“Just an intern”: Don’t ever think it!

Whether you are an intern or an employer that hosts interns, I hope that you take notice to this post.  Now, more than ever, interns can serve as a great source of innovation for the employers they are working for.  Every organization, big and small, for-profit and non-profit, is challenged with how they can do things better.  This may come in the form of doing more with less, improving efficiency, driving down expenses, increasing productivity or raising customer satisfaction. It all comes back to the same thing: how do they get better.  Well, who better to task with that charge than an intern (or for that matter, all of your interns)?

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that employers start to bring interns in solely under the heading of “find ways for us to be better.”  However, it should be included as an area of responsibility in addition to their “regular duties.”  Why is this so important?  Ever heard the phrase “virgin eyes”?  Well, interns have them.  They don’t know a sacred cow from a legitimately tried and true process.  They don’t know what questions or ways of thinking are taboo or “inappropriate.”  They have no assumptions about “the one right way” of doing something.  They only have questions.  As an employer, embrace this.  Embrace the heck out of it!  Listen to what they have to say. When warranted, and this is most important, act on what they have to say.

I’m not suggesting that you should act blindly. Build the business case, perform the required due diligence, etc. But do take action!  If you don’t, you risk two things.  First, you risk the engagement levels and overall performance of your interns.  If you ask for their input and get them excited about the opportunity to respond only to ignore what they have to say, well, that’s a sure-fire way to turn them and lead them to become disengaged.  Second, if you fail to act on their suggestions, who knows what opportunity you might be missing out on to make your business better (remember, that was the point!).

Employers, here’s one last thing to keep in mind when it comes to the benefit of thinking of your interns in this capacity.  When it comes to getting better, it often requires calling into question and asking hard questions about how it is that you’re doing business today. There’s a really good chance that the people who designed and implemented those processes and thought they were the best ideas available at the time are the very people within your organization today making key decisions about your company’s future (heck , you may even be one of them).  Think about how hard it is for you to now dissect these processes and think of new ways of doing things.  By no means is it impossible, and with a structured, disciplined approach to performance improvement, you could probably get there.  But along the way, don’t miss out on a great opportunity to leverage the insights of your interns.  You are so close to what you do that sometimes all it takes is someone new to call-out and identify opportunities to improve.

For interns, take what I’m saying to heart even if your employer fails to explicitly indentify this as an area of responsibility for you.  Why, you ask?  First, it’s a sure-fire way to stand apart from your peers.  After ensuring that you are exceeding expectations as it relates to your regularly assigned tasks and responsibilities (This is so key; you don’t want to be out brainstorming new ways of doing things, only to compromise your “regular” work. In most environments, this would be bad!), take on the added responsibility of looking for new and better ways of doing things.

Trust me, it sounds like a lot of extra work, but it really will come to you far easier than you think.  You have the benefit of being completely new to the environment and if you simply make a conscious point of being on the lookout for improvement opportunities, they will come to you.  Now, here’s a little secret.  It’s not as simple as going to your supervisor or manager and saying “I know how you guys can be better” at your jobs.  You’ll have to do a little more than that.  Also, when asked to support your recommendations, if you use words like “I think,” “probably,” “I like this way better,” etc. be prepared for a less than supportive response.

You have to bring data.  Tell your employer that you have already developed the “business case” to support your ideas; they’ll love it.  The business case represents the facts to support your idea.  Be able to demonstrate how your recommendation improves the business by influencing a key performance driver / metric.  What are these?  Typically they deal with things related to service, cost and quality.  Think of it as an experiment.  Formulate your hypothesis (if you do x, y outcome will be achieved).  Test your hypothesis.  Absent a “lab” where you can actually perform the test, gather current state and/or historical data, formulate fact-driven assumptions about how the introduction of your recommendation would change the environment and produce a new set of outcomes.  Present your findings and voila, you’re a superstar.

Now, is it really that simple?  Well, probably not.  But if you commit to doing these things, here’s the worst that will have happen:  1.) You will have fully committed yourself to your employer.  2.) You will have done all that you could to advance their business and make them better. 3.) At the end of your assignment you can walk away feeling very proud of the work that you performed.  Not all bad if you ask me.

Dave Cofer is President/CEO of Cofer Consulting Solutions, a firm specializing in attracting, developing and retaining young professionals.  E-mail Dave at David.Cofer@CoferConsulting.com.  To learn more about Cofer Consulting Solutions, visit www.coferconsulting.com.