Stress and Lateral ThinkingWhen a friend, who I shall call Mike, came to me with his problem, I felt a certain amount of déjà vu. The old problem of stress had reared its ugly head. The particular issue was this:Issue The company was suffering increased competition and had found out that their materials costs were higher than any of the rival companies. Task Mike had been asked to look for 10% savings in the material costs in his company, and was told his performance bonus depended on it. Problem Mike's job had always been to buy in materials, and he knew that there was little chance of squeezing prices down. He had already "done the rounds" trying to get better deals. Effect He was in a quandary about what to do next, and felt the weight of the problem get him down. He was not sleeping well, and was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. It appeared that his workload was too much, yet when he looked at it objectively it seemed to be no more. This filled him with self doubt, which did not help him to sleep at night...... Analysis Mike had been given a task that on the face of it, he could not accomplish. However, there were two things he could do to immediately relieve the stress - two things he hadn't done, because he had kept the problem to himself, as he thought he had to know the answer. 1. Many problems in business are not straightforward. I have a simple philosophy when I don't know or understand something - when in doubt, ask. There is absolutely nothing demeaning about asking others. Everyone has a network of colleagues at work and outside, so it is possible to talk over problems with others. 2. Lateral thinking has been around a long time. The phrase was invented by Edward de Bono, who developed a whole philosophy around it. In essence, you do not think of a problem in a "straight line", but rather from a completely different viewpoint. Solution Mike chatted over his problem firstly with a colleague who was also in the buying department. This helped him by confirming that he had done everything right in coming to his conclusions. This didn't solve the problem, but it was a big boost to his self confidence. He then came to see me. Because I was from outside the company, I had to ask him exactly what the issue was - their materials costs were higher than any of the rival companies. I then asked, was that it the final cost of materials or in the cost of materials bought in? He was half way through giving me an answer when he stopped. He started thinking outside his buying "box". What was happening to the materials after they came into the company? After some discussions with the designers and production planners, it became clear that the manufacturing process meant that there was excessive waste - an average of 20% of materials was being wasted. Once he knew that, he pulled in a small team of experts, and with some small changes in design and the buying spec, he was able to save over 15% on materials, with the prospect of saving more. Main Points Think "outside the box" Don't be afraid to ask Pull together key experts - several heads are better than one.
This page was updated by Paul Hogwood on 27th May 2007
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