Saturday 21 April 2018

Provide a stimulus

Sometimes, well-performing organisations move into 'coasting' mode - they know they are good, so they keep doing what they are doing, perhaps taking advantages of new technologies or 'obvious' improvements when they come along, but not actively striving for change and improvement.

If this is your organisation, then you as the leader of the organisation have to find some way of providing a stimulus - forcing your managers to think more deeply about improvement opportunities.

One such stimulus can come from zero-based budgeting where the organisation makes departments bid for all the funds they need rather than taking last year's budget and adjusting it to reflect changes.

If you, at the same time, suggest that the total budget allocation will be no more than, say, last year minus 5%, then your departmental managers have to think more deeply about how they can run their departments and achieve agreed outcomes.  Your departmental managers  might think such an approach is 'unfair' - but if it unleashes creativity and higher productivity, perhaps a bit of unfairness is what is needed.

No comments:

EvanCarmichael.com