I was at a fascinating session on Organization Structures last week (yes, I’m a geek). One sentence resonated with me – a sentence that boiled all of business down to a single point:
(Inputs being time, money and energy, and Outputs being whatever it is that you produce as an organization. )
I love the linear nature of this: Do something, and something else happens. The question to be asking yourself is, what output is being created by the resources you’re inputting? What’s the intended result, and how does it create value to you, your business, or the world at large? So much of what we do seems to be “let’s see what happens”. And there’s nothing wrong with that – with experimenting and testing hypothesis. But (for myself), it’s so easy to get caught up in the input of the thing that I can sometimes lose sight of the intended output.
An output should be value creating; it should have more value than the combined value of the inputs. Anything less than a 1:1 ratio will led to bankruptcy, burnout or general frustration. No matter how big your company is, your inputs are limited. Put them to the best use possible.
