns slightly at this remark and murmurs sympathetically, “That must be demoralizing….” Quickly returning to her train of thought, Julie suggests an alternative: what about measuring the percentage of problems that were resolved on the first call?”
“Makes sense.”
Julie continues enthusiastically, “So, we could kick off the brainstorming session with this topic.”
Impressed by Julie’s thought process, Richard admits with a touch of admiration, “Well, I got to hand it to you, Julie. I definitely think you are on the right track. Autonomy, mastery and purpose plus the brainstorming session and starting with a discussion of the best metrics from the customer’s perspective seems like the right way forward.”
Feeling encouraged by Richard’s approval, Julie replies appreciatively, “Thanks, Richard. I appreciate the support.” Suddenly her gaze is drawn to her notifications. “Oh… I just received a Slack message from Margret. Wish me luck!”
Julie and Richard disconnect.
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“Hi, Margret. What’s up?”
Margret leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “I hope you have something good. I just got a call from Brian. Another one of his agents just gave her resignation. We can’t afford to keep up with this churn.”
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Julie visibly flinches but quickly regains her composure. “I do,” she replies with all the confidence she can muster. She takes a moment before continuing, “At present, there’s only one job role in the call center, with pay being determined by tenure. However, there is no pathway for promotion.”
She pauses briefly before unveiling her proposal.
“My suggestion is that we create three positions: Agent I, II and III. Promotions not only follow a set schedule but are linked to the demonstration of specific skills. If an employee fails to obtain these requisite skills within the given time period, they’ll remain in their current position.”
Margret raises an eyebrow in skepticism. “They’ll leave.”
Julie nods thoughtfully before replying emphatically, “Exactly. Our plan is to hire into Agent I roles and offer performance reviews every 90 days.” She soon adds revealing the crux of her plan, “By setting the expectation of promotion and substantial pay raise at around the 9-month mark…”
Margret interrupts with approval shining in her eyes. “…Just about when they would normally consider leaving,” she finishes for Julie.
Julie nods emphatically, her voice steady and sure. “Correct. I’m doing a pay study, and I believe our agents are substantially below market. At Agent II,” she shares her screen and points to the slide, “we’ll be paying them more than they can get elsewhere, and hopefully they will stick around. I also recommend that we establish three team leads. There’s just too much going on for everything to rest on the Call Center Manager. This takes the pressure off and gives the Manager time to think, plan, and implement improvements. And, it gives the agents another opportunity for career growth. In line with this, V2 is coming. It’s a big change and it definitely impacts the Call Center.”
Margret leans back in her chair, impressed at Julie’s presentation. “That sounds good. I can see you’ve been busy, Julie. I have to say, this plan makes a lot of sense. I knew we could count on you.”
“Actually,” Julie interjects cautiously, “I have one more change.”
Margret looks unblinking at Julie; her eyebrows inch upward in surprise.
Julie gulps before speaking up again: “Brian.” She pauses for effect before continuing evenly: “Based on the exit interviews over the past year and the one-on-ones that Richard completed, I’m recommending that we replace Brian.”
“That’s impossible,” Margret blurts out almost immediately.
Unfazed by Margret’s emotional response, Julie continues; “I know. He’s been with LoyaltyBuilders from the beginning. We don’t want to lose him but I also don’t think he’s right for the Manager position. Joe has been here almost as long and I recommend that Brian moves back to Marketing to serve as a liaison to the Call Center with a significant pay increase and a suitably impressive title.”
Margret slowly nods along with Julie’s words showing agreement despite her initial reaction.
“So,” Julie ventures carefully as she speaks up once more, “I have your approval for the pay grade changes and the shift in Brian’s responsibilities?”
“I will speak to Brian and get back to you,” Margret promises, her words measured.
“Perfect,” Julie replies with a reassuring smile. “I have a meeting with the Call Center staff next week on Thursday. I’m hoping to make the announcement by then.”
Margret nods approvingly: “I’ll see what I can do. OK. Thank you very much, and sorry for the unscheduled intrusion. We’ll talk soon.”
“Goodbye!” But as she glances at her screen, Margret is already gone.
Epilogue
By focusing on gathering data first and then synthesizing what she’s learned, Julie has put herself in an enviable position. She has the background she needs and confidently makes recommendations based on her research. She has accomplished this feat by following the following steps:
- Reading, watching and listening to books, articles, research papers, YouTube videos and podcasts. She highlights and adds her reactions as she goes. All of these highlights plus her notes end up tagged and linked in her notetaking tool. You could do this using three by five cards.
- Once Julie has thoroughly researched the topics of interest, she starts to build up what she calls concept notes. For example, in the story above, Julie notices that the concept of “Autonomy” keeps coming up. Julie starts to believe that this concept might be important for her strategy so she creates a concept note for it any other important concepts. You could do this by creating additional three by five cards, one for each concept with numbered references to the main cards.
- Next, she returns to the set of burning questions she developed in a past episode using them as a jumping off point into her notes. Julie leverages an Obsidian plugin called ‘Smart Connections’ which helps to uncover related topics. As she creates a concept note, related topics appear. You could do this by reviewing your three by five cards regularly and thinking about the problems that you want to solve.
- Eventually, Julie has a Eureka moment. It might be when she is in the shower, in the car driving to work or while she is out for a run. Talking through her ideas with others helps her to refine these ideas.
In my next article, I will cover the Briefcase Technique and how you can use it to effectively sell ideas within your organization. You can read it here:
⚠️ This article is part of a 13-part series on the tools and processes that I use to support Accelerated Learning. If you haven’t reviewed the earlier articles, I recommend that you start with Why Speed Reading Doesn’t Work and What To Do Instead.
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