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Just Say No

It is fairly self-evident that one of the keys to achieving operational focus is to undertake fewer projects – but in practice it isn’t easy to cross things off the list.  It doesn’t feel right to eliminate intrinsically worthwhile activities, and crossed-off items have a tendency to creep back on the list if you aren’t vigilant.  Here are some things to consider.

Keep a ‘Some Day’ list.   It can be useful to make sure that the organization has an official repository for legitimate projects that just can’t be a priority right now. This provides a soft landing for the member of the management team who originated the idea, and the act of placing the item on this list helps make the decision stick. Plus, you really do want to keep track of activities that may bear consideration as bandwidth becomes available.

Eliminate the common culprits.   Pay attention when proposed initiatives cause the more grizzled members of your management team to roll their eyes. They’re doing this because of the amazing regularity with which managers initiate exactly the same set of projects – which then just as consistently hit the wall. All are perfectly legitimate activities in the abstract, it’s just that they usually can’t be handled within the management bandwidth constraints of busy small/medium-sized companies. For example:

  • Employee and/or customer newsletters – Nice idea, but it’s incredibly difficult to sustain focus and dedicate resources to something like this month after month. The result is invariably either very lame output, an embarrassingly dead initiative after two issues, or both. I defy you to find a seasoned manager who has not lived to regret at least one doomed newsletter project.
  • Corporate logo re-design – Nice idea, but unless your logo is genuinely offensive to your constituents, you can’t afford it. There are cost tentacles everywhere in the business and it will take more management time than you expect. Accusations of superficiality are likely to surface, and really … how are you going to argue against that?
  • Customer councilNice Idea, and a fabulous tool for larger companies. But can you dedicate the resources required to politically maneuver a critical mass of high-level customers into attending, attract top-tier outside speakers, and prepare high-quality materials?

And the list goes on. The key is to look carefully for the eye-rolls to help you avoid the most blatant recurring themes. You probably won’t be led astray: no one is going to argue against holding a worldwide sales meeting, even though it will take a lot of time and resources.

Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.   Some of the ‘common culprits’ can be dealt with, at least on an interim basis, by occupying a somewhat uncomfortable middle ground. Consider the subject of website re-design. Websites do matter to contemporary businesses, and smaller companies sometimes have really bad ones. A discussion about strategic imperatives to support the growth of the business is likely include an impassioned plea for a complete renovation of the website look and feel.  Ans this is one of those cases where you will probably pick up some of those negative signals from people who recall mammoth web re-design projects.

One approach is to resist the ‘all or nothing’ argument from your marketing team and make only enough improvements to render the website serviceable. Does the home page clearly explain what the company does, and is it easy to figure out how to contact you? If not, fix the home page now.  But don’t try to win any design awards, and defer the complete re-design until time and resources allow.

When you’re in the thick of determining strategic imperatives and prioritizing projects, the desire for clear black or white decisions can sometimes be carried too far.  It’s a good idea to step back periodically and remind yourself that intentionally doing a less-than-stellar job of something can be a legitimate means of managing time/resource overload.

Identify the underlying objectives and act on them.  This probably falls into the Management 101 category, but it’s worth a reminder. When you kill one of the ‘common culprits’, be sure to work with your team to dig into the underlying objectives and see if you can identify a less resource-intensive means of achieving approximately the same goals. For example, is the monthly employee newsletter being proposed because employees are genuinely concerned about insufficient information flow? If so, an all-hands meeting (with dial-in from remote locations) is much easier to set up and can seem more natural. And rather than announcing monthly meetings, why not set the expectation to ‘as needed’? You’ll reduce the risk of under-delivering and the associated employee disillusionment – and frankly you might not have anything to say every month.

Is the logo re-design being proposed because the company’s image has negative connotations and a fresh start is indicated? An energetic one-day training course for all the customer service and inside sales personnel with a ‘delight the customer’ theme might get far better results with a much lower investment of resources. The employees will feel that you’re making an investment in them, and customers will have tangible evidence of a more positive direction for the company.




This post first appeared on Chick Operating Officer | Practical Ideas For Impr, please read the originial post: here

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