Developing a Strategy at the Awakening Stage (Part 1of 3) Step 1: ASSESS The awakening firm has spent time trying to stabilize their processes often with limited success. They have well entrenched processes but often these are processes of convenience and “the way we’ve always done it” rather than from good design. These firms are frustrated with the status quo and want to get a breakthrough. A critical factor to keep in mind is that moving through this stage is best done with the guidance of an external expert. It is too early to invest in full time resources within the firm and an external expert while expensive will be cheaper than the mediocre results that can be expected from the wrong hire. Bear in mind you probably have never hired a quality improvement expert and wouldn’t yet know what exactly you are looking for. Frankly, you will need an entrepreneurial external expert who understands your business development stage. This is a rare thing! As with the entrepreneurial firm, here we want to ensure your innovation and forward thinking is protected while capitalizing on improvements in your customer focused processes. Strategic Thinking How are your customer facing processes performing year over year? Excellent, above average, mediocre, below average, worse? Any process not rating an “above average” score as measured by your customer must become a priority improvement target. How will you know? Again, the best way is to ask your customer. At this stage I highly recommend a simple customer evaluation be conducted on at least a quarterly basis. It need not be onerous and complicated. Just ensure it is unbiased and accurate. You will also want to review your customer complaints, rejects, claims, online reviews, and customer facing employee comments. What are the priority opportunities? Create a priority list as inputs into the next section What problem solving method will you use? At the awakening stage we undoubtedly have an over reliance on band aid reactionary problem solving. Now is the time to make a decision to incorporate a more sophisticated problem solving approach. My recommendation is to embrace the Lean Kaizen approach. This problem solving method utilizes a powerful and effective plan - do - check - act loop rather than the three step model introduced in the entrepreneurial level strategy post. This model is easy for frontline employees to understand and contribute to while being so effective that professional problem solvers swear by it. I highly recommend that training in this approach be integrated into your continuous improvement strategy. How effective is your leadership? Yes! we ask this question at every stage. In this case we want to know a few things; One. Are your leaders embracing the challenge of learning and growing? If not they will soon be a potential liability. Two. Are your leaders demonstrating leadership in that they are facilitating problem solving and integrating it into the culture. If they are not, your continuous improvement strategy will stall out at this stage and not progress. Remember that leaders are the change agents that either help a strategy succeed or cause it to wither and fail. I ask again, how effective is your leadership? Once you've done the assessment, advance to Step #2 PLAN. If you' re ready to begin building your continuous improvement strategy, we're here to help. Schedule your complementary STRATEGY SESSION and together we will design a plan that fits your unique business.
Developing a Strategy at the Entrepreneurial Stage (Part 3 of 3) IMPROVE Okay you have created a stable set of processes that are delivering value to customers consistently. You have assessed your employees and leaders and identified skill gaps related to problem solving. Year 2 and Beyond Where do you go from here? Your second year and beyond continuous improvement strategy will be an exciting one. We can now begin to implement basic improvement strategies that will transform aspects of your company culture, the learning of your employees as well as integrate effective leadership principles deeper into the organization. We will follow the Process, Product, People categories referenced in the previous article for consistency. Process You have stabilized customer facing processes so now we want to improve these one step further and begin to look at all other business processes in turn. Customer Facing I recommend that you document the work instructions of each position. Rather than the traditional standard operating procedure which is written on a template, I recommend video procedures. In this way documenting is easy, and the final product is more easily used by your employee group. Beyond their benefit in usability, video procedures are easier to follow and can be watched multiple times to “get it”. Also if you operate in a business model with high turnover, video procedures are a cost effective way to quickly get employees up to speed. Remaining Processes With customer facing processes stabilized, you can now look to stabilize your remaining business processes. You will undoubtedly have already found that the causes of issues in your customer facing processes are often coming from one or more of your other processes. Stabilizing these will lead to significant improvements in your customer value creation. Be certain to look at all remaining processes in turn as any one of them can cause challenges in your business. Product At this point with processes stabilized you should now have a clearer perspective on the value your products / services represent. It is likely that you will have found some challenges that process stabilization will not resolve. Now let's get down to the root of your problems.
My recommendation is that as part of your year two continuous improvement strategy that you incorporate a simple problem solving engine in your business. This engine must be all the way down to the shop floor as this is where problems are best solved. The simplest engine to install is a three step model:
This elegant small engine can dramatically change your business performance in not only further stabilizing performance but actually improving performance as problems are identified and resolved. People I recommend that now we conduct a gap assessment between the skill set of your leadership team and the skills necessary for effective leadership. In doing this you can build individual training and development plans for your entire leadership team. With the leadership team setting the example, employees will take notice that learning is the expectation and improvement is the destination. While every business will be somewhat different, listed below are a number of possible skills you will want to develop in your team:
With the assessment complete, identify skill gaps specifically in the communication, leadership and problem solving areas and build a plan to address the deficiencies. Learn more about Developing a Strategy of Continuous Improvement If you' re ready to begin building your continuous improvement strategy, we're here to help. Schedule your complementary STRATEGY SESSION and together we will design a plan that fits your unique business.
Developing a Strategy at the Entrepreneurial Stage (Part 2 of 3) PLAN Okay now you have assessed your business and identified those customer facing processes that are under performing. You have evaluated the effectiveness of your teams problem solving and leadership abilities. It is time to consider a strategy that will be effective for you. You will find that your business can largely be broken into three categories; Process, Product, People. Each of these are explained below, assuming a perfect business. Start by summarizing how well you perform in each of these three categories: Process Your processes are well defined and formalized making it straightforward for employees to perform their tasks in fulfillment of customer need. Product You provide a solution to a customer problem or need in the form of a product or service that includes a high perceived value. People Your business has skilled, dedicated, and motivated employees in every position. These employees consistently execute their roles allowing the company processes to deliver a desired product and or service to a valued client. The first objective has to be stabilizing critical customer facing business processes.
Priorities Keep in mind that the first objective has to be stabilizing critical customer facing business processes. This may seem too conservative for your tastes and I understand. I will also tell you that there are no silver bullets that will magically transform your business processes. Build a solid healthy foundation and then we can begin to accelerate. A second priority is to evaluate your products / services and ensure that they are delivering the value you promise your customers. The third priority is to consider the skill set of your people. Enacting a continuous improvement strategy is a multi-year enterprise. This means you have time to intentionally build the skill set of your employees and leaders as you build your strategy. Year 1 Plan Identify SMART goals (Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Relevant – Timed) for each of the three areas. I recommend setting 90 day goals and tracking progress weekly. In this way you can quickly shore up any liabilities that put your business at risk and set a foundation for the future. I fully expect that you will begin to see immediate payback from this effort. Once business processes and products/services are stabilized, customer perceptions of value will strengthen. With respect to your people, consider a training program for your managers on how to be effective leaders in your business. This will become a foundation for the follow on years plans. Now let's talk about Step #3 what to IMPROVE. If you' re ready to begin building your continuous improvement strategy, we're here to help. Schedule your complementary STRATEGY SESSION and together we will design a plan that fits your unique business.
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Dr. Ron Hurst
Avid cyclist, dog lover, life long learner, enthusiastic problem seeker. My life's work is to challenge leaders like you to grow your abilities to create empowering, positive, high performing workplaces. President, CEO Developing Leaders Inc. Featured Contributor
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