When selling your company, prove your team has a continuous improvement mindset
There are two gifts that every owner/CEO can tap in to for improving profits and for growing long term company worth. The first is a solid pricing strategy. The second, a productivity plan that drives a culture of continuous improvement.
What is a productivity plan? It’s your team identifying actions to take to produce more output with fewer inputs. Ultimately, it becomes a pipeline of productivity enabling ideas, their prioritization for execution, the target value to the business, the person or team that will execute the idea and the steps needed for full execution.
Building such a plan begins by simply capturing productivity ideas. Brainstorm with your team to identify a list of possible ideas for driving efficiencies and this initial brainstorm will begin you on your way of having a pipeline. Once you begin capturing the ideas, prioritizing them for execution will be the next natural step. In prioritizing, you’ll begin to estimate what the scope of potential financial benefit there could be for the company. Then, once a month your leadership team reviews progress being made with your productivity pipeline. Over time, you’ll be building a strong muscle and culture of continuous improvement that will benefit the financial performance of your company today and help impress a future acquirer or investor.
Here is a great template (Click here for Productivity template) for facilitating a productivity dialog with your team. Use this template to facilitate ideas and begin building your pipeline. Give your future self this gift of building and working a productivity plan.
