Episode 17 | If It Ain't Broke...Break it Anyway!
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a colleague and he told me that the organization that he works at has a phrase that has become a cultural icon of sorts. And he said that we often say "it is what it is." And I thought, OMG, are you kidding me? You accept bad situations and just write them off with a complacency. It made my head explode to even think about that, but that's not the point of this cast. What I wanna talk to you about today is another phrase that I've heard throughout my career and man, I wish I had a buck for every time somebody said to me, "if it ain't broke..." finish it for me, "don't fix it." Right?
Oh, my perspective is break it anyway. Obviously some common sense need apply here. You don't want to break a perfectly good process that's delivering great value to your customer, but I want you to think about it differently with me. I want you to think about your customer facing processes and ask yourself, are they consistently rated excellent or above average by your customer? And when I say above average, I mean above the nearest competitor, that's where I want you to think about.
If they're excellent or above the next rated competitor, don't fix it. It's fine. Look for ways to enhance it maybe, but don't go messing with a good thing. So common sense need apply here. But what happens if it's not? What happens if you get mediocre or average or below average, or you've got one or two or three competitors that are better than you for this particular customer facing process, service, product, whatever it is? We need to take action.
Before we discuss what action to take though, I want to take a step back, peel back the onion and think about why is it that people say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Personally, I think that this stems directly out of their comfort zone. And by comfort zone, I mean that zone, that place, that easy chair that they like to sit in, where everything is familiar.
And you know, it's a really important insight. Learning cannot occur in a comfort zone. Growth does not occur in a comfort zone. It's a place of stasis, of sameness, of no change. And how good is that for a business that needs to perform on a regular basis? That is, in my opinion, a kiss of death. Comfort zones are the enemy of learning and growth. Comfort zones say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." We need to start thinking about this in a different way. We need to start looking at our business processes on a priority basis, starting with customer facing and working our way back in, and identifying those opportunities that we have to break it anyway.
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to read the most amazing book by an author named Art Smalley. The book was called Four Types of Problems, and I loved this book because he really articulated something that I'd been thinking about for years in the way that businesses do problem solving. He says that type one of problem solving is reactionary. It's really almost just putting a bandaid on the problem. Let's just get out of this and get back working and making a quality product again. Or let's contain the problem, fix it, and ship it anyway.
Reminds me of something some knucklehead used to say early in my career. I was working in a steel manufacturing plant and somebody just blatantly said, Hey, it sinks. If it's quality, let's ship it. I'm like, what? If it sinks it's quality? You gotta understand that was mid eighties and we literally could have sold anything we could manufacture. That's not the mindset we want to have here. We need to get beyond the bandaid. We need to get beyond " just fix it and get it back operating." We need to get to the root cause. So type one problem solving is putting a bandaid on a problem, it's just containing it, it's coping with the problem until you can get back into production.
Type two of problem solving is reactive, root cause. This is where most continuous improvement methodologies earn their money. It's about understanding the process and then driving to root cause and coming up with either countermeasures or corrective actions that eliminate the root of the problem so it can't come back. It stabilizes the process, improves the process to a point where it can operate predictably. That's a really good place to be, but you know what? It's not far enough.
Type three is proactive problem solving. Now some of you may be familiar with the idea of a potential problem analysis or a failure modes and effects analysis where you're predicting potential failure based on risk, based on probability, based on detectability. But the idea with type three is that we want to solve problems that haven't occurred yet. And I guarantee you that if you can get to a place where you're not just reacting to problems, but you're proactively solving problems that haven't occurred but could occur and have a high probability of occurring, you are making an incredibly powerful process that's able to deliver customer value, customer quality, on a consistent basis. Type three is a great place to aspire to.
Type four is around innovation and creativity, where we're solving problems that haven't even been thought of yet. I love this idea. This is where innovative thinking comes in, innovation processes come in. And let's be honest, most of you, when you think about innovation is when there's a downturn in the economy and things have gotten a little bit stale. Your profitability is slipping just a little bit, and we need to shake things up and come up with something innovative so that we can continue to grow our business.
I gotta tell you something. Type four problem solving is not best done under stress. Because under stress, our brain doesn't react in the best way. It's not giving you full access to the creative capacity of your cognitive aspects of your mind. It just doesn't give you access to all of it. The best time to be creative and be innovative is when things are going well. Be intentional about creating it.
Let's come back to the point, when we come back to this idea of "it ain't broke, don't fix it," we need to be thinking about those four types of problem solving. Where does the mentality of it ain't broke, don't fix it fall? It's type one, maybe. That comfort zone of the manager that thinks that way is really just laziness in my opinion. We need to move beyond that into type three, where we're getting really good at type two to a point where we can solve problems that haven't occurred yet.
If your managers are constantly looking at ways of not eeking out a half a percent improvement in effectiveness, or a quarter percent higher quality, they're actually looking for step change improvements in quality, in efficiency, in cost. You will start to see things happen in your business that are remarkable. And that is all available when we move out of this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," comfort zone BS.
So who does what by when? My recommendation here is I want you to look at when one of your direct reports or your managers is dealing with a problem, they're gathering a group together to try and solve a customer related problem. I want you to sit in on it or just pop into the meeting and just see what level of root cause analysis they're applying.
Do they look like chickens with their head cut off, just all in a panic trying to figure out how to put a bandaid on the problem? Do they have a problem statement? Can they articulate what the actual problem is? Have they worked through root cause analysis? I think you'll find that in many cases they're not, because they're so steeped in this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that they don't know actually how to solve problems.
So check it out and see what you find when you see a customer facing problem in your business.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a colleague and he told me that the organization that he works at has a phrase that has become a cultural icon of sorts. And he said that we often say "it is what it is." And I thought, OMG, are you kidding me? You accept bad situations and just write them off with a complacency. It made my head explode to even think about that, but that's not the point of this cast. What I wanna talk to you about today is another phrase that I've heard throughout my career and man, I wish I had a buck for every time somebody said to me, "if it ain't broke..." finish it for me, "don't fix it." Right?
Oh, my perspective is break it anyway. Obviously some common sense need apply here. You don't want to break a perfectly good process that's delivering great value to your customer, but I want you to think about it differently with me. I want you to think about your customer facing processes and ask yourself, are they consistently rated excellent or above average by your customer? And when I say above average, I mean above the nearest competitor, that's where I want you to think about.
If they're excellent or above the next rated competitor, don't fix it. It's fine. Look for ways to enhance it maybe, but don't go messing with a good thing. So common sense need apply here. But what happens if it's not? What happens if you get mediocre or average or below average, or you've got one or two or three competitors that are better than you for this particular customer facing process, service, product, whatever it is? We need to take action.
Before we discuss what action to take though, I want to take a step back, peel back the onion and think about why is it that people say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Personally, I think that this stems directly out of their comfort zone. And by comfort zone, I mean that zone, that place, that easy chair that they like to sit in, where everything is familiar.
And you know, it's a really important insight. Learning cannot occur in a comfort zone. Growth does not occur in a comfort zone. It's a place of stasis, of sameness, of no change. And how good is that for a business that needs to perform on a regular basis? That is, in my opinion, a kiss of death. Comfort zones are the enemy of learning and growth. Comfort zones say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." We need to start thinking about this in a different way. We need to start looking at our business processes on a priority basis, starting with customer facing and working our way back in, and identifying those opportunities that we have to break it anyway.
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to read the most amazing book by an author named Art Smalley. The book was called Four Types of Problems, and I loved this book because he really articulated something that I'd been thinking about for years in the way that businesses do problem solving. He says that type one of problem solving is reactionary. It's really almost just putting a bandaid on the problem. Let's just get out of this and get back working and making a quality product again. Or let's contain the problem, fix it, and ship it anyway.
Reminds me of something some knucklehead used to say early in my career. I was working in a steel manufacturing plant and somebody just blatantly said, Hey, it sinks. If it's quality, let's ship it. I'm like, what? If it sinks it's quality? You gotta understand that was mid eighties and we literally could have sold anything we could manufacture. That's not the mindset we want to have here. We need to get beyond the bandaid. We need to get beyond " just fix it and get it back operating." We need to get to the root cause. So type one problem solving is putting a bandaid on a problem, it's just containing it, it's coping with the problem until you can get back into production.
Type two of problem solving is reactive, root cause. This is where most continuous improvement methodologies earn their money. It's about understanding the process and then driving to root cause and coming up with either countermeasures or corrective actions that eliminate the root of the problem so it can't come back. It stabilizes the process, improves the process to a point where it can operate predictably. That's a really good place to be, but you know what? It's not far enough.
Type three is proactive problem solving. Now some of you may be familiar with the idea of a potential problem analysis or a failure modes and effects analysis where you're predicting potential failure based on risk, based on probability, based on detectability. But the idea with type three is that we want to solve problems that haven't occurred yet. And I guarantee you that if you can get to a place where you're not just reacting to problems, but you're proactively solving problems that haven't occurred but could occur and have a high probability of occurring, you are making an incredibly powerful process that's able to deliver customer value, customer quality, on a consistent basis. Type three is a great place to aspire to.
Type four is around innovation and creativity, where we're solving problems that haven't even been thought of yet. I love this idea. This is where innovative thinking comes in, innovation processes come in. And let's be honest, most of you, when you think about innovation is when there's a downturn in the economy and things have gotten a little bit stale. Your profitability is slipping just a little bit, and we need to shake things up and come up with something innovative so that we can continue to grow our business.
I gotta tell you something. Type four problem solving is not best done under stress. Because under stress, our brain doesn't react in the best way. It's not giving you full access to the creative capacity of your cognitive aspects of your mind. It just doesn't give you access to all of it. The best time to be creative and be innovative is when things are going well. Be intentional about creating it.
Let's come back to the point, when we come back to this idea of "it ain't broke, don't fix it," we need to be thinking about those four types of problem solving. Where does the mentality of it ain't broke, don't fix it fall? It's type one, maybe. That comfort zone of the manager that thinks that way is really just laziness in my opinion. We need to move beyond that into type three, where we're getting really good at type two to a point where we can solve problems that haven't occurred yet.
If your managers are constantly looking at ways of not eeking out a half a percent improvement in effectiveness, or a quarter percent higher quality, they're actually looking for step change improvements in quality, in efficiency, in cost. You will start to see things happen in your business that are remarkable. And that is all available when we move out of this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," comfort zone BS.
So who does what by when? My recommendation here is I want you to look at when one of your direct reports or your managers is dealing with a problem, they're gathering a group together to try and solve a customer related problem. I want you to sit in on it or just pop into the meeting and just see what level of root cause analysis they're applying.
Do they look like chickens with their head cut off, just all in a panic trying to figure out how to put a bandaid on the problem? Do they have a problem statement? Can they articulate what the actual problem is? Have they worked through root cause analysis? I think you'll find that in many cases they're not, because they're so steeped in this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that they don't know actually how to solve problems.
So check it out and see what you find when you see a customer facing problem in your business.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session