One of the significant challenges facing leaders today is controlling costs and reducing unnecessary complexity in their business. In our competitive world, most companies have little choice but to look for ways to drive results with the least amount of resources. The phrase, “working smarter” may be a cliché but it is, nevertheless, true. Thus, the first step we recommend to the leaders we coach is to focus on EARS. That is, what can they eliminate, automate, reduce and simplify in their business.
It’s important to note that eliminate and automate are often intertwined. For example, many of us are involved with in-person meetings that require expenses for airfare, car rental and hotel room and a great deal of travel time. Yet, videoconferencing, for example, can eliminate the expenses and travel time without much loss in effectiveness. And speaking of airlines, they have been able to eliminate paper ticketing for millions of travelers, who simply show a digital boarding pass at the gate. Hundreds of companies have stopped printing their corporate newsletters and simply placing them on line. Of course, in everyone’s life today, Internet purchases have eliminated trips to stores and shopping malls.
Automation is happening so broadly and deeply that it is not really necessary to describe it. What’s important, in our view, is that leaders take the time to keep abreast of all the technology that is available and that may be relevant to their businesses: e.g., additive manufacturing, robotics, drones, and self-propelled equipment. One step we recommend is to do a web search each week for “the latest in technology,” which brings up websites that stay on top of what is happening in the present and what is coming in the near future.
Reducing and simplifying all the processes, requirements, activities or actions that are not especially valuable to a business are, in many ways, the easiest step for any entrepreneur to take. We only have to buy frozen yogurt at one of the new yogurt outlets to realize that self-serve not only radically simplifies a process for the consumer but reduces labor costs for the proprietor. Supermarkets are following the same pattern. And then there’s EZ Pass, a system that has reduced the delays at toll booths and simplified the payment process for users. (Of course, there is a downside: It is also easier for local governments to raise toll fees!) Finally, getting our morning coffee has been simplified by Keurig coffee makers, which reduce time, effort, and the wasted coffee that sits in a pot over a warming plate for hours.
Although we encourage companies and organizations to think creatively and develop new concepts, products, and services, we strongly suggest that, as a first step, they carry out a full EARS analysis of all aspects of their business. Again, to sum up the possibilities, we can simply refer to a cliché, “low-lying fruit.” Or we can express the value of EARS another way: “Why not do less before doing more?”