|
Robert N. Phillips
CEO, Lasotell Pty Ltd.
www.lasotell.com.au
This catchy little quotation comes from "Microsoft
Project 98 for Dummies" by Martin Doucette. He goes on to say, "By
this he [the business friend who made the statement] means that if something is
important enough to accomplish, it needs to be completed even if it falls short
of perfection." The flip-side saying is: "There is never enough time
to do it right but there is always enough time to do it over."
The sad part about these two sayings is that they are rapidly
becoming the norm in many business environments. The push toward self-funded
superannuation (known in the US as pension funds or 401Ks) has created (at least
in Australia) an environment where the financial institutions are vying for
everyone's contribution dollar by talking about the magical returns on
investment their company can provide. This in turn leads the investment
companies to be very harsh in the marketplace when any of the investments in
their portfolio do not perform at better than the last published return. They
whip their money out of the poor performer with the speed of summer lightening
and throw it at a more promising conductor of high returns.
Inevitably, the publicly listed companies are constantly
driving costs down any way they can, rushing products to the market in the
shortest possible time and hounding the sales staff to sell, sell, sell, so that
the next profit announcement will keep the shareholders (the investment
companies) satisfied. Which brings us to the new de facto operating approach in
the title of this article.
In conjunction with this new harem-scarum approach, the
horizon for "strategic" anything now has a time frame of less than one year.
Therefore, if you are asked to do a job for a company or a
manager operating in this manner, rule #1 is to make sure you know the quality
standard expected for the job. The quick way to determine it is to listen to the
"requirements," ask when the job is due, and then start to explain how
all proper jobs require 30% for planning and 60% for doing. Right about there
you will start to see nervous twitches and sweat dripping on the other side of
the table or desk. Now you have to wrestle with all the principles and standards
you have learned over the years, and you have to determine whether you should be
doing the job, or if you have no choice, decide how many hours you are prepared
to work to do it right regardless.
The companies that subscribe to best practices are clearly not
falling for the shortsighted approach of The Innocent, The Eager, and The
Doomed. But the question is what can we do, should we do, as exponents of best
practices, when we encounter such driven souls? What is the best practice for
the business? Whose business? And what is the best practice for oneself (whether
employee or contractor)?
In our organisation, we have worked with clients of all
persuasions. (One of the most interesting points is to observe just how often
PowerPoint is the preparation tool of choice. It seems the authors feel that by
using PowerPoint, they are absolved from any errors or blunders, because it is
not a formal document produced in Word!) Leaving the tools aside, because they
do not set the quality standard, we took a decision two years ago to take Silly
(as in requests to do jobs in silly time frames) "off the menu." It
certainly caused a change in our client mix—we are doing more work for
people who only have time to do it right the first time. We still have to work
hard, but we enjoy it a whole lot more because best practices work!
|
