I’ll keep this short and to the point + the point is quite simple.
There are many ways to boost productivity in a company…
- Hire A players
- Prioritise effectively
- Focus on core goals
- Communicate plans clearly
- Balance strategy and tactics equally
- Balance strategy between short, medium and long term goals
- Iterate planning, execution and analysis
…but sometimes it’s a little thing that makes a huge difference.
Having done all this I’ve seen many business go nowhere, despite all departments working very hard. Lots of activity, plenty of meetings, everybody up to date and in touch with each other.
The cause is very simple – one way comms.
People can drift into a “one way” / “outbound” work mode, where they initiate their actions, fire requests to others but seldom respond to incoming requests, especially when the said requests require them to spend more than 5 minutes per task.
They simply ignore pieces of work being requested from them that will take longer than a certain time.
Before long everybody starts to work this way and all you have is people doing their own thing – be it well aligned to the company strategy – and ignoring the inbound tasks.
Work seems to go on but the company spins wheels and a lotto things don’t progress.
Planning is rife, so are comms – execution slows down and struggles.
On the flip side, I’ve found companies steam along with amazing output and achievement when everybody works in “balanced IO” (Input/Output) mode and actions incoming tasks in a timely fashion
It may seem like a small thing, or even something that’s very common these days – ignored emails are indeed that – but you’d be amazed how much difference it makes to an organisation’s success.
Mind Iterations 