In 1990 I was working as a part-time bookseller in a Waldenbooks located in Midtown Plaza, Rochester, NY. Midtown is located under the Xerox building, which was at the time Xerox world headquarters, so we had steady, regular business. By 1992, I was made manager of the store, and I thought things were going very well. I had a staff of 8-14 people, and because of our location, we had high volume per square foot sales figures. Then something odd happened: Waldenbooks corporate headquarters told us that some consulting company would be implementing changes to the way we did business. From what I could tell, the plan was to implement a tighter inventory turnaround and further standardize business operations. Actually, they would tell us how to do business – precisely how! Let me give just one example: we had to locate space on a shelf and using special tape, make a little square. The square was labeled, "Tape". In that square was placed – you guessed it – the boxing tape! If the tape was placed anywhere else I would get the evil eye from my district manager. "Are you kidding me? I, the manager of a store that did more than a million dollars of business annually, was being told where to put the boxing tape?" I seriously considered quitting.

About two weeks later I noticed something: I could always find the tape. You see, in a bookstore, you can rarely find the boxing tape. The reason that you can never find the tape is because it is used constantly, so it's a moving target. But because you can never find the boxing tape, the staff keeps exactly 47 rolls of boxing tape stashed around the backroom and behind the cash register. So, it’s not just one roll you cannot find, its 47 rolls you cannot find. After following the consultants' advice, I could find the boxing tape (and the 46 remaining rolls, which we stashed in a hidden cabinet so as to not confuse the district manager when she did inspections). This was my first contact with the franchise phenomenon, and coincidentally, my first contact with consultants.

In "The Third Wave", Alvin Toffler states, "Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown. Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need." I believe this quote because it rings true. I am a person that needs structure, but more importantly, I believe it improves my ability to do quality work. I know people who do not use structure this way, and most of them have expressed to me the desire to start. Yet, when it comes to certain aspects of life or work, most people I know are extremely resistant to using structure.

(Notice that I say "using" structure, not "being" structured. Structure is something a person does, not who they are. Granted, some people enjoy a structured environment, but for all of us, it is a task.)

Here are some of the reasons I use structure in my work:

• Organizing my tasks keeps my mind free of clutter. Consider a desk covered with PostIt notes; that is what my mind feels like when I have not organized my work. I suppose the person who uses PostIt notes must pat themselves on the back for having tasks written down. That’s a start, I suppose.
• Organizing my workspace keeps my electronic desk free of clutter. My file system is organized by customer and geographic location, project and stage of work. Rather than spending time searching for documents in strange locations with strange names, I choose to spend my time at the beginning of the task organizing my workspace, so that documents are always placed where I expect to find them.
• Prioritizing tasks keeps bosses and customers happy with my turn-around time. I find that doing tasks in order of priority allows me to complete all tasks within a period that is acceptable to each task. Spreading a task out over 3 months is completely acceptable if the task is scheduled for completion in 5 months. I try to ignore what I want to do, and focus on what my customers and boss wish me to complete.
• Using repetitive actions increases accuracy. For example, if I’m writing an important lifecycle document, I immediately save it with the proper document name and designation, and check it into the document repository. This guarantees that if I update the document in the future that the repository software will visually remind me that the document must be updated.
• Using document and code templates increases the readability and consistency across multiple documents and multiple consultants. I find that having consistent document and code structures speeds the development of documents and the maintenance of code.

It may seem that I spend a lot of time organizing; nothing could be further from the truth. I find that having an organized workspace is the simplest thing in the world, and once begun, requires almost no additional time.

At some point in the future I intend to explore how a small consultancy might implement franchising-like paradigms to run the business.