Thoroughness In Business

vs. incompleteness

Taking care of necessary details

To practice Thoroughness, I will:

• plan my work
• pay attention to details
• make a list so I don’t forget
• finish what I start
• clean up along the way

Thorough Documentation

by Jill Tomey

I started a new assignment in Cybersecurity and Disaster Recovery late in my career.  It was all new to me, and I often felt like I was operating at the edge and sometimes beyond my competence.  I had new software and skills to learn and new vendors to work with. 

During that time, I kept a work journal listing everything I did in a day.  At first, it was brief notes.  As I got further into the assignment and needed to repeat a task I had not done in a while, I realized that my notes needed to be more detailed to support repeat work.  These thorough notes served me well as my role grew. 

Gradually, my journal notes became checklists, schedules, and procedures (with screenshots!) stored in our department repository.  I used these faithfully to make sure I didn’t miss a detail.  When it was time for me to retire, I used these documents to train my replacement.  My boss sat in on these training sessions and teased me mercilessly for my “common mistakes” sections in my procedures and the accompanying notes on how to recover from them.  (And, yes, I did make those mistakes!)  Even with the teasing, my boss and my replacement were impressed and appreciated my attention to detail in my thorough documentation.

This month, how can you use your Thoroughness to make a task easier for someone else?

Interview for Thoroughness with this question:

Have you ever had to plan an event? How did the process go and what was the outcome?

Download The Ultimate Guide to Hiring for Character with questions for all 36 qualities.

The Links below will take you to the most recent Team Building blog post and the previous posts. These are not related to a particular quality.

Previous Team Building Posts 

Visit Thoroughness in School>>

Activities
No Matter How You Say It
Curriculum Connections
Croskey’s Corner

Visit Thoroughness in the Community>>

Quotes
Character All Month Calendar
Related Qualities
Character Holiday Activities
Family Activity (with a printable for sending home to parents)