Time management: As simple as Red, Blue, Black?

Global business coaching firm Shirlaws today reveals a new technique that helps business owners manage organisational efficiency and achieve work life balance.

Red Blue Black (RBB), originally developed by Shirlaws to help businesses manage organisational efficiency, has also seen success in the personal application of the framework for more than 200 of its clients.

In a business sense

Red Blue Black (RBB) is a colour-coding tool used to divide the activities of a business, allowing a business owner to immediately see where resources are being allocated. This means that a typical business would have board meetings, staff meetings, jobs and specific work tasks coded according to a particular colour.

Red refers to business support infrastructure such as administration, IT and human resources; red activities are non-income producing and typically produce costs but are the lifeblood of the organisation.

Blue refers to revenue and building of the product such as branding, marketing, sales and delivery; blue activities produce income but involve people management.

Black refers to the more strategic side of the business such as creating a strong position in the market, good distribution, clear strategies and a succession plan; black activities produce profit. Shirlaws recommends that at least 35% of a manager’s time be spent in this area.

RBB provides the business owner with a tool to determine over the next 12-18 months when the next member of staff should be employed and what colour job they should be doing. It also allows managers to look back and easily see where they have invested the majority of their time over a given period.

“It is critical to keep business owners and managers focused on black, profit-producing activities. We were working with one client who was doing well but wanted to do better. We asked them to colour code the minutes of their most recent board meeting to discover that seven of the items were red, three were blue and only one was black. This clearly demonstrated to them the reasons for their frustrations,” said Jeff Herrick, CEO, Shirlaws.

To be used effectively in business, RBB should:

• Dictate the content of meetings (in board meetings you should mainly talk black)
• Link in with job descriptions and staff recruitment
• Be integrated with the business plan (if you’re looking to grow a business aggressively then more time should be spent in black)
• Be used when scheduling appointments
• Be used to monitor productivity of individuals and the organisation
• Be used to gauge where a business is spending most of its time and where it should be focusing

RBB also empowers staff to make decisions and avoid unnecessary reliance on management. It ensures that the business is not dependent on any one person, in any area and introduces a sense of responsibility within the business.

A tool to manage work life balance

“A common problem among business owners and managers is that they don’t have time to work on the business because they are too busy working in the business. The same scenario applies to our personal lives. We tend to run out of time for us,” said Herrick.

A personal application of RBB should see individuals colour coding their diaries according to how they spend their time.

• Red refers to time spent on tasks from a personal support perspective such as financial and estate planning, management of tasks around your home as well as administration tasks such as cleaning the home, shopping, washing, filing, paying the bills, etc
• Blue refers to time spent around personal operations and working in your day to day life, such as working, scheduling, bringing up the kids
• Black refers to the time spent working on and managing your life. This might involve family and personal relationships. Black also refers to identifying your intent and values and helps you determine what next in terms of personal development. This is time for you to get energised and do things that you enjoy

To use RBB effectively in your personal life, you should:
•    Get clear on your goals
•    Be realistic about when you would like to achieve your goals and what support you will require
 

About Shirlaws

Shirlaws is one of the fastest growing, international business coaching organisations and, since it was established in Australia in 1999, has completely changed the structure and nature of business coaching in the marketplace.  Today Shirlaws works with clients in New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in Australia, where it has coaches operating in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and in the regional areas of the country. Visit the website: www.shirlawscoaching.com

About Debs White - Business Coach, Shirlaws Coaching

Debs joined Shirlaws in May 2007 as an Implementation business coach.  She coaches businesses in a variety of industries including Finance (Mortgage Brokers). Debs has extensive experience in the Australian finance industry, specifically in sales and marketing.  During her career she has worked with both Corporates and SMEs in a number of key senior roles such as National Operations Manager (RAMS Home Loans) and Business Development Manager (Macquarie Mortgages). Contact Debs at: dwhite@shirlawscoaching.com