Why Simple Wins Toolkit

Lisa Bodell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138469938
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351816205
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

As a tactical ancillary to the book Why Simple Wins, this toolkit is designed with 13 tools to enable leaders and teams to move beyond the cycle of busywork and toward a culture where valuable, essential work is the norm. By learning how to eliminate redundancies, communicate with clarity, and make simplification a habit, we can recognize which activities are time-sucks and which create lasting value. Eliminating low-value work translates into individuals who feel less overwhelmed, more empowered, and able to spend each day doing things that matter.

The Why Simple Wins Toolkit includes the following 13 tools, techniques, and tips to help you do more valuable work every day:

—Leadership Complexity Quiz
—Complexity Diagnostic
—Simplicity Vision Statement
—Leadership Task Log
—50 Questions for Simplifying
—Simplification Worksheet
—Killing Complexity
—Kill a Stupid Rule
—Simplification Tactics
—Simplification Metrics
—Simplification Code of Conduct
—Interview Questions for Hiring Simplifiers
—Simplification Resources

Simplification Tool
Simplification Tactics

WHY THIS TOOL?

Designed to follow the Complexity Diagnostic and precede selection of Simplification Metrics, this tool provides solutions to complexity in every area of your organization. With more than 70 simplification tactics at the ready—from Google’s Bureaucracy Busting sessions to Airbnb’s Meeting-Free-Wednesdays—teams are armed with real-world ways to attack complexity and move your business toward a simplified state.

HOW IT WORKS

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE:	• Relevant for all levels of staff
SET-UP VARIATIONS:	• Variation #1: Do the exercise individually, skipping STEP 4 (group discussion) • Variation #2: Do the exercise as a group; break into teams and assign each one an area of the business for which to choose tactics
RECOMMENDED TIMING:	Step 1. Choose at least 3 business areas:	5 mins.
	Step 2. Review tactics within business areas:	10 mins.
	Step 3. Choose at least 2 tactics per area:	20 – 40 mins.
	Step 4. Proposal of tactics + group discussion:	20 – 40 mins.
		55 – 95 mins.
SUGGESTED MATERIALS:
Worksheets (enough for each participant + a few extra)	Colored whiteboard markers and pens (separating ideas by color will help organize your thoughts)
Whiteboard or flipcharts

STEP 1: CHOOSE AT LEAST 3 BUSINESS AREAS

Refer to your completed Complexity Diagnostic for easy identification of which business areas to focus on. If you haven’t yet used the Diagnostic tool, review the 11 business areas below and circle at least 3 that create the most complexity for you or your team.

ORGANIZATIONAL		INDIVIDUAL
• Vision/Communication • Org. Structure • HR	• Strategy/Planning • Operational • Products/Services	• Meetings • Emails/Calls/Voicemail • Reports	• Presentations • Value of Staff Time

STEP 2 + 3: REVIEW + CHOOSE AT LEAST 2 TACTICS PER AREA

Read every tactic in your areas of complexity, and check the box beside all the simplification tactics that would be most effective for your organization. Keep big-picture goals in mind as you choose individual tactics. For example, if Strategic Planning is an area of complexity and your goal is to finalize your annual strategic plan more quickly, choose a tactic that supports this goal.

ORGANIZATIONAL AREA:

ISION/COMMUNICATION

□ Change the language, change the mindset. Communication from senior leadership to employees should be simple and concise. Eliminate jargon and clichés from messaging, and encourage authentic statements that do not need decoding. Simplification—in word and in deed—is key to shifting employees’ mindsets from fear to freedom and from dependence to empowerment.

□ Give it the kindergarten test. Can you explain your document/presentation/proposal/contract to a 5-year-old? Keep distilling the work until it’s as simplified as possible.

□ Stop posting everywhere. Take a tip from consulting firm Box of Crayons and focus your social media efforts on the 1 or 2 channels that are most relevant to your business.

ORG. STRUCTURE

□ 1-sheet wonder. If your organizational structure requires 5 slides and a color-coded legend to understand, simplification is needed. Challenge your team (or invite the entire organization) to submit 1-sheets of a simplified org. structure.

□ Align each group’s goals with simplification. To embed simplification throughout your entire organization, establish a set of universal metrics (i.e. reduce meetings by 20%; kill at least 10 stupid rules annually, etc.) that apply to every group within the org. structure and keep everyone accountable for simplifying.

□ Empower direct reports with decision-making. Charge each person on your team to make 2 decisions this week without you. At your next status meeting, discuss which decisions they made on their own. Expand this behavior to 3, 5, and 10+ decisions per week, and tie decision-making to individual performance or to a simplification metric for your department.

HR

□ Define roles by outcomes, not tasks. Task-based job descriptions focus on processes, not results, so redefine the roles in your organization for outcome-focused measures of success. For example, “write 3–5 press releases per month” could become “generate 20+ press mentions per month.” This approach shifts the focus from “how” to “what.” It flexes employees’ creative problem-solving muscles and empowers them to concentrate on what actually matters: results.

□ Reduce performance assessment criteria. Healthcare company Abbott reduced the number of assessment items in performance reviews—with a huge impact on the business.

□ Eliminate (or rethink) annual performance reviews. Follow Accenture’s lead and do away with paperwork-heavy performance reviews. Instead of reserving feedback for a once-a-year exercise, managers at this professional services company now provide employees with more frequent and less formal reviews for real-time improvement. Pro tip: Link assessment criteria to strategy so employees understand how their performance impacts the business from a strategic viewpoint.

□ Use tweet-sized feedback loops. After completing a benchmark event or milestone, send a mini-review to participants requesting Twitter-length answers (140 characters or less) about team or initiative performance, critical skills, and advice on what should be improved next time around.

□ Re-examine transfer policy. Make the transfer policy work for employees, like the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas did. Staff challenged its rule that employees can’t be transferred to another area of the business prior to 6 months from hire date. Now staff can transfer whenever a talent fit arises.

□ Shorten employee onboarding. km long winded orientations by offering on-demand learning...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Leadership Complexity Quiz
• Complexity Diagnostic
• Simplicity Vision Statement
• Leadership Task Log
• 50 Questions for Simplifying
• Simplification Worksheet
• Killing Complexity
• Kill a Stupid Rule
• Simplification Tactics
• Simplification Metrics
• Simplification Code of Conduct
• Interview Questions for Hiring Simplifiers
• Simplification Resources