How focus can lead to improved performance
Countless times throughout my career, I have heard the expression: “We have to do more with less.” It is common and often used when making budget cuts or trying to improve business performance. The irony is we often make things worse, not better, when we are forced to reduce staffing or investments and when we put these issues before the clients’ needs.
Recently, when sharing our new Energy & Resources strategy, with its very important third priority to reduce activities that do not drive client value, I was contacted by a site manager who shared a story that stuck with me. A few years ago, when a new initiative was being rolled out to the field, she told her manager that she already had too much on her plate. What she was told in return was: “You need to get a bigger plate.”
I have come to understand both “Do more with less” and “Get a bigger plate” are the same message. And both are terrible advice.
Learning to do less with less
Instead, we should learn to do less with less. What I mean by that is we need to make sure what we do focus on are the right things. We should learn what is important on our plate and eliminate the rest.
How do we know what the right things are? As I shared in my previous article in this series, we now have the data from 500+ client surveys that tell us exactly what is and is not important to them.
Fueled by this knowledge, our teams will be focusing their time and effort on acknowledging and resolving issues stemming from client’s key concerns.
Our strategy is simple: focus on what is important, particularly Safety and Ongoing Service and Support, and reduce or even stop activities that don’t address those needs.
Our teams will be focused on activities that directly contribute to adding value for our clients.
We are going to do less with less, take things off the plates—not get bigger plates.
That is how we improve performance, save money for our clients and differentiate our Energy & Resources business from the competition.
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