Reinventing Myself

People have emailed me, wondering why I haven’t posted anything lately. That’s a bit humbling, as this blog has been primarily to help me frame my thoughts. But there are people who have actually been paying attention to these musings…thank you!

Briefly, I’ve taken a break for introspection triggered by a “hard right turn” career change. A summary of that inward look follows. The result-I am starting a more focused blog, yet to be published. Some of the themes from In Pursuit of Excellence will carry over, some will not. I do plan on keeping this blog up and running, but with even more random thoughts and probably more fun than it has been. Stay tuned.

Besides this reinvention I’ve had an epiphany along the way too, thanks again to my career / position-on-the-ladder shift. See John Everyman.  As an immensely respected mentor inscribed in a Max Depree book he gave me in 2001, “never lose sight of yourself.”

 I did, and didn’t even realize it.

The Road to Reinvention

Over the past 20+ years I have worked for two multi-billion dollar multiple-location corporations, with projects at both the business unit and corporate levels. I’ve been both a follower and a leader. Hopefully, the experience in one has had a positive impact in my ability to be the other. I have been involved in development of people and process improvement, in business process and manufacturing environments. Most recent projects included culture change, leadership curriculum development, alignment and action planning, developing and managing systems (performance management, quality management, and communication systems), re-engineering, standard work and lean implementation.

After losing my position nearly a year ago, I stopped to examine my direction. Did I need professional re-engineering? Are my knowledge base and my core competencies a good fit with my values and beliefs, and career plans? More importantly, was I focusing on critical areas that businesses need to achieve excellence, and were those areas worth devoting my efforts to in this phase of my career?

In short…is my direction personally relevant (engaging) and professionally relevant (marketable)?

I’ve moved past ladder climbing; I simply want to make a meaningful contribution where that contribution is truly valued and strategically significant. I do not care to work in a large corporate environment again; I prefer being part of a smaller organization that is flexible and insightful enough to do what it needs to do.

I have always been a huge believer in “involvement”. Involvement has transformed into the loftier concept of “engagement”. But what you call it matters little. Either way, two truths stand out:

1. If you don’t pay constant attention to the “soft” stuff (the human side of the business—working relationships, personal development, teaming, involvement etc) you will never fully achieve the maximum level of “hard” results (### and $$$) that your business is capable of. And,
2. If the soft stuff does not have a strategic impact, what good is it? Who has time for irrelevant hugs and kisses classes with no purpose? Forget Kumbaya, show me the cash.

Over the past half year I produced a random series of essays loosely focused on what is becoming the basis of Roadmap. Thousands of surfers visited In Pursuit of Excellence without any active promotion on my part. For me this affirmed the power of cyber space, but also indicated a high level of interest in Engagement, Alignment, Communication, Systems and Involvement…my reinvented focus.

Mission: Within my sphere of influence, enable individuals and leaders to leverage the power of engagement to more fully realize flawless execution of strategy.

Vision: Improve quality of life and protect our standard of living. Serve as a catalyst who enables highly satisfied and productive people, leading to greater business and industry profitability and success.

Unlike some missions / visions, I feel confident that mine has sturdy legs: supporting objectives, strategies, and action plans. One strategy is to produce what you are reading right now, and my target market and how to reach it are both detailed in my objectives.

 

The Relevance

So why all this personal disclosure, and how is it relevant here? Why should anyone but my family and friends care at all about any of this?

One: I wanted to share my experience with you, so you can understand the perspective and thought process behind Roadmap. Two: personal re-invention comes highly recommended to other individuals. Three, the introspective analysis I conducted is roughly the same process a company goes through, or should go through, on a regular basis to re-evaluate, validate and adjust its strategic direction. My reinvention was reactive, out of necessity, caused by a “crisis”…career change. I would strongly advise others to be more proactive-don’t wait for the bleeding to start. Rather, prevent the injury!

In my chosen avocation, if you’re not continuously evolving you’re falling behind. The opposite of growth is stagnation, atrophy and, eventually, death. I don’t want to look back when it’s too late and do the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” thing.

In that respect is your business, career, or life any different than mine?

Letter to the Boss, From John Everyman

Dear Sir:

My name is John Everyman, and I’m one of the hundreds of people who work for you. Like me, many of my co-workers have started working here fairly recently after losing their jobs. You probably haven’t had a chance to get to know many of us or what we did before we came here, but that’s understandable. Since we’ve been working side-by-side, I’ll help you get to know a little about them.

Many of my co-workers have had impressive careers and responsible, important positions. Laid-off teachers. Highly skilled craftsmen. Entrepreneurs whose businesses have failed. College graduates, some with masters degrees. Ex-soldiers who risked everything. Parents who are successfully raising families, and grandparents who have already succeeded in that most-important job of all.

Since you don’t know me, I wanted to tell you a little about what I did before I came here. I managed thirty people and a seven-figure budget. My salary was quite a bit more than the wage I earn now, but that’s alright. These days money isn’t everything like it used to be. I have a lot to be grateful for…I’m working. You have no idea how frustrating it was hearing over and over that I was “too qualified” for other jobs I had applied for before this company finally gave me a chance.

In spite of my years as a captain, I haven’t forgotten how to be a good soldier. But now that I’m back to taking orders rather than giving them, I realize that I did forget some things that are very important to the troops in the trenches. I was a manager for so long I forgot what it felt like to be just a “regular person” on the front line. That’s not to imply that you’ve forgotten too. But just in case, I want to share this with you.

Some of the best people in the world reported to me. Those same people work here. While we may be the best, we’re easy to please. Nothing that matters to us costs much of anything! My co-workers and I…

• Want to help! Is what we know, see and think important to you? If so, show it to us now and then. For starters, just let us know you are really listening, that what we say is registering with you.
• Need to know we are making a difference, and we need to know how we’re doing.
• Need to know that we’re appreciated.
• Need a compelling vision to commit to; without that all we can do is comply to the direction we’re given. There’s a big difference.
• Are good soldiers. But we need clear marching orders from leaders we trust, before we will feel safe laying it on the line.
• Need a chance to better ourselves, not just through raises or promotions. We need opportunities to learn more, do more, apply ourselves more. People need to grow.
• Need to feel like our talents are being fully utilized in our jobs. Did you know that “wasting talent” is now one of the official Eight Wastes of Lean Thinking? Talent is a terrible thing to waste.

These are the same things that my employees needed more than anything else I could have given them, and these are the basics that I lost sight of in my years as a manager. I was too busy juggling the accountabilities of the position that I had far too little time to devote to the people who were capable of making or breaking me in that position.

My family has adjusted our standard of living and we’re doing alright, especially considering the economy. This job means a great deal to us-I need the paycheck and the benefits more than you can even imagine, unless you’ve recently been without one or the other or both. I really don’t care about “position” and I’m sure many of my co-workers are like me in that respect. But if I ever do get back to a position where I am once again responsible for leading others, I have learned some valuable lessons that I will not forget.

I hope you have not forgotten those things, because that’s easy to do. We’re counting on you.

Sincerely,

John

Behind the Everyman Letter

Talent Wars

Before the downturn, the big scare was a projected shortage of talent of significant proportions. But employee retention is still a key issue; and it is black and white demographics. The number of those entering the workforce over the next few decades does not even come close to being able to replace the droves of retiring boomers. At the same time, education attainment levels are plummeting-smaller percentages of young people are graduating from both high school and college.

The talent pool is evaporating, and the impacts cannot be ignored. Fewer workers, lower skilled.

It’s more than numbers that is scary. Those boomers who do retire will be taking with them the years of experience and knowledge that built most of the companies they are working for. They are the long-term do-ers and leaders of business and industry.

Career Shifters

Countless people have recently transitioned into new jobs, many of them taking a substantial cut in pay, position, and responsibility. Some may have taken a “lesser” job just to survive, others may not mind staying where they landed even when opportunities open up again. Their new employers don’t recognize the importance of this fact. When the downturn eases, many highly skilled, experienced people will be looking for meaningful jobs if they feel they can do better. Or, does their current job satisfy them enough to entice them to stay? The opportunity to create a high-involvement, highly engaged work force will never be greater. The highest quality raw materials are readily available.

People Who Need People…

It’s no secret that your people determine your success. From The Global Workforce Study, Towers-Perrin 2007:

While many factors can trigger failure, the most critical is often overlooked: people. Lack of support, buy-in, and readiness at all levels — your employees, frontline managers and CEO — makes the difference between an abandoned initiative and one that contributes to your company’s growth. 

The downturn has elevated the need for engagement. BlessingWhite noted in their 2009 report Uncertainty’s Antidote: Three Leadership Imperatives:

Now you need employees to stay focused and productive despite taking on the ghost work of laid-off colleagues, paused pet projects, eliminated perks, ever-shifting priorities, and the distraction of the latest market headlines telling them their 401k’s have been crushed again. Employee engagement is essential.

Retention, and the Payoff

If you manage to land good talent, you’d better work hard to hold on to it. What factors impact overall job satisfaction, and therefore retention? Forget the bottom level basic survival needs of the Maslow model. The work force is craving much more than just pay and benefits. I’m not a researcher, and I don’t care to list yet again the mountains of studies and data to validate this, but the studies are out there. Fact:

Companies with higher levels of engagement also experience greater profit, productivity and retention rates.

The bad news: you cannot buy engagement. The good news: engagement costs nothing.

Good For You, Good For Me

 Leaders Expect…

Diligent people who produce

Company goals to be met

Productivity

Profitability

Followers Need…

Clear expectations

A compelling reason to perform above and beyond the call of duty

A feeling of belonging and worth, and of contributing to the cause

The knowledge, skills, abilities, systems and tools needed to meet their expectations

These needs and expectations are not in conflict. Rather, one leads to the other. People find meaning and the means to make a difference through their level of contribution at work, and their efforts directly impact the profitability and success of their employer. Seems like a basic concept. But if it was that easy, why hasn’t everybody been doing it, and doing it well?

Tribes, Society and Engagement

 (whew…I wore myself out thinking about that title)

If this post is of interest to you and you haven’t already discovered David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Network, do so! This post was originally added there, modified to be posted here.

Father Jim Roselli is a fellow member of the EEN. His background and interests were intriguing to me, and I noted him: I am looking forward to a dialogue on religion and engagement, and the potential power of engagement as it relates to society and social groups (tribes!).

Copied from a note Fr. Jim sent me: My interest in Sociology/Social Anthropology goes back (‘way back) to when I was in my twenties and read a book entitled “Hunting Bands.” It was an examination of tribal behavior in modern corporations, and it really affected my outlook. The six basic human needs are air, water, food, clothing, shelter and companionship. These are best delivered by, and balanced human beings are best produced and nurtured in, the basic human social group: the nuclear family, consisting of a lifetime-committed husband and wife and their children. The fundamental post-basic social unit is the tribe, or clan: an efficient and effective way for families to share their knowledge, skills and abilities with each other.

Father Jim’s note hit a bit of a button for me.

First, is it a fair statement that the basic social unit (nuclear family) has diminished in stature and importance? Single parent households and dual-income, multiple job households as well. More emphasis on careers and making money than on basic parenting, which is the traditional primary means to “socialize” our children.

These are broad generalizations, but I believe statistics and an army of “experts” have mad it quite clear that the family unit is in trouble, even in “normal” and outwardly successful two-parent households. Nuclear is melting down. Ultra-busy parents abdicating their socializing duties to the outside—schools, youth clubs, soccer coaches (I have been in that role! I am a COACH, not a surrogate parent! Blood boiling at the memory as I type….)

At the same time, the other institution critical to socializing our young is sadly diminishing in stature and importance as well—organized religion. There is a giant void in too many young peoples’ lives where these two powerful influences used to be. And I feel that this is one of the key root causes to all the social problems in the world—seriously! We have lost our ability to instill strong values and social / behavioral expectations in the younger generations, and it is beginning to bite us in the behind big time.

The post-basic social unit for too many youth is gangs, which provide all the basic needs noted by Father Jim. Not to say that gangs are an acceptable alternative, but what happens where there is a void? Something will rush in to fill it. And let’s not be ostriches…this is not just a poverty / inner city issue.

There is an unacceptably high level of social disengagement-we do not have a strong set of shared values or social expectations. Not to mention that too many people simply are not at a high level of “satisfaction” societally.

I have stated elsewhere that…

1. Engagement is contagious. You can catch it from others just as you can “infect” others.

2. Engagement ripples the surface of the pond…it spreads by association. If I am an engaged person at work / in my position, I am probably engaged elsewhere. And it will show, and will trigger #1.

Is engagement important? YES, on many levels—personal, professional, societal.

Other posts you may find of interest, related to the greater good that engagement can help bring about:

America’s Promise, Crisis in Education. From America’s Alliance: “Many students who ultimately drop out of school say they become disengaged during the middle-school years. The choices young people make at this age could set them on a course for active citizenship and engaged learning – or down a path of risky behavior and potential failure.”

Education Goes to School?  …high school kids are disengaged in both their education and in thinking about their future. This hypothesis is well-founded: try Googling “National Survey of Student Engagement.” For many students, education is perceived to be irrelevant to their future. The underlying issue: students are not engaged in any kind of “future thinking” to even know what is, and isn’t relevant to them. An even deeper issue…teachers, and parents too, are also disengaged. Just wanted to throw that in to cause trouble. And it IS a generalization, there are exceptions. So please don’t beat me up too much.

Sniglets-Management System Excellence

(Sniglet: something that is a prerequisite to achieving something else)

It’s tough to do everything right in a management system startup, but doing just a few things up front can dramatically increase your chances of achieving an end result that is effective and well-received by those who need to make it work. These thoughts are examined in other management system posts, but I wanted to highlight them in Cliff Notes fashion.

Set Scope Wisely, Strategically

Fashion goals that are clearly aligned with the rest of the company’s strategy, goals that people can easily connect to. Alignment is actually an ISO “shall” but too many management system design teams go to extreme lengths re-creating the wheel. You already have a quality policy and objectives. Use them.

Certification is not a compulsory requirement, and the scope is yours to determine.

Shamelessly Sell the Benefits

You MUST have a good pitch. Whether you believe it yourself doesn’t matter, your constituents must believe that the management system will be good for them. Not cod liver oil good…tastes horrendous going down, but fixes what ails you. Rather, they must believe that the management system will result in their work being done better, smarter, faster, easier.

Identify some of your company’s specific issues or ongoing problems that the management system is being designed to address. Spell the connections out very clearly and you will create a sense of “want in” rather than “thou shalt comply, or else.”

Communicate and Demonstrate

People must continuously hear what is happening and why, and future plans and current status. And they must see the management system in action. Look for and / or create success stories and trumpet the before / after scenarios loudly. And, hate to bring it up, but that pesky “leadership by example” concept is essential.

Watch Your Language!

The ISO glossary of terms includes several confrontational words with negative connotations: compliance, audit, conformance to requirements, nonconformance, corrective action. No wonder the townsfolk board up their windows and hide the women and children in the cellar come assessment time!

Andre Agassi once said “Image is everything”. While that may not be gospel, a good image sure helps.

• We aren’t “compliant to the ISO standard”. We have committed to a set of management best practices.
• We don’t “audit”. We assess our system’s effectiveness.
• Assessors don’t find “nonconformances.” They identify opportunities to improve the system.
• We don’t “conform to requirements.” We strive to exceed customer expectations at all times.
• We don’t take “corrective action.” We initiate improvements.

Broad Ownership, Broad Improvement Focus

The management system is much bigger than “quality” alone. Position ISO as a management tool capable of managing all aspects of the business, ensuring that goals are met, desired results are achieved, and customers’ expectations are exceeded.

Get ISO out of the Quality Assurance closet where it is traditionally hidden, starting with appointing a non-QA person as management representative if at all possible. Enlist internal auditors (assessors!) from all walks of life. Don’t just train them to go out and catch nonconformances. Assessors become process experts and are an extremely valuable resource to the areas they work with. Assessors are management system ambassadors, and each assessment is a PR event for the system as well as a learning experience for both assessors and those being assessed.

Engage the Troops

Engagement is that magical state where people put forth exemplary effort AND are getting maximum level of satisfaction out of their role…they are busting their butts and are darned happy to do it. Their hands, hearts, and heads are all engaged.

The subtitle of this blog is Engagement > Alignment> Execution > Results…yet another formula for achieving excellence. It all centers around two of the most basic concepts around: the people doing the job know it best, and involvement builds commitment. Bring the troops in early and often in the design of the system, and keep them in.

ooops…so much for the “Cliff Notes version.”

Networking and Engagement

I recently exchanged thoughts with a fellow member of David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Network (EEN),    Frode Heiman who blogs at Never Mind the Manager.  This post uses excerpts from that conversation-thank you Frode and David.

Frode invited me to be one of his “friends” on the EEN and as we had met one of my personal criteria for becoming “friends”…we actually had a good conversation…I was happy to get the invitation.

I don’t mean to sound snobbish but it really does make a difference if you are selective as to who you choose to closely network with, as opposed to casual exchanges. There is work involved in truly networking with others, and we all have only so much time to devote to such activities.

I have seen too many instances of forums being used for personal advancement, plugging either services or “come visit my blog” without offering any real contribution of value when doing so. There is a fine balance between just using a platform solely for advertising, or actually contributing and then plugging yourself.

The more I think about it, the more participation / contribution on forums and other social media is a classic manifestation of engagement. People must feel motivated to contribute, which involves setting aside a portion of their scarce discretionary time. They must put forth extra effort, but must also get something out of the effort—personal satisfaction.

Going back to Maslow, people have a basic need to belong. There are a lot of joiners who collect network and group affiliations and scads of “personal” connections like they were cheap baseball cards. But engagement is more than joining and more than basic involvement. It takes not only a high level of contribution, but it must provide a high level of satisfaction for the contributor.

What engages each of us to hang out on any particular forum? And what does it take to engage, to the point where we want to contribute and where we gain from our involvement?

Networking and engagement are all about making connections and exchanging ideas. And, the very simple recognition from others of your thoughts you have shared results in a nice dose of fuzzy / feelgood. That is something we all crave, and it doesn’t take much. And, it encourages people to contribute more.
Translated: very engaging.
Engagement and what triggers it in individuals is highly personal (my opinion). But engagement is contagious. The enthusiasm and energy an engaged person emanates begets the same in others. And engagement carries over from the original engaging environment too. The power of engagement is such that, whatever the source, the engaged person’s other areas of activity benefit as well. If I am engaged at work or on a forum it will “spill over” into the other areas of my life.

What if the power of my engagement resulted in others around me becoming more engaged?  And those peoples’ engagement would then impact others around them, and on and on…the Kevin Bacon thing.

Soapbox in closing….society is, generally speaking, a mess. A heaping helping of engagement would do wonders. And it doesn’t take much to start the engagement ball rolling.

“Hey President Obama…where’s my emotional stimulus check?”

America’s Promise, Crisis In Education

(UPDATE for readers-there is the beginning of a good conversation here. Be sure to visit the related links, check out the comments to this post and add your thoughts!)

While I do have an Education category I don’t post nearly as much about education issues as I’d like. But this caught my eye. You business and industry leaders who frequent this blog, take note if you want to pay more than lip service to Corporate Social Responsibility. Get involved in Education….this is our future workforce that is at risk, and I at least want to do my part to raise the awareness level of the business community. Don’t let the downturn and high unemployment lull you to sleep. There is a real and significant near-term workforce shortage looming ahead. And what there is in the labor pool is woefully unprepared. We need to get serious!

Gen. Colin Powell was just in the news lamenting our poor (US) graduation rate. As this is right up my alley, I dug a little deeper. Powell and his wife are both involved in America’s Promise Alliance. The organization’s statement of purpose:

We are an alliance born of the recognition that when too many children are at risk, we are a nation at risk. With less than one-third of America’s young people receiving the essential resources they need for success, we’re witnessing today an increased risk of substance abuse, crime and school drop outs. We can’t afford this loss of human potential and reversing this tide must be a national priority.

One of the Alliance’s National Action Strategies is Ready for the Real World… Engage every middle school student in service-learning and career exploration by designing “real-world” experiences relevant to them.

Why is this important? From America’s Alliance: “Many students who ultimately drop out of school say they become disengaged during the middle-school years. The choices young people make at this age could set them on a course for active citizenship and engaged learning – or down a path of risky behavior and potential failure.”

The Alliance has partnered with Gallup, which conducted the Gallup Student Poll. See the Gallup Student Poll Report. Gallup is a leading proponent of engagement in the workplace, and the design of the study and content of this report shows it.  I’ve posted elsewhere that a key issue in education is disengagement, of both students and teachers. (see Engagement Goes to School) We’re simply not hitting the right student hot buttons.

The issues facing education, and especially pertaining to engagement, are something I can really sink my teeth into as a business person, parent, grandparent, educator and camper who wants to leave this campground in better shape than I found it.

How about you?

 

Benchmarking Baldrige for Management System Excellence

This is the first in a series of posts that will look at key elements of the Baldrige Criteria. If you’re not familiar with the Malcom Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, download here-it’s free!

 Why mess with Baldrige at all, except that if you’re good enough to win, you get a cool award from the President of the US? As was discussed in Beyond the Standard: Compliance to Commitment  it’s a matter of scope and intent. Both ISO and the Baldrige models can be intelligently utilized as benchmarks, without pursuing ISO certification or going after the Baldrige award.

Categories and topics examined in this series include (numbers represent the categories / sub-categories):

Baldrige, ISO, Six Sigma, Lean, Balanced Scorecard et al   There has been a long-running discussion about the value in general of the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Specifically, how does the Baldrige model fit in, with ISO9001 and approaches like Lean, Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard? In a nutshell, very well. This post has links to, and excerpts from, several sources that help to validate the fit from several angles.

Learning From the Baldrige Evaluation Dimensions:   The way the Baldrige scoring is structured is itself worth learning from, examined in this post.

1.1 Senior Leadership: How do your senior leaders lead? Describe how senior leaders’ actions guide and sustain your organization. Describe how senior leaders communicate with your WORKFORCE and encourage high performance.

2.1 Strategy Development: How do you develop your strategy? Describe how your organization establishes its strategy to address its strategic challenges and leverage its strategic advantages. Summarize your organization’s KEY strategic objectives and their related goals.

2.2 Strategy Deployment: How do you deploy your strategy? Describe how your organization converts its strategic objectives into action plans. Summarize your organization’s action plans, how they are deployed, and KEY action plan performance measures or indicators. Project your organization’s future performance relative to KEY comparisons on these performance measures or indicators.

4.1 Measurement, Analysis, and Improvement of Organizational Performance: How do you measure, analyze, and then improve organizational performance? Describe HOW your organization measures, analyzes, reviews, and improves its PERFORMANCE through the use of data and information at all levels and in all parts of your organization.

ISO is a management system model primarily designed to manage daily operations, presented as a set of requirements in the ISO standard: “The organization shall (insert element / requirement)”.  The Baldrige model is more strategic in nature. It does not present requirements but a series of questions used to assess the organization’s effectiveness. What an organization provides as answers to the questions are key indicators of performance excellence. Example: “How do senior leaders set organizational vision and values?” How you do that is up to you. But you’d better be doing it very well–not just to go after the Baldrige but to compete, stay in business and succeed!

Learning From the Baldrige Evaluation Dimensions

There are two evaluation dimensions that Baldrige examiners consider a company’s performance against: Process and Results. Below are the brief descriptions of the several attributes considered in these two dimensions. Think about your company’s performance against each of these attributes.

EVALUATION DIMENSION ONE: PROCESS looks at the methods an organization uses in addressing the items in each of the Baldrige categories. There are four factors used to evaluate Process: Approach, Deployment, Learning, and Integration.

Approach: methods used and their appropriateness and effectiveness, as well as how repeatable / systematic the methods are.

Deployment: the extent to which methods are thoroughly and consistently applied by all appropriate functions (effective execution).

Learning: refining methods by evaluating and improving the methods, and sharing refinements with other relevant areas (organizational learning).

Integration: the extent to which methods are aligned with organizational needs, and how widespread methods and systems are deployed across departments. Also assessed is general alignment in support of organization-wide goals.

EVALUATION DIMENSION TWO: Results (for Category Seven in the Baldrige Criteria only, which covers metrics / measures of performance levels)

“Results” refers to outputs and outcomes assessed against four factors: Levels, Trends, Comparisons, and Integration.

Levels: the current level of performance against the metrics outlined in Category Seven.

Trends:  performance improvements, or sustaining good levels of performance as noted by the slope of trend data.

Comparisons:  performance relative to benchmarks against industry leaders or similar businesses, whether competitors or other organizations.

Integration: the extent to which metrics used indicate performance on both current targets and indicators of future performance, and how much your metrics cross departments and processes …whether they are localized or are linked to organization-wide goals.

For more on Baldrige: Baldrige, ISO, Six Sigma, Lean, Balanced Scorecard et al Excerpt:

 There has been a long-running discussion about the value in general of the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Specifically, how does the Baldrige model fit in, with ISO9001 and approaches like Lean, Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard? In a nutshell, very well. This post has links to, and excerpts from, several sources that help to validate the fit from several angles.

The Pursuit of Excellence is a Process

For any of this stuff to be of value, there must be some sort of applicable plan–a strategy for the Pursuit of Excellence.  Following is all the pieces of the puzzle I am addressing here, in a (hopefully) logical process. There are links to earlier posts for reference back as appropriate.

Just one man’s opinion here-please chime in: what’s missing, what’s out of sequence?

This post is important enough that it will be upgraded to a page linked at the top right of the Pursuit home page, to retain future visibility.

ONE: ENGAGE. While it’s open for discussion, I am maintaining that it all starts with engagement, triggered by involvement and nurtured by the work environment and culture, with healthy doses of change management and communication as live-in caretakers. We must start with capturing the head, heart and hands of the team as Towers Perrin puts it, or we’re spinning wheels. And it is becoming more clear that there is a bottom line benefit in doing so.

Unfortunately, innocently tucked between the lines of the previous paragraph is what amounts to a full-time, career-crowning undertaking in many cases. Look at what’s involved in achieving engagement: high involvement, a favorable work environment (culture), change management and communication. Add to the shopping list the fact that engagement is a highly personal state driven by the individual’s drivers and values. No one said it was easy….

Now, to argue the lead-off position of engagement: don’t all the pieces need to be in place for people to feel as if they can safely engage? Systems and Alignment are among the key process components still to come. I can buy into the need for engagement to come after there is something of clear substance for people to engage with. I prefer to think instead that this highlights the need for an ongoing effort to sustain engagement beyond the initial jump-start.

TWO: DEVELOP a ROBUST MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, essential to provide discipline, clarity and consistency in everyday operations. A management system may be based on two key models: ISO9001 and the Baldrige Criteria. If an ISO-based management system, a key barrier to fight through is the self-inflicted perception of ISO being limited to product quality.

A key point: the ISO and Baldrige models do not have to lead to certification and winning the Baldrige respectively. They are simply best practices to benchmark, within the company’s scope and intent.

Systems need tools (six sigma, lean, balanced scorecard) to be maintained in top working order. And tools need systems to provide consistency in application, discipline in execution and standardization of improvements. What is the nature of the interface among the ISO and Baldrige models, and six sigma, lean et al?

There is a good deal posted on management systems within In Pursuit of Excellence–here is The Roadmap.

An integrated system of human resource development manages and improves the human element, the gateway to all things worth achieving. The HRD system is one of the most important business management systems, and the system that can typically stand to improve the most.

THREE: IMPLEMENT EFFECTIVE CONTROLS, in the form of meaningful real-time and actionable lead metrics. People play better when you’re keeping score, but you must measure the right things at the right times, and act on what the metrics are telling you.

FOUR: ALIGN the TROOPS. I struggled with the sequence of the alignment piece-it is critical but I still feel it must follow having systems and controls in place. Or, must it??! Alignment-getting people on the same page- is much easier if people have bought into their role in the success of the company via engagement. But it is also much easier to engage people if there is a clear picture of the target and how the journey to the destination is managed-systems and controls. And people must have the necessary systems to work within, so they perceive that the task is clearly do-able. Still, wouldn’t it be better if people were involved / engaged in developing the management systems and identifying the goals that need to be met  / actions to be taken to achieve the company’s strategy?

So….Chicken or Egg?

Cascaded goals, clear expectations and accountabilities provide focus and direction to engaged troops. This is not rocket science! It is a simple formula in which accountability is just one element:

Clear expectations +

Knowledge, skills and abilities +

Accountability +

Follow-up

= Results.

FIVE: EXECUTE! It all comes together here. If process steps One through Four have been successfully initiated, the actual execution ought to be a snap. Just Take Care of Business.

“Just”…..