By David Brewster May 2002
Clarity about where your business is now and where it is going is critical not only to managers and owners but also to staff. Often any clarity we once had dissipates slowly in the day-to-day rush unless we regularly take stock. Here are five things you can do to improve the level of clarity in your business:
- Walk through your business from end-to-end – almost as if you were an order. Talk to each person involved and understand where their work comes from, what they do with it and where they send it. Your understanding will be improved even further if you write down what you find out.
- Remove clutter. Target your office, or some other area, and do a thorough ‘spring clean’. If you can’t bring yourself to throw things away, archive them. It is amazing what a clean space does to free the mind.
- Distill your current business plan to its essence. Focus on the one or two things your business is aiming to do well, where you expect to be in, say, three to five years, and how you intend to get there. This is the business plan distilled: something you can explain to your people, network, etc. in a few short sentences. You are trying to find the beacon – the one clear thing that you wish to move toward.
- Identify two or three obvious things that will need to happen in order for you to move toward your goal. Take on, or delegate, responsibility for each and set-up a regular cycle of progress review and action planning.
- Have patience and persistence. If you are really clear about where you are and where you are going, you will take set-backs in your stride and not let them throw you off course.
This is only five of many different things you can do to gain greater clarity in your business. You will be able to come up with others – or get outside help to give you a kick-along. In either case, if you don’t start now, you won’t get there.
©May 2002 Business Simplification