Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

Unrestrained variety is not a requirement for increasing market share. When a choice is pointless (offering 87 types of steering wheels), it is negative. Negative variety adds cost, not value. It burdens the corporation with complexity and expense. Ultimately, the customer pays. Positive variety, by contrast, adds value, increases sales, and can even cut costs. Understanding negative variety and rooting out its causes is the topic of this week’s show. In it, your host and author of Smart Simple Design, Gwendolyn Galsworth shows us how the actions of virtually every part of the enterprise can either help or hinder these efforts. Whether formal or informal, such actions (which Galsworth calls “policy triggers”) reflect what is expected and, to a large extent, what is done. Where are the policy roots of negative variety? Look in these five company functions: 1) Accounting; 2) Marketing & Sales; 3) Product Development; 4) Data Systems; and 5) Operations. Tune in and hear more.