See Things That You Don’t

I’m often asked to explain what it is that we do to help warehouses reduce expenses. My answer is that we train their leaders to see things that they don’t.

1. Go and See. Reports are used to collect information that can tell us how we are doing. If the information is bad, you can spend a lot of time researching and then trying to explain why something happened. You are usually in defensive mode if it’s your boss that you are explaining this to and there is usually no plan going forward except to “fix it” so it doesn’t happen again. We teach leaders how to have well-defined processes that use measurements other than those captured on formal reports to alert everyone when the process is broken. That way countermeasures can be put in place as soon as a problem arises rather than after the report comes out.

2. No Problem Is a Problem. If it’s a good day and nobody came to your office to report a problem, that’s a problem. Processes tend to become broken because people are not machines. Things happen and they adapt. We train leaders to look for and see those changes, and then what to do when they occur.

3. It’s Not All about Efficiency. We often hear about how the goal is to always to do something more efficiently. We teach leaders to ask the question of why it is being done in the first place. There is nothing so useless than doing efficiently that which should not be done at all (Peter Drucker, Business Consultant). We train leaders to make their processes effective, not just efficient.

4. Look for the Rocks. We train leaders to look for and see the rocks – those problems that are adding costs to the operation. We teach them how to identify and implement effective countermeasures (not solutions).

We train leaders to see problems that they don’t. It’s what will set you apart from your competition.

By Bruce Trippet, President, OpportunityLinks LLC. All Rights Reserved.