If you are a competent management professional you are probably very well aware of your asset utilization costs.
How to make your company perform at its best
I meet many executives who can quote from memory the exact figures for their production costs, equipment utilization stats, profitability margins, and so on.
If you are one of these people, let me express my admiration for your commitment, diligence and, well, great memory – it is impressive.
But let me ask you this: how much does absenteeism, procrastination, re-inventing the wheel and poor communication cost you? Can you even begin to identify and quantify those?
Here’s another question: are your key employees as focused and productive as they could be?
And if not, what does that cost your business?
As a consultant, working in many organizations, I often observe this same pattern:
1) People turn up for work with only a vague idea of what exactly they are going to do all day and what the priorities are
2) Throughout the day people often get interrupted and side-tracked, ending up doing things of low importance and low value
3) A lot of time is lost in addressing the same issues over and over again, each time re-negotiating the rules and re-inventing the wheel.
4) People are too busy putting out fires to even think of what could be done to prevent the fires in the first place.
1) People turn up for work with only a vague idea of what exactly they are going to do all day and what the priorities are
2) Throughout the day people often get interrupted and side-tracked, ending up doing things of low importance and low value
3) A lot of time is lost in addressing the same issues over and over again, each time re-negotiating the rules and re-inventing the wheel.
4) People are too busy putting out fires to even think of what could be done to prevent the fires in the first place.
Does this sound at all familiar? Do you experience these issues in your organization? I bet you do! In fact the larger the organization, the more pronounced these issues are.
There are a couple of things you can do.
One is to take the time to ask and answer the following questions: “what can we do to minimize procrastination?”, “what can we do to eliminate inefficiency and re-work?”, “what can we do to keep all our employees motivated and aligned with the company’s best interests?”
Asking and answering these questions at every level of the organization is what’s going to make your company perform at its best.
Another thing you can do is implement the FPA methodology throughout the organization.
FPA, which stands for Focus, Plan and Achieve, is a methodical top-down approach to streamlining and optimizing business activities. It provides the framework, the guidelines and the feedback mechanism, which greatly increase the chances of a successful outcome.
The main tenets of the FPA Methodology are:
•Clarity – become crystal clear on what the desired outcome is
•Planning – think everything through and prepare a step-by-step action plan
•Focus – eliminate all other activities not directly related to the achievement of the outcome
•Action – schedule the execution of each step of the action plan and give it a deadline
•Feedback – implement a feedback mechanism and constantly evaluate your effectiveness
•Clarity – become crystal clear on what the desired outcome is
•Planning – think everything through and prepare a step-by-step action plan
•Focus – eliminate all other activities not directly related to the achievement of the outcome
•Action – schedule the execution of each step of the action plan and give it a deadline
•Feedback – implement a feedback mechanism and constantly evaluate your effectiveness
You can find out more about the FPA Methodology here: https://www.focusplanachieve.com