Have you made one of these common mistakes in you approach to Operational Excellence?
Over the course of my consulting career I’ve observed many organisations that have made one of two fundamental mistakes when setting out to implement a lean/continuous improvement/operational excellence approach.
And that’s even where they have already made the fundamental decision to adopt a “whole system” approach which, from my experience, is essential for such an approach to really take root and be sustainable*.
The first common mistake is to start by tackling what appears to be the main “problem issue” in the organisation. While this may, indeed, be a genuine problem in terms of the organisation’s performance, it may actually be a symptom of something deeper that needs to be tackled in order to really fix the issue.
Equally, making a change in one place may have unforeseen consequences elsewhere. Then your improvement journey turns into a weird game of “whack-a-mole”, reacting to a series of issues that arise in a rather random way rather than addressing the whole in a more considered and structured way.
The second major mistake is to assume that a transformation needs to start from a “clean sheet”, more or less assuming that everything that’s currently happening in the organisation is wrong or not appropriate in the “new world”.
It is rare these days to find an organisation that does not have a level of existing knowledge and areas of good practice. Ignoring these means that you’re not building on obvious strengths in the organisation. Even more importantly, it can be highly demotivating for those involved as it devalues them and their previous good work.
So, if neither of these approaches is helpful, where do you start?
In my experience, to take a whole system approach, you have to approach it systematically. So, the best way I’ve found is to take a step back and look at “the system” – in most cases, the organisation as a whole – and consider how well it currently meets its purpose, then identify the gaps and plan to fill them.
I’ll be exploring this topic in our upcoming webinar: