I’m a bit fan of Tom Fishburne’s cartoons. I’ve been receiving them for years and they always raise a smile. I really enjoyed this one which arrived in my in-box this week.
Below it he wrote:
Doing “more with less” is emerging as a sort of business mantra for 2023.
This is a message I discuss with clients in my work as an associate of Challenger branding agency eatbigfish.
The key challenge facing everyone nowadays is resourcefulness. Making do with what’s at hand. The days of big teams and generous budgets are over.
I look back on my early days as a brand manager at Nestle with fondness and incredulity. There was an army of us working across several floors in our Croydon office. We worked with lots of big agencies across London. Making tv ads, creating press campaigns, and on-pack promotions for relatively small brands. You simply wouldn’t get such large resources today.
Whenever I visit clients I see that the workload is intense, the teams are small and the hours are long. Yet, brand ambitions are stronger than ever. There’s an ongoing pressure to grow sales and profitability. That’s why burn-out and stress are such hot topics nowadays.
So what’s the answer? How do you do more with less? Well, the key lessons are in the book ‘A Beautiful Constraint’ but in a nutshell, the key areas to focus on are:
1 Changing Your Mindset
We need to lean into the constraints we’re facing. When faced with a fresh budget cut or headcount reduction our first and most natural response is to complain. Why me? It’s not fair! We feel victimised and often lower our ambitions in the face of it. Instead, we must learn to accept them and see them as opportunities for growth and progress. In order words, we must adopt a ‘transformer’ rather than a ‘victim’ mindset.
2 Adopting New Tools
Once you see opportunity in the constraint, how do you take advantage of it? A couple of tools can help. The first is what we call a ‘Propelling Question’. This means re-expressing the challenge you’re facing with your constraint at the heart of it. This way you’re forced to use the constraint, rather than avoid it.
Then, use a thinking framework called a ‘Can-If Map’, which acts as a springboard for idea generation. There are 6 pathways to explore which can each offer new ways forward.
3 Staying Motivated and Committed
Finally, you need to avoid getting deflected by the inevitable setbacks you’ll face. In particular, you’ll need to maintain your ambitious purpose to guide you forward. Then stay gritty and determined throughout.
In Summary
Tom Fishburne is right. Doing more with less is a key challenge facing all of us today. We’re still trying to cope with the after-effects of the Global pandemic, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. Times are tough and constraints are here to stay. However, don’t despair. There are ways forward.
I give talks and run workshops that expand these themes. If you wish to know more - please get in touch.