Happy CEO

The lean office approach aims to streamline your processes and reduce waste by identifying and eliminating unnecessary steps and activities. We goes over the essential elements to know to make your leadership and business more efficient.

“Lean is a way of thinking, not a list of things to do.”

Shigeo Shingo

In the office

• Switch off the heating. Open your desktop window. Thoroughly ventilate the asphyxiated areas.
  
  
• Put away your desk until you reach the minimum of visible objects and paper. Eliminate anything unnecessary. Start with your computer, then your desk, then the elements around your desk, cupboards, cupboards, the complete room, your department, the entire box…
  
  
• Monitor the state of cleanliness, hygiene, storage and wear and tear of the areas under your responsibility. Make arrangements and have it repaired if you think it is necessary.
  
  
• How long has it been since the decoration was redone? The work environment has a direct impact on the thinking of your teams. Beautify offices, reception areas, collective life, give it a fashionable style. Bring dynamism.
  
  
• How does your office or business look from the outside? Clean alleys, walls, weeds, renew your shop window, your communication, the impact of your image.
  
  
• Water the plants, change their pots, buy exotic plants if you don’t have any.
  
  
• Order a new pen and a premium bound blank notebook. Work on your best writing and make sure to start and update your new idea book… even share it online.
  
  
• Take stock of your internal relations and communicate around you around an idea, a new project.
  
  
• Bury the hatchet with your enemies. Reconcile. Look at them from a new angle and make sure to take the first step to establish a new relationship on a cordial, optimistic, healthy basis. Transmit your good humor and open-mindedness.
  
  
• If the case is extreme, analyze the points of friction, faults and responsibilities of each and imagine ways out. Offer a face-to-face meeting in a cordial tone and find common ground win-win.
  
  
• Have your management style, your style, incorporated into your teams, at all levels and in all departments. A plant without fertilizer will be gloomy, a manager without clear direction is the same. Put some fertilizer in your projects, even weedkiller… If necessary, organize a short but effective meeting of clear focus where you change your tone and style.
  
  
• In order to treat diseases preventively, take care of your lifestyle. Prepare an exercise and diet plan.
  
  
• Among the skills that you have at your service, where are your weak points and those of your collaborators? Ask them what wastes their time, what are the areas where they feel less comfortable. Take note and prepare two training plans. An internal where some will play teachers and an external. Call on professionals who will optimize the way you work, you and your employees. Make sure to constantly integrate new skills and drive up your entire strike force.
  
  
• Vigorously encourage and boost lanky colleagues.
  
  
• Monitor the appearance of mini-crises, criticisms, bad moods. If necessary treat immediately alone or with others. Look for compromise.
  
  
• Offer flowers, chocolates, something to your co-workers.
  
  
• Organize a tasting of fresh fruit juice around a homemade cake or go to the restaurant all together… Take the time to discuss with your colleagues something other than work and outside the office.
  

Lean Export

• Finish as quickly as possible the list of tasks in progress disturbing you in order to start your new projects. Cut email and phone and get the job done as quickly as possible. Eliminate all non-priority tasks.
  
  
• Clarify and update your databases and your network of contacts.
  
  
• Devote a morning or a day to reworking old export projects. Remind your cold prospects whose folder is buried under a mountain of paperwork and stored in your cupboards.
  
  
• If you haven’t already, look for targeting leads in new countries to find new customers and launch an awareness campaign about your solutions.
  
  
• Onboard your new customers. Customer success management is key. Make sure that satisfaction is there and that your services are working perfectly.
  
  
• Imagine a promotion that will have a short duration, a day or a week maximum, and work on a selection of quotes and proposals to bring in cash. Work hard and analyze the results obtained over the phone and face to face.
  
  
• Don’t push big projects and big contracts waiting to be signed, cultivate the relationship instead. Find an opportunity to make contact and convey your good humor and professionalism.
  
  
• Organize a mailing or emailing communication action on your list of suspects. Those who have never responded to your request. Design them on an angle that your competitors can’t respond to. Deadline, Characteristics, added services. Don’t make a low price though.
  
  
• Analyze all marketing data; SEO of the website, effectiveness of each page, site visits, keywords, response rate of mailing actions, emailing, social plateforms, quote conversion rate, cost of appointments… Do a complete analysis. Make it your goal to increase each ratio before next semester.
  
  
• In order to stay up to date with changes in online marketing strategies, where are you at? TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Adwords, LinkedIn, Youtube… Be sure to calmly analyze these elements and update your image.
  
  
• Divide your portfolio according to different criteria (type of activity, geographical area, language, volume of business, etc.) Segment as much as possible. Make sure you think about a more personalized approach for each segment. Give a specific and different message to each segment, personae.
  
  
• Prepare a list of all new information that has come to you from your competitors since your last pitch update. We often have the impression of mastering them and not paying attention to them, but this information multiplies by forming innumerable and tiny problems which in the end harm your image in front of customers. Refresh your pitch to address objections. Process each piece of information on the list and ensure that all of your collaborators receive this argument update.
  
  
• Similarly, if you have experienced some quality of service issues, be sure to remove them from the minds of your customers as well. Find a communication angle for each problem and make sure to maintain the relationship and the quality of service. A customer who has had a problem but has had a positive experience with your customer support is a satisfied customer and will let it know like “I had a problem, their customer service is Top. They called me back immediately and my problem was taken care of during the day”.
  
  
• Establish your priorities. Make your action plan, simple, clear, efficient. Delegate what needs to be. Plan your agenda and meet the most important partners, customers and prospects for you, either in terms of business or in terms of relationships.
  
  

“Having no problems is the biggest problem of all.”

Taiichi Ohno