What could you have done differently today?

I was out for Sunday lunch last week with some old friends. They were bemoaning, as let’s been honest we have all been known to do even on a Sunday, some of the annoyances and idiosyncrasies of ‘corporate life’.

I found myself asking them what they were doing to try to change it. They just looked bemused. “It’s just the way it is” the collective they said.

What really interested me, was that in this specific instance they weren’t getting frustrated by ‘the big things’ - the things that may well genuinely be out of their control - like corporate strategy and direction, leadership, professional/personal development, company values etc etc etc. They were frustrated by the little things that effect day-to-day business practice and process.

And it was annoying – because the more we got into it, the more we realised that we shared a fundamental belief that if companies, departments, project teams, individuals allowed themselves the time and gave themselves the permission, we could be doing all kinds of both corporate (gaining productivity, saving cost) and personal (easing frustration) good. How? Just by making small, almost imperceptible changes and tapping into tools, experience and functionality both inside and out of the corporate network.

Now I’m no expert in this, although I’ve been known to dabble, so I suggested that the next time any of us get frustrated by something at work, we take a moment. And instead of just counting to 10 and simply getting on with it, we allow ourselves the time to sit back for 5 minutes and think about how it could be changed, or speak to someone who could help, or get onto Google – whatever! – and find out if there is a cunning different way. If there is, try it. If it doesn’t work, well, so what.

Now the results are hardly stellar so far, but one week on there’s been some interesting progress.

One of us, working on a global project team where the mammoth spreadsheet from hell flies across time zones from one end of the globe to another – making revision and version tracking almost impossible – persuaded the group to try Google Docs. So far, so good on that one. It’s not confidential information so any of those concerns don’t stand – its just information that’s hard to keep track of.

Another, frustrated by the sheer volume of email traffic that was interesting but not urgent, spent 2 hours during the week setting up folders in outlook so that he didn’t even have to worry about them hitting his inbox. He set aside 30 mins on Friday afternoon to go through them all and reckons that it saved him at least 2 hours of faffing and being interrupted and diverted through the week. So he’s pretty much net neutral so far and is hoping to reap the time reward from here on.

Another, and I really like this one, set up a group del.icio.us account for everyone on her team so that interesting stuff online could be tagged for the team to read at their leisure, rather than adding to email overload with yet another group email being sent around.

So as I said, hardly stellar, and certainly not revolutionary, but already these small changes are making a positive difference to the way they feel when they go into work in the morning whilst helping the companies they work for to boot.

And the best bit? We got to share these tips and then think about how we can apply them to our own working practices and benefit from our collective experience. Because as for my personal frustrations, nothing annoys me more at work than everyone spending the time figuring these things out for themselves.

So if you’ve changed something at work, or the next time you do something differently, drop by here and tell me about it. You’ll be doing me, and loads of other people, a big big favour and may very well learn something new in return…