Posts tagged change management

Continuous Improvement Development for Leadership and Professionals

CIC Process Improvement June 22, 2014

Train your leaders first to change the culture

Oftentimes we get leadership support to an initiative to change the culture, but they don’t have the actual skills to implement the changes they’re supporting. Before you can expect your front-line employees to live a culture of continuous improvement, you have to develop your leaders, managers, and professionals. Everything we’ve discussed over the past six blogs have built to this. See how building a culture of continuous improvement starts with developing leadership and professionals.

http://ngs.edu/2014/06/20/building-culture-continuous-improvement-continuous-improvement-development-leadership-professionals/

Change Agents need to learn to Embrace Change

Change Management Meandering Genius May 15, 2014

I have been dealing with major changes most of my life. This blog is dedicated to those who work in the world of change and are not themselves ready to accept and implement changes happening to them. Yes, they exist.

When I was in elementary school (my second to last year) my parents moved from Berkley, MI, to Beverly Hills, MI. That moved me from one school district to another. The new school was further ahead in studies, which significantly put me behind my last year of school. One of the things the new school had already adopted that my old school had not was New Math.

The next year I went to Junior High and then to High School, but of course, the changes affecting were now starting to occurring with frequency.

My parents also traveled/camped a lot when I was a kid and I travelled all over the United States in everything from popup campers to truck campers to fifth wheels to motor homes.

I went to college for a year to Northern Michigan University and then moved back home and went to work. I wasn’t very dedicated in college. I went to a few classes at night with Oakland Community College. These were my first two colleges that I attended up to this point. All total, I attended 11 colleges since graduating high school.

At home, for about three years, I worked seven different jobs. After jumping around from job to job, I finally decided to join the Air Force at the age of 22. Basic Training was only four weeks then and I was over to technical training for another four weeks. At least those two trainings were at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. Then I was in a month of pipeline training at Fort Dix, NJ–Ground Combat Skills Training.

My first real Air Force assignment was in Ft Worth, TX, at Carswell AFB. There I worked the longest in one job–three years. Even though I spent six years at Carswell, I had five separate jobs, to include being one of the last 30 active duty members that closed the active duty portion of that base. In the two years I was at my next assignment in the states, Vandenberg AFB, CA, I worked on the flight line for six months and then as the Staff NCO for a year and a half.

It was then off to an undisclosed location in Turkey for a year–at least there I only did one job, although I did try to get on the staff while I was there, which would have been two different jobs in one year.

After Turkey, I ended up in Germany in the USAFE Elite Guard at Ramstein AB, but I was only there for eight months and retrained from Security Forces to Manpower and Quality and moved from the headquarters to the wing staff. In another less than three years, I was up at headquarters staff again, but not after having two very distinctly different jobs on the wing staff (running the wing’s quality training program to being a dedicated manpower and quality consultant to four units). In the two years I was at the headquarters, I also did a year in two jobs…one running competitive sourcing and privatization and the other managing the major command’s strategic planning activities.

My last assignment was here in San Antonio, TX, at Lackland AFB–specifically Security Hill and Air Intelligence Agency. In my six years there, until I retired, I did two years in plans and programs as the senior war planner for Air Force Intel, two years as the superintendent of a speech writing and special projects staff for the general, and two years running their premier enlisted awards program.

Even after retirement, I was only in Booz Allen Hamilton for three years before I ended up at USAA, where I have been for two years and I’m now working a totally different job there then I started.

All total, I attended 11 different colleges, lived in 8 different cities, visited to 14 countries and 43 states, and I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I have held.

That’s a lot of change. When I was really young, I wouldn’t say I handled or embraced the change, but by the time I was in the Air Force, I actually started to look forward to the change. Today, I find myself uniquely suited for my job as a change agent.

Now I know my experiences are not typical, but if you have chosen a role in work as a change agent–you work in strategy, change, process, performance, project managent, or the like–you should be expected to not just accept change, but champion it.

When change affects you…how do you handle it?

As a change agent, let me apply a little Prosci ADKAR questioning to you:

Are you currently aware of what is going on in your organization strategically that has fully prepared you for possible change?

Do you recognize that in all change, there are great opportunities and have you built your desire to change by examining the positive aspects of any potential changes, versus dwelling on the negative?

Have you spent the time ensuring you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to accept and embrace whatever change comes your way, giving you the ability to make the change quickly and step up to whatever opportunity is presented?

Do you recognize that all change is good if you focus on the positive and not the negative?

If you are a change agent–you exist in a line of work that drives changes to others and you should be able to answer yes to all of these questions.

If you cannot answer yes, or you are going through a change that you are negative about and other change agents have to do everything in their power to lead you through the change, you need to reconsider your role. It is your job to devise and implement change. You, more than anyone, should be fully prepared to accept and implement change that affects you.

I have seen people that are not ready, but are in the role of a change agent.

To those people–you know who you are because of how you answered the questions above–either change how you react to change or change jobs. It really is that simple. As a change agent, you need to always be ahead of and ready to implement any change that impacts you in the same way expect it from others. This will help you better understand how to help others implement change and become more change ready.

I know that many people out there might have not had such a change-filled life as I have. However, you have chosen a field that is built on change–embrace it or get off the bus.

ASQ Conference Recap–Day Two

Meandering Genius May 7, 2014

Mike Abrashoff, former Navy and now Founder of GLS Worldwide, opened up yesterday’s conference festivities with some serious shock and awe. Mike is one of those people that when he speaks you capture a lot of profound quotes. His message on leadership was right on point and one of the best I have heard.

His book was sold out before his speech was over if that is any indication of how good he was at the podium.

Like any conference of this type, where you have volunteer presenters, you can always end up with a few duds. I ended up with one where a guy from the EPA was presenting on change management. He had a lot of information and focused his message on writing a change plan, because that solves everything in change management and completely breaks down resistance to change.

I’m not sure what his experience has been with change in the government, but he really needed to read some of the references that he was throwing up on slides, which he admittedly said he did not know–like John Kotter’s 8-step model and McKinsey’s 7-S model.

Well, everything came out in the wash when he was finished presenting and the session was opened up for Q&A. I was able to stay for three questions that he couldn’t answer, but had to leave when he told the audience he had never heard of the term “burning platform.”

I found day two to have a great deal more downtime than the day before. This allowed me to spend some time working on a couple of special projects. I was so engaged in what I was working on, I missed the lunch keynote speaker, but heard that I didn’t miss much.

Word to the wise for future ASQ Conference attendees; if they still do Flip Sessions, ensure you watch the video before hand.

Basically, they are trying out this new concept called a Flip Session where you have to watch a video presentation before going to the presentation–pre-work. Well, I don’t think anyone at the conference actually understood the concept because I went to one of these sessions yesterday afternoon and no one in the entire room had watched the video to include me.

Everything went downhill from there. There was a guy in the session playing stump the chump, and he was asking questions out of some manual that he had brought. There was also this other guy that would ask questions that few could understand, to include the presenter. It was just going from bad to worse.

Near the end of the hour-long session, the presenter asked how many in the audience had ever used a SIPOC, to which about 80% or more of the hands went up. Then she asked what they used it for and what values it brought–she received lots of good answers. Then she proceeded to do a SIPOC example on the white board. I walked out.

So, there were nuggets of goodness in the conference and opportunities for learning. The networking is always great and I even got some work done. All in all, not a bad day.

Day three is short, with two sessions and then a closing keynote speaker. The exhibitors are gone, since the hall closed at 4 last night and they won’t have a lunch for today. I suspect that the attendance will be much lighter today, but will report on my nonstatistical hypothesis tomorrow.

Persistence and multi modal in change pays off

Change Management Meandering Genius April 3, 2014

Noise…that is the biggest problem in change…noise.

Many people who are concerned about the change, for whatever reason, tend to make a lot of noise.

This noise is something that we tend to react to and that causes us to slow down.

My advice in change is this…

1. Be persistent. Set a standard in meetings to have very complete minutes so those that don’t attend can only complain that they didn’t read the minutes’ not that you are moving forward without them. Have milestones and stick to them. Drive to decisions in meetings that feed the milestones and make sure that everyone knows what the milestone roadmap looks like. Don’t be pressured to deliver more or less than plan unless it completely fits…if you will hit your milestones, there is nothing you need to prove.

2. Operate in a multi modal structure. Identify all the change impacts and then develop plans in an agile function to address the risks of those impacts. Use various ways…meetings, leaders, communications, and special events to overcome the risks.

People will challenge you that you are not prepared for or you don’t have a plan to deal with something down the road, but having the plan to address it and addressing the current impact is a plan. Don’t let them stall your current effort in order to boil the ocean.

Don’t let them convince you to communicate to more people than you need to at this moment. There is a time and a place…releasing a lot of information at once to people not currently impacted by change decisions just produces more noise and now you are responding to it.

Keep moving. Those against change don’t want you to move forward so they win when the process is stalled and you start missing milestones. Essentially it’s like proof to them that this was a bad idea all along. The only reason milestones should be slipped is when external factors, not people slow them down.

Never say, “If this doesn’t work, we can always go back.” This is like throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire. You have just added significant fuel to give those against the change a glimmer of hope that if they derail this just enough, life will return to their expected normal. Out with the old and in with the new. Good ideas that are properly researched are good ideas…but good ideas fail when enough people significantly stall the ideas. Don’t give them this kind of rope.

Being persistent and having an agile multi modal approach to change will succeed. You will be frustrated and start to question–believe in the change and press forward. Not blindly, but with persistence.

Moving forward in change–maintaining the 51%

Change Management Meandering Genius April 2, 2014

Change is our way of life these days and the speed of change is compressing the time changes need to occur and increasing our change saturation in organizations.

In basic terms, changes need to happen faster because we are in a state of constant change.

I think, for the more established organizations, this is even truer. The reason is that they have been so entrenched in the way they do things today that they are finding themselves with many legacy things that need to change as well as the things that need to change to keep them competitive.

How do you speed up change?

I will call this the 51% rule–we are using it in a change effort right now.

This change effort is happening much faster than other changes typically take in my organization. Especially one of this magnitude. Now, the initial phase of this change is being done through a pilot, so it’s not like everything is changing at once; we plan to make the proposed changes and then adjust for future roll out in 2015 and 2016.

That being said, the changes for the pilot are still moving very fast.

There are many that are involved that like things to not change…we all have them. They would slow this change down to a crawl by constantly discussing and not deciding. Last week I actually talked about these type of people and had a lot of great feedback.

However, we have a rule in this change–it’s called the 51% rule. The leaders of this change, and we have several, hold the 51% decision-making authority. What this means is that when it comes to make a decision, based on our schedule, they will make it based on all the input from the teams putting the change aspects together.

So, if people want to discuss something to death, simply stick to the milestone schedule and then provide all the discussion to the leader with the 51% for a final decision. Then, move on to the next milestone.

This, however frustrating the disrupters, is proving to help tremendously to move the change along at the pace expected.

What this is causing is that the teams as a whole don’t get to fully decide on something because a few selfish individuals hold everyone back on points that are important to them. However, if the organization is going to be decisive in business, then they need to be able to stick to a schedule and make changes based on that schedule. If the disrupters can’t figure it out, what I’m finding is that the others who want to help lead the change will work around them.

So, when you start your next change effort, or if you are in one now, consider discussing the 51% rule with your change sponsors and leaders. Get them to agree to the concept and the milestone schedule. When the milestone is up, bring your proposals to the decision authority and have them make a decision. Then you don’t discuss that item again…move on to the next milestone. If the disrupters continue to stick to the past decision and can’t move on, that is fine, work around them with those that will and get a decision at the next milestone. The holdouts will get frustrated, but the only other way is to acquiesce to their actions and stall the change.

These people will eventually see that the team is passing them by with discussion and decisions and they will eventually join where the effort is or they will simply leave. If they choose the latter, find someone else and continue to move forward–that person has decided not to be part of the change that will improve your company and perhaps they have no role in the company anymore?

I know this is tough talk, but reinforcing the negative behaviors of people who try to disrupt and derail change efforts to suit their personal needs and agendas is not focusing on your company’s mission, vision, or customers. They are only focused on themselves. This forces a Service Before Self core value and sends them a message that they are either working to move the company forward or they belong with the competition.

Give this a shot. Of course it depends on steadfast change leadership, but it is a good rule of thumb for change that a leader can set in the beginning and employ with every activity.

Change Management Pet Peeves

Change Management Meandering Genius March 26, 2014

Let’s face it, change management is hard enough as is. Some actions of professional adults can really make my head spin. I’m talking about the person that works so hard to derail the project, but in many ways often has so much to gain from it. If they would just put in the same level of effort to make it happen, it would get done twice as fast.

You know the type…

They demand to be included in the change management effort, but refuse to come to any of the meetings or read any of the minutes and materials being created by those working hard to make the change a success. Then they come in several weeks later and they completely want to derail the effort by taking you back to the beginning and tell you that you what they think you haven’t done and what they think needs to be done.

Then there are those that simply want to revisit the very first points or relive how we got here at every meeting. They simply can’t move past that. They want everyone to endure hours of explanation of why it is the way it is today. Just when you think you have enough as-is, they want to add more the next meeting. They are stuck in the way it’s being done now.

There are those that use others as their excuse for slowing up progress. They say they are 100% behind the effort! but they need to protect their people. They use their bosses as scapegoats for their question, “Well, my boss has concerns and I’m just trying to get them out in the open.” All the while, you have socialized the change with leadership, who are 100% on board and their people are excited about the change. This is a typical middle management stance.

Then you have those that participate in the change effort, but take every opportunity to grandstand on topics that just prove how unsupportive they are of the entire organization. My recent example of this person was someone who passes themselves off as an expert, but isn’t even certified. Then he blames his lack of certification on the organization, not himself. Then states, he refuses to wear company logo items because the company doesn’t pay him to advertise for them. None of these things have anything to do with the project, but clearly demonstrate the need to remove someone from their current job.

Then you have the “I’ve already solved that,” group. These are the ones that get me the most. Everyone has spent hours defining what is wrong that needs to get changed. Suddenly, as you get down the road, someone who should have fixed the problem long ago, starts chiming in that they’ve already solved the problems that are being addressed. It’s almost always those that should have solved the problem in the first place. They have put some bandaid on the item or put a un-resourced plan in place to fix something and suddenly that isn’t a problem anymore. Basically, these people simply want you to move past these issues, because you’re highlighting their ineffectiveness up to this point.

Then you have the cheerleaders for the negative. These are the people that one-on-one are supportive and behind the effort. Then, you get in a meeting and one person speaks out against an idea and suddenly there they are cheering them on. What’s worse is when you have a room of cheerleaders, who individually tell you to your face they are behind you and then the first chance they get, they’re on you like a pack of starved dogs.

Nothing can be more frustrating than the inclusive disagreement. You bring certain people in on a change effort because you know they are going to be a problem and you really want their buy in. They come up with ideas and approaches that are pretty good. However, every time you adopt their idea or approach they turn around later and try to shoot it down. You make them inclusive to the solution, you accept their approach, and then they disagree. Here’s your cigarette and blindfold, let’s step out back.

Over the last six years I have been involved in many major change management efforts. These same people show up in every effort. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Dealing with the ones that simply flat out refuse to change, in my mind, are easy. These people above frustrate me to no end. These are the ones that pretend to your face that they are supportive and team players and then prove themselves wrong at every turn.

What’s worse is that I don’t think they even realize what they’re doing half the time. I recently had someone tell me how much they needed to be involved in the effort, but they hadn’t been to one meeting that we’ve had and never sent a delegate. I asked if the minutes and material were detailed enough to demonstrate what we we’re doing and if they’re keeping them informed and they simply said, “Oh, I haven’t read the minutes.” Then, after totally tearing down the meeting and the whole effort, they say that I need to add another person to the meeting in their place as a delegate and, half way through the meeting, they take a phone call and have to run off to another important meeting. Note: the meeting we were having was specifically set up for that person.

In all of these cases, this is where strong change leadership is key. When you have these type of people, you need your change leadership to step in and have a talk with these people. Like I said, in many ways, they are simply acting the way they have always acted. I’m sure that you can understand how the person in the above example could cause significant problems throughout an organization with that type of behavior. You know that is the way they operate every day and you’re project is just experiencing it for the first time.

Who do you work for anyway?

Meandering Genius March 13, 2014

Often times I have to stop and ask myself this question when working for others in some kind of change situation.

There they are, across from me, complaining about the “impact” of the change and how it will affect their people, the program, or even themselves.

All I can think about is, “Who do you work for anyway?”

Not once do they ask the question, or pose the argument, “How will this change impact the customer?”

If…really IF…they would think about the customer first, these questions would melt away. We–all of us to include me–exist in a business to serve a customer. Without a customer, there is no business!

For my Thoughtful Thursday, and relatively short blog, when you are thinking about how something is impacting you, your team, or your process, stop and ask yourself first, how will this impact the customer.

Maybe you will find that the first three questions no longer matter.

We don’t need no stinking burning platforms

Change Management Meandering Genius Process Improvement February 23, 2014

The first step in change management is to define the “burning platform.” If you’re waiting for the platform to catch fire, you’re too late.

We’ve become a nation of reactionists instead of a preventionists. We’re constantly looking to identify a burning platform so we can put it out instead of spending our time making sure the fires never start to begin with. What’s worse is that if we can’t define the burning platform because the fire hasn’t reached our room, we tend to ignore the fact that the smoke alarms in the house are going off.

If you really want to be successful, you need to stop looking for the burning platform and start looking at what your company does good today and what you can do to make it even better. They say that Good is the enemy of Great and I believe it has to do with the fact that we wait for something bad to happen and until that time it’s “good enough.”

On top of that we’ve become a nation of hero worshipers, recognizing the fire fighters who wait until the house is burning down and then jump in to put out the fire. Instead, we should be focused on those that do well at preventive maintenance and never have a house fire in the first place.

What this amounts to is that we need to live in a world of constant change where readiness to change is how we exist–we thrive on change through constant improvement. This doesn’t mean that something won’t go wrong from time to time, but the more preventive we’ve been, the better we’ll be to react to the issue. More than likely, we simply won’t experience the issue in the first place.

The problem is that leaders are often too blind to prevention and its value. When something goes wrong, they can see the tangible impact of the fix, the money that was saved, etc. Prevention is hard to measure and thus leadership devalues it. I have worked on several projects that were focused on measuring this unmeasurable item–prevention and preparedness. I’ve done this because, all too often, those that are getting ahead of problems are often challenged by the hero worshiping leaders because they don’t see them adding any value and simply costing the company money.

The fact is that these leaders need to get a clue about leadership and vision. Constantly managing to the problem breeds poor leadership discipline. Leaders need a strong discipline to stay ahead of problems and they need the courage to recognize those people who prevent the fire versus those that put them out.

Recently I was sitting in an event where a team was getting recognized for solving a problem that they did nothing to prevent. When the problem finally flared up, they reacted quickly and put the operation back on track. This team was honored in front of everyone as the shining example for all to model themselves after.

The fact is, if we don’t change this nation of reactionary thinking and hero worshiping, we’re going to end up being full of a bunch or arsonists putting out the fires they create. Because, in the end, what gets measured gets done and if you’re only going to recognize me if I solve a problem, then by God, I’m going to create the problems to solve.

So leaders, put away your fire extinguishers and pull out your pocketbooks, because you need to start paying for prevention versus recognizing reaction. Stop looking for burning platforms and start preventing fires.

The Importance of a Stakeholder Assessment

Change Management Strategic Planning Think Big February 15, 2014 2 Comments

Strategic planning, as a structured and systematic process, is successful when it is leader-led and overcomes the five reasons 70% of all strategies fail. Learn how to see your plan through to success. The strategic planning process is where leaders of an organization establish the vision of the organization’s future and then develop and implement the actions necessary to achieve that future. This article expands on the strategic planning concepts addressed in Think Big, Take Small Steps and is designed to help you achieve success in your strategic planning process.

Conducting a Stakeholder Assessment When Developing a Strategic Plan is Crucial

I see a “strategy” being made up of three things: A mission, a vision, and goals on how to get from where you are now to where you are going. Those goals represent CHANGE in an organization–strategic change.

Anytime there is a change, there will be people who are for it and against it. The rest are the movable middle. Anytime you are planning a change, you need to analyze the audience that will be impacted by that change and continually manage that audience through the change.

Case in point: One of my clients had the words, “Meet customer’s expectations through product delivery,” in one of their goal statements. The strategy had been in place for several months, and the head of their operations was not supportive of the strategy–he wanted to create it himself versus as a leadership team. He also liked living in the realm of strategy because then he really wasn’t accountable for doing anything. Note that ‘accountable’ is a key word here. I was in a meeting with the head of the strategic planning department and the operations director and he said, quote, “I will not hold my people accountable for meeting customer expectations.”

Who, in the right mind as a leader, can say something as ludicrous as that? By this time, the strategy was really rolling out–plans were in place and changes were occurring. All this went on regardless of how much he tried to stop it. This was the cry of a desperate man. As a result of the shadow he cast, one of his directs was responsible for deploying part of the plan–specifically under this goal. We were attempting to establish actions and dates, when he broke down in a whiney voice almost on the edge of tears, and cried, “But, I don’t want to be held accountable to this.”

These situations are real. Strategy–good strategy–means change. If you are not prepared for this type of behavior from people that have influence and you require to make the strategy reality, then you will get stopped by this type of behavior.

I know in Good to Great, you are supposed to get people on the bus and off the bus to make things work, but in the real world, some organizations don’t have that luxury. Then you have to determine how to deal with them.

In a strategic change, there are four potential groups that you have to consider. Obviously, first are the stakeholders–those who have a vested interest in the change and impact of the change. Second are the customers–those who direct your organization to deliver goods and/or services. All customers are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are customers. Two other potential groups are Partners and Suppliers. Partners and Suppliers are those you work with to deliver your goods and services to the Customer. Sometimes they can be everything, or sometimes, not. Understanding who they are and who of them are key–make a difference and can impact the change–is important. Note this Venn diagram and how these audiences interact.

Once you know who they are, list them out and try to determine what you know about then and what you don’t know about them. List out what stake they have in the change–what will be impacted and how they feel. On a scale of 1-5, rate their level of support of the change and on the same scale rate the level of influence that can have to impact it–1 being lowest. This tells you where you potentially could have your most difficult problems. As you can imagine, the Operations Director in my above example was low in support and high in influence–not a good combination. Those that are high in both can also become your greatest champions. Those who are low in both probably can be ignored–best to spend precious resources on the most important stuff.

With those that are important to this effort, plot them each on this continuum:

If they are low, or not even on the continuum, then, strategic activities designed to raise them on the continuum might help their acceptance and assistance. Sometimes they fully understand what is going on, but, getting them higher is impossible. In the case of the Operations Director, we basically forced him to retire and the next director that was hired supported the strategy. The bus activity; however, this took time. Obviously, if someone is simply aware of the strategy and doesn’t understand why it’s being done and what its impact is, then desiring advocacy and ownership is impossible. So, if you have someone at awareness, but you need them as an advocate, then you need to first get them to understanding, and then next to acceptance. Makes sense, right?

This is also helpful to determine if you already have someone at advocacy and that’s where you want them, then you don’t need to do anything. If someone has little influence on the strategy and change, then maybe awareness or understanding is fine. These decisions again allow you to focus your efforts in strategic areas.

Another way to map your audience is through this tool:

It’s a bit simpler in its approach, but can be effective. For a strategic plan, which takes years to implement, I like a much more detailed assessment and action plan than this, but you can choose. I also am Prosci certified in ADKAR, so I like to use that approach, but I am not free to share their proprietary process on this blog. You can read about it in books from Amazon and their certification is very effective. The approaches I’ve shared here are based on my Master’s-level Change Management certification from Georgetown University and are not proprietary.

So, you can see how important a Stakeholder Assessment is to develop during the Organizational Assessment. This, like any change effort, when done early, helps to prep the space and get people on board quickly or identify those you need to work around. This tool, is a lasting assessment that you may revisit regularly to see how things are progressing.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

2. http://www.amazon.com/Change-Management-The-People-Side/dp/193088561X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1392477543&sr=8-2

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_analysis

The proof is in the pudding

Meandering Genius February 3, 2014

Two years ago, the organization I work for set about on a journey of developing a culture of continuous improvement…what I now have come to realize is a culture of operational excellence.

The first primary ingredient was the right leader…yes, they clearly make all the difference in the world.

Second was having the right bus, as Good to Great would tell you. Every manager and director in the organization is motivated and ready to do the right thing. Like many organizations, getting people off the bus is easier said than done, so Don’t Fire Em, Fire Em Up, right?

The journey was clear in my mind, I just didn’t know how long it would take…since we’re still on it, it takes more than two years. However, it’s like many efforts that I’ve seen in nonprofit turnarounds, once it gets going, it’s like a snowball.

This last month has been one of, “Careful what you wish for,” type activity and I think that 2014 is going to prove to be a whole year of that.

Step one: Evaluate the current situation. Non-union, manufacturing-like, heavy reliance on strategic partnerships, excessive redundancy in non-operational processes taking up leaders time, and core process that provides the most value to the overall mission not well understood or controlled.

Step two: Fix the core process–completely map (four phases), provide a full narrative, develop templates and tracking tools, establish formal governance around process, and pilot–pilot big! First pilot returned 16 FTEs worth of man hours back to the supported business for reinvestment!

Step three: Reorganize to support key process. Demonstrated to everyone the redundancy in administrative processes that were sucking up vital time of everyone and all being done differently. Leadership discussed and reorganized to deliver on key process–eliminated siloed operations and redundant processes. Result: leaders in operations were back in the shop and the important, yet administrative processes operate perfectly now for the last two years!

Step three: Engagement! As a whole, engagement is high across the company–very high. However, engagement was not as high in this organization and it was dropping. Engagement score was 4.22 out of 5. Participation in engagement survey was 70%. Developed and implemented “Engagement Program.” Didn’t focus on the score–focused on communications, development, and quality. Next year, participation was 100% and score jumped to 4.61–even with a reorganization. Gallup interviewed my boss. We are still on our engagement journey and always will be.

Step five: Build continuous improvement discipline. Looked end-to-end at the process we were part of. Took ownership of the end-to-end problems and applied a disciplined approach to solving the problems associated with the process–given five FTEs by leadership to work on it. Focused on process excellence in work centers–all managers, most directors, and some other employees Green Belt trained. Top three strategic partners established trained and certified Green and Black Belts to drive process improvement. Held monthly lunch and learns for large portion of exempt staff. Now instituting 5S and Visual Controls. Developing operational daily metrics that provide leading forecasting insight. Looking at ways to automate and improve now. Developed a recognition program that recognizes all improvements, no matter the size, equally.

Step six: Share the bigger plan. I am moving onto another project for at least three months. I laid out the 2014 plan that was in my head for my boss. Press forward with that plan and this journey will continue.

It’s exciting times!