Have You Reached the Starting Point for Continuous Improvement?

Many who claim to be on a continuous improvement journey are way off track. The necessary foundation for successful improvement work is lacking. The result of their improvement initiatives are rarely sustainable and not until they reach the real starting point, will their improvement work truly begin.

Last fall I spoke at The Nordic Forum for Continuous Improvement right before Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership and Three Laws of Performance. After our presentations we talked about how different perspectives affect our ability to succeed with continuous improvement. Dave told me that less than a quarter of the organizations he and his co-authors studied when writing Tribal Leadership had the necessary culture for continuous improvement to succeed.

Here is a model developed in 1969 by Thomas Anthony Harris and it describes four possible perspectives on life. It is also an excellent starting point for categorizing organizational cultures.

Fortunately, we only find 2% of all organizations (mostly criminal gangs) in the life defying state "Life sucks" (Level 1). "My life sucks” describes the spirit in organizations at the second level, where we find one fourth of all organizations. Victim mentality is another way to describe this culture and proactive action is extremely rare in these groups, which according to themselves get far too little appreciation. According to Dave and his co-authors nearly half, 48% of all organizations, are on the third cultural level – "I'm great, and you’re not." Here, everybody wants to be the hero. Discussions about sustainable solutions to common challenges are prevented by self-assertion and a verbal tug of war in which each individual does anything to steer the conversation towards the topic he or she knows best.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that a large portions of organizations are stuck at the second ("My life sucks") and third ("I'm great, and you’re not”) level. As children, we see that adults have more power and knowledge than ourselves. Adults are OK, but we’re not. In school, and then at work, we get a chance to advance – by exceeding others. Those who perform better than the rest eventually shift perspectives and start considering themselves superior.

"We’re great" is a result of the conviction that I am OK as I am and therefore you are OK as you are. Only 22% of all organizations are at this, the fourth, cultural level and getting here requires an epiphany – a realization that the perspective "I'm OK, you're not OK" is an illusion. Believing that another person is not OK, implies that you're not OK with yourself. If you were OK with yourself, you would have nothing to defend and therefore you wouldn’t have to see (and mentally or verbally point out) flaws in others to draw attention away from your own. When you are 100% OK with yourself, however, everyone around you will be OK too.

The journey through the different perspectives has its natural course. You can’t go directly from "Life sucks" to "We’re great." First we need to see that it’s not life in general that sucks but my life. This insight puts us in contact with something better, something to desire or even envy. With help or a little luck, we can then come into contact with at least one area where we’re better than others. Thus we slowly begin building our egos until, hopefully one day, we don’t need them anymore.

If the vast majority of your colleagues are not in the top right corner of the model (I'm OK, you're OK), the output of your improvement work will not be even a fraction of what it could be. Can a person who is not OK with her- or himself be able to take criticism in a constructive way? Can such a person work effectively together with others, take responsibility and grow? Is it possible to coach someone who feels oppressed by the boss? Is it possible to coach someone whose only interest is to maintain the spotless facade?

What do you do in your organization to create an atmosphere of ”We’re great”? What do you do to make sure that everyone feels that they are appreciated for who they are and not only for their performances? How do you turn differences into strengths and how do you achieve the necessary level of trust you need to be able to start striving for something bigger than yourselves?

At C2 Management, where I am Head of Consulting, we systematically work to improve our culture, to create the right spirit. Since ten years, we give each other frequent positive feedback. Between our monthly meetings we write praise for each other on Post-it notes and put them on our so called praise board. We always start our meetings by reading the notes of praise to each other. Everyone gives and receives a lot of praise. Previously, we mainly praised achievements. Now we put more focus on behaviors (how results are achieved) and who we are. That development, which relates nicely to the epiphany needed to move from the third to the fourth cultural levels, has come naturally and we see that our environment of genuine appreciation of who we are (and not only of what we do) makes us a stronger team where we as individuals can truly begin to grow.

The effects we’ve experienced have made us take further steps to develop our culture. Since a bit more than half a year, we invest one percent (about 2 hours per month) in strengthening the feeling of "I'm OK and you're OK." Regularly everyone at C2 gathers around. We divide ourselves into threes and in turn answer the question "who are you and why are you here?" Everyone gets five minutes to answer the question. If the five minutes aren’t used we sit together in silence until the time is up. Then the one who has been talking receives positive feedback on what he or she said during one minute each from the other two. When all three have answered the question and received positive feedback, the whole C2 team sits down in a large circle to talk about something that is important to us for the moment – a current challenge, a topic we need to align our views on or the like. Everyone gets a couple of minutes to, without being interrupted, give his or he view on the matter, and when everyone has had their say, we agree on whether something needs to be done and if so, who does what and when it should be done. This is an extremely easy way to strengthen relationships, aligning a team and creating commitment to what needs to be done. Nearly all the time is spent talking about who we are, our purpose and how we perceive things. Only a fraction of the time is spent on what we need to do and still our implementation rate is much higher than before. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised – being acknowledged for who you are and getting the opportunity to give your view on the matter at hand are quite obvious commitment boosters!

In all the management team that I train and coach I introduce this simple ritual. They, like ourselves, experience how approaching each other this way promotes a more open and proactive climate and that they slowly but surely begin to master the noble and indispensable art of separating people from problem. Not until we succeed with that will we truly succeed with continuous improvement.

With these approaches we can occasionally break out of the box and achieve a cultural level and a state of mind best described by "Life is great”. Here, competition and what others do are unimportant. Instead, we start to focus on something far greater than ourselves, a guiding star. And I’m quite sure you all know what happens when an organization wholeheartedly aims for the stars!

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For more ideas and advice check out my book "How to Succeed with Continuous Improvement" or go to www.SucceedwithCI.com.