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 Easily said, but this is often ignored in favour of the status-quo or superceded by the day-to-day demands of business as usual.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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At Think Quick we don’t simply assist with your issues, we help build your capacity to solve your own.

We provide new perspectives and new means of looking at your organisational issues so that appropriate and sustainable action can be designed in-house to address them.

In every instance we use accredited and experienced practitioners and practice a range of contemporary techniques designed to address the thinking of participants so that the focus leads to tangible and improved design and action.

The world is highly complex and rapidly shifting, so to be able to act with impact we must first be able to make sense of what is happening around us. The methods we use are designed to do this. Sessions are designed to replicate the way people behave in real life, as opposed to the way we “expect” them to behave in organisational settings.

Amongst the methods we use are those developed by Edward de Bono and include Lateral Thinking, Direct Attention Thinking Tools and the Six Thinking Hats. We also focus strongly on the Cognitive Edge methods which enable the emergence of fresh ideas, insights, new design and solutions derived form the multiple and diverse perspectives present in the room. The cognitive Edge methods are based on participation and discovery, as apposed to more traditional linear and prescriptive group methods that are common.

All of the methods applied are focused on gaining new insights, navigating through complex issues thereby allowing organisations and participants to take advantage of new opportunities in conditions of uncertainty.

The strengths and benefits of these approaches are:

*    We generate means of seeing the world through the eyes of participants, rather than via the narrower interpretations of a facilitator or third party.

*   We assist organisations to develop contextually appropriate interventions to address issues rather than applying standard methods that have minimal impact when issues are complex.

*    The methods tap directly into the knowledge of the assembled group and generate new design possibilities and participant buy-in. With this buy-in, outcomes tend to be more resilient and sustainable.

*    The methods allow for the navigation of issues for a fuller exploration rather than a solution oriented approach reliant on our first pattern matches that are not always the best fit.

*    The methods encourage innovative thinking and generate a range of possible solutions by tapping into the diverse perspectives and knowledge of the assembled group.

*    We use techniques that allow for wide scanning and the identification of weak signals that potentially have economic and human costs to the organisation.

*    The methods used move participants from a static approach to addressing issues to one in which there is a strong focus on design and forward momentum without the paralysis of perceived risk.

Our accredited and experienced practitioners have successfully facilitated many sessions and projects across public and private sectors and have worked closely with clients to determine need and co-design and process to ensure the best possible outcomes.

Think Quick also assists in the design and implementation of projects where new perspectives and new approaches are required.  These include evaluations, navigating change, strategy, planning, leadership and culture related interventions.

For more information contact Frank at think.quick@me.com

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Greetings all. Now that I’ve moved on from my whole of government role I’m starting to find time to put together my own blog and this is it. Think Quick!

Actually when I say my own blog, I mean I’ll be the primary driver but I will be working with all of those brilliant people that I have had the pleasure to work with, meet and learn from over the past 10 years (and there’s been quite a few.) Some have started to appear in the Favourite Links at left of screen, and I will progressively add to this list.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be starting to pull together the tools techniques and training we successfully applied and bundle them up into a unique set of offerings. The mix will be eclectic and selected specifically to help make sense of, and act in the increasingly complex and changing world in which we now find ourselves.

The methods on offer will incorporate both the new and contemporary along with a number of the tried and true standards such as the methods developed by Edward de Bono, including Lateral Thinking, The Direct Attention Thinking Tools and the Six Thinking Hats.

Frank Connolly

think.quick@me.com

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