blog.
Good, Better, Best
Do you remember a time when you tried to do your very best on an exam or an assignment? What about preparing for a presentation at work? Or planning a meeting or delivering a seminar? What did it feel like? Do you remember how much effort you put in to do your very best? If you did your very best, there is a strong likelihood that you also got the best reward from your efforts. And you were happy with the results?
Is Your Cubicle the Source of Your Work Stress?
Office cubicles were introduced in 1968 by Robert Propst and were intended to increase office productivity. The idea was solid at the time, but as real estate costs grew, cubicle sizes decreased and are now a way of maximizing floor space by getting as many people into as little an area as possible. While this appears to be a logical solution to space problems, the solution has created other problems. Specifically, decreases in productivity and creativity.
Brain Dumps - Key to Being Organized
Many of us have participated in a brainstorming exercise at some point in our business careers. In fact, brainstorming seems to be the preferred technique by which organizations generate creative ideas and solutions for problems. However, it may surprise you to learn that brainstorming is no more effective for developing creative ideas than having individuals work on their own.
Meetings - bane or blessing?
If you’re like most executives, meetings consume a large part of your day. But if you’re a smart executive, you know whether attending or chairing a meeting is worthwhile well before the meeting takes place.
In my experience, many people attend meetings to gather information, provide project status updates, or invigorate a team that appears to be losing steam. These are all the wrong reasons for meeting.
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Procedures Par Excellence
Did you ever work for an employer where when you arrived for work on the first day you weren't given any documentation relating to the job’s role and responsibilities? I did. On my first day on the job, I was told to just “take it easy” the first few days and deal with the work as it arises. Relying on the job description and job title for guidance, I performed my role as best I could and managed to stay with the company for two years. Perhaps no surprise, a few years after I left, the company went out of business.
Almighty Surveys
If you’re like most executives (more than 80 percent), you rely on surveys to collect data about and from your customers. And there is a good chance that you use at least three to five data sources (including surveys) to get this information.
The Fast Track to Change
Here’s a hypothetical situation. Company A has been experiencing dropped calls in its customer service department. This has led to an increased number of customer complaints. To handle this, the customer service department’s overtime hours are going through the roof. As you can imagine, this is costing Company A a lot of money not only in overtime, but in lost customers. What should Company A do? There are two options. They can choose a traditional approach to problem solving or apply the Kaizen method.
Establishing the Need for Improvement: Benchmarking
One of the key requirements of implementing a continuous improvement program is to first establish a need for improvement. You may think this is quite easy, since you already “know” what needs improving. But establishing a need for improving services or products may be harder than you think. If you can’t show the need for improvement in a clear and meaningful way, it will be extremely difficult to get support for making change.
That's The Way We Do It Here
Culture is defined as "specific behaviours acquired (in part) from social influences." These social influences can come from family, friends, co-workers, and others. When we wish to focus on efficiency improvement, culture can be an aid or a hindrance, depending on whether the culture is affected by forces encouraging change or forces resisting change. Let me give you a couple of examples.
The Power of Why
One of the best ways to get to root causes of problems lies in the question “why.” Why does it take 30 days to pay an invoice? Why does Finance require five signatures on the cheque? Why is the Contracts Division involved in payment processing? Why? It is such a simple question, but it can generate powerful results.
Planning Makes Perfect
When was the last time you developed a plan? Did you implement your plan? And here’s the million dollar question: Did you implement your plan successfully? If implementation was successful, then it is very likely that you spent at least half your time in the planning process before you started with implementation.
The importance of planning cannot be overemphasized, but in western cultures, the tendency is to follow a cycle of “plan,do, re-plan, re-do, re-plan, re-do,” until the plan and implementation are completed.
This is the wrong way to plan and implement, since the end result can take twice as long and cost twice as much as necessary.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
What’s the secret to working smarter, not harder? The answer is standardized work methods. If you do not have documented standards for your work, then you are working much harder than necessary.
Efficiency: There is Only One Best Way
It occurs to me that many people are bound by habit to repeat inefficient behaviours. Inefficient behaviours are those that require us to use more time and more steps to accomplish tasks. Sometimes we don’t even realize how inefficient we are until a faster way is demonstrated to us.
How Can "Voice of the Customer" be Used to Improve Organizational Performance?
In Lean Six Sigma, a specific methodology is used to address improvements in an existing process. These improvements are based on “the voice of the customer.” In other words, the organization’s motivation for improving organizational performance is based on what the customer is telling the organization. This makes sense since the organization’s sole purpose is to serve its customers. Without customers, the organization fails to exist.
How Can “Bottleneck” Executives Improve Their Personal Workflow?
Have you ever worked for a boss that seemed to be the ‘black hole’ of the organization? You know the one I’m talking about: documents that went into that office, but never came out, preventing you from doing your job. If you’re that boss, listen up. There is a way to improve your personal workflow.
35 Ways to Kill Ideas
I do not know the author of this list, but I found it to be a concise expose on how leaders (or anyone) can stifle innovation. It bears heeding that all ideas are valid ideas and some, if percolated sufficiently, may even lead to ingenious breakthroughs.
Using Internal Resources to Implement Projects
An organization can use its internal resources to implement new projects even if its internal resources are not subject matter experts (or SMEs). Here’s how: have your staff work alongside SMEs to learn how to implement projects in one or more pilot sites. By working alongside SMEs, staff is exposed to detailed implementation procedures which procedures they can apply to other sites as implementation progresses.
Traveling Executives can be Productive
If you’re a busy executive that travels frequently, listen up. Your productivity doesn’t need to suffer just because you’re on the road. And, in fact, travel time is the perfect opportunity for catching up on work. This is the time when you are free of telephone and office interruptions, so there’s really no better time to focus on some of your priorities and increase your productivity. Here are five steps to staying on top of your productivity when you’re traveling.
Project Charter - Why do we need one, anyway?
I’m often asked why one needs a project charter. After all, if we're working on the project (or if the project was our idea), we certainly know what needs to be done, don't we?
While organizations, individuals and project managers may very well know what needs to be done, the project charter is an essential tool that provides purpose and motivation for a team to do its work.