Ever travel through a high traffic neighborhood that wants to slow cars down -- so they install these large speed bumps? One of two things happen: You either slow down or you continue on at normal speed and have a terribly rough ride.
What are the speed bumps in your organization that keep you from comfortably traveling forward to better profits?
1. Lack of a concise direction
Without a clearly stated vision and direction from the CEO, people mill around waiting for which direction to head this week. While they are waiting for the marching orders to come down from the mountain, they are profit margin dead weight, no momentum gathers, and the speed bumps result from indecision.
To provide proper direction, establish a specific plan and stick with three basic pervasive priorities. Spell it out in such clear wording a 12-year-old can understand, and spread the word. Refocus everyone constantly on those basics and be unyielding in that focus. For example, if customer service is key, don’t stop training your newly hired employees in how to treat your customers no matter the short-term economic effects of investing in your staff.
Be sure your middle management can effectively express and reinforce the CEO’s direction. Randomly walk through the departments and ask the department leaders what is the goal, or purpose, or direction the organization is heading. If they fumble and aren’t sure what to say, you just witnessed a speed bump!
2. Conflicting agendas
The complexities of working in today’s world are many and they are only exacerbated by the hidden or conflicting agendas that pervade the workplace. If a manager resents working for a female or younger or less experienced boss and tries to rebuff her or take digs at him in public at every opportunity, that manager is creating a common yet completely disruptive speed bump.
Study people in your managerial positions. What makes them tick? What do they see is in their way to keep them from achieving their goals? It’s amazing how transparent people can be without realizing it, if we only took the time to watch and listen the actions of our managers. Take the time to witness the internal conflicts between your managers. Then ask yourself, how is this shutting down my progress? How is this impacting those who report to these people?
Once you’ve gathered your answers and lost a night’s sleep over them, take them one by one and deal with them directly. Have a person that resents working for a female? Call him in and let him know his performance is noticeably suffering from his prejudices and you are counting on him to become more congruent in bringing his agenda in line with the agenda of the organization to be profitable and efficient. In almost every organization they are many of these conflicting agendas. Take them one at a time, address them head on, mincing no words, and them move on to the next one. Speed will increase as the speed bumps decrease.
3. End of month gamesmanship
It’s the last week of the month and to meet those sales goals and production targets you pay overtime for extra help to get everything out in time to be counted before the calendar changes. Whew! Great job on saving the numbers for the month. But ... aren’t you going to have to do the same thing the next month and the next and the next? So in a year’s time, how many thousands of overtime dollars have been wasted to meet a paper goal? One organization I’m aware of paid $2,400 at one facility one month for overtime and overnight shipping costs to beat a paperwork goal. It was considered routine, because every month the last week chaos was an accepted practice.
Is this the best use of company resources? That's $28,800 directly off the profit line -- to serve what purpose? That’s an expensive speed bump, not to mention the stress and wear and tear on the employees running around talking to each other about how clueless management must be to do this every month.
If this sounds familiar to you, why not take a one-month hit? One month you decide not to waste the overtime money and additional shipping expense, and you explain it as a cost saving measure. That end of month shipment will be the first shipment of the next month, making that next month whole again, thus stopping the cycle of wasting money and effort and over the course of the year the same amount of product will be shipped! Resist the urge to play paperwork games. The speed bump of games brings your expertise into question. Manipulation of paper numbers is a speed bump you need to remove.
Corporations are often more worried about the speed bumps placed in their way by regulations and competitors; when in fact, a closer focus on the internal speed bump removal will have a greater return on the investment of time and financial resources. By eliminating just these three obstacles, your profits will be easier to obtain and your ride much smoother.
