Toby O’Rourke is the President & CEO of Kampgrounds of America, Inc. and a thought leader in outdoor hospitality and travel.
In the past few years, my company undertook a big surge of new property acquisitions. Many different groups needed information about those acquisitions, but much of it was highly confidential. Not everyone needed to know everything at every point in the process, but we had never identified when someone needed to be informed or how to make that happen. As we progressed through each acquisition, it became clear that our workflow had inefficiencies.
Spotting and addressing inefficiencies ensures conflicts happen less frequently and creates internal alignment, further preparing an organization for change. Unfortunately, many of the process inefficiencies that slow down organizations only become apparent after the fact: a project running over time or budget, people uninformed or informed too late and a lot of rework.
In any project, we can get far down a path before realizing someone missed out on new information—and the further down we go, the more costly it is to backtrack and start over. Instead, we can be proactive: With some serious process work to identify inefficiencies and a plan for constant improvement, any organization can stay agile and remain competitive.
Reorganize and coordinate clear communication.
One of the main ways companies can address duplication of effort and resources is through reorganization. For example, we previously had three separate operations teams leading three different aspects of our business: owned campground properties, owned outdoor resorts and our franchise businesses. But by re-organizing into a singular operations function, we could leverage resources and streamline processes between teams better.
Another top priority for inefficiencies are those that waste the most time, and I’ve found the biggest offender is rework resulting from poor communication. Middle managers or executives might hold information sessions where no one disseminates that information beyond those small group meetings. With so much of the team out of the loop, everyone ends up in another meeting. Be sure the right people are in the room to make decisions, and hold your team accountable for sharing information.
For example, in marketing, our creative review process resulted in communication inefficiencies that led us to redo a lot of work. To avoid this, we buttoned up incoming feedback by routing creative to all the people who need to see it and then consolidating feedback through a single source of contact on both the agency and brand side. Instead of highly inefficient back-and-forths, centralized feedback gives the right people access so the next steps can happen sooner.
Once processes are established, visually mapping them out can help team members understand them in a bigger-picture context so everyone is on the same page. We use swim lanes for our process maps, and for each box in that flow, we include who needs to be involved (along with their actions at each step). Review your processes regularly to remind everyone of your agreed-upon processes.
Be proactive.
Preparation is another way to draw out and resolve inefficiencies. After stumbling into several public relations incidents we weren’t prepared for, we realized we needed an efficient escalation process. Our previous approach led to multiple people telling everyone things, but no one was in charge. Our new escalation process has detailed steps for any scenario, whether at a campground property or corporate.
When creating these processes, make sure you clearly define who owns each process, who informs who and how it gets handled. And review these processes regularly to identify where any inefficiencies need addressing.
Plan to be proactive about communication when a situation arises. For example, we had no documented communication flows or assigned roles for our property management software product that services all of our campgrounds. We established a clear process to keep users informed, which channels to use, and if a problem remains unsolved, when to release more information. Even if we can only say, “We see the situation. This is how we are solving it,” users appreciate our transparency.
Stay vigilant to inefficiencies.
In my experience, staying open to feedback is the most effective tool in continuously finding inefficiencies. We recently moved from annual employee reviews to quarterly conversations to help people verbalize their feedback—where they find themselves struggling, departments giving them pushback or where they need more resources or support.
A senior executive used our quarterly to reveal he had been stuck in one of our processes, which was impacting our ability to fully open new properties. Setting aside this space gave him permission to verbalize his difficulty and get him that support sooner.
Leaders should also make sure projects are followed up with a post-mortem. Be disciplined in this practice, following up a new purchase or product rollout with a deeper look into inefficiencies. In our case, this is one of many opportunities we provide to discuss where we can improve: our escalation group gathers monthly, our leadership team goes off-site quarterly, and we use an annual retreat to look objectively at where we can make changes.
We also have a franchise advisory committee that meets with us annually for feedback on current projects and programs. We divide our franchisee advisors into smaller subgroups—one each for marketing, technology and operations—to provide more targeted feedback and check in with them throughout the year.
With so many eyes constantly looking to elevate inefficiencies to your attention, you have a better chance of identifying and resolving more of them.
Get team buy-in.
Change can be difficult. Not everyone likes it, and even if they do, changing how they do things can be uncomfortable. To most effectively reduce pushback, you need buy-in across the company. Team members can be more comfortable adopting change knowing that even if something doesn’t work, there will be an opportunity to revisit the process.
With so many projects to tackle, you may not be able to do everything, but you can continuously tweak what you are doing to make your company more efficient and effective, like shifting the colors of the kaleidoscope. The key is to keep revisiting your processes and make sure they are working.
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