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VIEWPOINT
Provide acceptable solutions to avert a crisis
Ashok, a manager in a food and beverages company, was in a dilemma. The company was launching a new product and wanted the packaging to be attractive to consumers. The packaging manufacturer, however, came up with something vaguely related to the design Ashok and his team in charge of the new product had finalised earlier. The manufacturer agreed to modify the design but time was running out. The company had already decided on the launch date and promised retailers deliver
y schedules. Ashok thought hard and long and then decided that the existing package design for one of the company’s products would do just as well with a few modifications. In short, the job could be done fast and on time.
Ashok’s decision was implemented and the product became a huge success. With his decision, Ashok proved how during a time crunch or in a bid to meet pressing deadlines, searching for perfect solutions to problems might just not be possible. Implementing the next viable or acceptable solutions can work to meet deadlines and avert a crisis.
Leaders often face situations where they need to battle with the question of how to use resources available to accomplish goals. On rare occasions, conditions are ideal and leaders can get perfect results using the available resources. Most often, time and resources are limited. Sometimes unforeseen problems may crop up leading to a crisis. At such times to look for perfection or trying to meet all objectives could be foolish. The attempt could be futile and lead to loss of valuable customers, business or projects.
A leader should know where to draw the line when using resources or directing the efforts of his team on a project. He should be able to differentiate between what is good enough to get the job done and what can be unnecessary. He should know where to stop and also train their team to know when their projects have reached ‘the good enough stage’. Such leaders and their teams get a lot more done because they know where to start and where to stop.
Some other practices these leaders adopt include:
Discussing and agreeing with the team members on what is good enough and the requisite efforts needed on each project to reach this stage. This helps to reduce work and confusion among team members on how much effort each should put in.
They clearly distinguish between efforts that are absolutely necessary to get a job done and those that aren’t. They not only make the team members aware of this but also let customers and stakeholders know what is indispensable. This helps the customers save costs also.
They inspire their team members to think like them and know when their tasks are good enough to pass muster. This approach will also help the leader/manager to prioritise tasks and decide on resources to use and those to be ignored. The team will imbibe this philosophy, which will lead to cost effective methods.
They help team members avoid spending too much time and effort in a single task thus decreasing their productivity.
The leader should tell them when to stop and analyse whether the work is satisfactory. He should also be prepared to face the challenge that the work done is good enough from his team mates when he insists that more efforts are needed.
On the contrary applying this principle of finishing a work when it reaches ‘the good enough stage’ should not be an excuse for producing inferior products or substandard quality of work. It cannot be an excuse for shoddy or incomplete work. The output should meet the standards the company or the consumers have set. Work quality should not suffer at the cost of being good enough.
Adopting the good enough approach to work will function well provided it is not done at the cost of quality.
HEMA. G
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