I want to talk about the idea of an “unlock” versus innovation. This is a concept I heard about on a podcast by Scott Galloway. When we think about innovation, we think of broad, grand ideas that take a lot of time, creativity and project development. These ideas can be overwhelming and hard to implement. On the other hand, I think an unlock is much smaller. If you look at a system or process at an organization, we can see how it has evolved over time. As I shared in a previous blog, Remove the Friction, we need to find where the friction resides.
As Service Express has grown and scaled, we’ve built a number of processes that become cumbersome and inefficient as we continue to add on to them. Over time there may be too many people involved, or maybe just the wrong people, or too many approvals. This causes the process to get bogged down, hindering you from moving quickly and efficiently.
I’ve talked to my team about this concept and challenged them to look at their departments and find the roadblocks. We can make simple and often manual adjustments to correct these unlocks. We ask ourselves, “Do we have too many people involved? Are the right people involved? Do we need to empower people to make these decisions?” Answering these questions will help you move faster, more efficiently and increase engagement. Unlocking creates opportunities for people to show what they can do!
Galloway also talked about this concept in your personal life. Are you spending time, energy, or resources in areas that no longer bring you joy? Or don’t add value anymore? A lot of times, these are things you’ve always done, simply because you’ve always done them that way.
Let’s look at unlocks in both our personal and professional lives! What can we do to free up our time, money, resources and energy? Focus on the areas that give back to you rather than take away. Go get the unlocks!
