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Absolutely true.\u00a0 If you want to know where there is waste in your organization, ask your people.\u00a0 They know where it is, but they won\u2019t tell you unless you ask.<\/p>\n
At a medical practice that has a number of offices, we asked the staff for \u201ctime wasters\u201d. . . activities that take up a lot of time without an obvious benefit.\u00a0 In this practice, patient records are kept centrally, so when a doctor is seeing a patient at one of the outlying offices, the patient\u2019s record (which can be voluminous) must be faxed there.\u00a0 The staff reported that they spent a lot of time standing at the fax machine.\u00a0 We checked with the doctors who told us they don\u2019t need the entire record, only two or three pages of it.\u00a0 So it was an easy fix that saved a lot of staff time with no adverse impact on doctor or patient.\u00a0 But we wouldn\u2019t have found this \u201ctime waster\u201d if we hadn\u2019t asked.<\/p>\n
Go through your entire organization from the executive offices to the loading dock and ask everyone where they see waste . . . wasted time, materials, or space.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be surprised by what you learn.\u00a0 In some cases, an employee will believe something is wasteful because s\/he doesn\u2019t understand its value.\u00a0 This becomes an opportunity to help that employee learn more about how your business actually works.\u00a0 But in many cases, the employee will point out something that really is wasteful and can be corrected.\u00a0 You just have to ask.<\/p>\n
A retiring GM worker once said, \u201cFor 25 years you\u2019ve paid only for my hands when you could have had my brain for free.\u201d\u00a0 Don\u2019t make that mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Absolutely true.\u00a0 If you want to know where there is waste in your organization, ask your people.\u00a0 They know where it is, but they won\u2019t tell you unless you ask. At a medical practice that has a number of offices, we asked the staff for \u201ctime wasters\u201d. . . activities that take up a<\/p>\n