The other day, I walked into a clothing store chockfull of items. After a few minutes, I got lost. A few more minutes later, I walked out the door (truth be told, I ran outside). See, when a plethora of garments in all colors of the rainbow are silently screaming at you, you can’t see the forest for the trees. And here’s the thing: if you can choose from everything, you’ll end up choosing nothing. Or, if there’s some sort of dressing emergency and you really have to make a decision, you’ll lose lots of precious time reaching a choice.
Keep it lean and clean
While some people might like roaming the isles for hours to make a well-considered decision, I simply don’t have the time or energy for it. I’m a practical person. I don’t go shopping to keep looking for something. I want to find it ASAP.
So, if I see a store where a select number of items are presented in an organized manner, that’s the one I prefer. Bonus points if they narrow down my choices — if I see three items per rack, consider me your customer. And a happy one, for that matter, because I’m confident I’ll quickly leave the store with the item I want.
Lean is clean. Less is more. Call it whatever you want. But there is such a thing as too much choice, and some stores get that. They only show customers what’s relevant. Usually, these are more expensive stores. And their strategy works: most of their customers leave with a purchase.
Less choice = more empowered (and happier!) employees
After my little clothing store adventure, I realized something. Although the work floor is a completely different environment, the underlying principle is the same: if you want employees to make swift, well-considered decisions, you should only share the most valuable, actionable information with them. You want to be the exclusive clothing store displaying three items per rack — not the one that’s flooding them with a random hotchpotch of mostly useless data.
That will make for more empowered and happier employees. And, as we’ve discussed before, happy employees lead to happy customers!
Want to explore your Visual Management opportunities? Please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are happy to perform a Quick Scan and discuss your information sharing strategy.