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Business today requires more ingenuity in operating profitably than ever before. High costs are not just related to labor, pensions and corporate benefits. Excessive costs can be found throughout the organization and take many forms.
Where does the company start to look for waste and excessive costs? What cuts that will assist, which will harm? The smart executive team must always understand their costs and weigh their options before making the decisions necessary to maintain competitiveness. To be effective and not threaten the stability of the business, executive management must set the example for the business. They must be as open to, and accept examination as they expect the balance of the company to be. Change starts at the top and flows down.
Cost cutting is not just about reducing staff, salaries and benefits. Indeed, these activities will reduce costs but they also send a terrible message to employees, No job is safe! As this fear spreads, productivity will suffer, you may even be in jeopardy of losing key employees that the business requires. Replacing these people will increase costs in recruiting and training while producing a further negative affect on morale. Instead of placing salary and staff cuts topmost on the list of reductions, they should be left until all other options have been exhausted.
Waste takes many forms; excess office supplies, inventory and redundant activities, to name only a few. Tasking the department leaders to find and identify excesses is an approach, but may not be the most effective method. First, they are too close to the operation and may not see the excesses. Second, they may not want to identify waste in their department, it isn’t always in their best interest.
Employees’ self interest and fear of corporate politics make it difficult to be objective. Admitting one’s faults or errors to another coworker is difficult at best, therefore, internal investigations are usually ineffective. Any individual going against the “politically correct’ beliefs and attitudes held by the company or fellow employees, will be in jeopardy of damaging their career. For that reason alone, it is easier to report to management what they want to hear rather than the truth.
The efforts of staff can ensure the business succeeds through implementing workarounds. The workarounds address the immediate problems, but do not solve the problem long-term and usually contribute to more complexities than are necessary. Tasks that benefit the business’s bottom line may be sacrificed due to lack of time. The employees work hard to make the business a success, but are they working as smart as they should be?
Process improvements and metrics measurements are excellent tools for identification of excesses and lead the way to implementation of cost cutting and continuous improvement. The detailed examination of process and data flow within the company will uncover areas that can be improved and assist in reducing complexities. Management may be aware there are problems within the organization, but the extent or depth of the problem likely is not known thanks in part to dedicated employees.
As mentioned above, employees’ and their self interests may hamper the examination of the business processes. Combine this with the belief that they are going to fall behind on their regular duties and the natural result will be a less than thorough evaluation. The business will not be fully served and the effort will likely become just another incomplete initiative.
To fully serve the interests business and perform an accurate examination, hire a consultant experienced in this type of work. The cost associated with this individual will be more than offset in several ways. The impact on your staff will be minimal, allowing them to continue with their regular duties. The consultant will not be influenced by politics and will deliver an accurate assessment of costs and potential savings.
Simultaneously with the process examination, the consultant should mentor the staff and transfer the knowledge necessary to perform continuous improvements. To make the best use of these activities, the management team must empower all employees to participate in a free exchange of ideas for business improvements.
Following this outline will provide the answers you need to decide “Which cuts that will assist, which will harm?”
William Wood is an independent consultant specializing in assisting small and medium sized businesses who require premium level consulting service. Mr. Wood has over thirty (30) years of business experience and is trained in multiple methodologies. His website is http://www.amberwoodconsulting.com.
In some ways this article is a continuation of Managaging Your Team (Part 4) in that ‘influencers from a position of authority or expertise may be guilty (consciously or unconsciously) of ignoring inputs from team members or, just as damaging, putting down / under-valuing the contribution made and the contributor who made it.
Unfortunately, all of us may be guilty of this behaviour from time to time and often this attitude and behaviour will be accompanied with…
“C’mon, I was only joking! Don’t be so sensitive”
One of the main root causes of this behaviour, as I have touched on previously is based on our value system.
We live, breath, and act our own values - they are who we are and, therefore, are extremely important to each of us whether we are fully aware of them or not.
In context, think of some practical examples…
You’ve guessed it, not surprisingly, these are values that are very important to me in both my personal and business lives. Yours may be the same or totally different. To illustrate the point…
Punctuality is extremely important to you, it is one of your primary values. So, how do you feel when team members regularly turn up late to your meetings? How do those who turn up on time feel when you wait until everyone has arrived before you start the meeting? What message are you sending out?
NOW, let’s say you have just given your views, made a suggestion to the group and it is completely ignored. How do you feel?
Who’s guilty of plopping - you are - you’ve just plopped! Everyone else continues with the group discussion which bears no relevance to the inputs you’ve made.
You’re left sitting there (or worse standing there) wondering what the heck has just happened.
O.K. in the overall scheme of things it will happen to all of us at some time and by understanding that fact, we won’t get things out of perspective or over-react.
However, we do need to focus on the challenge or issue when a team member is ignored or under-valued repeatedly by the rest of the team or one individual frequently under-values other team members
You could argue that the title of this article should be…
Who’s Guilty of Making Me Plop?”
Just maybe…
So, one theme you’ll find in a number of these articles is our duty of care to our fellow team members. It is encumbent on all of us to guide our team colleagues, respect their contributions, seek clarification if necessary - don’t discount it or them, and where appropriate, provide constructive feedback to those who are consciously or unconsciously undervaluing other team members.
And, what can I do as team leader?
“Before we move on, I think what Joe said is worth consideration so let’s spend some more time discussing it”
Managing Your Team (Part 6) will look at “You Two, Stop Fighting”
Andrew has over 20 years experience providing personal and business coaching specialising in strategic planning, continuous improvement,personal development and lifelong learning.
Providing a focused problem solving approach through our personal and business coaching (especially to small businesses). Our primary theme and overriding goal is to provide you with the right choices that fit your needs, solve your problems.
Our website http://www.youraffiliatecoach.com is content rich with useful information, articles and resources.
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We live in very progressive times, one only has to look around at the changes on the internet each day to see that this is true.
We see changes also happening within the world around us as well, sometimes for the better sometimes not. We sometimes can feel frustrated in that it appears that we can do nothing to make the changes that we would like to see.
It is only through banding together that we can make our influence felt, when you look back over the history of mankind it would appear that all the significant changes came about by team effort.
>From the first groups that gathered together in caves for mutual protection against the forces of nature and the dangers of the wild, to today with groups working together to help our journeys towards the stars.
While most of us may never be going on journeys to stars, nor have to fend off the forces of nature, there are exceptions to every rule, we can find ourselves in a situation where being independent doesn’t help.
It is in these times of need that we find that being part of a team and co-operating as a team with a single purpose creates a greater good.
So when we go looking for an on-line business that we can participate in, we need to look at the existing teams within that business. How well do they interact? How well do they assist newcomers?
Unless these factors are thoroughly researched one can find yourself struggling not only to work out what you should do to work this business, but can actually find that others may be negatively impacting the way we work.
Now I know that it is easy to say find a group to work with, however not all personalities can work well together and so you not only need a good program, you need people that you are comfortable to work with and that you get along with.
This all takes time which is a significant reason why nearly every GET-RICH-QUICK scheme fails, this type of program is an individual domain not a team effort. It is only in the team oriented system that true value is placed on individuals and their worth to the team as an integral part of a well oiled machine.
Our planet requires this team effort as well, it is no good trying to do things by yourself. You need like minded individuals to create significant change. Although a single spokesperson may be associated with an event it is the team that is behind that person that achieved any of the successes.
I am not taking away from the individual, some are born entrepreneurs and if you can find one who is willing to mentor you then by all means latch onto their coat tails, I am sure that journey will be worthwhile.
However if you were to remove the team behind the one I can say without any fear that the results would be thousands of times less then with them.
So being part of a team is really a pre-requisite for a successful business on the internet, but how do you find that team? How will you start? What do you need to do?
The first step is to work out if there is an existing program that already has a team in place and whether this group meets your expectations of what you want to do.
If not move on find one that does, now I am not suggesting that you jump from one idea to another not at all, do your homework on the program prior to joining, talk with those already involved, find out what makes them and this particular program tick.
Once you are satisfied make a commitment to stay with this program for a sufficient amount of time to give it a fair go, we are not talking weeks or months here but a long term commitment of at least 12 to 36 months.
This is the only way that you will establish your own niche in any program.
The next step and I am sure that you have heard this many times before, start to build your own list of people to share with, people that can like yourself become part of your team.
There are many ways that you can go about building your lists, and being a newbie myself I am still learning, however one very good method that I have found is by having my own newsletter. http://oneperfectday.net/newsletter.htm
You can build a list using this method within a few months from 10 or 12 to over 400. In time you can build this list into the 1000’s that you see others creating.
One thing I will mention here if you do go this path, you must have something of value to offer your subscribers, so that they will keep coming back to hear what you have to say in your newsletter/ezine.
Other methods of creating opt-in lists are in creating reports or eCourses and offering these free to anyone that wants them, of course you need to make sure that they have a perceived value or else you will not have any one join.
You could also create capture pages and offer a something of value for your subscribers name and email address, this works well but I have found that the other methods are superior in my own experience.
Another way is to do this what I am doing now write an article about something that you know about and submit it along with your resource box, the part in your message that contains the details of your own business.
eZine and Newsletter editors are constantly looking for new articles that are of value to their subscribers and could supplement what they are doing on the internet, it is this cross sharing that can also help build your opt-in list.
Especially if what you have written is helpful to others, one thing that sticks in my mind is a saying “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”–Zig Ziglar–
This is so true, in fact you can virtually guarantee that if you help sufficient people along the way you too will grow in your business acumen.
So go out there and find your Team to work with, begin creating your list and create and share your wealth, whether that is in the form of money or knowledge.
About The Author
Ray Cooney has been involved in on-line marketing for over five years now. He has worked in many areas of the IT arena and is currently part of the administration for the Permaworld Foundation.
http://permaworld.org/members/join/
He also publishes his own newsletter to assist people in their on-line marketing efforts.
http://oneperfectday.net/ezine
He is also a supporter of the Feeding Kids Organisation through the promotion of the PermaSHARE Program.
http://permaworld.org/members/helpingkids/
ray@oneperfectday.net
Gantt charts are useful tools for analysing, planning and controlling complex multi stage projects.
Gantt Charts can:
Assist in identifying the tasks and sub tasks to be undertaken
Help you lay out the tasks that need to be completed
Assist in scheduling when these tasks will be carried out and in what order
Assist in planning resources and needed to complete the project,
Assist in working out the critical path for a project where it needs to be completed by a particular date.
When a complex or multi stage project is under way, Gantt charts assist in monitoring whether the project is on schedule, or not. If not, the Gantt chart allows you to easily identify what actions need to be taken in order to put the project back onto schedule.
An essential concept behind project planning is that some activities are dependent on other activities being completed first. For example, it is not a good idea to start building the walls in an office block before you have laid the foundations; neither is it a good idea to put the cake mix into the tin without greasing the tin first.
These dependent activities need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less completed before the next stage can begin. We can call dependent activities ’sequential’.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of any other tasks. These activities may be done at any time before or after a particular stage in the project is reached. These activities are called are nondependent or ‘parallel’ tasks.
To learn more on how to draw up a Gantt Chart; refer to my previous article on Gantt Charts.
Sometimes it is necessary to complete a project earlier than originally planned or than your previously drawn up Gantt Chart says is possible.
In this event you will need to take action to reduce the length of time spent on each task and stage. This is called fast tracking.
One way to fast track a project is to pile resources and funds into every single project task to bring down the time spent on each task. This would probably consume huge additional resources and is a very expensive way to complete a project. In my early days as a chemical engineer on a huge Chemical plant, this method was normal.
A more efficient way of fast tracking would be to look only at activities on the critical path. ie Fast track only those tasks which are dependent on other tasks being completed.
A construction example is using tilt slab concrete walls which are made at the same time as the foundations are being laid.
Resources are added only to those activities which are on the sequential critical path. Costs would still increase but in a more planned and controlled manner.
This method works also well when a deadline on the project is missed, and remedial action is needed to gain time and catch up to the original timetable.
Liz Cassidy, founder of Third Sigma International is an author, Speaker, Trainer and Executive Coach dedicated to facilitating results in the businesses, professional and personal lives of her clients. For more information http://www.thirdsigma.com.au
How do you increase your visibility by focussing on ‘high pay off’ activities to build your profile and profits?
Speaking in public is the fastest way to attract, win and even retain more profitable clients.
It is a ‘one to many’ activity that delivers an enormous return on investment for your time and effort.
It also builds your expert power and recognised authority status.
When combined with a good media relations plan it is one of the most powerful and cost effective marketing strategies around.
Here’s a personal case study of how to turn a five minute speech into $200,000 worth of media coverage.
“Malaysia - Opening doors to Australian Business” was the theme for a business breakfast held on March 10th 2006.
Malaysia is Australia’s ninth largest trading partner, with two-way trade between our two countries currently standing at almost $10 billion.
As a Perth-based international business speaker working in Malaysia, I joined James Wise, Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia (left hand side) and Peter Kane, Australian Senior Trade Commissioner to Malaysia and Brunei (right hand side) on the platform at a breakfast function “Meet The Ambassadors” to share firsthand insights on how to tap into the second strongest economy in South East Asia.
The marketing copy for the event was impressive.
“James Wise is a senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and has been Australia’s High Commissioner to Malaysia since 2003.
Peter Kane has served as Austrade’s Senior Trade Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur since 2005.
Peter has a wealth of experience gained from assisting Australian exporters in diverse markets across the world for nearly 20 years.”
More than 250 people turned up to the breakfast. Including a columnist for Malaysia’s most influential media vehicle, the The Star newspaper.
So why did the columnist choose to write a full page article about my five minute speech and not the two other more eminently qualified and experienced speakers?
Well, I believe there were five essential ingredients that made it irresistible to the media and journalist.
Here are the insider’s secrets so you can achieve the same amazing success with your next speech.
1. Emotional Connection.
As US speaking coach Doug Stevenson says when he talks about strategic storytelling - making content come alive, “emotion is the fast lane to the brain” and you must feel genuine emotion to connect with your audience.
2. Tell A Story.
Relevant stories are a powerful tool to illustrate key points.
My most relevant personal story to my Malaysian message was my ‘walking barefoot on hot coals experience’ at an Anthony Robbins Unleash The Power Within seminar I attended in Kuala Lumpur with 4,000 other delegates.
Even the world’s most powerful communicators use personal stories. Take for example British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
He was in Australia for the recent Commonwealth games and gave a speech to federal parliament on March 27th.
His speech was covered in the Australian media and here’s part of that speech and in particular a personal story.
“Australia may not be in my blood, but it surely is in my spirit. My earliest memories are Australian. From the age of two, till five I lived in Adelaide … At uni I was reintroduced to religion by an
Australian Peter Thompson, and introduced to politics by another, Geoff Gallop, both dear friends to this day. I’ve been back many times. I love the people, love the place, always have and always will. Australia is just a very special place to be.”
3. See, Hear and Touch.
Use descriptive words to create visual, auditory and tactile anchor points for your audience.
Paint the picture and create the movie in their minds.
4. Make It Personal.
Share something personal from a place of vulnerability and you create instant rapport with your audience.
5. Have A Strong Call To Action.
Make sure your audience take action after listening to your speech.
If you go to my blog an unedited version of my “Meet The Ambassadors” presentation is available now for you to listen to.
And, here is the story Personal touch to success, Insight Down Under: By JEFFREY FRANCIS that appeared in the Star newspaper.
And how did I come to value this story at $200,000. Well to take out a full-page advertisement in the Star newspaper would cost $50,000. But editorial coverage is four times more credible than an advertisement and you need to multiply the advertising cost by a factor of four.
Now this method is not recommended by industry bodies such as the Public Relations Institute of Australia. But it does provide a useful framework.
And of course, the story is available for the world to see on the Internet.
Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries. You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com
The cost, speed and quality leaps of Lean Six Sigma are obtained
through the application of appropriate tools. Following the DMAIC
improvement model of Lean Six Sigma, we will look at a number of
tools from each phase.
The Define Phase
Purpose of Define:
This phase of the Lean Six Sigma implementation identifies the
improvement opportunities and customer deliverables and defines a
scope. At the end of the define phase, we should have a project
charter, clearly identified stakeholders, a project team,
estimation of business implications, an evaluation of customer
requirements, a high level process map and project management and
communication plans.
Tools for Define:
Stakeholder Analysis:
The various stakeholders (customers, shareholders, employees) are
listed and the potential impact of the improvement project on each assessed as substantial, average, low or nil.
SIPOC diagram:
Of the tools applied in this stage of the improvement project,
perhaps the most commonly used is the SIPOC diagram. SIPOC stands
for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers. The diagram
provides a visual answer to the questions required to understand
the process: who are the primary stakeholders of this process? What
value does it create? Who is the owner of the process? What are the
inputs and who provides them? What resources are consumed by the
process? What process steps create the value?
The steps involved in creating the SIPOC diagram and the
involvement of team members in brain storming and idea generating
sessions are as important as the resulting diagram.
VOC - Voice of the Customer:
Critical to a proper definition of the improvement project is the
availability of data representing customer viewpoints and
requirements. These are collected using VOC tools like interviews,
surveys, focus groups, comment cards, suggestion/complaint boxes
etc. The definition of customer here includes internal and external
customers.
Using Kano analysis coverts raw quantitative and qualitative data
obtained from the above into clearer expressions of the value
customers place on various product and service features you offer.
Development of critical-to-quality requirements converts customer
statements, which may be imprecise, to precise requirements (valued
from the customer’s perspective) for your product or service.
The Measure Phase
Purpose of Measure:
This phase quantifies the current state of the process with respect
to cost, speed and quality and provides an idea of the gaps to be
filled. At the end of this phase, we have a detailed map of the
process, data on key input and output variables, an analysis of the
capability of the process, refined project charter and plans where
warranted by new information, and recommended actions to pick low
hanging fruits.
Tools for Measure:
Operational definition - various measures are defined so that all
team members apply the same definitions when gathering data for the
improvement project.
Process map, value stream map, complexity value stream map:
This produces a more detailed representation of the process than
the SIPOC diagram and includes such information as wait times,
processing times, resource
consumptions, process operator etc.
Cause Effect Matrix:
This tabulates causes against effects and calculates scores which
are used to rank the causes. As a measure
tool, this matrix is used to select which inputs to focus on
because of their significant impact on the process outputs.
Preliminary FMEA (failure modes and effects analysis):
This tool has a similar function to the cause and effect matrix.
All possible failures in the inputs are considered, and then
weighted according
to probability of occurrence, severity of impact on outputs and
difficulty of detection. This assessment also helps to determine
what inputs the project team should focus on.
Data collection plan:
This includes decisions as to what data (balanced between input and
output) to collect, identification of
stratification factors (these help determine patterns in the data),
determination of sample size, identification of data sources,
development of data collection sheets and assignment of data
collection duties among team members.
Pareto charts:
This is one more tool for focusing the team’s efforts on the most
important problems. A Pareto chart is a bar
chart where the horizontal axis represents categories. On the
vertical axis we can plot in descending order, the frequency of
occurrence, or cost, speed or quality impact of each category.
Where a clear Pareto effect exists, only a few of the categories
(typically 20% or less) are responsible for majority of the effects
(80% or more).
Measurement systems analysis:
The process of obtaining measurements is subjected to standard analyses to ensure reliability, repeatability and reproducibility. Other attributes of
the measurement system are stability, bias and discrimination.
Control charts:
A control chart is a run chart sequence of quantitative data with
three horizontal lines showing a centred mean and upper and lower
control limits. Control charts help to assess the nature of
variation of the process. In-control processes are expected to
yield data points randomly distributed around the mean but within
the calculated control limits.
Process capability assessment:
This tool measures of process capability assess the ability of a
process to meet functional requirements.
Several measures of capability exist. All of them are compare the
process standard deviation to the allowable range of variation as
specified by the customer.
Samuel Okoro is the CEO of Leapfrog Alliance Ltd, a management training and consulting firm that helps organisations located in the African region to improve quality and reduce costs through better business processes. His personal passion is to help move African business to world-class levels. For further details please visit http://leapfrogalliance.com.
Here’s how to get out of, or avoid, the “I need … ” trap. It simply involves changing what you think and what you say in very simple ways.
In my working with leaders worldwide for more than two decades, I’ve noticed a character trait that the most successful share: They focus consistently on understanding and supporting the people whom they lead.
For instance, you could say, “You need …” which is a good way out.
Or, you could say, “The team needs … ” which is a better way out.
Or, you could say, “Do you need? …” Which is the best way out, especially with a question mark attached. A corollary to this question is, “What do you need from me to help you get the team to succeed?”
Asking a question rather than using a declarative is often more effective because it gets people reflecting upon their situation. After all, we can’t motivate anyone to do anything. They have to motivate themselves. And they best motivate themselves when they reflect on their character and their situation.
A question can trigger such reflection and ultimately lead to their making the choice to be motivated to be your cause leader. You may not like the answer; but often their answer, no matter what it is, can better lead to more results being achieved than your declaration can.
Furthermore, asking questions like, “What do you need for the team to succeed? …” works much better than saying “I need … ” because you are forging a “critical confluence” - the confluence of your or your organization’s needs with their needs.
You may think I’m putting too fine a point on these changes; and to a degree, you’d be right. Making simply one change may not be important; but when you multiple the changes many times during the day, day in and day out, month in and month out, their aggregate can add up to tremendous change indeed. In fact, it can add up to job and career transformation.
So, the next time you are tempted to say, “I need … “, don’t. Instead, say, “Do you need? …” or “What do you need? … ” Over time, you’ll forge great changes in how people relate to you and your leadership, changes that will lead to substantial increases in results.
However, watch out: In getting out of the “I need …” trap, you may find yourself in another trap. Asking “What do you need? …” might play right into their hands of people who don’t’ trust you or want to sabotage your leadership or use you to further their own ends. Such people want to lead you down their private rabbit hole. They want to get you exploring things that have nothing to do with your getting the results you need and everything to do with satisfying the needs of their ego or whatever agenda they have. “Don’t you think you need? … ” could be their ticket to ride. Before you ask the question, be aware of the ride and how to get off.
THE SECOND TRAP. The “You do … ” trap. Most leaders miss a great opportunity that presents itself to them daily. Since leadership is all about having people take action that gets results, it’s important to understand the kind of action people should take to get the best results. You can ensure it is the best kind of action by challenging people not simply to do a job but to take leadership of that job. After all, there’s a big difference between people doing and leading; and when you are constantly saying, “You do … ” you are missing out on getting a lot more results.
Now that you know how to avoid two leadership traps, you’ll find that your career will be boosted in many marvelous ways.
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com