Lean Left

LEAN Left is hardly a political position. Instead, it’s the concept of pulling back on the services and features you’re providing, which should make things simpler as well as less costly.

And when budgets are tight, LEAN Left can be a very useful tool for LEAN communicators who are under pressure to do more with less.

LEAN Left owes its roots first to the computer industry and now to health care. (Andy Grove, the co-founder of Intel co-founder, is now spending his retirement trying to fix the U.S. health care system by shifting left.) http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2007/04/andygrove_healthcare_qanda?currentPage=allnnWhat happens over time to technology, health care and even communication is that products and services acquire more bells and whistles and complex operating procedures at greater expense. When you shift or lean to the left, you remove the features and complexity that’s not adding value to your customer, and you should be able to reduce your costs accordingly.

Before you cut back though, you need to know what your customers value. For example, if you’re dealing with frontline supervisors and employees who tell you they don’t like e-mail, you want to re-examine your digital communication strategy. Rather than focus on technology for them, you may want to introduce tools to help them conduct more effective face-to-face meetings. Or, you also may want to provide them with punchy one-pagers (little text, lots of clear graphs and pictures) to post on their bulletin boards.

Low tech executed well can work wonders. Are you ready to consider LEANING Left?