Always bring a map with you. This will ensure you won’t lose track in your independent professional career!
These are When, What, and Why. Last week, we talked about the “When” aspect. Today, we’ll continue on with talking about the other two Ws. Read on to learn why knowing what to map and redesign and understanding why you should do that is important in building and strengthening your firm and career as an independent professional.
|
||
|
Always bring a map with you. This will ensure you won’t lose track in your independent professional career! We are all familiar with a map… and I’m pretty sure we also know what it is used for. A map serves as one of our guides especially when we’re traveling to places we are not familiar with or are going to for the first time. While a lot of people don’t use a traditional map nowadays because technology has enabled smartphones to provide us with a very handy electronic map, one thing I know for certain is this: Whether it’s digital or printed, a map will always help you reach your destination. Let’s apply that in the business aspect or in the independent professional aspect. Mapping or redesigning your business’ processes helps you achieve one of your goals. What is that? A return-driven organization that ethically maximizes wealth! However, in order to map effectively and appropriately, you must first know the basics of this activity. This is where the 3Ws come in―When, What, and Why. Last week, we talked about when you should map and redesign business processes. Today, we’ll be focusing on the two other Ws… WHAT When it comes to knowing what to map, you must know who the constituents of your business are, as well as the key exchanges between them. In this stage, you:
Doing these things above will help you take note of key parties of your organization and identify what motivates them to transact with your brand. WHY In Professor Joel Litman and Dr. Mark L. Frigo’s book, “Driven,” they mentioned that an effective exercise to get into the “why” of your business is the “Why-Axis Analysis.” Allow me to explain to you a brief context of the name of this activity. Why-Axis Analysis is a pun based on the “Y axis” of the Cartesian plane, in which “Y” is the vertical axis.
This exercise is simple. All you have to do is ask “why” something occurs in a transaction. Once you have an answer for that, ask “why” again and again. While this may sound absurd at first, trying this activity will make you realize that by asking “why” repeatedly, you’ll be able to reach a better understanding about the true reasons for the exchanges that happen within your business. Oftentimes, the true reasons for an exchange revolve around some basic human need, such as those stated in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs.
As someone in the independent professional career myself, I’d like to share to you this advice: Always consider the 3Ws every time you plan on mapping or redesigning your business’ processes. Doing so will help you move one step closer towards your goal. On the contrary, a lack of understanding of these aspects can lead to blind planning and false senses of direction. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you? If you want to achieve your goals as an independent professional, you need to have a total awareness of your firm or organization’s place in the community or society. This is necessary for business success. Hope you found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Tuesday’s Return Driven Strategy! What happens next after you’re done with the mapping stage? Learn more about what this next stage is and how this can help you achieve the higher tenets in a return-driven organization on next week’s Return Driven Strategy! |
