One of the most important things we do in organisations is interact in meetings.

Yet 90% of people I speak to indicate their meetings are not as productive as they could be or worse, a waste of their time. There is a general consensus across industry that our meetings are all too often insufficiently focused, lacking sound collaborative approaches, have a limited outcome orientation and consume way more time than is necessary.

The importance of meetings in an organisation cannot be understated. In terms of knowledge-transfer and decision-making our meetings are potentially our most potent method because we:

• have the right subject matter experts invited and in attendance,
• if they are in attendance, they should be there with intent, and
• they are in a face-to-face setting where the most meaningful communication should be possible.

There are a number of methods doing the rounds that focus on improving meeting processes and many of these work well but the key to effective meetings is addressing the thinking that takes place within those processes. At Think Quick we have facilitated many difficult and potentially difficult meetings using the Six Thinking Hats and have high levels of success.

Not all meetings of course require such facilitation, I suspect a great deal could be run simply and efficiently if the participants could simply develop some tolerance and empathy for opinions that differ from their own. However, we routinely use the  parallel thinking of the Thinking Hats when:

• there are strongly held views
• there are challenging issues at hand
• there are diverse perspectives on offer
• the conversation is rambling and unfocused, and
• when time is short

The challenge is to incorporate the methods into meetings so they become a part of business practice and are routinely applied. This challenge when accepted is one that can bare great benefits.

To date, just a few of our client’s successes using parallel thinking in their meetings have been:
• Millions of dollars worth of savings in one Department where such saving could not be envisaged prior.
• A $600,000 saving within a business unit as a result of training in the thinking and its subsequent same day application to a key issue.
• The smooth planning of moving 20+ city locations into one newly constructed building.
• A business restructure planned and implemented without any of the associated angst by getting everyone thinking in parallel throughout.

Meetings can be productive, focused and enjoyable. They are the primary engine-room for transferring knowledge and making decisions in organisations, so if you get the thinking right in your meetings right, the flow-on effects are substantial.

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As the economic climate tightens and the challenge not just to thrive but survive increases, the need for Business Efficiency has rarely been greater. Irrespective of industry type we are all going to need to do more with less, increase savings & revenue and improve our product and service delivery. Not only this, it’s all going to have to be done in a sustainable manner.

We don’t however, just suddenly flick a switch and become “business efficient.”  To start down the business efficiency path we need to ensure we have four key elements in place:

We must start with an understanding that everything we do can be improved – even those things that are working well at the moment. Once any new process is implemented the impact-clock starts ticking because the environment for which it was designed inexorably changes and it’s efficacy starts to diminish. If we wait until we can sense the loss of impact we have usually lost the opportunity to intervene in a time and resource effective way. Like it or not all of our processes are in some way failing or moving toward failure without the appropriate oversight.

How do we know when our organisation has this understanding? Organisations that have this understanding don’t only speak of Problem Solving, they have a substantial focus on Opportunity Identification and designing genuinely new ways forward.

Once we acknowledge this we must then have a willing disposition to continuously improve all of our efforts. Easily said, but this is often ignored in favour of the status-quo or superceded by the day-to-day demands of business as usual. The most successful organisations have a willing disposition and commitment to work both “on” and “in” the business as standard practice.

How do we know if our organisation has this willing disposition? Organisations with this disposition typically commit  resources to ongoing improvement methods and tend to maintain or even boost these resources in challenging economic times when business efficiency is most needed.

The third element is a toolkit of simple and easily applied tools and methods to apply to the challenge of being more efficient in business. If asked, most of your staff will readily point to areas that need improving or could be more efficient, but they don’t have the right techniques at their disposable to readily tackle them. When this happens improvement efforts can be hap-hazard and tackled with inappropriate methods resulting in a frustration, failure and reduction in the disposition to continuously improve.

How do we know when we  have these methods at our disposal? If your organisation has these methods there will be a dramatic reduction in the reliance on external consultants. There will also be less tendency to invest and apply old methods that are context-inappropriate and offer no reasonable means of measuring dollars saved, efficiencies gained or return on investment.

The fourth key element is the clear authorising environment that enables people to continuously work “on” the business. In such an environment business efficiency is not only encouraged but mandated and expected.

How can we tell if we have an authorising environment? There is no exhaustive list here but some of the indicators are your Organisational Change related leaders will be a part of the Leadership Team, not just reporting to it. All staff with have time allocated to undertake improvement related tasks. Personal development plans will explicitly include activities for working “On” the business and you will have a more empowered workforce more likely to commit greater discretionary effort in improving services and the bottom-line.

In organisations I have worked in and with, I have NEVER seen all four elements together. Even the co-existence of three at the same time is very rare. Of course there have been many using the words and language of business efficiency because we are good at crafting aspirational missions and visions, but we are correspondingly poor in moving them into reality through action.

In today’s changing world and tough economic climate we actually need to DO and ACT. We can no longer continue to talk and analyse and expect to be successful. We need to raise our heads and start designing our forward.

If we want our organisation to prosper, we need to take the focus off categorising personality types or analysing employees past performance to determine where and how they fit.  Instead, we need to empower them with new approaches and methods that will allow them to move the organisation forward with efficiency and also determine where and how they fit themselves.

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Late last year I had the pleasure of working with the Hargraves Institute facilitating a newly design programme of problem solving and opportunity recognition called X-Teams.

The X-Teams approach is one that delivers a team based programme that aligns and fully supports current strategy and also assists in forward design.

Each X-Team programme is customised to business unit or organisational objectives, goals and internal programmes.  The process is integrated into current work procedures, locations and staffing requirements to ensure minimal disruption and maximum contribution from all participants, sponsors and the executives involved.

X-Teams provides a cost effective means for an organisation to start to develop their own internal “hothouse” environment for testing and developing solutions to real issues as a part of normal business. In undertaking an X-Teams programme an organisation can:

• Learn powerful techniques to deliver improved productivity and new insights.
• Help identify and develop your high potential talent and future leaders to become leaders of productivity and growth.
• Help you to challenge your existing processes and cultures via the application of contemporary and proven thinking methods.
• Build your ability to build insight quickly and develop action oriented experiments and approaches that are rapid and low cost.
• Get more value, faster from your people by providing them the skills and insights they need.
• Identify those elements of the status quo that are in need of redesign or change

Typically in an X-Team programme the senior leadership of an organisation will determine the key areas they would like the process to address. Once these have been decided the programme is designed with the organisation’s imperatives in mind and the X-Teams are selected and formed. The teams will then over a five week period participate in a facilitated process of problem solving and design that will enable them to work with their colleagues to design interventions address their organisation’s most pressing needs.

For an obligation free discussion on how this new process can add value to your business or organisation contact myself or the Hargraves Institute.

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In a recent budget update, the Victorian Government announced a number of austerity measures to reduce spending and create a “more sustainable public service.” This makes 100% sense to all of us, but exactly what does “sustainability” mean in this instance?

Various definitions tell us it is: a capacity to endure; an ability to be supported or upheld; or being maintained at a steady level without depleting resources or causing damage. Mostly the word is used in an environmental sense but the definition transfers well into a Government context given ongoing need, limited resources and a duty of care for the community.

No one doubts the need to be more efficient and do more with less – this is now a given. Simply applying the notions of enduring, upholding and maintaining however tend to spawn management practices focused on viewing the world with rear-view vision.

A standard management practice is to do the same things we did yesterday but only cheaper and faster. In a time of resource scarcity and rapid change however there is an urgent need to keep moving forward, keeping an eye on the road ahead through the windscreen. The rear-view is an aid to navigation that helps ensure efficiency, compliance and safety. It is not the sole way to navigate forward.

Some extant management mindsets don’t often see new thinking, new design and new approaches as the way forward and with a failure to design forward, short-term views prevail with respect to sustainability. When this happens spending cuts and efficiency gains are focused on at the expense of new thinking and new action. Classic examples of this default thinking include reducing the resourcing of functions such as Learning & Development, Organisational Development and other developmental areas.  These are areas that no one can deny are important for the long term survival (sustainability) of an organisation.

Sustainability is a function of both leadership and management. Where the manager will seek to control and reduce, the leader needs to counter this by taking a longer term view and ensuring those functions that are necessary for long-term (sustained) survival remain resourced and fully functional. They also need to be equipped and engaged to assist everyone else to generate new and improved ways of doing things to ensure both short and long-term sustainability.

There is an absolute need for both approaches using the windscreen and the rear-view, but but we tend to default to the rear-view all too often.

In an environment starved of resources simple reduction can be self-defeating. We can’t just stop, cut, reduce, save and speed things up. We need to be able to commit to designing entirely new means of developing more sustainable practices that include addressing our issues and creating new opportunities going forward.

When your Managers are faced with developing more sustainable practices, will their primary focus be the windscreen or the rear-view mirror?

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