Stop low value work to be efficient
All organisations do some unnecessary work. This work wastes
resources that could be used effectively to add more value.
High value-added work is often rewarding and is profitable to the
organisation. Work practices, tools, policies and even processes that
you developed to serve a specific purpose at a given point in time can
become less relevant and effective as your operating environment
changes.
Given enough change, they can actually stop adding value at all,
while continuing to drain resources as people continue to 'go through
the motions' because 'we have always done it'.
The time you release, by eliminating low value activities, is
available to improve the way you do things. Else, day-to-day pressures
will prevent you using time to think and plan for progress. This happens
almost everywhere. Organisations too get into habits like individuals.
People defend habits as though it made sense. The habits probably did
make sense once but things have moved on.
They result in vast amounts of wasted effort. "I know it doesn't make
sense but we have always done it this way." If you ask people to suggest
to their manager their ideas to do things better, they nearly always
resist.
Listen to staff
The organisation has another habit, which is to discourage staff from
expressing their ideas by not being prepared to listen to them. You can
deal with this by listening intently to staff and acknowledging their
ideas and creativity.
You can avoid too much dependence on higher-ups by encouraging staff
to implement their own ideas. Most people like to feel that their work
is useful. You may find that some work you do is unnecessary. If you get
information or work from someone else that you do not need, you could
tell them so, gently.
It's probably understandable that when we think of 'being better' and
'doing more', our thoughts go first to needing and getting more
resources, more capacity - a bigger budget and more staff. But from
experience, there's almost always the opportunity, first, to better
optimise resources by routinely ridding your company's 'garage' of what
mattered yesterday, so you can re-focus those resources on to what
matters today. Think of it as doing more with what you've already got -
to the great benefit of your company's bottom line.
Assumptions
If people don't know what happens to their work, then it is hard to
make precise judgements about what to do. If you know that the work you
do will determine if a product gets to a customer today, tomorrow or not
at all, then this is motivating; you see the fruits of your work. When
you know the context of your work, you can decide what to do and what to
drop. You could encourage people to trace their work across the
organisation.
The assumptions that people make, strongly influence the work they
do. Most managers in an organisation may have a common assumption. For
example, they may have the assumption that you cannot influence a
tedious and bureaucratic system that is imposed on the organisation from
outside. The work reduction caused by a small change might be very
large.
If you simply accept the assumption without rigorously testing it,
then the unnecessary work will continue indefinitely.
People make assumptions too. Someone might assume that he or she has
to go on doing the work in a particular way. "We have always done it
like this. My manager wouldn't agree to any shortcuts so there is no
point in asking him."
Assumptions are a cultural issue. Individual managers can encourage
their staff to question assumptions by asking for and listening to their
radical ideas. "If this was your section or department or organisation,
what would you have us do differently?" You will hope to make
improvements in the way you and your team work routinely. This is part
of the job of all managers.
Lean organisations
When people find the culture of their organisation too critical, they
work defensively to avoid people criticising them or catching them out.
They may even make work to appear busy or useful. If organisations are
too 'lean' there is no time to review the effectiveness of systems and
improve or eliminate them. Paradoxically, the leanness of resources
causes wasted effort.
Effective organisations need some slack to allow time to improve.
Managers, who are under stress and time pressure, find it very difficult
to listen to ideas on how the organisation could do things better.
They may find it hard to hear anything from their staff. This will
block the flow of creative ideas from their staff. Then improvements to
the way you do things get lost.
The old patterns remain and you do unnecessary work. In the ideal
organisation, people would feel safe to talk openly about their mistakes
without fear of reprisals. Managers and others would work together to
learn from the mistake so it is less likely to recur in the future.
Those who make no mistakes might, depending on their jobs, may not be
taking enough risks.
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