Potter: Watch Out for the Kitchen Sink Syndrome

Effecting E-change... Are you feeling as though your company's e-strategy isn't getting traction despite senior management enthusiasm? Your organization may be suffering from what I call Kitchen Sink Syndrome. It starts with senior management's call to migrate your old business to an e-business. Newly designated e-leaders gather for two days to create a grand e-strategy. They are told that the "Internet will change everything." And then asked, "What would you like? What would our employees like? What would our channel partners like?" Finally, hundreds of flip chart pages are left to the Web team to sort through. The e-leaders return to their day jobs. The budget-challenged Web team attempts to build a site that has everything "including the kitchen sink."

Once the beta web site is rolled out, the field people don't see any significant benefit. (The Internet hasn't changed everything yet, and, anyway, look at what happened to their stock prices.) Incentive plans do not allow for time to do things differently. E-initiatives won't be supported by incentive plans until after the e-strategy has been implemented. Users don't use it because they can't find what they want quickly with all of that cool stuff (kitchen sink) jammed onto the home page. So nothing really happens -- until next year's e-leaders reconvene to do it all over again.

The antidote to the Kitchen Sink Syndrome is a dose of "old economy" MBO (management by objectives). Get the flipcharts back out and ask whether the ideas will help your company:

1. Acquire new customers,
2. Retain existing customers,
3. Add revenue per customer and/or
4. Reduce costs.

These are "A" objectives. Now match these with number "1" priorities -- the ones that will have the greatest impact and need to be accomplished soonest. Only pursue three "A1" initiatives at a time. (Hint: Pick the easiest first.) For budget and adoption reasons, you will want to show some early success. Finally, support your initiatives with incentives and resources. Keep in mind that the biggest productivity improvements require the deepest investment in change management. So make sure there are plenty of carrots and sticks. And create time to do it right. Good luck!

--Bob Potter

Correction: Oops. Trammell Crow was inadvertently left off the list of Dispatch Subscribers in the Service Provider Category. Trammell Crow was #12, with 56 subscribers. But, Holy Cow, in the last two days it has shot up to #3 with 161 subscribers. Thank you!