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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
A straightforward, valuable guide to reduce effort and raise profits
Step inside any organization, even a very successful one, and you’ll probably find a lot of waste if you know where to look. From providing a feature that consumers don’t care about to exhausting efforts on tasks that only require adequate attention, there are countless areas where resources go down the drain. In Low-Hanging Fruit, Jeremy Eden and Terri Long provide seventy-seven of their most effective techniques for improvement, each drawn from their success working with major companies.
For more than twenty years, Jeremy Eden and Terri Long have helped companies of all sizes make millions by harvesting their low-hanging fruit. In this practical guide, Eden and Long share valuable, refreshing insights in entertaining chapters that get straight to the point. This book shows you how to smoothly shift your approach, your priorities, and your mindset to reveal the hidden potential in your organization. Whether you are a member of a small team or a global executive, you will learn how to identify and solve hidden problems, improve productivity, and increase profits.
Many people don’t realize that there are dozens of quick, easy, and affordable ways to make things better. Don’t buy into the myth that only some people have creative ideas. Typically, the people closest to the work (from the factory floor to the C-Suite) and the people closest to the customer know the best ways to improve business. We can pluck this “low-hanging fruit” every day to save time and money right away.
Need to grow your company’s earnings but don’t know where to find the low-hanging fruit? The answer is right in front of you, but harvesting it takes skill. Eden and Long show you seventy-seven clever ways to discover possibilities and make meaningful changes. Low-Hanging Fruit shows you how to easily improve your job satisfaction, your team’s performance, and your company’s earnings.
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Seitenzahl: 199
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Is Low-Hanging Fruit So Hard to Spot?
Part 1: How to Uncover Low-Hanging Fruit
Chapter 1: Put a Price Tag on Everything to Stop the Waste
Chapter 2: “Value Engineer” Your Products to Eliminate What Your Customers Won’t Pay For
Chapter 3: Ask “
Why?
” Five Times to See the
Real
Problem
Chapter 4: Ask, “How Do We Know That Is True?”
Corporate Myth Busting with “Why?” and “How Do We Know That Is True?”
Chapter 5: You Need to Tag It to Bag It
Chapter 6: Don’t Be Fooled by Misleading Metrics
Chapter 7: The 80/20 Rule
Chapter 8: Find Quick-and-Dirty Data to Get Refined Insights
Chapter 9: Benchmarking Is a Mistake
Chapter 10: Use Brainstorming in a New Way
Part 2: Now That You See It, Solve It!
Chapter 11: Ask the People Closest to the Work for Their Ideas
Chapter 12: Get Out of Your Office and Go See for Yourself
Chapter 13: Stop Ignoring Your Introverts
Chapter 14: Turn Complaints into Collaboration
Chapter 15: Other People Have Great Ideas—Just Ask Your New Hires and Your Vendors!
Silence Isn’t Golden—Honest Rejection Is
Don’t Let Your Company’s Gatekeepers Stand between You and Higher Profits
Chapter 16: Does Your Customers’ Journey Take Them on a Road Full of Potholes?
Chapter 17: The Unintentional Squelch
Chapter 18: Stop Brainstorming to Find New Ideas That Move the Profit Needle
Chapter 19: Making Problems Harder Can Make Finding Solutions Easier
Chapter 20: Use a Checklist—It Works for Fighter Pilots and Brain Surgeons, and It Will Work for You!
Chapter 21: Actually . . . Just
Don’t
Do It!
Chapter 22: Give People What They Need, Not What They Want
Chapter 23: Simplify
Chapter 24: Push Work Down to the Lowest-Paid Person Capable of Doing It
Chapter 25: Save a Bundle
Chapter 26: Save More than a Bundle
Chapter 27: Borrow Good Ideas
Chapter 28: Force People to Get Help
Part 3: Motivate Your Team to Harvest Low-Hanging Fruit
Chapter 29: Create an Idea-Based Budget
Chapter 30: The Five Surprising Words That Keep a Good Executive from Being Great: “I Want Everyone on Board”
Chapter 31: If You Want the
Money
, Spend the
Time
Chapter 32: Executive Motivators that Demotivate Everyone Else
Chapter 33: The Corporate Imposter Syndrome
Chapter 34: Improving the Company Should be Everyone’s “Job One”
Chapter 35: Sweat the Small Stuff
Chapter 36: Rally the Troops
Use a Call to Arms, Not a Lesson in Accounting
No TLAs
Go Big or Go Home
Chapter 37: Catch the Vision or Catch the Bus
Chapter 38: Eliminate Corporate Whac-A-Mole
Chapter 39: Beat the Competition by First Beating Your Teammates
Chapter 40: “Blame the Other Guy” Syndrome
Chapter 41: How Dimming the Lights Increases Productivity, and Why Paying Attention Pays Staggering Dividends
Chapter 42: Firings Can Boost Motivation
Part 4: One Company—It’s Not an Impossible Dream
Chapter 43: Form a Steering Committee to Make Sure the Left Hand Knows What the Right Hand Is Doing!
Chapter 44: “Pocket Fisherman,” Yes; “Pocket Veto,”
No!
Chapter 45: Hold Collaboration Workshops
Chapter 46: The One Monthly Meeting You Must Hold
Chapter 47: Celebrate Good Times, Come On
Part 5: Decide and Deliver
Chapter 48: The Three Essential Parts of a
GOOD
Idea
Chapter 49: The Miracle of Deadlines
Chapter 50: For Big Results, Focus on Small Ideas
Chapter 51: Fight the War with the Army You Have, Not the One You Want
Chapter 52: Add to Your Army Only When Necessary
Chapter 53: Create an “Idea” Flight Plan That Coordinates Implementation
Chapter 54: The People Who Implement the Idea Should Help to Develop the Idea
Part 6: Accountability: The Holy Grail!
Chapter 55: The Devil’s in the Details
Chapter 56: The Golden Rule
Chapter 57: Follow the Money All the Way to the Budget
Chapter 58: Don’t Let Someone Else Dictate the Value of the Ideas You Implement
Chapter 59: Want to Actually See the Earnings? Lock the Vault
Chapter 60: Track Your Position Plan
Chapter 61: It’s Not What You Start, It’s What You Finish
Chapter 62: ROI
Chapter 63: Learn from Your Mistakes
Part 7: Need More Time? It’s Easier to Find than You Think!
Chapter 64: “Everyone Is Entitled to Their Own Opinion, but Not Their Own Facts”
Chapter 65: Replace Agendas with Game Plans
Chapter 66: Ban Meeting Tourists
Chapter 67: Don’t Have a 60-Minute Meeting to Do 22 Minutes of Work
Chapter 68: Watch the Clock!
Chapter 69: Use Hard Starts, Not Just Hard Stops, for Your Meetings
Chapter 70: The Obligation to Dissent
Don’t Let Executive Exuberance Lead You to Bad Decisions
Chapter 71: Talk More, E-mail Less
Chapter 72: PowerPoint Kills
Chapter 73: Schedule a Little “Me” Time
Chapter 74: If You Feel Busy, Take on Even More Important Work
Chapter 75: Increase Your Return on Time
Chapter 76: In Order to Shine, Have Other People Do Your Work!
Chapter 77: Mom Should Have Said, “
Don’t
Always Do Your Best!”
You Can Find the Time—Now Use It Wisely!
Part 8: Win Over the Skeptics, Cynics, and Faint of Heart!
“We Are Too Busy Right Now”
“We Already Asked for Ideas”
“Shouldn’t We Wait Until We’re Done with Certain Activities?”
“Aren’t
We
Paid to Manage?”
“Our Employees Don’t Have Ideas: We Need Outside Experts”
“We’ve Recently Launched a New Process, and We’ll Confuse Everyone by Switching Gears Now”
“We Just Did Something Like This, and I Don’t Think We’re Ready to Repeat It So Soon”
Part 9: P.S. For Our C-Suite Readers (and Those Aspiring to Get There)!
And a Few More Thoughts for Everyone . . .
Manners in the Marketplace?
Service Standards
In Conclusion
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Low-Hanging Fruit
77 Eye-Opening Ways to Improve Productivity and Profits
Jeremy Eden
Terri Long
Cover image: © browndogstudios / iStockphoto
Cover design: Michael J. Freeland
Copyright © 2014 by Jeremy Eden and Terri Long. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750–8400, fax (978) 646–8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748–6011, fax (201) 748–6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As co-CEOs of Harvest Earnings Group, we are asked all the time how it works to jointly run a company. Our answer is that being co-CEOs works great! You have heard that two heads are better than one? It turns out that it is true. People who run a company or a division should always check their egos at the door. When you co-run a company with someone you respect, the ego checking comes naturally. We are each other’s voice of reason. People tell us we are amazingly simpatico, but sometimes one of us is the yin to the other’s management yang. What can we say? It works for us, and, if it didn’t, Harvest Earnings and Low-Hanging Fruit would not exist.
We feel that this would be the spot where we would normally thank our families for waiting patiently for dinner to be put on the table as we slaved over the book. But that would be untrue. No dinner was delayed in the making of this book. However, we would like to thank our spouses, Nancy Marder and Joe Long, whose never-ending support allows us to chase our dreams! In addition to that never-ending support, Nancy graciously helped by using one of her superpowers: editing. She is almost scary in her ability to spot a grammatical error, a typo, or even an extra space. But after a long day as a law professor, who wouldn’t love to come home and proofread this book? And Joe did get most of those aforementioned dinners on the table and, along the way, offered helpful tidbits like, “Just pick a cover design already!”
And thanks to Terri’s wonderful kids, Joey and Lily, for providing lots of fun stories to distract us from the task at hand. Whether on the soccer field, on the stage, preparing college applications, or just plain hanging out, you brighten the days. We would also like to acknowledge Jeni and her husband, Todd, who should move to Chicago immediately.
No acknowledgment would be complete without a very special thank you to Jeremy’s parents, Burt and Judi Eden. They are amazing in the true sense of the word. They have taught humor, passion, curiosity, and love through example! They are our biggest supporters—from frequent e-mails giving us great ideas to the most thorough, cheerleading-leavened critique of an early draft of this book.
Thanks to Jeremy’s sister, Amy, and Terri’s brother and sister, Ben and Jan, for reading drafts and giving us perspective. Amy, a social worker, and Jan, a psychologist, told us that even in their decidedly nonbusiness worlds, the book is relevant! And thanks to Jan for showing us that our chapters were “sticky,” but please stop telling Terri, “You can’t get this wrong” (see Chapter 71)!
We have also had the good fortune through the years to have many wonderful colleagues and friends. You know who you are. An extra-special thanks to Anirudha, Beth, Carol, Gordon, Henry, Jim, Karl, Malcolm, Marie, Mary Anne, Mick, Ralph, and Richard, Robin, Roxann, Sara, Shannon, Shawn, Steve, and Yoram.
Thanks to Bill Gladstone, founder of Waterside Productions, and to Richard Narramore, our managing editor at Wiley, for robbing us of the ability to say we were rejected as many times as J. K. Rowling! You believed in us right away. We would also like to thank the Wiley team of Lauren, Melissa, Peter, and Tiffany.
Thanks to the CEOs and executives of so many of the world’s great companies for trusting us to help their teams put into practice what you will read in this book. We have worked with so many wonderful people that naming just a few seems impossible. If we were at the Academy Awards, loud music would definitely be drowning us out to get us off the stage.
So as our last but definitely not least acknowledgment, we would like to recognize the people who come to work every day with the goal of making their companies better and their customers happier. We want to thank the literally thousands of managers with whom we have worked over the years who accomplish that goal. We learn so much and have so much fun working with you. It is our goal to make sure you learn and have fun, too!
INTRODUCTIONWHY IS LOW-HANGING FRUIT SO HARD TO SPOT?
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
—Peter Drucker
Sand in Your Suitcase
We have written this book out of frustration that you likely share.
We have had the great fortune of working with many successful CEOs of great companies who wanted to give life, not just lip service, to the phrase, “Our people are our most important asset.” When we work with their employees, up and down the organizational chart, in countless locations, and with every function, we hear, “Finally, someone is going to listen to our ideas to make our company better.” We are always struck by the palpable relief they feel.
Companies around the world have grown bigger over the years, but they have not become better. In fact, as most companies grow, they become less than the sum of their parts. Incredible advances in technology have not provided the Holy Grail of making work easier. Employees feel as though they are working harder than ever. Yet the companies they work for often move at a snail’s pace and are more conducive to stagnation than innovation—focused more on politics than on profit. This book is for those of you around the world who may (or may not!) love your company and your work but are frustrated at the obstacles that you face every day that stand in the way of improving productivity and profits.
Picture this: you are packing for a vacation. You carefully put everything you need into your luggage. You try to shut it, but the zipper has other ideas: It . . . will . . . not . . . budge! What do you try first? You try sitting on it. Maybe if you put all of your weight on it you can squeeze it shut. When that does not work, you have a choice to make, and they are two unpleasant options—spend money on a bigger piece of luggage, or leave stuff at home that you really need with you.
It is very similar to what happens at work—you can spend money to fix a problem or you can live with the problem and just do with less.
Let’s go back to the part where you gave up trying to pack everything you needed.
The problem is that along with all your stuff, you were also packing air—a lot of it! You can’t see it and you certainly don’t need it, but you are still bringing it with you. That air takes up room and causes trouble. You have to take air you don’t need rather than the clothes you do need.
Sure, you tried to get rid of some of the air—you sat on your luggage; you put all of your weight on it; you might have even rolled up some of your clothes (which squeezes the air out). But really, you gave up quickly and decided begrudgingly that you would pay $8 at the hotel to have that shirt washed.
Air is very tough. So tough, in fact, that the air in tires carries the weight of our biggest cars and trucks! Not only is it tough, it fills any little pocket of space it can find.
But what makes air our worst enemy when packing is that it is invisible! Because we can’t see it, we don’t try to get rid of it. Just imagine if your suitcase were filled with red sand instead of air! You would work hard to get rid of it. Instead of a bad compromise ($8 to have a single shirt washed), you might have a happy result. You might get to avoid those ever-increasing baggage fees.
Companies “pack air” in their processes. A lot of it! And typically, managers and management practices give up way too quickly trying to squeeze it out. Yes, if it is the size of a hot air balloon, it probably gets attention. However, what about those thousands of little pockets spread throughout every process and activity? As your processes multiply over time so do the pockets of air!
We have helped thousands of business leaders find money to innovate, be more efficient, serve customers better, and grow their businesses . . . all by turning their invisible “packed air” into visible “red sand.”
Almost every business process and activity you can think of packs air—wasting time and money and forcing bad choices.
Management practices, which have not changed in decades, need a major overhaul. The last major advance in management was the development of “Lean” and “Six Sigma” (now usually described together as “Lean Six Sigma”). Those methods incorporated a scientific approach to improving productivity and profits. But Lean Six Sigma requires a big investment in resources and in time. So, while it can be useful for a few large-scale projects, it is not useful to get at the multitudes of air pockets buried deep in every organization. We like to think of Lean Six Sigma as a huge server farm good for big data crunching. What’s missing from many companies is the laptop approach needed for everyday problem solving.
This book is about practical ways to stop packing air! Most are simple. They do not involve expensive new technology or Greek letters (we are talking to you, Six Sigma!). Change your days by implementing a few or all of the actions in our book, and you will not only add to your company’s bottom line, you will get more satisfaction out of your work life!
Now it’s your turn! We have seen these actions work wonders for everyone from those in the corner office to those closest to the work, from factory line workers in the Midwest to country managers in the Far East. Flip to any page and find a way to start using them individually—or collectively—today.
Low-Hanging Fruit
I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett
Low-hanging fruit is supposed to be easy to pick. You know the popular definition: Low-hanging fruit represents the actions that will improve your earnings without risk and without much effort. Many managers are convinced that after years of cost cutting, they picked their low-hanging fruit long ago. If the fruit was easy to pick, it would have been, right?
Wrong. Unfortunately, cost cutting often leaves the low-hanging fruit and instead just lops off branches without regard to what is left of the tree. True low-hanging fruit is within your reach. We have seen over the decades that harvesting low-hanging fruit produces bigger results with much less risk than those big projects on which companies rely, like strategic transformations and enterprise-wide systems! Talk about fruit that is precarious to reach!
Individual pieces of low-hanging fruit come in all sizes—from those worth millions of dollars to those worth just a few thousand dollars. Collectively, it is your growth engine! This book is your guide to harvest as much as possible!
Humans Ruled the World by Harvesting—Now You Can Rule Your Company by Harvesting Ideas!
All of us are smarter than any of us.
—Ancient proverb
How did humans come to dominate the globe? While other animals hunted for their food, we humans were the only ones who learned to harvest.
Hunting was an obvious way for early humans to get food. It was hard and risky work. To make the effort worthwhile, hunters had to find big game. One problem, though: big game was scary and dangerous. Only the strongest, most courageous, most skilled members of the tribe could take part. The many had to depend on the few. While hunts might have started with great hope and fanfare, they would often take longer, provide less food, and hurt more people than expected. As hunters depleted their hunting grounds, they would have to roam even farther away, into unknown territory, making the hunt even harder and food scarcer.
This sounds like many of the big projects that companies undertake to “nourish” their earnings. Reorganizations, ERP systems, cost-cutting initiatives, and the like are the corporate version of big-game hunting. Executives launch these programs with great hope and, as with the hunt, great fanfare. Selected experts are off to their task. The executive team monitors progress while waiting for the big payoff. Sometimes things work out nicely . . . just as sometimes we win a few bucks with a lottery ticket. But not often. It’s like Lloyd’s response to the odds of dating the beautiful Mary in Dumb and Dumber
