About “Work-Out”
Work-Out \ wûrk-ou't \, verb:
to take decisive steps to self-design and implement highly effective and efficient business processes; getting unnecessary and unproductive work out of the organisational structure thus rendering it less bureaucratic and wasteful, more effective in making decisions quickly and efficiently.
Named “Work-Out” as a deliberate pun on the ‘toughen up’ and ‘get in shape’ programme, Work-Out was invented in the mid 1980s by GE's then CEO, Jack Welch, as his principal catalyst for changing an organisation paralysed by formality, rigidity and bureaucracy, to one where speed, simplicity and self-confidence flourish.
With access to a team of dedicated eWork-Out “Advocates”, each specialising in a specific area of Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Improvement (BPI), eWork-Out Business Processes Ltd helps companies develop and grow by focusing on eliminating bureaucracy from your business and improving business processes; on customers, on change acceleration, and beyond.
The idea behind eWork-Out is really simple and straightforward:
Bring people together. Give them a business
challenge. Trust them to come up with new ideas for how to get better
every day. Decide what to do quickly and learn as you go.
Unlike many “transformational change” programmes, eWork-Out is neither too conceptual (and therefore too impractical) nor too ‘inspirational’ (and therefore too vague), and can be applied to your own business' situation in almost every conceivable, practical circumstance.
About eWork-Out
UK-based, eWork-Out Business Processes Ltd is a young organisation boasting a small, highly specialist team, dedicated to helping organisations maintain a corporate culture of integrity, backed up by robust business processes.
David Feller, a qualified Work-Out Advocate and founder of eWork-Out Business Processes Ltd, has led dozens of Work-Outs in various enterprises — from smaller software houses to large-scale telcos — encountering (and countering) a large number of business process and bureaucracy problems; helping organisations determine more effective ways of doing work, reducing wasted time, identifying operational inefficiencies, focusing on the removal of reports, approval levels, unnecessary meetings, appropriate measures and company policies and procedures that lead to useless work.
Having worked in a variety of businesses and organisations for much of his working life, David grew rather weary of the endless paperwork; the gobbledygook and gibberish; the acronyms and clichés; the frenzy of reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions which leaves companies so complex and labyrinthine that you don't know whether you're coming or going; of companies that emphasise ‘autonomy’ at the same time as requiring you to fill in a form in triplicate for every trifle and consult six other people before making an anodyne decision; companies that assert the ‘value’ of particular jobs just at the moment they are about to disappear; companies that trumpet ‘ethics’, when in reality they believe in very little.
eWork-Out provides a great antidote to all that, and that's mainly down to the basic structure and carefully crafted process, tailored to work that needs to be done — three days, two nights (for “soak” time); the idea of people getting together in ways they normally wouldn't (getting essentially the ‘whole system’ in the room); having actual decisions made by the senior executives in the moment and in the room…
“…there's nothing quite like the feeling you get running a Work-Out. Before it starts the prospect seems both exciting and terrifying: ‘Am I going to get them through this?’. Anything could happen…But within hours it's clear that the participants are getting a real sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in moving things forward — even if the things aren't earth shattering, they still get a sense of progress and a ‘whew, finally that's getting addressed’, which is so liberating…The biggest buzz for me is the ‘Town Hall’ Meeting. Over and over again the participants remark how wonderful, amazing, etc. it is to see senior management making decisions on the spot, based on their recommendations.”
Increasingly, he has recognised a need to provide an alternative to the conventional form of Work-Out, taking advantage of the many synchronous and asynchronous communication and team collaboration tools now available.
Team Leader
“My team and I are now much more proactive. Now they say, ‘We know this is going to be a problem. Let's get to it now.’ In the past, they knew it was going to be a problem but waited for me to tell them what to do. eWork-Out helped us all realise we no longer operate in a dictatorial mode but with cooperation.”
More information about virtual collaboration…
