On my lunch break today I was watching a snippet of BBC’s How Clean is Your House and basically gagging over the pigsties some people live in. The premise of the show is that two British women go to dirty and cluttered houses to help owners clean up and start a normal organized life. The biggest questions they ask the homeowners are “how did you let it get like this?” and “How can you get anything done?”
It got me thinking about business clutter. Every company starts with a clean slate, just like a nice new clean house. But a few years later, they have so many projects going on, they start getting cluttered. Maybe they started out with an amazing business plan and strategic plan, but who has looked at it? Is it just in a pile and getting dusty?
Companies are just like people and they too often prefer to work around the mess and just focus on their current task instead of taking the time to evaluate where they are and where they want to be. As you begin to approach the end of your business year and your short term sales forecast has greater clarity -now is the time to start planning!
A Few Clutter Busting Tips:
1. Find your strategic plan and read it (don’t have one? We should talk.) Are you where you want to be? If no , why? If yes, why?
2. Gather a team to update your strategic plan. I know everyone is busy, but this is not something to be handed off to the business development guy/gal. If the corporate leadership is not involved there will be no buy-in to the plan.
3. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses – don’t over focus on weaknesses. Develop strategies that reinforce your strengths and address your weaknesses.
After a good evaluation of where you are, figure out where you want to be, and fix responsibility.
4. Communicate the plan! Give everyone a copy (at the very least a non-proprietary version) of the new plan, and put it somewhere people can access it.
5. Don’t let it get dusty. Conduct regular reviews. Use venues such as program reviews, and business unit/division reviews to measure progress against the corporate goals and objectives.
Stop working only on a day to day basis. Reduce business clutter through better planning and resource allocation.
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