Management guru Peter Drucker should be considered the ‘Leonardo da Vinci of management’ as he will be better understood and respected 400 years after his life than now. He frequently said that abandonment is the key to innovation. He fittingly said:
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’ve stopped doing.”
“If leaders are unable to abandon yesterday, they simply will not be able to create tomorrow.”
“Without systematic and purposeful abandonment, an organization will be overtaken by events. It will squander its best resources on things it should never have been doing or should no longer do. As a result, it will lack the resources needed to exploit the opportunities that arise.”
From a young age we carry a fear of admitting to be wrong. It affects our personal life, in some cases delaying moving house, or staying in dead-end jobs or relationships for too long. We do this partly because we’re scared to admit to the world that we have made a mistake. The longer we stick with something in the hope that it will right itself, the harder it becomes to abandon. We hope to improve matters so that we can then say, “I told you so” to our family and colleagues. If I were to go into a reader’s garage, what would I find? An exercise machine that started off life as the buyer imagined a leaner physique? But despite good intentions, after just a couple of weeks it started its inexorable journey to the garage, there to rest under the dust cover for the foreseeable future.
In the world of commerce this trait is equally damaging.
We will hold on to systems, keep going with projects, keep writing that report that nobody reads, just because to stop would mean losing face
STOP SAVING FACE
Far too often we accept antiquated practices within the corporate accounting repertoire as the status quo. If the medical profession used our approach, we would not have as many medical breakthroughs. The corporate finance model needs to be open to new thinking and adopt procedures that have proven effective for others.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, believed that few in management thought deeply about why things were done. He came up with a quote that should be on the walls of every work station:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped into living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown your own inner voice.”
Jobs, like Drucker, saw abandonment as a key step to freeing the talented people within an organisation for innovation – they both believed that we should adopt systematic abandonment.
MOST PROCESSES ARE 90% WASTE
Dr Jeffrey Liker points out, “Most business process are 90% waste and 10% value-added work” We thus should send out this abandonment questionnaire:
| Systems | |||
| 1. List your three main systems you use in these three columns | System: | System: | System: |
| 2. If we were to design the process /system would it be designed this way? | |||
| 3. Do you fully understand why each step is necessary? | |||
| 4. What processes have you done last week, last month that you were questioning the validity of as you were performing them | |||
| 5. What reports from the system never trigger a question or thanks? | |||
| 6. List any spreadsheets, over 200 rows, that are propping up the system? | |||
| Meetings | |||
| 7. List three meetings you attend that never deliver any action / positive outcomes? | Meeting: | Meeting: | Meeting: |
| 8. Which meetings do you dread attending? | |||
| Projects | |||
| 9. List the three main projects you are working on in these three columns | Project: | Project: | Project: |
| 10.Is the project behind schedule? | |||
| 11.Are the intended benefits still achievable? | |||
| 12.List three projects you are on where no works has been performed in the last three months in these three columns | Project: | Project: | Project: |
ABANDON BROKEN PAST METHODS
Many processes are blindly followed year-in, year-out just because it’s the way things have always been done. When staff question the process, the manager will often answer that it is required by the board or the senior management team, but how many accept the challenge and pass the request upwards?
The act of abandonment gives a tremendous sense of relief, for it stops the past from haunting the future. However, it takes courage and conviction from management.
COMMENCING ABANDONMENT
- One way of embracing Drucker’s abandonment is to earmark one day a month for abandonment meetings at every managerial level. Each session would target a different area so that over the course of a year everything is given the once-over. The questionnaire once completed by all staff should be a useful starting point for the relevant manager.
- Every organisation should have an abandonment key performance indicator measuring the number of abandonments that have been made around the organisation in the last week. Teams that embrace abandonment would soon get the CEO’s attention and acclaim.
- Read a chapter or two every week from Elizabeth Haas Edersheim’s The Definitive Drucker and Jack Welch’s Winning.
- Organise your visits to sites using 21st century software such as planning tools, electronic board paper tools, reporting tools, key generic operational systems.
- Access my FREE working guide “Innovation How the Millennial Manager can unleash its potential” and acquire the supporting E-Templates .