Simplification…….

It’s trite to say we live in worlds of growing complexity. The rates of change and disruption seem to be accelerating. Global competition, new technologies, new business models, new market opportunities both create challenge and opportunity. Workloads seem to sky rocket as do demands on our time. Distractions whether device based, app based or self inflicted consume our time.

And it would be unrealistic to expect any of this change for the better.

But…….

To often, I think much of the challenge we face is self inflicted.

We tend to make things more complex or more difficult than they need be. We make our work harder than it should be, then as a result find our calendars overwhelmed. We get into vicious cycles of overwhelm and have the tendency to solve this by doing more.

We face higher levels of burnout, unhappiness, and mental health issues.

What if we tried simplifying, for ourselves, our people, our organizations, and our customers? What if we could accomplish more with greater satisfaction, better results, by being more purposeful?

I won’t pretend to suggest this means you work fewer hours, but I do believe this enables you to extract more meaning from the hours you work.

Some unprioritized thoughts:

1. Look at your tech stack, dramatically reduce/simplify it. “How big is your tech stack” seems to have become a statement more ego driven then results driven. After decades of CRM implementations, the number one tech stack issue I continue to see is “CRM compliance.” If we still have this as a dominating issue, are we getting the most out of our tech stacks, can we dramatically simplify them?
2. Define and viciously focus on your ICP. We waste so much time and opportunity through lack of focus. This adversely impacts our win rates, success, and our ability to invest in the highest quality opportunities. Define, as Hank Barnes suggests, your UCP (Unacceptable Customer Profile) and banish them from all outreach and pipelines.
3. Define and execute a selling process aligned with your customer buying process. We waste so much time by doing a random walk through opportunities, responding to customers random walk through their buying process. This wastes time and resources both on the customer side and our side. Instead, help your customer navigate their buying process. Leverage your experience with hundreds of others in supporting your customer in something they seldom do. By doing this you will drive win rates and reduce selling cycles by 30-40%.
4. Focus on what your customer cares about, not what you care about. This may seem counterintuitive, but we never achieve our goals of securing an order until the customer is satisfied they are doing the right thing in solving their problems. If we are focusing on our ICP, we know there is virtually a certainty the customer has an issue that we can address. But if we focus on what we sell, not what they are trying to do, we make it more complicated and difficult for them, consequently more complicated and difficult for ourselves.
5. Be prepared! The Boy Scouts have it right. Be prepared for every interaction with your customer. Have a clear agenda and objectives, do your research. Help make sure your customer (or your people) are as prepared for what you would like to accomplish in your meeting as you are. Apply design thinking to your engagement strategies.
6. Block your time and keep those blocks sacred. We waste too much time by being undisciplined in our use of time, or reacting/responding to the latest crises.
7. Keep at least 20% of your daily agenda open. This may seem to contradict the previous point, but we tend to overschedule, with often meaningless meetings. We have become accustomed to appearing busy, rather than actually getting things done. Keep 20% of your day unscheduled. Us it for unanticipated things that arise, or most importantly, think/reflection time.
8. Few “crises” need immediate responses. We tend to be interrupt driven, responding immediately to problems, requests from customers and within our own organization. And too often, we are ill prepared to respond, so we make bad choices or take more time then necessary. Determine the urgency of the issue, find out when a response is needed, then schedule the work when you can best do it. “Is it OK if I research this and get back to you in 5 days,” is one of the most powerful things you can do in correctly and productively addressing the issue.
9. For every new program or initiative, eliminate at least two prior programs or initiatives. We tend to suffer from initiative overload, adding new things we are expected to do on top of all the other things we are expected to do. We confuse people on priorities and focus. We overwhelm each other with the sheer number of initiatives and programs we put in place.
10. Avoid “program/initiative du jour” mindsets. When you put something new in place, give it the time necessary to see it work or to refine it to produce the outcomes expected. To often, we don’t give initiatives the time necessary to produce results, we constantly start/stop, shift priorities. This causes confusion, lack of focus, and wastes time/resources.
11. Know and commit to your “top 2.” The human mind is incapable of focusing on more then 2-3 things at one time. What are your top 2 priorities? Are you focusing on them? If you are a manager, what are the top two coaching focus areas for each person? For your customers, what are the top 2 things they are trying to achieve? What are the metrics that reinforce the focus on the top 2 (I’m a huge fan of OKRs)? Focus on those until they are addressed, then move to the next, then the next. The thought process of identifying and prioritizing the top 2 is very powerful in simplifying things.
12. Move from an activity focus to a purpose focus. We tend to judge our “success” by how busy we are, not by what we are achieving. As a result, we accomplish less. We will always be time poor. But we achieve more by being clear on what we are trying to achieve and the most impactful ways to do this.
13. Do the work! We spend lots of time trying to find ways to avoid doing the work. Whether it’s searching for hacks, short cuts, technology. It’s amazing how just doing the work enables us to be much more productive.
14. If you don’t care, if you can’t find meaning in what you are doing, you are doing the wrong thing. Find work that you really care about, that supports your purpose and provides the meaning you seek.

What have I missed? What else do we do that makes things more complicated than need be?