Peter Drucker, the management
consultant that coined the phrase “knowledge worker” back in 1959, nailed it
when he said: “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing
else can be managed.”
This is the catch-22 companies face
today. There is no doubt that companies need to innovate to ensure their future
success, but to do this their people need to find the time to think,
research, experiment and develop new ideas.
Because we’re in the business of
saving people time, last year we ran an informal survey of some finance team
members working in a range of industries to find out what takes up their time,
and what else we could do to create time in their days.
The results were interesting, to say
the least.
Top three 'time
blackholes' at budget/forecast time:
1.
Investigations or enquiries from
source
2.
Incomplete or incorrect data
3.
Manual processes
Top three time
blackholes at month-end reporting time:
1.
Report compilation
2.
Manual processes
3.
Investigations or enquiries from
source
The top three time
blackholes at other times:
1.
Ad hoc reporting requests
2.
Firefighting
3.
Ad hoc information requests
It’s astonishing that today, with all
the technology we have at our disposal, manual processes are still taking up so
much of our time. This is a triple whammy: the time taken by highly skilled
staff to do the work in the first place; the knock-on effect of errors or
incomplete data; plus, very often automation is the first step towards, and
prerequisite for, further innovation. So the fact that lack of automation crops
up twice in our survey as a drain on time is very worrying.
Ad hoc reporting requests are an
indication of an unempowered workforce needing to defer all finance related
matters to the accounts team. As well as the drag on time, this means the
people at the coalface of the organisation aren’t engaged with the budgets they
are responsible for implementing. This can be seen, unfortunately, as a proxy
for a wider lack of transparency, ownership, trust and decentralisation of
power in an organisation. Time and time again, these factors very factors are
the keys that promote an innovative and entrepreneurial culture, while a
command-and-control management style is an effective way to shut innovation
down.
So where does this
leave companies caught in this catch-22?
The companies that feel like they are
running just to stay in the same place, but know they need to make fundamental,
exponential changes to survive into the digital future.
The range of time blackholes revealed
by the survey shows that there is no single culprit, and so no single solution.
It’s a complex world, after all. What is clear,
however, is that tired, ineffective, dated processes need to be sped up and
automated. Your people need to be spending less time compiling the report, and
more time analysing and thinking about the outcomes.
Automation will also improve the timeliness
of your data for real-time decision making. And if, as part of the fix, you
have included those at the coal-face in the process, your data will be more
accurate, relevant and timely. Inclusive management also increases transparency
and accountability, resulting in an aligned organisation that manages itself
better.
So by resolving the catch-22, the
outcome is not only winning the time you need to innovate, but also gaining the
data, culture and other capabilities you need to succeed in a digital world.
As published in AccountingWeb 22nd
February 2018 https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/community/blogs/kevin-philips/the-modern-day-alchemist-turning-busy-into-time
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