Editor's view, Inside Track, October 2010
Getting back to basics
Everyone, it seems, is going through hard times. Even those who are doing well are doing so by focusing back on the essentials. The public sector is engaged in much soul searching and looking for what will potentially be very deep cuts and working through the political consequences of that (what will it really be like if we have 20% fewer police on our streets?). And of course, they start by cutting back on the flowers in foyers and cups of coffee at meetings.
But for any organisation, public or private, and professional service firms like ours, it’s actually a good time to look at the fundamentals of what we all do and what we are about. In our consulting business, we live or die by the value we add to our clients and on the relationships we enjoy with them (the word enjoy being meant genuinely). So we have taken a hard look to make sure that we continue to offer the things that are relevant (which in these times is as much about tackling the sticky business issues and making an impact on bottom lines as it is about pure capability building) and changed our business model to one that is right for the new environment. It’s all about getting back to the basics and being more flexible. It is amazing what you really can strip away if you abandon any notion of sacred cows.
There are lessons that small business has for big business (where people tend to be further from the bottom line). Can everyone in a big organisation see how they contribute to something real (in the case of the public sector to delivering something for the public; in the case of the private sector to producing a good or service that people are prepared to pay for)? What is the most efficient way of collaborating with colleagues and external partners and working together to do that? And for leaders running these organisations, do they create the frameworks which allow that to happen? Or are people still bound in a fug of bureaucracy and complexity, of internal politics and obscurity? This is the time to de-clutter, to ask the hard questions, to strip back to the basics and be really clear about value. The world of work (and perhaps the world as a whole) will be a better place for that.
