What makes a business excel? We have all experienced those moments in our careers when everything comes together and everything seems to work just right. This may last the length of a project, sometimes through a cycle of change. However, occasionally it becomes part of the business and it is those companies that we read about or aspire to emulate.
"That ability to sustainably outperform your peers is what we term Operational Alpha".
Six Sigma, Customer Centric Design, Continuous Improvement, Agile, we have all heard these terms and probably read a book or attended training in some of these process improvement courses. What happens between finishing the course and getting back to your desk? Translating the concepts and techniques taught in these courses can be challenging. Experience has taught us that to deliver sustainable and scalable results the true challenge starts before anyone signs up to the first session.
I have had the good fortune to work at a couple of companies where we made real sustainable change to the business, delivering Operational Alpha. While each institution was different, what was common was a strong understanding of purpose, and a culture of curiosity. This culture of curiosity created an environment of positive challenge. Combining this with clarity on the “why” delivered an open, performance orientated environment with flat hierarchy and high levels of collaboration.
Getting back to Six Sigma and other process training courses. They are fantastic tools to help your people understand process and become more efficient. But they are only tools and without the culture of curiosity and clarity of purpose the transformation you are looking for is unlikely to deliver the desired results.
We see this often. The language of the tools becomes the focus and the “why” gets lost. People can get sidetracked and overly focused on excelling at the “process” and not the purpose. Process is very important and understanding the processes of your business is the keys to sustainable success, however if not managed properly, process can become bureaucracy, stifling creativity. Don’t let it get in the way of allowing your people to “get stuff done”.
Small wins are important in creating momentum for change. These small wins fuel the curiosity within teams and help identify opportunities for improvement. Empowering your staff around this questioning is one of the most powerful catalysts for transformation. Creating the “why” focuses this energy as people align around shared goals. The final piece in this equation is understanding process as this helps leverage change in a disciplined and sustainable way.
Why is purpose so important at the start of the change cycle? It creates common goals and alignment for your people. I recently worked with a company that faced cost pressures, having a cost to income ratio higher than peers. Instead of resorting to the usual headcount reductions, the CEO created a goal of achieving the required cost reductions through productivity gains. This provided a strong boost to morale and a sense of accountability across the organisation of 40,000+ employees. This firm wide focus was easily understood and translated into clear measures at all levels of the institution. The company supported this ambition by providing the “tools”, through investment in training, accelerating the cycle and delivering sustainable benefits. The mindset and frameworks developed in delivering the initial goal has fuelled an ongoing curiosity that has seen the company voted most innovative in its market several years in a row.
"The tools of process improvement are important, combining these with clear purpose and a curious mindset is transforming".
