How do you stop the results of all your hard work vanishing before your eyes?
Staying flabby is easy;
staying fit and healthy requires
more determination and effort!
You might think that, having put all of the effort in to deliver on your breakthrough improvement goals, you could relax a bit and enjoy the results of all your hard work.
And, to some extent, you’d be right. The hardest work is done. However, sustaining that new level of performance will take some effort.
A friend asked me why that was. “After all”, he continued, “the previous level of performance was essentially self-sustaining, so why not now?”
To answer I thought about what happens when we set out to improve our fitness. We embark on some sort of exercise plan and get out running or down to the gym. We get to our target time for a run or whatever other result we are seeking and we feel great.
However, if we don’t continue regular exercise, it’s easy to slip back into our old habits and we soon lose our muscle tone and performance. We probably don’t need quite the same intensity, but we do need more intentional activity than we had before.
And if it’s true for those areas of life, it’s also true for high levels of operational performance within an organisation.
Without some sort of disciplined routine to exercise regularly or sustain the higher levels of operational performance, things end up on a downward slope and you’ll end up back where you started.
So what’s needed?
Achieving your “breakthrough” goals requires a level of “exceptional effort” in the way we have described in recent articles. Such levels of effort are generally both unsustainable and unnecessary.
To go back to our fitness example, once we’ve hit our target level we can move into a routine that is somewhat less intense. Our goal is now maintenance rather than breakthrough. What we can’t do is to take our eye off the ball completely.
We need to establish a new, sustainable lifestyle that maintains our fitness at the new, healthier level. And this needs more than the tough discipline of doing things differently that we may have used to reach our breakthrough goal. It also needs a shift in mindset.
I often wonder whether the difference between unsuccessful and successful attempts at losing weight or staying fit is that one keeps thinking “what can I get away with?”, and is therefore focussed on what they are missing, whereas the other is focussed on “I am establishing a healthier lifestyle that is good for me.”
It’s the difference between doing things because I “have to” and because I “want to”.
With a transformed mindset we will begin to adopt the new habits or disciplines that will move us beyond “exceptional effort” to sustainable, everyday high performance.
Standardisation – the key to success
The first step in delivering sustainable high performance is to standardise the new ways of working. Almost inevitably, higher performance requires more consistency in the way work is done, so this must be documented clearly in a way that encourages and enables everyone to follow it consistently.
Our goal is to do this in a way that everyone will willingly work to the standard – “want to” not “have to” again. However, experience tells us that, even with that willingness, it’s too easy to deviate from the documented method – either consciously or unconsciously – so more is needed.
We need to pay attention to all those who will be involved in working to the new standard and not just those who have worked on the breakthrough goal. Really listen to them and connect with their perspectives and motivation.
Involving the ones who will be doing the work in creating the standard massively increases the sense of ownership and also ensures that the standard is built on real experience and not simply theory.
This results in those involved being more committed to working to the standard and also ensures that the standard reflects reality. However, just like with a fitness programme, getting some help and encouragement to “stick to the plan” is another helpful ingredient. That’s where Process Confirmation comes in.
Process Confirmation – Acting ourselves into a new way of thinking
It is easier to act your way into new ways of thinking than to
think your way into new ways of acting
All to often we try to work directly on changing people’s thinking and to influence their choice of behaviour. However, personal experience tells us how hard this can be even for ourselves where we want to do things differently. How much harder to influence others?
So perhaps we need to take action, even if we’re not 100% convinced, and allow the deeper change in beliefs to evolve. This is certainly true, in my experience, for adopting standardised work. People will believe in the idea on the surface, yet deeper within them there is some resistance to applying the level of effort required to actually do it.
To be clear, I’m not talking here about those who are paying lip service to the idea – they will need more work. I’m thinking more those who accept the principle of following standardised work yet have some conscious or unconscious reservations that mean they may not follow it as rigorously as required.
Process Confirmation is where, on a routine cycle, one person observes another following the documented method and points out any apparent deviations.
At first sight, at least in my mind, this conjures up images of work study engineers in white coats “checking up” on workers, operators working to the standard when being watched and adopting an “easier” method otherwise and so on.
That’s not what I’m talking about here. I have more in mind someone who wants to work to the standard and knows they might not be. The observer is therefore someone providing valuable feedback to help them achieve it. Where there’s a deviation, the two work together to explore why, rather than there being any sense of failure or assumption of poor performance.
There are several areas to explore:
Is it because there’s a lack of knowledge or skill, so there’s a need to close the gap?
Is it because the defined standard work is too hard to do, so there’s a need to look for ways to make it easier?
Is it because the standard work doesn’t actually deliver the right results, in which case it needs to be improved?
Is it because the person doing the work really doesn’t really believe it’s the right thing to do, in which case some deeper work is needed on the “why” a standardised approach is needed.
In this scenario, the observer is acting more as a coach than an auditor, with the goals of helping the other to deliver a level of performance they are already committed to.
If this routine is followed consistently over time, there are two clear benefits.
The standard improves so that it both delivers the right results and is easy to carry out.
Those carrying out the work gain deeper understanding of the value of the standard in delivering sustainable high performance, and will therefore be more committed to working to the standard and to improving it.
Measures for Improvement, not for Judgement
Alongside the standardised work definition, it’s also important to provide those doing the work with a clear measure of success or, more simply, a way of knowing they’re doing a good job.
Whatever measures are chosen should be designed to provide feedback to the person doing the work. The aim is that they know whether or not things are on track and are able to see the positive results that are achieved by adopting the improved ways of working.
Again, the right mindset is required. If the measures are seen as a way others will judge performance, it is all too easy for the data to be manipulated to show a better result than is really achieved. Both the person doing the work and their manager must be committed to the idea that the measures are there to help learn about the work carried out and how to improve it rather than an indicator of how well the person is doing their job.
A culture of positive recognition for sticking to the standards is an important part of making this sustainable – we need to “catch people doing things right” rather than identifying and picking on fault.
Continuous Improvement
One thing that distinguishes high performers in any field, be it sports or business, is their desire to always be getting better. Not for them the “step change” that working on a breakthrough goal might achieve; they want more. They know others are continually getting better, so they need to do so too to remain competitive.
In a business context, there are other factors that come into play too. What defines “high performance” is not a static thing. Market forces, competitor action and so on can redefine the level of performance required. A sudden shift can certainly bite you if you’re not ready for it!
Sometimes responding to these will require another “breakthrough” goal to be set to respond. More often, though, steady, incremental improvements will be all that is needed.
This means that, as well as creating the system to sustain current performance, we also need to have a routine of identifying and acting on opportunities to improve – true continuous improvement.
For this to be successful, it’s essential to avoid a culture that says the current level of performance is not good enough. It’s easy to see how this can be demoralising.
Rather, we need a different mindset. The best description I’ve ever heard for this is a state of “happily discontent” that says, “where we are is really great, yet we could be even better.”
Thus we need everyone in the organisation to both find and take action on opportunities to improve – to be proactive seekers rather than responding reactively to problems.
Improvement is for everyone
This approach to improvement is in sharp contrast to what is practised in many organisations. Many establish a Continuous Improvement team that is seen – both by management and the rest of the organisation – as responsible for “making improvement happen”.
Such a team will often focus on a breakthrough goal on one or more areas and drive that area to deliver on the goals. In many cases they are providing the energy and skill needed to achieve the goals and even carrying out most of the action, providing detailed instructions for the area they are helping.
Then once the goal is achieved, they’ll move on to the next goal in another area. Performance in the area they have just helped will steadily deteriorate, both for the reasons described above and also because the team doesn’t have the motivation, energy and skill to maintain the new level or performance.
Conversely, in high functioning organisations, continuous improvement is seen as “everyone, everywhere, every day” and the CI team, where it exists, is an enables and equipper rather than a doer. Working on breakthrough goals they will support and develop the local team to the point where they have the knowledge, skill and mindset to sustain the gain and continuously improve.
Only then will the organisation sustain the gains and continue its progress towards Operational Excellence.