There is no denying the fact that circumstances have
changed in many markets. This could mean it's harder to be
profitable using current practice and unfortunately this leads many
organisations to jump directly to the so-called solution of staff
cutbacks.
If you stop and think, though, maybe cutting staff isn't the
solution at all.
Clearly not everyone needs to be worse off. Even if you see your
particular market sector drop by 20 per cent, as is predicted by
some, remember you couldn't cope with the whole market anyway.
Maybe the key is finding a better way of developing and growing
your slice of the market and perhaps finding some distinctive
competitive advantage. Check out your current business practices.
Are they designed to benefit the customer or just to service your
needs? Ask everyone who has to work with your customers. They know
exactly what effect your decisions are having on the customer.
Unfortunately, even in these troubled times, bad practice
abounds.
Rather than thinking about laying off some staff, what if you
were to ask them about the problem and teach them how to think
productively at the same time?
Take for example the three different companies I approached for
a quote on installing a rainwater tank. The first two turned up on
time, made some excellent suggestions to improve the project and
save me money, and gave me a quote on the spot. The third one (and
at the time of writing by far the biggest - for how long I wonder?)
wanted $90 just to provide the quotation. And my big bonus was that
if I ordered from them I would get the $90 back! I wondered if
anyone would actually take them up on the offer? Not many, was the
impression I got when I called back to speak to a couple of
different people in the call centre.
Then there's the lovely example of the '2-for- 1' offer from a
well-known coffee shop chain. Delighted with our voucher my wife
and I asked for a medium latte and a small cappuccino. Sorry, the
2-for-1 only applies for drinks of the same size. But the small one
will be cheaper, we explained. You can see where this is going. So
we ordered two medium-sized coffees and left half a cup of
cappuccino to be thrown away!
Now the frightening thing about these two examples is that the
staff involved in directly dealing with the customer knew full well
that the ideas were unproductive. In both cases they annoyed the
customer, despite the coffee example being designed to please the
customer. Somebody in both organisations was responsible for
thinking up and applying these ideas - but clearly they were not
thinking productively. And I wonder if these companies have
commenced staff-cuts?
Maybe we should start thinking instead of reacting. And a
critical requirement would be to start thinking differently. It's
been said so many times that the way of thinking that got us into
the situation will not get us out.
It's incredibly important to separate your thinking. It's
impossible for the human brain to cope with thinking creatively and
critically at the same time, yet we try to do it all the time in
brainstorming sessions. Someone puts forward an idea and then
someone else thinks of all the reasons it won't work. Get as many
ideas as possible, including the really wild ones, and then select
the ideas you want to pursue further. The wild ideas often give by
far the biggest returns. Make lists, make choices. This process
applies to every step along the way to finding the right solution
to the right problem, and the very first step is to know more about
the key issues you need to deal with.
STEP 1
First of all you must gain a very clear picture of what's going
on, what's the 'itch'?
Getting a clear picture means involving lots of people who have
typically been ignored in solving problems in organisations. The
waiter in the coffee shop and the call centre guy in the two cases
above, for example. Ironically it may be the staff that you ignore
that you choose to lay off.
The other wonderful group of people who know exactly what it's
like to deal with you and your organisation are the customers. In
most cases they will be only too pleased to tell you. In many cases
they never get asked, or are only asked superficially. What about a
phone call from the CEO rather than the salesperson? How about the
general manager spending some time in the service department? And
how about the maintenance guy spending some time in the
boardroom?
STEP 2
What will the ideal future look like? I know - at the moment the
word 'survival' is likely to spring to mind! But what about the
detail? What exactly will the ideal future be like for you and your
organisation? Where will you be? What will you be selling? What
will your customers say? Imagine a perfect day six months from now,
then a year into the future. But don't just make a list. As human
beings we are drawn to an image of the ideal future. What happens
when you think of the ideal holiday? You picture the swimming pool
or maybe the golf course, the beach, the mountains. They create a
much clearer image than just the written words. So do the same for
your business - create a picture of the ideal future. And ask your
staff to do the same. You can be sure that their ideal future would
not include looking for another job!
STEP 3
The next step is to make sure you are asking the right question.
If you think the problem you need to solve is pretty obvious then
you might well find that you end up with 'obvious' answers! If you
keep trying the same solution don't be surprised if you keep
getting the same results. In today's fragile marketplace we need
some new answers to the right questions.
Let's look at an example from a colleague in Africa working with
a school in an underprivileged area. The initial statement of the
problem was, "How can we get the government to provide more condoms
to prevent the spread of AIDS/HIV in the school?" The high school
students were invited to list all the possible ways of asking and
re-wording the question, starting each time with the words, "How
might we…?" They then chose the one question they thought was the
best - "How might we teach children at the school to take personal
responsibility?"
This gave rise to a massive list of possible actions including
badges, posters, lessons taught by the children to each other and
so on. After a few months they reflected on the question they asked
compared with the question they started with. Given their obvious
success the original question sounded very out of place. So asking
different questions around the same issue gives rise to some very
different potential solutions.
STEP 4
Now the fourth step - the stage that most people think about
when the word 'creativity' is mentioned. Generate answers - and
generate lots of them. But remember that on its own, creativity is
a waste of time. There are many truly creative people who have
thousands of wonderful ideas. The only problem is that many of
these ideas never see the light of day and aren't implemented
because implementation is nowhere near as exciting as creating.
Hence we separate creative thinking from critical thinking - make
lists, make choices.
There's certainly no shortage of tools and techniques for
developing answers and thinking creatively. The key is to get as
many possible solutions down on paper before you start thinking
critically about which one to take further. Whichever creative
technique you use to brainstorm for options, there are a few tips
to keep in mind. Defer judgement, build on other people's ideas,
deliberately set time aside to seek out the 'wild' ideas and go for
quantity. This means making sure you keep the 'judge' under wraps -
there's no place for the critic at this stage.
The big question now of course is - what do you do with this
wonderful list of ideas? Well, in step two we suggested creating a
very clear picture of the future ideal state of the business. Now
you can take each idea generated and ask a series of questions
about the potential for it to create that ideal. What do you like
about the solution - what are the positives? What do you dislike
about the idea - what are your objections? What might be done to
enhance the positives? What might be done to remedy or overcome the
objections?
STEP 5
Having created and tested a potential solution the next step is
to give it some 'oomph' and power it up for implementation. Who
else is involved? What will other people think? Who are the
stakeholders? What about the customers? Will everyone see the
benefits? How will you 'sell' the ideas?
If we are going to be diligent about ensuring our organisations
will survive, thrive and preferably grow through the downturn, the
gut-reaction approach is unlikely to work. Productive thinking will
give a competitive advantage that in turn creates more demand - and
more demand needs more resources. At the very least you keep the
staff you have, learn how to think together and identify ways to
improve productivity at the same time - which in turn creates more
competitive advantage.
The process of analysis and problem-solving will galvanise
management and staff and give them the chance to contribute, feel
worthwhile and motivated to work better. As long as there's true
commitment to the cause and the required actions determined during
the process are carefully and deliberately carried out, the problem
will be solved and productivity and profitability will
increase.
The productive thinking option asks for much more effort and
certainly more different thinking. Take time to consider what's
going on. Take time to think about the ideal future. Make sure you
are asking the right questions then 'go for gold' in creating
ideas. Pick the ideas with the most potential and match them to
your future ideals. Power them up to make sure the implementation
is foolproof.
Then make sure you are intimately involved with the tracking and
feedback on the solution. Otherwise you might be guilty of
introducing a '2 for 1' deal that annoys the customer no end and
costs sales and jobs.
Ken Wall is the creator and CEO of
creativity consultancy The Thinking Network, as well as CEO of Whole
Brain Thinking.
