Monday, May 2, 2016

You Want to Get More Done? Do Less…

By Pascal Dennis

Trust you all are enjoying the arrival of Spring, as we are here in the Great White North.

(For our colleagues in the southern hemisphere, trust you’re enjoying fine autumn weather.)


Thanks for the fine feedback back on my earlier blog – ‘Strategy is About Saying No.”

More on Strategy Deployment today, building on last blog, and highlighting an especially interesting paradox.

How to get more breakthrough activity done?

Do less…

Don’t crowd the Right Hand Side of your strategy A3. (I was taught ‘no more than 5 activities – and even that’s too much!’)

If we have ten countermeasures on the RHS of our paper, do we really understand the strategic problem?

Chances are we’re simply buffering our lack of understanding with volume. (“One of these is sure to have an impact!”)

Fatigue and exhaustion is the risk of course. We have a limited number of hours for improvement activity – often 10% or less of our time.

Surely, we have to use this precious time wisely.

Understanding the ‘less is more’ principle is vital for senior leaders. Remember, everything on your A3 maybe multiplied many times over on baby A3’s.

I’ve been lucky enough to observe great masters of A3 thinking, who are able to distill complex problems down to their essense.

“Here’s our critical gap and root causes. And here are the two things we’re going to do about it…”

‘Says easy, does hard’ – but we have to keep trying.

Best regards,

Pascal


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