Lay-off survivors are often expected to span the gaps left by those now gone while also fulfilling their own responsibilities. As a result, I am frequently asked how they are to manage since the one thing that never changes is the number of hours in a day.

There are only 2 possibilities:

1. Figure out how to accomplish more
2. Decide what won't be done

How much you can accomplish is governed by 4 factors:

• Talent - matching capabilities and disposition to the job
• Skill - ability to execute well
• Method - efficiency, effectiveness and number of steps
• Environment - factors that encourage excellence (e.g., equipment, culture)

To do less, you must :

• Abandon
• Postpone
• Outsource, or
• Cut corners

If you are truly overloaded (the laid-off workers were not idle), get some input from above and below on where to apply these 4 options. Think about the most important objectives and work backwards; anything that is not critical to delivering value to customers now and in the future is fair game.

If you just laid off workers, it may seem almost sacrilegious to get help from a consultant, but objective, focused and temporary assistance might be just what you need to quickly make the best decisions and changes before the situation deteriorates further.

We are in a sea change. Business as usual is no longer business as usual. We will emerge, but we will not return. Significant changes will be evident. It is both the change and the pause that provide significant opportunities to those who are alert and agile.

Read about the 9 gifts of the recession ...

I speak frequently about the two main steps of developing strategy and encounter evidence daily of both businesses and non-profits whose great ideas fail because they neglect the second step.

The first step of developing strategy involves creating and/or maintaining a winning business proposition:

• What value can we provide?
• To whom and in what quantities?
• At what price?
• At what cost must we be able to deliver to reap good profits?
• Why us?
• Where is our competitive edge and how will we maintain it?

The list differs only slightly for non-profits:

• What value can we provide?
• To whom and in what quantities?
• Who will benefit and support that value?
• At what cost must we be able to deliver to be sustainable?
• Why us?

The second step, equally critical but clearly second, involves determining what the organization must become in order to deliver on its mission:

• What must we be really good at?
• What must we value?
• What kind of talent must we acquire?
• With whom must we partner?
• What do we have to be as an organization to succeed?

If you skip this step, you will find yourself pursuing new objectives with the same old organization.

This is like thinking that the Fed that failed to provide regulatory oversight can provide regulatory reform simply by being granted the authority to provide even greater oversight.

We can do better than that.

We send and receive email daily, generally assuming it arrives as intended. We chastise those slow to respond. We take it personally when they don't. It rarely occurs to us that the email was delayed, the recipient's computer down, or delivery simply failed.

Before getting your ire up or self-esteem down, you might want to consider the possibility that the message never arrived. Give the benefit of the doubt.

This advice goes way beyond email, of course. I mention email though because I've had two people tell me recently that messages to me failed. Please contact me if you have sent me a message that should have elicited a response but didn't or that generated a delivery failure notice. Thanks!

Best regards,

Ann Latham

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© 2009 Ann Latham. All rights reserved.