Ever since the beginning of industrialisation, there is no end to programs meant to bring the best out of organisations. There are time studies, Management-by- Objectives, Balanced Scorecard, ISO standards, Total Quality Management, Business Excellence Model, Lean Six Sigma, Design Thinking, Agile and more. While many are still being adopted by organisations, there seem to be no silver bullet. Each approach gets popular for a while before they receive criticism and fade away, only to be replaced by new-found fad. Why is it so difficult to get them to work for organisations?
A clue may just lie around us. In our day-to-day life, we may at times think about slimming down, getting fit, or introducing changes to our lifestyle. But it is rare to see people follow through and sustain the effort. Usually, there will be temporary success, before complacency or distractions set in and derail our efforts.
This is because our thoughts arise in formation and tend to follow the same comfort zone as in the past. Without any push/ pull factors or anchor, our behaviors will have the tendency to fall into complacency or mediocracy. In an organisation of many, complacency will tend to set in at all levels, from the leaders to frontline employees. It is common to see people giving themselves easy targets, and give excuses at times of failure.
In particular, programs that push for excellence often calls for changes outside our comfort zone. Much like athletes having to go through hours of laborious training and muscle aches to win the gold medal, employees also need to make uncomfortable adjustment to adapt to new changes. Organisations may push through the program and make it mandatory for people to follow, but it is harder to win the heart and mind and make the change lasting. Without the right anchors and control, the new behavior may not stick and there is always the danger of falling back to the status quo after that award is won or when there is a change in leadership.
The key in transformation lies in developing people, winning their heart and mind, and to establish anchors & controls to make the new behavior stick. It is easy to copy activities like suggestion scheme, work improvement teams and visual boards. But, it is more important and more challenging to develop people in their mindset, belief and habits. There is no shortcut about it.
In Toyota, developing people and respecting people’s ability and potential is centre-piece of their continuous improvement effort. They establish anchors and controls, like standard works, kata (routine for work and analysis discussion) and A3 reports, so that managers and employees develop PDCA habits in their daily work.
Like-wise, for any programme for transformation to be sustainable, it is necessary to develop people through the ranks so that everyone, from leaders to frontlines, has total understanding, belief and commitment in the change. The change must also be embedded into the work culture with anchors and controls, so that it becomes a habitual practice for all. It takes time, persistent effort, and a systemic approach and to make it works.
This is a tall call in many organisations. Uniting the hearts and minds and cultivating the right culture takes efforts & time, and is far harder than mandating compliance. Besides, it is often less rewarding for managers to develop people, than to simply deliver hard numbers and KPIs required. There is always the tempting option of proclaiming success with the superficial results (or blame the methodology), and then move on to the next fad to score new points.
This is why successful transformation is rare and exclusive. Only leadership team with the foresight, wisdom and commitment can pull through transformation successfully and make it last.
A reflection of David K 