A friend introduced me to the principle of “Have less, live more”. Now she doesn’t own a t.v. and is an avid reader. She plans to give up one thing each month for the next twelve months – easy you say, but there is a catch. Once you give it up, you give it up for the remainder of the year. So the person I describe above has gone straight for the jugular – she has given up buying books. She will use the library, borrow from friends bookshelves and is in the process of listing all her books on http://bookmooch.com/
So it caused me to think…
What could organisations give up that actually wouldn’t inhibit their success but instead help to increase their effectiveness?
Here are three ideas to start us off, please add to the list
- One to ones for the sake of it – I’d replace it with daily listening moments!
- Team meetings that only share information and don’t involve discussion and ideas generation
- Meetings – why not use technology to include people and encourage more real time, creative exploration of ideas and issues
- Any manager who, when asked the question “what difference did you make today/are you going to make today?”, can’t answer or just reels off their action plan for the day – contribution not busyness is everything
I look forward to your additions – what would you encourage your organisation to give up?
