Responsible Autonomy – Page 62 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

January 23, 2019

Top-down, bottom-up

I get the feeling that top-down thinking is very unfashionable at the moment. It smacks too much of command-and-control, over-complicated buraeucracy, and having things ‘done to you’ instead of ‘done with you’ – or even ‘done by you’.

Bottom-up thinking is great for quick wins, incremental change and emergent consensus, but top-down can uncover opportunities for radical change that bottom-up thinking will miss, because you’re asking higher-level questions – “How should we keep our promise?”, rather than “How do we open the office?”.

And often, by answering these high-level questions, we can remove whole chunks of low-level procedure that would otherwise go unquestioned.

We shouldn’t let our thinking get trapped in our organisational structure.

January 22, 2019

Keeping it simple

When creating a checklist like the one I described yesterday, it’s tempting to dive into lots of detail and try … Read More “Keeping it simple”

January 21, 2019

Serialisation

Years ago, I worked with a client who wanted to streamline and automate how clients were onboarded and offboarded (if that is a word). They didn’t have much time to spend with me, so they gave me a copy of the checklist they used so I could get a handle on how it worked.

This checklist would get created whenever a new client signed up, and would travel around the client’s office from one person to the next, with each person doing, then ticking off the task they were responsible for.

If you have something like this (and it might be an electronic ‘checklist’), here’s a useful question to ask yourself:

“Does the next person really need to wait for me to complete my task before they can start theirs?”

If not, they probably shouldn’t be on the same checklist.

January 18, 2019

An eye-opener

I was introduced to this book a few years ago by the people at Matte Black Systems.

It was an eye-opener.

The way we’ve always done things isn’t the only way.

Take a look.

January 17, 2019

Marketing

‘Marketing’ used to mean shopping – going out to the market and buying what you couldn’t produce yourself.

That’s still quite a useful way of looking at it if you have something to sell.

January 16, 2019

“People will always need [insert ancient profession here]”

Being in an industry that’s driven by compliance seems like a safe option.

But when the compliance part can be automated, outsourced or down-skilled (and it will be the compliance part that goes first), you have to offer more if you want to stay in profitable business.

There will be many incumbents who decide to step out when this happens.

That’s a great opportunity for those who want to step up.

January 15, 2019

Professionals

“A critical characteristic of a profession is the need to cultivate and exercise professional discretion – that is, the ability to make case by case judgements that cannot be determined by an absolute rule or instruction” [*]

So, how do you get professionals to do things the right way?

Not by expecting them to work like fast-food operatives, or a production line.

First, work with them to build a shared vision of what ‘the right way’ means for your clients – what I call your Promise of Value.

Then create a supporting framework of high-level, end to end business processes that operates at the right level of abstraction – delivering guidance rather than absolute rule. Something like a professional musician’s score, that tells them what to play, but not how.

The two things together make a powerful combination that encourages consistency, yet leaves plenty of room for judgement on the exceptions, plus plenty of scope to evolve the system in the light of experience.

In other words, you’ll free your people up to be professional.

January 14, 2019

I’m sorry

I wrote a blog for you on Friday, but it didn’t go out to you.

I’ve looked into it, and I’m hoping this one makes it.

Thank you for reading them.

January 10, 2019

Consistency

Whatever you’re promising your prospects, it isn’t just about the technicals of what you do, it’s also about how you do it, and that needs to be carried through into every experience

Queues

Despite my frequent rants about self-checkouts, there is one good reason to have them.

If you only have one or two things, you don’t want to wait behind an enormous weekly shop. A self-checkout or basket-only lane is a good solution here.

Similarly, its a good idea to split the bakery queue into ‘sandwiches’ and ‘bread’, so bread buyers aren’t waiting behind the office lunch order.

Sorting a big queue into separate, differently handled sub-queues reduces queueing overall, and makes handling the different types of order easier, because you’re not switching between them all the time.

Better for everyone then.

Forcing everyone into the self-checkout queue defeats the object though.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Responsible Autonomy