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Feature: Concentrating on Concentration

By Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware

Here we are at the start of a New Year and everyone including "No Drama Obama" is saying it's going to get worse before it gets better. Now that we've gotten right with our expectation state, what do we do?

For the past three months people have been asking – no, begging – us to give them some hope. To let them know what they can do in the face of disaster. But hope is truly an audacious idea when people sitting right in front of us are getting Blackberry messages that their company has just gone into Chapter 11.

Last month we published an article on taking control of your personal destiny by doing things as simple as writing out a one-page business plan ("Compass:  Taking Charge of Tomorrow"). This month we want talk about what companies must do today to prepare for the future – and why it seems to be so difficult.  Because, quite bluntly, if you don't anticipate the future, your Blackberry is going to buzz too.

We can all whine on and on about why we are where we are, how we got here, and who didn't do what, but that doesn't do much to foster survival. Let's face it, the United States' (if not the whole world's) economy is currently about 30% over capacity, over-priced, and over-extended. We have more than we can digest – and that goes all the way from calories in our food to big office buildings that are (or soon will be) vacant.

It's time to "cowboy up" (see the Urban Dictionary  for an explanation of that term – it's slang for "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get to work" – an idea we enjoyed hearing in President Obama's Inaugural Address).

Look at your biggest fixed assets. Where can you take 30% out? In our experience if you are serious you can actually take 40%+ out of your operating budget. Where? Real estate – move into smaller digs, and let your folks work at home or in a local work center or coffee shop (when they want to). Technology – rent it, don't buy it. People – temps, and sub-contractors, not full-time employees. That's radical thinking, we know, but it comes down to how badly you are hurting. Are you serious or not?

How can you deal with excess resources that aren't being used productively? We call the process "concentration." While we don't have time or space to get into the metaphysics of this notion, we encourage serious readers to follow up by looking at the work of John G. Bennett (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematics_-_study_of_multi-term_systems).

It's like orange juice. Really. You can remove the excess and boil things down to their essentials. Think about it. Do you really need a 6000-pound car to move a 150-pound body around? (Oh, if we only had 150-pound bodies.) Here's the key idea:  be very, very clear about what is truly essential in the mind of the person (or organization) who buys and uses the product/service you are offering. It's not the producer's values that matter – it's the customers'.

Take another look at our Compass article from January. One of our five keys to taking charge of the future is "spend a day in the life of your customer." We really mean it!

Since we have to pick on somebody (for fun, if nothing else), let's go back to our example of real estate. Sure, the owner of the building and the broker want you (Mr./Ms. Tenant) to gobble up thousands of square feet – and for a long time (we've seen plenty of leases in excess of ten years – ten years!). We all know that's almost always overkill. But you (the customer) know you really don't need all that space, and probably not for all that long. So you want to concentrate (remove the waste) down to the bare essentials.

You can go through  a very similar exercise focusing on technology – and people. Just think about it: how can you possibly make a long-term commitment to own a major enterprise system when your needs – and the costs and capabilities of technology – change so rapidly.

Our major message is really pretty simple:  approach through these kinds of critical decisions about what resources you need and for how long with an orderly (dare we say "rational"?) thought process, not a chainsaw and a shotgun.

What keeps executives from concentrating their products and operations in a thoughtful way? Well, sad to say, we're all human. Our tendency is to avoid having any sense of urgency for improvement. We fail to recognize where there is waste and excess. We want to maintain the status quo because it's familiar and comfortable (even when it's not working). And we love to deny the importance of investing in something now to avoid future costs.

To put it even more simply, we live in adulation of the current state. In fact, some would offer that this "self worship" lies at the root of our rampant consumerism – which is part of how we got to the mess we're in (sorry for that little psychological digression).

Warning flag! If change is seen as a harmful thing, and if the need for improvement isn't high on the priority list, you are probably in a situation where concentration as we describe it will be very difficult to achieve.

So far, so good. But how do you do it? We see five basic steps (five seems to be our magic number):

• See your product and service from your customers' viewpoint. Get inside their heads.
• Get really clear about what your added value is to your customers. What is it you do (or give them) that helps them do what they want to do?
• What's your core competency? What do you do much better than anyone else?
• What internal processes do you need in place to amplify and deliver that core competency?
• How do you connect those core processes with the market? What's your marketing plan?

Yes, yes we know it isn't as easy as we make it sound. We are constantly amazed at executives and managers we meet who claim they understand these principles but never move to action.

Why? We think they are limited in their ability to change because they (1) aren't able to hold a vision bigger than themselves in their minds; (2) aren't clear on their goals (it has to be more than moola); and (3) don't know how to remove or get around resistances.

Talk about concentration! You've just gotten an example of concentrated thinking:  a week in less than two pages. We leave you with one final summary thought:  Stop doing non-essential things and focus on what adds value(well, maybe that's two thoughts – so be it). If you want to do it right you probably need a good week of time working though this process for your business, so be patient.

And if you like this kind of stuff let us know and we'll keep it up. Or if it bores you to tears also let us know.

Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of this article. We look forward to learning from you.

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