How to ensure that business improvements last longer?

It is not uncommon to see how organisations put a lot of efforts and resources on process improvements or business excellence programs. However, it is clear, both anecdotally and objectively, that these efforts have either entirely failed or have had very small life-expectancy.

Why is that?

Unfortunately, in the society of quick fix and the magic bullet people, this has become quite prominent. Critical assessment of the solutions is becoming a lost trait anyway. While initiating improvements per se is the right thing to do; the process of deploying process improvements strongly drives success as well as long-term sustenance outcomes.

In my observation of several scenarios, management and employees make a mistake when they assume (or expect) that result of improvement programs would be near Utopian.

Sometimes, a few bench-marking visits and training are organized, which do not help much in true improvements but may only act as an impetus. While other times, whatever others have done is copy-pasted, which doesn't help either. And, then they wait for the results that never show up.

These improvement programs are often perceived as short-term exercises or fixed limit projects. This causes results to start stalling soon after the official program is over, and everything goes back to square one in a short span of time.

Here are some of my observations that usually result in short-lived improvements in the organisation.

Pay close attention to the organisation's maturity level

Fundamental conflicts occur when certain activities in an organisation are not understood or not seen in the proper light. This is usually the outcome of mixing two different maturity level approaches. If your organisation has not implemented any formal improvement programs or the foundation for such programs is not in place – going for high-end methods is not going to work.

Even the implementation of any automation or process management software in this state can be harmful as it will not deliver, ever. Mostly the automation or software deployment would only automate (and potentially amplify) deficiencies in the process that is yet to be improved and optimised.

Just see in our day to day lives, how we teach our children – one thing at a time. And, their education, improvements or their capabilities are built in certain ways. Neither we teach writing poems to a kinder-gardener, nor we teach high-end mathematics until basic algebra is understood. We very well understand and appreciate the fact that there are certain (maturity) levels should be attained before the next level is learnt and mastered.

Similarly, in organisational improvements, if the organisation has been into the ad-hoc level, implementation of high-end programs is not a good choice. Even if you try to push for these programs; they will not last long and will break sooner than later.

Which is why, assessment of an existing situation, capability and maturity of an organisation is a must, even before implementation of any process improvement or business improvement initiatives.

Do not miss the critical elements

Process improvement has largely been marketed, as well as procured, as an enterprise-wide solution. Mostly, this approach has been a reaction to the serious flaws of IT management in the past, where the organisation inadvertently adopted a flawed or incomplete re-engineering strategy, and too little attention was given to the elicitation and validation of requirements.

Yet, when improvement initiatives are misunderstood, they produce the same results as before, but with some amplification. Not all the processes are eligible candidates for process improvement, because the cost of the improvement may be more expensive than the increased productivity outcomes.

Moreover, every department or process may not be critical and be a constraint for the whole organisation or the business as such. If the improvement approach is taken in a wholesale fashion, chances are higher that critical elements would get subsidised attention and eventually limit final results in significant proportions.

This is where critically assessing the organisations functioning or business model becomes all the more important. When the business model gets assessed in-depth, one would realise that there are only a handful of variables that control the overall outcome, like it follows the 80-20 principle. Banging our head on rest of the 80% would be a sheer wastage of efforts and resources, which also eats away share from remaining vital 20%.

Critical assessment before beginning the initiative is the key.

Follow a correct sequence

A process is a sequenced set of activities that produce an end result. Whether you realise it or not, your organisation has many of those - dozens, hundreds, even thousands of them! You have processes in sales, marketing accounting, production - across every function. Collectively, processes are like the blueprints that describe how your organisation works - or, in many cases, doesn't work.

Similarly, improvement initiatives are a kind of a process by themselves. I have seen a lot of companies that do not pay attention to the sequence of implementations for such programs have got it all wrong in the end. Methodology adapted then becomes the scapegoat, and if not, results are manipulated to make things look good that really are not.

There are a few things that work better using a big-bang approach; while others work better using a step-by-step approach. Improvement programs are of the later type.

Random approach seldom succeeds. Its inherent lack of coordination leads to an uneven pattern of implementation, which often feels confusing or contradictory to teams. When we tackle implementation in a more coordinated and synchronised way, they get bigger, more sustainable results, much like resonance phenomenon. The key is to start with just one or two operating areas and transform their performance completely, in an essence creating the building blocks to be replicated throughout the organisation. This approach focuses management attention on the program and thereby helps ensure that its elements, such as technology changes and training are deployed in the right way.

The better approach is to decide first on the implementation plan and then adhering to it throughout the program. Shooting from the hip or fire-aim-ready approach is the recipe for failure.

Summary

Ingraining long-lasting improvements are the only way to attain organisational excellence and to utilise full value of investment in any such programs or projects. In order to attain this sustenance, organisations need to address aforesaid issues. Without tackling them, sustenance may be just a wishful thinking and nothing more.

Complementing this with the development of technical skills and focusing on organisational capabilities can help to achieve more significant, sustainable, and amplifying effects.