Background – Survival
We returned to help a long-time client whose industry has been battered by the economic downturn. Survival hinges on their next 12 months’ performance and they need to deliver greater value with an already depleted team. Cost cutting alone will not suffice.
Need – Enhance Value
This organization is already so ‘lean’ its bones show through. Senior managers wear multiple hats and run a disciplined, well-run, and well-measured operation. Employees continue to find ways to trim and improve effectiveness. New products and services are needed to attract new accounts and increase revenue from existing accounts. To meet this challenge the organization needed a quick lift in innovation and collaboration, and a greater responsiveness to sales opportunities.
Process – Build Out From Current Practice
The analysis showed a few things each department could do to immediately move the organization ahead. Even with a team stretched to the limit many things were done well. We limited our focus to identifying what changes would be absolutely necessary to accomplish the needed ‘lift’.
We studied their operation and created accountability for new activities molded around their current set of routine meetings, departmental hand-offs, and transition points.
Effective operating routines received only minor adjustments in spite of seeing other organizations heavily modify daily practices when implementing similar concepts.
The goal was to preserve employee energy for value creation rather than expend it on unnecessary organizational change.
The ‘lift’ was communicated as a necessary step-up rather than as a major overhaul. One could argue a crisis-style approach might better stimulate short-term compliance, but defensiveness and decision-uncertainty slow an organization’s reaction time – something they could ill afford. We highlighted examples of what they did well. Employees were given sets of realistic activities depicting what each person and department could do differently each day to propel the organization forward – as adjustments to current practice.
We invited suggestions to improve the activity sets’ reflection of departmental roles and practices. Accountability came by a link from the annual performance review (and compensation consideration) to each employee’s contribution as pictured within the ‘activity set’.
Reaction – Immediate
A concern was quickly alleviated that some may miss the seriousness and need for immediate improvement unless we disrupted the operation with a proliferation of improvement meetings. After the presentation a new employee commented to everyone present,“This flies in the face of what has been done in all the big companies I’ve worked for. It seems so common sense to start from where we are now and move ahead. You’ve left alone what we are already doing well and have adjusted what’s necessary to accomplish the performance change. This is so forward thinking.”
Current Results – Visible and Growing
It’s been a few weeks and the senior manager is encouraged with the ‘lift’ in focus and responsiveness to opportunities. Each department is looking for ways to bring more value to customers.
Previous Results – Double Digit Growth
The general manager is a believer. This is actually the third time the client has asked us to employ this approach. Two earlier projects (five years and ten years ago) focused efforts on responsiveness and cost reduction. Comparing the three years prior to the first project to the three years that followed, annual sales growth increased by 12%.
Recommendation – Conserve Energy for Value Creation
Rapid performance improvement doesn’t have to mean a disruption to value creation activities. Describe (with accountability) what each individual and department could do differently each day to move the organization ahead. This technique works quickly because it generates almost no resistance to change. Employees tell us they have been waiting for years for their leaders to tell them specifically what they should do differently to really contribute. The most common response we hear is, “Finally!”
