Turning Groundhog's Into a Useful Holiday

Turning Groundhog’s Day into a Useful Holiday

Groundhog’s Day may be the silliest celebration of the calendar year. Every February 2nd, hordes of news reporters and other interested bystanders gather to watch a giant rodent wake up so it can prophesize what the weather will be like in the coming weeks. The groundhog gets its annual moment in the spotlight then returns to its normal rodent activity doing whatever it is that groundhogs do during the other 364 days of the year.

Groundhog’s Day has been popularized by the namesake Bill Murray movie in which a man named Phil wakes up every morning and is forced to repeat the day until he changes his ways. While Groundhog’s Day is a vestige of bygone days, I wonder if it could be re-imagined. What would happen if corporate leaders were to use this day as an examination of our own business operations?

Within every organization there are processes happening on repeat simply because everyone thinks, “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Despite attempts to eliminate bureaucracy, senseless processes creep into organizations like ants marching toward a dropped morsel of food at a picnic. There are manual processes occurring that can easily be automated by technology and employees who are getting stuck in day-to-day minutia. This happens in EVERY organization, even the most forward-thinking, tech-savvy ones.

Last Groundhog’s Day I challenged all ISG employees to look at our own business processes and determine what we may be doing that can either be:

·??????STOPPED completely

·??????AUTOMATED by technology

·??????RE-ENGINEERED to improve workflows

Rewards were offered as an incentive for ISG employees to solicit their ideas. I also promised appropriate resource allocations to make winning ideas a reality. What I found was our employees were thrilled to offer their suggestions. Surprisingly, many of the ideas submitted began with, “Thank you for allowing me to submit my idea…”

In total, we had 24 ideas submitted. Twenty-four! Our team reviewed all the ideas and prioritized the work. We received submissions from each of our four verticals and the top four ideas came from different levels of the organization, including a case manager, a sales leader, a nurse and a business manager. We’ve now implemented the suggestions, using technology to automate and streamline our business to help ourselves and our clients become more efficient.

Key take aways from this Groundhog’s Day challenge include:

1.????The bigger you get, the more likely you are to have processes that need to be revisited. Over time, a process is repeated because, “it’s the way its always done.” It’s critical that just as much attention is paid to existing systems and processes than to new development.

2.????Think outside the box. The longer a system or process is in place, the harder it can be to envision doing it another way. Challenge yourself and your team to examine workflows through the eyes of your customers, partners or other team members impacted by the workflow to see if each viewpoint changes your perspective.

3.????Ask and receive. Even though we felt we had an open forum for our team members to provide input and ideas, we were overwhelmed with the response once we explicitly asked for feedback. Continually revisit existing processes so you’re not doomed, like the groundhog, to repetition. And continue to encourage your team to share their ideas.

If we use Groundhog’s Day and the entire month of February as a reminder to challenge ourselves and our team members to look at processes with fresh eyes and an open mind, then we will have restored this holiday to great importance. Instead of repeating processes day after day or tuning in to see whether the groundhog casts a shadow, we can use this day to become more efficient and have a bit of fun while doing it.

Who wants to join us in a #groundhogdaychallenge?