Philosophy

Making Strengths Productive

Process designers are to productive people as personal trainers are to movie stars.

We believe process design is not an end; productivity is both a skill and a system that helps you be more effective in the life you are called to.  We happen to be very good at helping people develop systems that help manage programs, projects and the information and ideas that support work and increase business; the systems we design together can help you accomplish your work and enjoy your life.

We believe in the philosophy of building on your own strengths and finding support for weaker areas. Per Peter Drucker,*

The focus must be on strengths. Nothing destroys an organization faster than focusing on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths.

The Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation’s work with aptitude testing helps people focus on personal strengths, getting past being discouraged by those activities that prove more difficult to master (because they are inherently weaker). Years of surveys by the Gallup Organization in the area of strengths have found that approximately 70% of people surveyed are prevented from focusing on their strengths. They propose people**

partner with someone who has more talent in the areas in which you are lacking

in order to focus more energy on the areas in which you are strong.

Red Tuxedo interprets this to mean

Do what you’re good at and leave the process design to us.

Our intent is to provide guidance and expertise to help you create and use a system that not only works for you, your partners, staff, and firms with which you collaborate, and also also grows with you and supports your work in the future.

It is possible, even likely, that your office environment will “look better” after you work with Red Tuxedo. However, you’ve probably been able to achieve that target yourself.*** We help our clients to create an office and a workflow that supports today’s work, is easily returned to its desired state after disturbance in the form of travel or busy periods, and expands to accommodate new projects and directions.

Notes

*This particular quotation was taken from Inside Drucker’s Brain, by Jeffrey A. Krames (Portfolio, 2008), p. 111. Peter Drucker said pretty much the same thing in many of his own books.

**Rath, Tom, StrengthsFinder 2.0, (Gallup Press, 2008), p. 25.

*** Not unlike stopping smoking, where quitting is easy but staying quit is non-trivial: Cleaning a desk is easy. With enough boxes, you can do it in an afternoon. Finding a way to manage new, incoming, and historical ideas and information so that you can find the data you want when you want it, any time and every time, is a bit harder.