The Globe and Mail

Your company probably has a CEO (chief executive officer), CFO (chief financial officer), and CMO (chief marketing officer). But serial entrepreneur Auren Hoffman says one post it probably doesn’t have – but desperately needs – is a CKO, a chief killing officer.

When your company is growing you will inevitably add many things to build it up. But there comes a time when you must kill things off that are no longer helpful. The CKO would focus on examining what the company does and kill things off that don’t work. Some examples he offers in his Summation blog:

Products: A company can only do so many things well. “This does not mean you shouldn’t start things – you can start lots of new things as long as you kill them,” Mr. Hoffman says. Google recognized that when it killed Google Answers in 2006.

Features: Your products may have features that were once considered essential but are no longer necessary or desired by customers.

People: Review your employees at set intervals to determine which ones were bad hires or are no longer adding value. That can serve as a foundation for getting them back on track – saving headaches down the road. If you can’t rehabilitate them, encourage them to work elsewhere. He notes that Netflix founder Reed Hastings is famous for saying: “Adequate performance deserves a nice severance package.”

Meetings: As a company grows, so does the number of internal meetings. Some become outdated, and it’s vital you kill them. “Only keep meetings that are very beneficial to all attendees,” Mr. Hoffman says.

Reports: Sometimes the CEO, another key executive, or a board member asks for a report. Then it continues to be produced routinely for years, long after it was valuable. “Work to kill these reports, even if they are automated,” he advises.

Investors: Even some investors and board members should be on the chopping block if they are no longer of use. Early-stage investors may not add value now, so buy them out. Many might be happy to give up their stock for a decent return.

Processes: Some internal processes that once were important can eventually slow things down. “Slay these processes before they kill your company,” Mr. Hoffman says.

HR Practices: Many HR practices are vestiges of the past or perhaps shouldn’t have been introduced in the first place. Try to eliminate all non-essential HR policies and practices, to avoid becoming a bureaucratic maze. He suggests one of the first things the CKO should look at is all the forms a new employee must fill out.

Code: Software code should be revisited and improved. Not reviewing code regularly can cause setbacks and long debugging hours after a lot more code has been written on top. His company holds special days regularly during which its engineers do nothing but clean up and streamline code.

POWER POINTS

More browsers mean less focus

Productivity writer Charlie Gilkey urges adoption of a "two-tab" rule: Never have more than two tabs open on your browser. Limit yourself to one active tab, which you are working on, and one with reference material. If any more are open, you lose focus.

Productiveflourishing.com

A better way to manage performance

Consultant Bruce Tulgan recommends writing a list of your subordinates with performance problems; then, for each, choose one concrete action to help the person improve. Similarly, list your best people, and decide on a specific action to recognize and reward each one.

RainmakerThinking.com

Have your way with words

A study in the Journal of Consumer Research by academics Cait Poynor and Stacy Wood found that a restaurant did better when it changed its menu from grouping around traditional categories such as soup, sandwiches or salads, and instead promoted offerings by themes, such as Italian or Mexican. Your company might similarly benefit from mixing up categories. Hertz, for example, lists cars in subcategories such "fun" or "green" in addition to "sedan" or "truck," the researchers say.

Get to the Point Newsletter

Have great expectations

When attending an event where you will be meeting new people, go prepared to be impressed. Mattthewcornell.org

Everyone wants more action

The rule for presentations is to limit the number of slides, but contrarian Seth Godin asks what if you took the reverse tack: 200 slides for your next 40-minute presentation? Instead of cramming a bunch of ideas on each slide, what if slides had only one word - "cheaper" on one slide, and "durable" on another, for example. Or even a photo. "Slides create action," he notes. (He stresses the point is action, not literally 200 slides.)

sethgodin.typepad.com

Stand out by shadow boxing

If you want to make a paragraph pop out in a Word document, use a drop shadow box, which makes the words appear raised. Position your cursor in the paragraph; select Borders and Shading from the format menu; the Shadow option from the Preset area at the left side of the dialogue box; a line weight from the Width list; and click OK. Allen Wyatt's WordTips

Special to The Globe and Mail

E-MAIL / POST-VACATION

If today's your first day back at work after a vacation, no doubt you are already tensing as you anticipate your e-mail inbox. On fastcompany.com, productivity writer Gina Trapani offers some advice, starting with the obvious basic principle: Some of the e-mail in your inbox can be deleted, and some require more involvement on your part. She suggests you immediately get rid of those that can be deleted.

To do that, sort your inbox by the "sender" column, and then delete outdated newsletters, social network notifications, or messages from people who usually send forgettable stuff. Next sort messages by the "subject" column, and similarly delete, looking at long back-and-forth series of e-mails that are stale. If you've been away for a while adopt another triage, sorting by date, and getting rid of messages a month old; it's doubtful anybody is still waiting for a response.

Ms. Trapani estimates you will have cut 50 per cent of the e-mails, and can now re-sort by date, oldest item first. "Punch through each message, and make quick decisions: Is this something you can reply to and file in two minutes or less? If so, do it on the spot," she writes. "If the message involves ... more than two minutes worth of work, set a deadline for yourself some time in the future, like next Tuesday, and reply to the person: 'You'll hear back from me about this by next Tuesday.' Then put the task to get back to so-and-so on your calendar for next Tuesday. Done."

SELF-MANAGEMENT / HOW DO YOU DEFINE RELATIONSHIP TASKS?

Consultant Guy Harris was recently on the road, and after calling home to check in realized he had been struggling, not for the first time, to have a fruitful conversation with his wife. He says the reason is that he is task-oriented, and fails when it comes to defining relationship conversations with colleagues or family.

His mental task list that day was: Check my notes for the course I'm giving; confirm all the training resources are ready to go; call home, press my clothes; read to relax; go to bed. "Notice that the way I defined the task of calling home did not include listening to my wife and engaging in a conversation. And therein lies the problem. As soon as she answered the phone, my task was complete. I had called home," he writes on his blog, recoveringengineer.com.

The lesson: If you're task-oriented, look at how you define relationship-related tasks, and make sure the relationship is part of the task definition.