The Power of the Humble Quadrant
All business owners, leaders, and managers have to grapple with one particular thing on a regular basis, and it is simultaneously crucial to everything they do, yet can be frustrating to wrap their heads around and even figure out where to start. What am I talking about? ANALYSIS.
How do you decide what product to make next? How do you decide whether whether you're focused on the right action items today? How do you decide who should work on a specific task? There are tons of things that you need to analyze as a leader in your organization, and even though you are good at it, because you do it so much it can be hard to sort out sometimes. So, if you find yourself trying to analyze something, and you're not sure where to start, may I suggest starting with the humble quadrant.
Quadrants are not going to be able to solve every problem you come across, but they can help you begin to see things in a new light, which might be all you need. Quadrants are great for helping you analyze against two variables. You can pick any two variables, set them at high and low ends of the X and Y axes, and then you can plot the things you've been considering against those variables and see, well... see potentially a lot.
Here's an example. Let's say you were trying to increase your profit margins. So you drew a quadrant with these two lines: low-to-high cost, and low-to-high profitability. Then you plotted all twenty of the different products that your company currently makes on the chart. You will immediately see which ones fall into the quadrant of high cost/low profitability - these are essentially your worst performing products, the ones you should consider cutting back or stopping altogether. You will be able to see the ones that are already in the low cost/high profitability quadrant - these are your best performing products. So you'll get an immediate picture of your best and worst performers. You'll also see how the percentage of your total products are in each category, and from there you can start to form a plan on how to change things to increase profitability.
It's a very basic example, and the quadrant doesn't provide all the answers - but it helps you get a quick picture of where things are, and where to start, when you're not sure. And it's so simple! It's just two lines and some dots. And you can put any variables on there that you want to compare and analyze.
Other potential business uses for the quadrant:
- Low/High Effort vs Low/High Impact
- Low/High Urgency vs Low/High Importance (Stephen Covey)
- Low/High Skill Level vs Low/High Performance
- Low/High Cost vs Low/High Impact
- Low/High Enjoyment vs Low/High Impact on My Business
- Low/High Productivity vs Low/High Positivity (can be used with teams)
- Low/High Value vs Low/High Risk
- Low/High Risk vs Low/High Certainty
The quadrant analysis a very humble, simple tool, but I think it's something that all leaders, managers, and business owners need to have in their "pocket" for quick use in any conversation or situation where you need help analyzing, or seeing things differently. Put two lines on a piece of paper or a white board, add some variables, plot some points and see what new information comes to light!