Transforming an Organization Culture to Drive on the Highway

Some twenty-six years ago, I was introduced to the concept of continuous improvement. The Japanese called it KAIZEN, a constant improvement by all employees at all levels of the organization.

During the next fifteen years, I was deeply immersed in the concept and practice of Total Quality Management, initially as a continuous improvement specialist and then bringing the idea into the Human Resources function.

Kaizen is a step-by-step structured and organized culture of improvements and combining with Kaikaku, where we must make radical changes to our business.?

About ten years ago, we began to see the introduction of Industry 4.0 through the Internet of Things (IOT), which brings together the various measuring and monitoring devices connecting to cloud computing to give you real-time information.

At about this time, we began to hear the word agility in the industry. As a practitioner of Kaizen, I wanted to understand the meaning of being agile. Is this something that is going to replace Kaizen and Kaikaku?

The more I researched agility, the more I realized that it is somewhat a variant of Kaizen and Kaikaku. You still need to have a strong culture of continuous improvement.

Agility is like driving on the highway.

A few years back, I drove slightly more than two hours with my good Vietnamese friend Tan Le to reach Malacca, which usually takes about two hours and 30 minutes.??

We didn’t go at breakneck speed the entire 255 kilometers.

Where there was a break in traffic, we accelerated. When the traffic was heavy, we slowed down and waited for the next opportunity.

That got me thinking about whether, in reality, most organizations behave the same way? How do you transform an entire organization to drive on the highway? The highway we are all traveling on is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA).

We live in very uncertain times. The Russia-Ukraine war is still raging, Taiwan's destiny, North Korea unpredictability, constant tectonic shifts in the Middle East, etc.

I know a friend who will drive up to a maximum of 90 km/hour, irrespective of whether the roads ahead are clear of traffic and oblivious to the row of cars behind him. That is the maximum speed that he is willing to drive. On the other hand, I know of some friends who will take the fast lane and try to break the sound barrier, endangering themselves and others on the road.

If we continue to operate our business at a fixed momentum, we may not be able to take advantage of all the opportunities that come our way. On the other hand, if we ignore some of the fundamentals of doing business, e.g., being financially prudent and carrying out our due diligence in risk analysis, we may crush and burn.

Perhaps, the solution is to transform the entire organization to know when to accelerate when the course is clear while still focusing on solid operations management discipline. The goal is to get the organization to switch lanes to the fast lane to accelerate faster than all the competitors at varying times.

In the Total Quality Management era, the entire organization moves at the same speed. Agile manufacturing is about moving from high-volume customization to mass customization. The trick is for every individual driving in their respective vehicles to switch lanes and quickly get on the fast road, a culture geared to mass customization.

To behave as an independent vehicle, the organization that still depends heavily on a top-down approach will not do well. Imagine a culture where everyone still waits for No. 1 to set the standard speed for the whole organization.

The truth is that you cannot set the same speed for the organization. Even within a business function, establishing a constant rate for the team will not be the best model in our super VUCA environment.

Organizations must reflect and rethink their operational blueprint for the last three to four decades of how they have been managing the business. In the post-Covid era, as we pick up speed on mass customization, our tested and proven business model may potentially be our stumbling block (where it once used to be our secret formulae for success).

Know what to retain and what needs to change. We have to get the entire workforce to drive on the highway. Staying on the sideroad will not work at all.