Uncover Profitable Faults

By understanding faults within your business, rather it is in the processes or the model itself, one is then able to accentuate on the positive outcomes of making changes to those challenges.


However, getting to the understanding can be a daunting task. When most organizations pass down review methods or task individuals with uncovering areas that need improvement, even if it is done so in a non threatening manner, and by non threatening I mean in a way that employees do not feel their career is at risk by divulging information, it is still difficult to get truly penetrating information about business related matters.
Today, I had a revelation while in a meeting. During this meeting, while discussing opportunities around SharePoint, I guided my clients to think about ONE thing they would like to change, ONE process that needs improvement, ONE workflow that they see as being inefficient, and ALL of them pointed to a process, workflow or item that was not related to internal structure. They ALL pointed to information gathering and transfer within their partner structure. Keep in mind, I was not talking to non decision makers, I was sitting down with the President, Vice President of Operations and Vice President of Sales. It was at this moment, I needed a way to guide the discussion in a manner that allowed them to confront challenges without feeling as though they were not doing their function properly.

What did I come up with you ask? Simple, I took the one area they mentioned, the process involving information transfer outside of their business and expanded. I proposed we focused on that and also developed a discussion/wiki forum for employee’s companywide to anonomously post concerns and improvement suggestions that can then be voted on and reviewed by executive teams quarterly.
Guess what, it was not only welcomed but struck up a conversation that lead to us agreeing to meet next week to discuss how soon we can kick it off. By removing the threat of having to exploit areas of fault, it allowed us to find a way to in turn exploit all areas of fault and make corrections that prove to be profitable and positive in many different aspects.

So, if you are looking for ways to determine what needs to be done, do it indirectly direct, find ways that allow people to speak their minds without feeling tied to their response. I believe if you look at challenges everyone faces in your company, and they are identified on an open podium, a vast and very positive outcome will occur.