A renewed international movement is gaining traction in the business community. Continuous or Business Improvement (BI) as it is known is once again gaining popularity. Once known as Kaizen, Six Sigma, the Deming Cycle and Total Quality Management, these movements focus on process improvement to accentuate business success.
In today's dynamic business environment, fueling growth and success requires operational excellence. This can only be achieved by committing your company to continuous improvement. While companies often start by focusing on key deliverables, serious leaders will focus on business improvement for the entire company.
Organizations wanting to be known as world-class leaders in their industry will commit to continuous improvement, even creating a position in the company encompassing those responsibilities. Business improvement is not a themed item for a month or quarter initiative; it is a long-term commitment to addressing necessary changes. With the new economic climate, each company is struggling to find ways to continually improve and implement these ideas as a business process.
Change is difficult. It is human nature to resist change. History is packed full of examples where touted changes never quite happen. One example is the adoption of the metric system in the United States . Congress passed a law in 1975 to work toward making the metric system the standard measurement system in America . In 1988, it was decided the government must convert to metric before it could expect the private sector to follow suit. In 1991, government agencies were required to file an annual report on their efforts to go metric. By all apparent measures, the nation as a whole still follows the old system even after 30 years of laws, committees, and public service announcements, mostly ignored.
Business leaders are very much aware that there have been changes in their specific industries and the way business is conducted. It is evident that these changes have affected almost every sector of business – cell phone providers, auto dealerships, retail, construction, and likely, your business and industry. Organizations are aware of the changes they face while most do not know how to consider the implications or how to address them.
The importance of change and adopting improvement in today's world cannot be overstated. To achieve exceptional results, many leading businesses have created a position of Business Improvement Officer with the sole responsibility of championing change in the company. Thomas Jefferson said "Every generation needs a new revolution." This is very possibly the current business generation's best opportunity to innovate and succeed.
Here are the main challenges facing a company taking on the challenge of becoming world-class.
Lack of clear direction – A poorly defined strategy to direct business improvement only serves to create confusion and conflict across all levels of the company. For initiatives to be adopted and create desired improvement they must be aligned with company strategy and goals.
Inability to make a compelling case for change – People in the organization need to have a compelling reason to embrace and stay committed to change, especially when the initiative gets to the difficult stage of switching from the old to the new.
No leadership accountability for the results – A failure to establish responsibilities and accountabilities for the results of any business improvement leads to poor acceptance and adoption of the changes by businesses.
Lack of strong leadership support and commitment to change – Leaders set the tone through their own attitude and behavior. A management team in charge of making a change must truly support this change, and not simply provide lip service.
Failure to empower the team to make change happen – It is difficult enough to engineer and strategically navigate a new initiative from inception but the failure often comes at implementation because people do not want to change their processes even if they are shown to be unproductive. If the team in charge of a new initiative is not given authority to implement, adjust, and improve the change, these initiatives are doomed for failure.
Stepping outside the comfort zone - True business improvement requires courage to face facts, accept reality and recognize that change needs to occur, even though at times it may be unpopular. Spearheading change involves responsibility to do it right and accountability to get it right.
Difficulties in making the changes stick – Continuous improvement requires continual change. Resistance alone can be enough to thwart change, let alone ego, fear, sacred cows, or discovering ineptness of people.
Your organization can continue business as usual hoping with a full economic recovery your company will be as it was before. Or, you can embrace change and count yourself among those in your industry who are world-class.
Keys to Successfully Implementing Continuous Improvement
Make sure each improvement has strategic importance.
Set up a team or BI executive by providing the infrastructure to change.
Successful change includes: defining and measuring success and accountability.
Find a team of people who will embrace the change in all departments.
Focus on what is important.
Take time to properly engage all of your stakeholders and align them to the change effort.
Business improvement must be fully supported by management including a commitment to seeing change occur.
It is likely you will need to confront and remove roadblocks to change.
Develop an improvement approach and tactics to sustain improvements in your business from planning to full implementation of each project.
Make business improvement a mainstay of your business to be a leader in your industry.
