Skip to main content

Can a quick walk around your business increase your profits?

Management by walking around is a great concept. The amount of information you can gather by having just a quick tour of part of your business is astounding. Small details that would be missing from management reports can be picked up easily from even just having a few minutes of your day invested in a brief stroll... as long as it is done with the right focus.


A safe and productive working environment

An obvious application of the walk around is to ensure that Health and Safety issues are adhered to. Clear walkways, organised working areas and a feeling of things working the way that they should are just a few things you can check for.

If you see something that isn't right you can do something about it, there and then. You don't have to wait for a committee meeting to take place, action can be swift and effective.

Increasing productivity

Whilst walking around you will most likely have a chance to speak to your team members. After even the quickest of conversations you should be able to discover any obstacles that your teams face.

Kicking away obstacles is one of the primary functions of a leader and certainly a route to increasing productivity within your business.

Most people will put up with far too many inefficiencies before they speak up; problems become normal and that is detrimental for meeting the objectives of the business. Walk the floor, help resolve the problems and release the productivity.

Find the bigger prize

When you spot issues in the business you have a choice; fix the immediate problem, or fix the problem and find out what is causing the problem.

Many businesses will stop at trying to fix the problem. Their days work out better overall (compared to a business that won't walk the floor regularly) but they don't release the full potential of the business' operations if they leave it there.

By digging down into the issue (which can again only take a few minutes) you can find out what it really behind the issue. If you dig deep enough you will find some basic 'at cause' problems that can be rectified easily. When you do this many productivity zapping symptoms will also disappear from your business. It is worth the small investment in time.

Putting this together

I mentioned at the start of this article the need for having the right focus to make 'management by walking around' effective. If you want to put this in to practice in your business then I suggest you consider these three pointers:
  1. Form the habit of taking a walk around your business. This might take time to become a true habit, put some reminders in your diary and you will make sure that you don't forget. Also, remember that you don't have to do a 'full tour' each time!
  2. Make sure that you have high standards. What is an obstacle or issue? If you don't have very high standards you won't spot the opportunities for correction and support that will be needed in your business. Don't tolerate things that shouldn't be tolerated.
  3. Ensure that you (and your team) have a robust method for capturing the issues arising from your walk, following through on the actions and resolving the situations. Failure to do this means that your walks will be futile.

A regular walk around parts of your business can take just minutes, but the impact it can have on your profit margins, productivity, morale and customer satisfaction can be staggering!

Enjoy your walk,


Giles


Giles Johnston
Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the 'Making It Happen' continuous improvement strategies online course.


Discover practical change strategies - click here

Popular posts from this blog

Take the pressure off! Using the Y-curve with your Kaizen improvements

Do you feel under pressure when you have to make changes happen in your business? It can be scary when we try something that we have never done before. I remember thinking to myself 'how on Earth am I going to figure this out?' on many occasions. I think the last time was a few weeks ago! Years on from becoming reasonable at the art of change I am still faced with the same dilemma. It is scary and it is clear to me why so many people shy away from making change happen. It is natural to get stuck in this oscillation. On one hand you need to make change happen; the business needs the improvement benefits. On the other hand you don't want to screw up... Last week I was talking to a young engineer that I am mentoring. He was paralysed. Changes were not happening at all. There was always some early promise with his projects and then, as completion (and judgement day) loomed, progress would evaporate. The engineer asked me for my views on this  during a recent conversati

The Kaizen Checklist is here!

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just  ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it rea

Do you need a burst of improvement ideas for your business?

If you haven’t created your improvement action plan for 2020 yet then I have something for you. I have just completed my latest project – The CI Focus Tool . This Android App is now available on Google Play and provides a simple method for generating as many effective improvement ideas as you need. This is the same basic method that I describe in my book Effective Continuous Improvement  and is now available as a simple to use app. In essence it is a brainstorming focus tool. Press the focus button and you will be presented with a random continuous improvement focus. Brainstorm ideas around this focus with your team (whilst the timer is running) and there you go – a number of great ideas for you to prioritise and implement. The reason that this works so well is because of the focus. When your business runs out of its immediate problems to fix you need a different strategy. Very focused brainstorming helps you break past this problem and configuring the app to meet t