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“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

This is a great quote from Peter Drucker, who was one of the great modern management consultants and a man who helped shape modern business management.

Working on Wasteful Things

Have you ever worked on something you knew was going to end up in the waste basket? It sort of changes how you look at your work, if you know it’s ultimately a useless activity.  Many companies end up doing things “because that is the way we’ve always done it,” and are losing time, productivity, and a big one – employee engagement as a result.

Worse still are the managers who micromanage every aspect of a person’s life or task, when a small amount of investigation would show that the task itself was not required.

What can we do?

Using Lean CX as a management framework, we can easily see the things that “should not be done at all.”  First of all, value is determined by the customer. Does this task add value to your customers (either internal stakeholders, or external paying customers)? Would they be willing to pay for it? Can you add 100 times the value you are charging for, and guarantee the outcome?

When we are sure that our outcomes bring value to our customers and we have a clear, repeatable process to get there, then we can remove the wasteful steps that surround it. Luckily, Lean CX has outlined that waste for you already, so all you have to do is match it up.

Waiting

Does your customer have to wait at any stage, to get what they want? Nobody likes to wait, and customers are used to getting things now.

Rework

Does your customer have to redo any part of the stage, to get what they want? This is a very fast way to kill engagement in your teams and to lose customers before they have even bought from you.

Excessive Steps

Are there too many steps for a customer to go through, to get what they want?  And can you reduce them to one, like Amazon did with their one-click-buy?  Now they’re the biggest retailer in the world.

Excessive hand-offs

Are your customers handed between people or departments too many times, or at all?

Searching 

Do you customers or team-members have to search for the information they need? If so, it’s costing you time and money, and adding to your customers “Waiting”.

Customer not getting what they want

Lastly, it’s all for nothing if your customer isn’t getting what they want – and to make sure they are, you have to check in and ask.

Lean CX is truly one of the fastest way to Operational Excellence in your business or start-up. Using those operational wastes above, you can search out the areas in your business that are costing you money and losing you customers.

And then, Peter Drucker would be proud.

– David McLachlan

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