Doing more in times of less

There may be less people in the team than there used to be. 
Or less budget for training, learning, projects or initiatives. 
Maybe the long list of ideas for customer solutions can’t be pursued fully now. 

It can be disappointing and restricting to have such plans and hopes get paused, stopped or shelved. 

These are times of austerity. 

Austerity - it means restraint, moderation, frugality. 

Governments are doing it, businesses are doing it and families and households are too. 

We might be working with budgets we’ve not seen before yet we still have to deliver solutions and outcomes like never before. 

This is the austerity wave that covid has brought us. 

What will we do? 

Get dumped by it? 
Get dragged back out to sea? 
Or ride that sucker!?

Let’s ride!! 

Focus on these 3 ways:
- Think better 
- Work smarter 
- Connect faster. 

These kinds of responses don’t depend on economies. 

If you scare people you won't get started

Last week I presented at the Agile Australia conference and also attended some brilliant sessions with people like Mary Poppendick, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge, and Bjarte Bogsnes author of 'Implementing Beyond Budgeting'.

Bjarte's session, thinking and message was around helping organisations perform to their highest potential. My visualisation of his presentation is here as well as below.

Bjarte delivered some clear messages:

• measurement alone changes nothing
• businesses cut costs because they're not addressing culture and
• if you scare people, you won't get started!

I enjoyed his metaphors of traffic lights vs roundabouts. He asked 'Which is most efficient?,  'Who is in control?' and 'Where are values most important?'

He doesn't want you to get rid of budgets; rather we need to change our mindsets around cost, KPIs and processes. Traditional leadership and management isn't working and the environments we work in are too complex. 

There's a similiar style of presentation from Bjarte here from 2012 if you'd like to see more.