How to Increase Desired Results and Reduce Wasteful Activities

Now more than ever before the demand on everyone - for survival even - is on reducing wasted effort, all wasted resources, and increase our capacity to produce specific, measurable and desired results. And results that will be a breakthrough for the individual, team, and organization.

The problem is that in many instances we tolerate as much as 80% waste because most of each person's activities (80%) do not produce desired results – which means a lot of wasted effort, time, resources of all sorts. People do not have a reliable set of practices to produce desired results.

If this assertion seems exaggerated, run this simple experiment. Wander the halls of your organization. Stop by anyones office or work-station and, very casually ask these questions:

1. What are you working on?
   
2. The answer will, invariable, be in the form of an activity. After a brief pause, casually ask
   
3. What result are you trying to produce?
   
4. The answer will usually be a restatement of the activity the person is engaged in. Again, after a brief pause, casually ask
   
5. So what result are you trying to produce? Invariably the conversation gets bogged down here because the individual is not clear what result they are trying to produce. However, if you get a result that is specific and measurable, casually ask
   
6. Who's waiting for it and when's it due? Invariably the answers here are fuzzy, less so maybe about the who, invariable about the when.

A “best in class”, high performing organization would be one in which the success rate, or reliability, in producing specific measurable desired results is better than 90%. Which means there is minimal avoidable wasted resources - particularly time and effort.

Here are some action steps to increase desired results and reduce wasted time and effort:

1. Start by being clear what specific measurable desired result do you want, really want: whether the occasion is a brief meeting, a large-scale project or the formulation a multi-year strategy. And what you want, really want, does not mean the best case you can settle for or what is reasonable.
   
2. Say by when the desired result is to be produced, and who is on board to produce it. The by when needs a declaration not a prediction. It needs to be a stretch so as to create the possibility of a breakthrough.
   
3. Create milestones back from the future - the by when the desired results are to be produced.
   
4. Forecast from the present the likely/predictable result continuing with current projects and activities
   
5. Map the the predictable results #4 on to the desired future results #2, in the process identifying the "gap" to be closed
   
6. Regularly, daily if necessary, invent, generate and discover how to close the gap.
   
7. Measure constantly - visibly display milestones and actual results.
   
8. Publicly acknowledge success in meeting milestones and failures.
   
9. Do regular after action reviews so as to build on what works, stop what doesn't work and discover new things to try, learned from the benefit of hindsight.
   
10. Your capacity to succeed as an organization is a direct function of your capacity to make and keep promises.