Every corporation needs a Marie Kondo
The antidote for bureaucratic creep is an annual spring cleaning to prune long-winded reports, time-sucking meetings, and value-destroying managers.
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Clutter is as natural to organisational life as it is to domestic life.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Adrian Wooldridge
Spring is the season for thorough cleaning. Throw away the year’s accumulated junk. Eliminate the mess. Tidy the cupboards. The house will not only look better for it; the inhabitants will get a new bounce in their step.
The ritual has different rhythms in different parts of the world – in Japan, for example, “big cleaning” is done in late December. Consultants have also added a new rigour to the process. The Japanese cleaning guru Marie Kondo has created a multinational company selling “the life-changing magic that comes from tidying up”. The Swedish cleaning guru Margareta Magnusson extols the virtues of a “death cleaning” that leaves your children with less to go through when you die.