It is always tempting to pick up the next shiny penny; to try something new; to break out of the rut, etc. As exciting as each of these new techniques, methods, and tricks may be, it is not the right approach to take.

Maximize what you are already doing before trying something new.

I know, you were hoping to drop everything you are doing and to put an entirely new strategy in place.

While it may be true that not everything you are doing is a screaming success, I say focus on what you are now doing, get the fat out of all the processes and maximize productivity.

Your organization has an enormous amount of energy being spent on a vast array of activities. Most of them have simply emerged out of the day to day activities and have taken on a life of their own. Redirect the energy before taking on a new challenge.

Think of it this way.

It is unlikely you and your staff have been sitting around all do doing nothing, waiting for the next big opportunity or crisis. Everyone is currently filling all of their time completing the tasks before them. All together they are spending all of the available time of the entire organization.

I am not guessing about this.

Think back to a time you have walked into a business, any business or any department within a business. Are people taking cat naps, staring out the window or folding paper airplanes?

No, that’s not likely. Instead, you will see everyone fully engaged or trying their best to look that way.

So, how do you and your team currently find the time to deal with a problem or capitalize on a great new idea?

They drop things they are currently doing!

Everyone stops doing things that are not important—not vital.

They stop doing the things they should not be doing in the first place.

They are just putting in their day.

Perhaps this applies to you as well—think about it.

To put it bluntly, you have a lot of non-productive activities in your organization.

You see, the deal is that all the current activity in your business is a part of some system, process or procedure. You and your people are spending all their time completing these sequential activities.

You can’t maximize what you’re currently doing if you don’t break all activities down to their core processes.

Then rework the activities.

This includes dropping some, fine-tuning some and adding new ones.

Let’s look at an example.

Think about the sales-oriented activities you and your business are conducting.

#1

First, make a list of all the activities associated with the “department”. Your list might look something like this:

#2

Next, evaluate the current level of performance in each one. Score them on a 1 to 10 basis where 10 is optimal and 1 is awful.

#3

Then, determine how you can improve the quality of each of the individual activities in each of your processes (in this case, the sales process). It is best to address the weakest areas first and then, one by one, take on the rest.

As a rule of thumb, anything with a 7 or lower score has to be fixed.

#4

Finally, put the new, improved processes to the test. Try them out in the real world for about a year.

#5

At least annually analyze all the current core fundamentals within your business.

And, as you saw in the above example, this has to be done from top to bottom, team to team, and department to department. Until you know how you’re doing in every process and sub-system you can’t maximize your performance.

In sports, it’s called going back to the basics. They do it every year at all levels. Adopt the practice at your company.

Once you have everything humming along at a high level of productivity, you can look at a new strategy.