You may not want to believe it, but its simply the law of averages coming into play here.  Yet when I ask most people what separates their business from the competition, the overwhelming majority say “We give better service than they do.”

Well now, these people can’t all be right, can they?  More importantly, is better service enough to ensure your business thrives in the new economy?  I say no.  The data is on my side too.  Businesses that plan to thrive in 2011 and beyond are the ones that can move past this platitude and give their customers real specifics on just what this “better service” thing means to them in a very tangible way.

0 Based Budgets Processes

You hear a lot in the news about 0 based budgets these days.  In days gone by, companies and government agencies would take last years’ budget, add 10% and call that this years budget.  No more.  Most budgets these days start with a $0 base – meaning you have to justify every expense.  By examining every dollar spent, chances are much better that we can uncover and eliminate wasted spending – particularly on those things that have outlived their useful lives.

The smart businesses have already adopted this plan, but now even this isn’t good enough.  The next step (more…)

Believe it or not, having the option to say no, and even better giving this option to your employees, is one of the quickest ways to a lot of yes in your business. 

Popular opinion is that you always, always, always want to be able to say yes to your customers.  The problem with that thinking is that it draws in a lot of customers who maybe shouldn’t really be your customers – or at least should be so on better terms.  Terms you can actually live with.

You have all heard the stories of companies that say yes all the time – even to customers who are just plain ridiculous.  And in all these stories, it works out in the end.  Nordstroms gets a big article in the Wall Street Journal for giving some lady a refund on her snow tires.  The lady is happy, the company is happy with the press.  People who shop at Nordies feel better about paying too much because they are doing so with a great company.  See?  Everybody wins.

How about the other stories though?  The ones that (more…)

Man, there sure has been a lot written, particularly in recent years, on how to be an effective manager.  And you probably know a manager who has read enough of this material that they can recite it back to you chapter and verse.

However, most of these people would also have to admit – should they stop long enough to really take a look at what they do during the day – that they don’t actually spend much of their time managing like they read about in their books.  Most of their time is actually spent putting out fires.  In fact, many of the managers that I’ve worked with actually look forward to these emergencies – its when they can really shine.

And you and I are not alone in noticing this trend.  We’re in pretty good company in fact.  Jim Womack, founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute recently wrote about this same phenomena.

Creating basic stability in core processes is one of four basic value-creating tasks of management, yet it is “almost completely ignored,” observed Jim Womack, LEI founder.

“When you go in and spend a day with managers and observe what they are doing – even up close to the top – they are busy talking to the customer about things gone wrong, they are busy talking to the supplier about things gone wrong, they are busy talking to operations or design about things gone wrong. Complete instability.”

As a result, the main work of many managers at many levels in companies using “modern management” systems is constant firefighting.  Here is Jim’s list of the four activities of managers that create value for their organizations: (more…)