How can you use data to establish a continuous improvement culture?

From my experience, we lead employee survey to show quantitative data to the top management of companies who want to understand their culture better. We also lead focus groups and 1:1 interviews with key stakeholders to grasp information that they couldn't access to internally (because people wouldn't open up so easily). So we help companies analyze their culture based on not only quantitative but also qualitative metrics. Looking at both gives a better sense of understanding the data points and articulating the stories behind the numbers.

I agree we need to set goals and metrics. But there is need to address the whole of what we are doing, and that includes the people, who often do not fit so well into categories. And yes, we need objectives to be SMART, but we also should leave space for being CREATIVE, that's where the real growth is.

1 - Estamos em Portugal. 2 - Falamos e escrevemos em português de Portugal. 3 - Concordo com quase tudo, no entanto, acho que n?o se deve menosprezar as pessoas que possuem o conhecimento e a experiência a favor dos colegiais.

In life, we design from the outside in. Take skyscrapers. The placement of interior support beams is determined by external factors like wind and gravity. How about the movie industry? Films are written as a reflection of external society, its values, and its plights. Products are designed to solve problems, books are designed for their readers, and buildings are designed for their environment. Building from the outside in seems like a fundamental rule of human creation and construction. So why do we throw it out when designing our company cultures? Instead, company culture should be an outside-in effort, and customers must be the driving force for culture. After all, your business would not exist without first meeting their needs.

In conversations about culture, whether that's to do with change or improvement, most leaders tend to rely on measures of engagement. Engagement surveys are typically designed to measure employee sentiment, i.e. "how do you feel about X". When it comes to culture or continuous improvement, a better metric would be rooted in people behaviours, and the organisation's systems, processes and ways of working, all of which are directly changeable. From there, you can think about the relevant metrics (i.e. specific behaviours you're looking for) and ensure that your assessment is reliable, valid and avoids producing socially desirable answers.

Decide what kinds of analytics you must collect. What is important to us is sentiment and emotion from employee comments - it helps prioritize comments to ensure our client's action feedback immediately for the most at-risk departments, levels, locations, or other specific demographics. Secondly, use data directly related to what you are changing in your culture. For example, if you were using the Love of Workplace index?, you would check for the top 5 and bottom five skill areas and take specific actions to improve or continue developing. Knowing what skills to build and which ones must be maintained helps when integrating into your existing leadership and executive coaching systems and practices.

Culture of continuous improvement isn't just about how to meet your employees' expectations. It's about performance outcomes too. Step one in measuring success is being crystal clear on where you are right now, and where you want to get - defined in behavioural, and therefore measurable terms - in addition to any performance indicators. Devise your metrics to show your current state, and use the same metrics to monitor progress over time. Whilst your people are fundamentally driving organisational performance, it's important to consider how the two relate to each other, and what metrics best inform your progress.

Culture can seem elusive and abstract. That is why it is even more important to define it and develop SMART goals to track change. Before developing goals, we also need to have a good understanding of the current state. This can be done by collecting relevant data through employee surveys, focus groups, 1:1 interviews, and pulse surveys to capture both qualitative and quantitative data. This baseline data can be used to develop SMART goals. Developing short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals will also enable the organization to diversify the change activities and metrics. Sharing these data authentically with stakeholders, keeping them up-to-date, and celebrating small wins along the way will keep stakeholders engaged and ensure success.

Let's start with collecting data. This step can be way more difficult than you may first think. The culture of the company and the floor operators has to be in the mind set of knowing how this data will be used to improve things. Getting buy in from those folks who you need to use the systems to collect the data is huge. Simply adding a step to your operator's work load will not work. Setting the over-arching goals as a team and then following up with that team as the data is collected will help to ensure that everyone is participating and feeding the correct data to those who can use it to improve processes.

Gather diverse data from multiple sources and mechanisms, leveraging employee engagement data, town halls, pulse surveys, one-on-ones, customer surveys, and huddles. Scrutinize and harness this data as a powerful tool to gauge the vitality of your culture and pinpoint avenues for enhancement. Always bear in mind that your culture acts as the nourishing force for your people, reciprocally thriving when nurtured and sustained.

Encourage Data-Driven Decision-Making: Embed data-driven decision-making processes into organizational workflows and decision-making frameworks. Encourage teams to use data as a basis for identifying opportunities, evaluating alternatives, and making informed decisions. Foster a culture where decisions are guided by evidence and insights derived from data analysis.

Think like a scientist is a good mantra in creating a data driven mindset. I agree that the core is having true curiosity. You've set a hypothesis, now you have to be open to that hypothesis changing, if the data says so. Being open to changing your "right answer" is foundational.

Sharing personal perspective, today Continuous Improvement should be embedded within daily management. Operational Excellence is not anymore an option. Having data under control charts setting limit of variation for alert and limit of variation not acceptable. Often only the not acceptable are set which trigger reactive actions. The aim of seeting alert limit is for preventive actions to contain the variation always within acceptable results. Management is to prevent not to react.

Foster a culture of data literacy within your team by providing training and resources to help team members understand how to interpret and analyze data effectively. Encourage open communication and collaboration around data-driven decision-making, empowering team members to use data to inform their actions and decisions. As a leader, demonstrate a commitment to data-driven decision-making by incorporating data into your own decision-making processes and modeling a data-driven mindset for your team. By leveraging data to inform decision-making, setting clear goals, promoting accountability, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, you can establish a data-driven mindset within your team that drives success and innovation.

Os dados s?o como bússola na busca de oportunidades e acompanhamento do desenvolver da melhoria no processo. Além de mensurar o impacto do resultado promovendo o ciclo contínuo tornando hábito e cultural.

Emotions and behaviours are also crucial data. If you overlook or don’t acknowledge how people are feeling, it will massively hold back continuous improvement work. I often see this being missed by leaders and managers who over-rely on rational, fact-focused data then wonder why people are reluctant or unenthusiastic to change. Understanding why humans respond to change as they do unlocks new possibilities and strategies for creating a culture of continuous improvement. Worked with a group on this just this afternoon! It opens the door to more confident, compassionate, human-centred and effective influencing- which results in continuous improvement becoming a normal, everyday way of operating.

Employing data is like having a compass in the journey of continuous improvement, offering a clear direction based on facts that resonate with diverse individuals across all levels of an organization. Embracing a culture where data and value driven dialogues are encouraged, leaders not only make improvement an inclusive endeavor but also honor the myriad perspectives and insights that form the rich kaleidoscope of a culturally intelligent organization, nurturing a collective pursuit towards excellence.

A collection of important data and using that data in the future, supports everyone. Analysis and Improvement can be made. Data need to be stored in a proper manner so that it can easily be traced when required.

It is crucial to maintain a healthy and friendly work environment in any organization. When collecting employee data on organizational culture, it is important to analyze the data and prioritize it to make necessary changes. Once the changes are made, it is important to share them with the employees. When employees see that their organization is taking steps to make them comfortable, they are more likely to give their full potential to ensure the success of the organization.

Debemos estar claros y transmitir a los colaboradores que para poder mejorar se debe construir un historial (datos) para actuar en consecuencia y con base a dichos datos tomar las acciones pertinentes y con ello entrar en la espiral de la mejora continúa... Lo que no se mide no se puede mejorar...