Three things you need to do to improve workflow

By Dan Paulson, Invision Development International, LLC

Every business owner wants to improve their profitability. Challenges like labor costs and supply chain issues are some of the immediate concerns. There are also hidden costs that impact you and your team as well.

I recently attended ABC of Wisconsin’s SuperCon and had a chance to experience many of the courses offered through the two-day event. There were many great presenters and even though subjects changed, the underlying theme was the same. Owners want better performance from their teams. Herein lies the secret to better workflow. Software and systems may be important to efficiency, but that can only be achieved when these three things to improve workflow are first addressed: communication, mapping your course, and training and coaching.

WHEN IT COMES TO IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY, COMMUNICATION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT.

Communication

When it comes to improving productivity, Communication is THE most important element. As you may know, it is also one of the most difficult elements to develop successfully. We interpret information differently, even though we may speak the same language. Focus on understanding.

Have you ever played the game Telephone in school? The object is to start with a statement or phrase and whisper it to the person next to you. Repeating is not allowed. The next person must take what you shared with them and pass it on to the next. Once the last person is reached, they must state out loud what they thought they heard. In almost every case, the end result is nowhere near what they started.

Leaders seem to forget this. Owners told me more times than I can count that they communicated instructions, and employees just don’t listen. Why? It goes back again to understanding.

When communicating, here are some simple actions you need to take to help:

1. Your actions communicate more than you know. One of the biggest reasons your team doesn’t follow instructions is because they see that the owner plays by a different set of rules. You’ve heard the phrase, “Do as I say. Not as I do.” Someone is always watching. Owners also rarely hold accountability for themselves and everyone else. Do you want better results? Then act on higher standards than you expect from your staff. If you want them to do something, you better be first in line to follow through yourself.
2. Change your style. There are three basic learning styles, and they vary from person to person: visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), and kinesthetic (doing). When someone says they send everything via email, this may leave some out. What about the people whose preferred style is hearing? Adapting your communication to match someone else’s makes a greater impact. That is why changing, updating a process, or whatever you are trying to get across, should employ all three learning styles at the same time.
3. Rinse. Repeat. Frequency matters. One and done rarely works. Expect to communicate often. That spaced repetition helps with retention.
4. Repeat it back to me. Create a feedback loop. Have the person who you are messaging repeat back what they understand for mutual understanding. This simple step provides clarity of expectations and can reduce mistakes or bottlenecks.

OPTIMIZING YOUR WORKFLOW STARTS WITH VISUALIZING YOUR PROCESS.

Map Your Course

Have you ever mapped out your processes? Most procedures in a company are not documented. When the business started, a process had to be created for everything. Over time, as issues come up, those procedures are adjusted to fix the problem. Adding here and taking away there can cause disruptions to workflow. When you ask employees why they do something a certain way, they often state, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” Loops and bottlenecks are common as the years go by. Optimizing your workflow starts with visualizing your process. That’s where mapping comes in. This is simple, but can be time-consuming and tedious. It takes your team looking at every step and decision to accurately record the actions that take place. The more complicated the process, the more detailed the map.

Guiding you through the mapping process:

1. Form a team. Ask yourself, who is impacted by this procedure? These are the people who should be involved as they are most familiar with what is done.
2. The Post-It trick. When mapping, I prefer using Post-It notes for documenting each step. This is much like brainstorming, which means as you write information down, your team may come up with other data that should be included. By placing steps on Post-It notes, it allows you to easily move the sticky notes around and change the order as needed. Bonus recommendation: buy the extra sticky notes and have a large area such as a window or smooth wall for putting the notes up on.
3. Flowchart it. Creating a flowchart involves putting together a diagram of the sequence of activities from your notes. Various symbols represent different actions or decisions. This step allows you to visualize how work moves through your business. Now it is easier to see how work bogs down.
4. Question everything. Look for loops where the same work is being performed multiple times in a row. Also watch for slowdowns in production. What or who is creating this block? After that, have your team review asking, “Is this needed?” with each step. Look for ways to reduce complicated steps as much as possible.

TOO MANY LEADERS SPEND THEIR TIME DOING INSTEAD OF DELEGATING.