It’s not unusual. We just continue to do certain things in the business because we always have done them. Or we continue to do them because it would be a pain in the neck to train someone else to do them. Either way, we end up doing things that are not the highest and best use of our time. As a result, the business doesn’t get as much of our real talents as it should.
For each of your daily activities, you should ask yourself, “Am I the only person capable of doing this?” If someone else could do it (or could be trained to do it), then someone else should do it. And that someone else should be going through the same self-examination, and shedding lower level activities to someone else. In the end, all activities should be pushed down in the organization until they reach the lowest level where they can be competently done.
Or maybe there are some activities that should be scrapped altogether . . . activities that no one should be doing. Our sole reason for being in business is to serve customers, right? So for any given activity or expense, it would be reasonable to ask, “How does this benefit our customers?” If there is no customer benefit, direct or indirect, then it’s also reasonable to ask, “Why are we doing this?” Try an interesting audit. For every activity and every expense in the business, look for a corresponding customer benefit. If you find some that don’t pass the test, you will be able to save time, energy, and expense in ways that won’t affect customers.
Whether you push activities further down in the organization or discontinue them completely, it’s all about the effective use of time. It’s about making sure everyone in the organization is unburdened of work that should be accomplished at a lower level, freeing them to fully leverage their highest talents and skills.
