14 Ways to Simplify Your Business
by Lisa Bodell for BizLibraryYears ago, Southwest Airlines placed a bet on simplicity. While other airlines flew a variety of aircraft models, Southwest chose to build its fleet around a single model of plane, the Boeing 737. If one plane couldn’t make it to a destination on time because of a storm or maintenance issue, another plane could take its place, keeping the airline on time and saving it money.Simplification made the airline easier to run, more flexible, and better able to meet the needs of customers—and Southwest isn’t the only transportation company to harness the power of simplicity.In 2013, General Motors consolidated and simplified its brand lineup, dropping its Pontiac, Saturn, and Hummer divisions. The elimination brought real benefits, helping the company save as many as 1.2 million jobs.While GM and Southwest are examples of operational and brand simplicity, any simplification tactic that makes a company nimbler, more efficient, and faster gives it a competitive edge. The company that can quickly adapt to new conditions wins—and it’s easier to adapt when teams aren’t hindered by unproductive (and often unnecessary) meetings, e-mails, tests, approvals, and reports.Through my innovation work at futurethink (and research for my simplification book), I’ve identified proven ways to jump start simplicity.
Of the following 14 tactics, which ones address the biggest time-sucks or employee pain points in your organization?
- Eliminate 1 current activity before adding a new one. This golden rule of simplification emphasizes respect of employees’ time and thoughtful examination of existing responsibilities.
- Empower direct reports with decision-making. Charge each person on your team to make 2 decisions this week without you. At your next status meeting, discuss which decisions they made on their own. Expand this behavior to 3, 5, and 10+ decisions per week, and tie decision-making to individual performance or to a simplification metric for your department.
- Reward employees for identifying redundancies and red tape. While positive reinforcement isn’t a new concept, it’s been proven to spread the value of simplification across organizations. Publicly reward employees who make a successful case for killing a project, task, or policy. Read More →