Change should be exciting, stimulating and motivating……….

These days its pretty difficult getting people excited about Change projects.  There is never enough time, business pressures create enormous demands on the day and often the Change program is just not sold well.  So consider, how much enthusiasm and excitement are you going to generate by focusing on introducing the old traditional way of doing Lean Six Sigma?

The service sector and public organisations just don’t get it.  Okay, they understand the importance of quality and customer responsiveness but the tools on offer don’t create a compelling enough vision, to attract people to using them.

Until Behaviour Changes Nothing Changes

The service sector is client and customer focused and driven by people and processes. People who do this work are usually passionate about delivering error free work, and they can see the sense in changing behaviours and processes to better delight the customer.  Process improvement comes from behaviour change and emotional commitment.  It requires a process which engages with those who deliver or support those who are customer facing.

Changing Attitude has amore powerful impact than analysis paralysis

What is required to fix these problems is a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse the problems and start implementing tested solutions.  As well as using statistics to map the scale of the problem, record errors and failure, there also is a balance in developing processes which reflect new behaviours to resolve existing problems.  A greater balance between the use of qualitative tools and quantitative analysis is required and that is what Lean Business Transformation delivers.

We need more balance in favour of Lean Business Transformation, whilst valuing the use of  statistical analysis

Real change in organisations is based on changing behaviour and streamlining processes, cutting out waste and adding value.  Real change is about engaging and motivating people to want to contribute and take ownership of problems.  Real change never comes about by devoting oneself purely to statistical analysis. Lean Business Transformation will do 98% of that for you, so why the focus on Six Sigma? 

Stats can be really useful in context.  If you work in traditional manufacturing, have a steady state means of production, and things start going wrong with existing or even new product development – you need to start recording errors, assessing trends, establishing route cause, quantifying the scale of the problem and all this requires a degree of statistical analysis - exactly the same as you would in the service sector. But here is where the problem lies.

What about Energising people and using their Passion for change?

Traditional Six Sigma focuses almost entirely on objective statistical analysis, and there is very little which translates into resolving problems at the behaviourial level.  You know, change management’ is about engaging with people and getting them to stop doing those things that are not working, continue with those things that do work and immediately commence those things which impact improvement.

Passion & Processes Drive Improvement

Diagnosing problems requires an exploration and analysis of existing problems, anticipating and preventing new ones arising and generally taking apart, analyzing and reshaping processes to become entirely customer centric.  Service delivery is measured not just by product quality, but by creating an emotional experience for the customer or end user that wins their loyalty for the long term.

Behaviour Change & Process Improvement = Results

Committing to improvement requires a balance of change techniques which means reviewing what is on offer.  So, you may want to consider that change requires a shift in mindset, attitude reflected in behaviour and think of looking at a balanced toolkit to bring about that change.  Consider the Lean Business Transformation contribution and integrate this with statistical analysis, but let’s move away from assuming that every company or organization makes widgets, and that every solution can be boiled down to a statistical equation.

Ownership & Leading by Example

We were talking in a Lean Workshop just before Christmas about the importance of winning commitment from the top of the organization to the whole concept of culture change.  There were two strong views – one, that you needed ownership from the SMT, and the other, that installing Lean OD (Business Transformation) as a tactical rather than a strategic change tool –  eventually would impact senior manager’s thinking.

I guess they are both right – but the changes and the results will be that much powerful and longer lasting if we can focus on gaining commitment from the senior levels first. 

Change comes by Design, not by Accident

I was not surprised to find that the research under-pinning Lean implementation suggests a strong correlation between acceptance and ownership at the top, and successful installation demonstrated in a healthy order book and high customer retention and satisfaction.  Of course, we would all like to see a direct line between Lean installation and the Balance Sheet, but that takes more than figures from a few quarterly results.

Deep Change, not Cosmetic

What is clear is that if Lean Business Transformation (LBT) is seen as a training exercise in controlling production processes solely, then any change in the rest of the organisation is going to be seen as cosmetic and only skin deep.

I made the point that an organization can make very little progress in implementing LBT without ownership from the top.  Not everyone has to be on board – but there must be some commitment from other than manufacturing or operational staff.

Change to a Customer Centric Culture

I am a practical guy when it comes to change - I don’t expect everyone to jump up and down and praise LSSOD for being the panacea to cure all ills – but giving it a chance and recognising that LBT is not just about changing and improving production processes, but more about changing the culture to becoming customer centric, and people to assume the behaviours that support that culture.

It is not just ‘customer facing’ staff that should be equipped with LBT – what about those supporting staff who are ‘customer facing’ participating in continuous improvement?

Energy, Passion through Leadership

I guess that’s we concentrate on the Business Transformation element of the LBT formula.  To bring about real change you need passion, behaviourial change and process improvement, but you will not get that without some degree of Leadership from the top.