Doing Things Right vs Doing The Right Things

In business, it is easy to get lulled into a world of efficiency – where all the energy in the business is devoted to doing things right. When this happens, effectiveness suffers – because no / limited energy is devoted to doing the right things.

What is required is a balance.

• Sufficient time devoted to doing things right – being efficient

Plus

• Sufficient time devoted to doing the right things – being effective

Management is doing things right;
Leadership is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker

Examples

Doing Things Right

• Improve quotation turn-round time/ reduce quotation back-log
• Chasing cash in the most effective manner
• Improve networking follow up process
• Dealing with today’s emergencies as a matter of urgency (Urgent and Important – fixed - Check)
• Maximising the efficiency of a manual, outdated process

Doing The Right Things

• Target the right people with the right offer to maximise conversion rates of the most profitable business
• Understanding all the obstacles to cash collection and changing business practices to ensure maximum customer delight and minimum obstacles to on time payment
• Creating offers based on regular payments by standing order
• Attend the right networking meetings for the right reasons and network deeply
• Working on the Important but not urgent issues in the business to minimise the number of emergencies in the business
• Automating processes where it makes sense
• Streamlining the business to remove / change processes that add no value to the business or the customer.

When to think about this:

• Planning to-do lists
• Strategic planning
• Budget time
• Setting out the plan for the week
• When fixing problems in the business
• Team meetings
• Business planning sessions
• Board meetings
• Setting up the business review process