In every project the three resources needed are time, people and resources. It is very easy to run into limited time, need more people on the project to finish and if we had more money (resources) we could have done more. We all tend to believe having more resources at the start would translate into better results. Is this true? Harvey Schachter reviewed a book called Stretch by Scott Sonenshein and the answer is not necessarily. Mr. Soneshein is a Professor of Management at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The key he believes is the ability to use the resources you have to their fullest potential.

Mr. Sonesnhein uses the terms chasing which means focusing on acquiring resources and overlooking how to expand what is on hand.

Stretching is ask what more they can do with what they have, rather than obsessing about what is missing. Many times it is better to have a frugal budget and people have to be creative with what they have. Having demonstrated results, additional resources to scale up are allocated. Stretching includes thinking out of the box; using existing relationships, asking more of your people; looking at the big picture; hopefully your team has a diversity of opinions and skillsets which can be put together to equal more than the parts. The book will help teams stretch better.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the great things about the companies is the ability to generate a profit and continue to pay dividends. The ability to generate a profit tends to mean the company can “throw money at problems” but does it solve it. Sometimes less money is needed and you need to see how management works being lean but not mean and continually come up with profitable ideas for the years ahead.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.