Budget Authority Equals Power & Prestige?

First of all, let's look at what budget control is really meant to do...give freedom for people to operate independently. Really? When properly done, budgets allow for operations to happen without repeated need to go back to the primary source of the "currency" and ask for permission to deplete the supply. But budgets, and how they are used, have become the subject of volumes of material and take up an inordinate amount of time to develop, monitor and implement. The important part to remember about budgets is that they should have targets and be performance based. They should have less to do with increasing the net, and way more with increasing the gross. And most of all, they should be all about the people who work within them and their ability to impact that gross. I swear, if we focused just on that, the net would take care of itself.

But all of that is really not what I want to speak with you about. I wanted to speak with you about the process of budget, what you are budgeting and how maybe to do it better. My company sells time and software to make better use of that time. In the brokerage and appraisal part of our company, it's all about selling "time". In the technology part, it's about selling time as well as product. The product part is the easiest from a budget and pricing standpoint because it's quantifiable. We set pricing and we sell against it. Like for many of you, in all the other areas, it's not that way. You spend most of your time selling your time, though most of you don't budget it. You don't' recognize it as your currency. You don't measure it and you don't do a very good job of increasing your "gross" by having more "product", i.e., more time. You don't need me to tell you that time is in finite supply. You don't need me to tell you that it's important to value it. You don't even need me to tell you that efficient use of your time is important, but you may want me to share a secret with you. Effective use of your time is the only thing you should focus on. This is true of any budgetary item, including the almighty - money.

I ascribe to Peter Drucker's definition, "Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things." So if we think of efficiency as doing what has already been done better, then it's easy to see that doing the most important things first is the grail. Oh, and while I know you know it already, I'll say it out loud. Effectiveness is much, much harder than efficiency, which is why budgeting our most precious commodity is so darn hard. There are tons of variables and they keep changing. The key is to find a system for measuring effectiveness and use it. You know me. I'd like your system to be electronic so it's efficient and transparent to others and so it's easier to elicit help with monitoring. But however you do it, keep answering the follow questions (in order) to play the budget game to win.

Ask yourself and those you work with or manage:

What am I doing that does not need to be done at all?
What am I doing that can be done by somebody else?
What am I doing that only I can do?

You scrap the first, delegate the second and concentrate only on the tasks in the last. Email me if you want my method for how to take even the list of things only you can do, to the next level of efficiency. If you'll use it, I guarantee you'll free up huge quantities of time, but watch out...the unnecessary time-wasters keep on creeping back. Shoot 'em on sight. So take care of your most important budgeting issues, and I believe that when you come up with obstacles related to money based budgets, you'll handle them a lot more effectively. And that's effective use of authority!

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