If It Wasn't Hard...

I was watching one of my favorite early Tom Hanks movies while traveling the other day, "A League of Their Own," based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. A true story that took place during WWII when there were few if any men to play in Major League Baseball. There is a moment in the film where Geena Davis' character complains about the challenges of being on the road to meet the game schedule. Tom Hanks' character replies, "If it wasn't hard, everyone would be doing it. It's the hard that makes it great."

This is common phrase we hear, but which is often ignored. Particularly as it relates to organizational excellence. We operate in a global business culture focused on short term results, driven by Wall Street quarterly earnings reports. This drives behaviors such as "plug and play" systems and tools that amount to nothing more than "flavor of the month" or in the words of Tom Hartman, former Senior Director of Lean Consulting, Director of Operations at Autolive, "Just another program." These behaviors disenfranchise the people doing the work and inevitably produce a culture of compliance, rather than a winning performance culture.

I'm reading an intriguing book entitled, "A Woman of No Importance," about an American woman, also during WWII, with one leg that was the most prolific spy for the Allies, in the French theater of war, if not the entire European Theater. She was underrated, first because she was a woman, and second because of her disability. However, she saw what others deemed to be weaknesses, as considerable strengths. Throughout the book, no one really took her seriously, and she played to that in nearly every situation.

A fascinating read for sure. Not only does it provide insight as to how diversity is a competitive advantage, but Sonia Purnell, author of the book, cited comments from some of the agents she interviewed, or reports she read in her research. Please indulge me a moment...

"There are endless nightmares of uncertainty...

"Agents had to find the strength to go on from within themselves, but there were precious few who could do so."

That sounds like classic, "If it wasn't hard, everyone would be doing it."

We live in a world that craves and embraces certainty. Yet, certainty is ever more elusive. Particularly post-pandemic. There is nothing certain about organizational excellence either. Organizations, and the people within them, have to "find the strength to go on within themselves..." So how is this done?

Understand It's a Long Game

This is the embodiment of the third Shingo Guiding Principle, the first Shingo Guiding Principle for the Continuous Improvement dimension of the Shingo Model, "Seek Perfection." What is the aspiration? What is the North Star? It should be concise and accessible. I know of an organization that has a very wordy purpose. People within the organization cannot remember it and so therefore, it is inaccessible. Autoliv has a North Star that is very simple and highly accessible, "We Save Lives." Nearly everyone working there relates to that purpose and most will tell you what they do in terms of how they are saving lives. If purpose is both concise and accessible, it is much easier to align and commit to it.

Build a Performance Culture

I can't say enough about this. If you have a culture of compliance, results are the product of a push system. They are not sustainable. Push systems are known for the inventory buildup they produce. A culture of compliance produces an inventory of meaningless results ("we measure everything") and a buildup of tools and systems that are either inefficient or not really used. When the boss leaves the room, compliance leaves the room with the boss.

If you build a culture where people are committed to what they do, where they are aligned across the enterprise, where there is open and honest communication in every possible direction, where people feel valued as individuals and for what they do, the culture itself becomes a pull system. A pull for the right systems and tools at the right time. As the culture improves and evolves, so do the systems and tools. Inventory is minimized for those systems and tools, as well as any physical inventory from and within the value streams. A culture of commitment evidences an embodiment of the purpose of the organization, within the majority of the people, i.e., Executives, Managers and Team Members. When the boss leaves the room, commitment stays in the room after the boss leaves.

Develop Organizational, Operational and Personal Discipline

Organizational Discipline is when the Executives are aligned on building a culture of commitment around the purpose of the organization and stay the course to see it realized. This means when the opportunity presents itself to bring on or promote new leaders, in the words of Jim Collins, getting the right people on the bus. No heroes. The hero mentality does more to undermine sustainable results and organizational excellence than nearly any other aspect of culture.

Operational Discipline is helping everyone, Executives, Managers and Team Members, to understand that only in following the procedure(s) will we find the opportunities to improve things. When we don't follow the procedures, we have a difficult time understanding our results and improving them. This requires commitment, which takes us back to culture.

Personal Discipline is a tough one, but it can be mastered. It really means coming to a personal understanding that a what I do as an individual, impacts the team, the department, the site and the enterprise. It takes personal discipline to align with the purpose of the organization. This alignment is a commitment, which again, takes us back to culture.

Don't Let Things Get Stale

This requires organizational, operational and personal discipline. The organization should be constantly evolving and improving, at every level, by everyone, all the time. I was once visiting the site of the company that pioneered recognition systems, where points can be accumulated and spent for goods and services. We were talking with team members about change. One of the team members we were talking to said something that astounded me so much, you could have knocked me over with a feather. She said, "To be honest with you, we get really uncomfortable when we are not changing."

Would that that had been the case with Sears, or Blockbuster or any number of great organizations that once were. Not letting things get stale is a function of the three disciplines, which are enabled by a culture that is purpose driven.

If it wasn't hard, everyone would be doing it. It's the hard that makes it great.