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Improving productivity can affect entire organizations and economies
In chapter 4 of my book Tor Dahl a productivity expert
explains that only 8 percent of what is done today is perfect
That means 92 percent can be improved. Let's look at why you should be
interested.
Unless you are a monopoly you are competing with others. If you use Six Sigma or Lean you may be
able to compete on price and quality
but sooner or later your competitors catch up and good enough
is well good enough. If you want to break away from the pack
and grow your business you'll need to differentiate along another dimension
in other words innovate. But innovation can be a hit or miss.
You'll need to run a series of experiments learn from the results and adapt.
That takes time courage and discipline. If you have already removed headcount
as a result of earlier cost savings people won't have the time
or courage to try something new. Your only option will be to increase productivity
Productivity improvement frees and reallocates resources
by looking at occupancy, effectiveness and efficiency.
Occupancy is about how you are using your time.
If you are in a meeting that doesn't start on time use the time to catch up
on email.
Replace unproductive time with productive. Effectiveness
is about doing the right things and can be broken down into three areas:
1. Screening. What am I doing that no one in this organization should be doing?
2. Delegation. What am I doing that should be done by someone else?
3 Planning. What should I do
in what order and by when?... and Efficiency is about doing things right.
Think of occupancy, effectiveness and efficiency
as barriers to getting things done. Remove those barriers and you create more
time for innovation.
Your employees will be happier, more engaged and energized.
When that happens, ideas flow, improvement becomes contagious and
everyone is a winner. To learn more read chapter 4 of radical action for radical times
or get in touch to explore how my help.
This has been 2 minutes on removing barriers to productivity and innovation