Back when I was a retail marketing analyst, I used to make formal presentations to my clients about every month or so, each aimed at different audiences within the company — buyers / merchandisers, operations, marketing / advertising and senior management (the last being more of an annual high-altitude presentation, of course).
Because of the volume of data I had on hand it was almost impossible to show all of it, so I would provide summaries, but with all the data on hand in case there were any questions requiring a deep dive into the supporting numbers.
I would then make a summary of the summary, and give each executive an action plan consisting of three, and only three things that had the highest priority with the greatest impact, with the suggestion that they tackle those three items immediately after the meeting. (Their bosses, of course, got the list of all the departments’ action items so that they could follow up to make sure that they’d been addressed.)
That habit has stayed with me ever since, especially when, as today, I see an enormous problem that needs fixing. What spurs me on to even greater efforts is when I see that the people who are supposed to be fixing the problem either not doing anything (a massive clue that they don’t know what to do), or are timidly tinkering around the edges of the problem when in fact, the remedies are quite simple, but usually radical.
Here’s what I’m looking at right now. Read this article first, please, and then come back below the fold.
