HP and Fortive on How to Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Hello and welcome to Transformative Trailblazers, a new Q&A series in which I explore the minds of trailblazers at the forefront of business, technological, and cultural transformation.

If you’re interested in gaining valuable career and leadership insights, this newsletter is for you, so be sure to subscribe and follow along!

For the first edition, I sat down with Kirsten Paust , Senior Vice President, Fortive Business System Office, Fortive , for a deeply inspiring conversation exploring a wide range of topics, from fostering a culture of continuous improvement to the importance of embracing discomfort in times of change.?

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Kirsten, thank you for chatting with me today about your very impressive career. Why don’t we start with a quick introduction about Fortive, your current role and how you got your start there?

Thank you for having me! To start, Fortive is an industrial technology company that was spun off of Danaher in 2016. We make a lot of the test and calibration equipment standing behind the design and manufacturing of electronic devices, as well as software that keeps buildings functioning and people safe in their workplaces. We essentially are behind much of how the world operates.

After 20 years at Danaher, I decided to stay with Fortive, where I now oversee Fortive Business System (FBS) as well as our innovation efforts. FBS is essentially the framework for how our operating companies unlock growth, enhance productivity, and deliver value to employees and customers. Our collective culture is built on a foundation of continuous improvement, and implementing FBS is how we bring that to life across the organization. I like to think I have the coolest job at Fortive. Some other people might disagree, but I feel very privileged to work on something that's so central to who we are as a company: how we operate, how we show up at work and how we do what we do.

That does indeed sound like a very cool job. Are you also responsible for strategic business planning within the FBS function or is that something that you help drive with the operating companies themselves?

What really differentiates Fortive from other organizations is the rigor and discipline with which we execute. My team is focused on execution. We have processes and approaches on how we support the development of strategy within our operating companies. We also have a unique model in which those companies set their own strategy. They are closest to their customers, so they know and understand what's happening in those markets, and they set that aspiration on where they're going and who they want to be in serving those customers and markets. My team exists to accelerate and improve their ability to execute and achieve their strategic vision.

You mentioned continuous improvement is central to Fortive’s identity. What does that look like in practice?

Personally, I get a lot of energy and motivation from working to make things better, whether it’s seeing an opportunity to create an innovation in a marketplace that hasn't existed before (which our businesses are constantly doing), helping us more productively and efficiently manufacture our products, or producing an outcome for the benefit of our customers. That's what really motivates and excites me, as well as the philosophy of how we live at Fortive.

To give you a better sense of what that philosophy is, Fortive has, since our founding, believed in the concept of Kaizen, which in Japanese means “change for the better.” We're students of the Toyota Production System and have been back to the days of Danaher. What's truly unique about Fortive and how we approach Kaizen is that we empower our teams to directly implement changes and outcomes through week-long events that happen regularly. Rather than convening employees to plan what they’re going to do, we use that time to actually test, trial and implement new ideas.

For example, this week, Fluke, one of our operating companies that is a leader in handheld test and measurement equipment, is working on how to harness the power of AI and automation to deliver productivity breakthroughs. They’re using this Kaizen format to embrace that technology and implement it. Today, they’re testing those ideas and gathering customer feedback. Then by the end of the week, they will have rolled them out. We also have a process to ensure any progress made is sustained. I won't get into all the details, but it's important that our teams see the long-term value creation in the work they do and how it comes through in results consistently over time.

People sometimes forget about how critical process is to get everyone moving in the same direction. In driving innovation and rallying people around Kaizen, how do you encourage teams to take thoughtful risks? How do you think about failure within that context?

That’s a great question. In a world that often places so much emphasis on the power of standard work, people tend to equate that with eliminating risk. That causes them to remove creativity or ingenuity because they’re so fixated on the idea of standardizing processes. But people with continuous-improvement mindsets can harness the creative capacity of people in the areas that matter and embrace risk. There's always a risk that the change you're proposing isn’t going to yield the desired outcome. In fact, everybody knows the classic risk-return equation. Risk isn’t a bad thing. Risk is a good thing in terms of yielding better outcomes. The question is, how do you manage risk and how do you surface it early?

“Our job isn't to avoid failure. Our job is to get to failure faster, if that's what's going to occur, so we can minimize the use of resources on things that aren't going to ultimately produce positive outcomes.”

I’m a firm believer in creating an environment where people feel comfortable raising and elevating risk. In fact, I was with a team earlier today and they wanted to know what the failure rate was for something we’re working on and how they could avoid that failure rate. I told them our job isn't to avoid failure. Our job is to get to failure faster—if that's what's going to occur—so we can minimize the use of resources on things that aren't going to ultimately produce positive outcomes. What we want to do is work aggressively on the most uncertain, riskiest things first so we can determine if they’re going to land. If they’re not, let's redirect our resources and invest elsewhere.

You talked about surfacing risk early and failing fast. How do you incentivize, reward, or recognize people who are pushing the envelope or following those behaviors?

There are obviously many things we think about when creating a culture and environment that motivates people to take thoughtful risks without fear that they’re going to get into trouble. For me, it comes down to shared accountability, responsibility and empowerment. It’s to everyone’s benefit to not just be transparent about risk, but also to stay in the game and collaborate with teammates on what needs to be done. When people are open and honest with each other, they’re able to manage risk and achieve desired outcomes much more quickly. Our philosophy is that it’s OK to do things that don't scale because they help us figure out whether our ideas are viable and how to effectively deal with risk, so we encourage teams to do these things early in our processes.

How is Fortive thinking about the role of AI in terms of technology that helps enable the future you want to deliver?

It is a massive shift occurring in our lifetimes that’s remarkable to see. We’re evolving the Fortive Business System by embracing AI, automation, machine learning and other powerful solutions that didn't exist before. We're going to do things that look very different now with the advent of this technology. We must continue to lean in and embrace change.

The world is changing so fast right now that it can be easy to get caught in the mindset that you’ll never keep up and you’ll be left behind. Instead of that perspective, I view AI as an opportunity for the company to take our operating principles and supercharge them in the Fortive Business System, enabling us to create even greater value for employees and customers. There’s a lot more to come. We’re learning at a rapid pace, and it is an exciting time.

It really is. I also believe the best attribute we can bring to the table is being comfortable with the uncomfortable when change is so constant. So, you've led different groups and different functions throughout your career. How have you leveraged that breadth of experience to inform your leadership style? What career advice would you give to people, particularly women and other groups, who are interested in leading business transformation?

I’ve had vastly different roles throughout my time at Danaher (now Fortive). I started in marketing. I went to Europe and did sales. I ran a software business. I was the head of product for a billion-dollar business. At one point, I was even on the factory floor. I was put in roles where I had not an ounce of domain expertise. So, what I did was lean into colleagues who did have that expertise, built rapport with them and took them along the journey with me. All those diverse experiences made me a better and more thoughtful leader. They allowed me to build empathy and understanding of what it takes and what it's like to be in different positions, so I encourage people to call on that whenever they can.

I agree that when it comes to leading transformation or trying new things at a company, you must be comfortable with being uncomfortable. There are still times where I struggle with that. I sometimes put my head up and think, “Oh my gosh, I am in over my head.” But you have to embrace discomfort without allowing it to compromise your values. The second thing I’d add is you must be OK with not always having everyone’s support, especially when you're trying to do things that are disruptive, new or different. It’s important to be confident that things will come out on the other end in a better place than when you started.

Thank you for sharing these wonderful insights, Kirsten. This has been a fascinating conversation. Let’s close with a fun question. What song has been stuck in your head?

My younger daughter just completed a National History Day project and hers was about music’s role in the civil rights movement, so Joan Baez’s “We Shall Overcome” has been on repeat in our house. It’s been in my head for the last month. I actually found myself today looking up some things about the song and was inspired by the power of words in giving people hope during some of the darkest moments in history. I also think it's a great parallel to the time we're living in. If we embrace change and continuous improvement, we can tackle any challenges that come our way.