KaiNexus: Continuous Improvement, Leadership, and More

Kaizen events are an effective way to implement significant improvements in short order. They are used to tackle all sorts of issues from workplace organization, to process optimization and everything in between. Because Kaizen events are resource intensive, usually pulling people from their ordinary work for three to five days, it is essential to get the most out of every one. We’ve had lots of in-depth conversations with clients who’ve conducted rapid improvement events of all sorts. Some of them exceeded the goals of the projects, while others didn’t work out very well at all. Here are some of the things our clients have shared that can make all the difference.

Strategy Deployment is a hot topic in continuous improvement circles these days. We’re delighted to see that because effective strategy deployment can make the difference between reaching the goals of the organization in the expected time frame and failing to achieve the breakthrough objectives. Of course, strategy deployment isn’t easy and few companies really excel at the practice. Strategy deployment software has been developed to help provide a structure for the practice and keep organizations on track. We’ve had lots of productive conversations with leaders about how strategy deployment software can help smooth the path to success. Here are the questions that we get asked most often.

A post by Jeff Roussel, read by Mark Graban Every time we walk into a facility and see a Kaizen board, we are reminded about the excitement and sense of anticipation that most teams have when the Kaizen board is first introduced. But very often, when we ask front line employees about them the response is tepid at best. There may still be huddle meetings where the progress of each improvement is discussed, and a card might get moved from one stage to another from time to time, but the initial excitement wanes quickly and the whole thing becomes a chore. In many cases, we look a little closer and see that no new improvement work has been added for months or that work is stalled out with no movement in sight.

When I sat down to write about sustaining innovations, the word that popped into my mind was “entropy.” While entropy is a scientific term related to the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity, it is also used to refer to a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder. Entropy is a very real thing in organizations. Practices are implemented and improvements deployed, yet over time, things seem to revert to the way they were always done.

A common mistake companies make when rolling out a new culture of continuous improvement is to fail to provide leadership training to the people leading it. When you're responsible for leading a cultural transformation, there are a lot of unique leadership skills that you need to employ. You need to be firm and empathetic, have high but reasonable expectations, communicate effectively, be present - the list goes on and on. It's a hard balance to strike, particularly for people who don't have a lot of experience in a leadership position to fall back on. As such, many leaders cave under the pressure and are either too hesitant to be effective or become huge jerks that no one likes or respects.

Once organizations realize the value of daily continuous improvement and learn to leverage employee ideas for innovation, they often turn their focus on how to accelerate the pace of improvement. There are many ways that teams can get the most out of their improvement efforts. Workflow software is one tool that helps companies manage more improvement projects at the same time and pave a faster path to tangible results.

There’s an interesting thing about the definition of the word culture - it shares a root with the word “cultivate,” which means, “to foster the growth of; to improve by labor, care, or study.” Cultivation requires intention, action, and attention. Kaizen culture does as well.

Earlier in the day, at one of her company’s regular monthly meetings, she decided to offer a $100 bill to the first employee who could name all four of the company’s top-level strategic goals. What she got was crickets. Not a single person could name them all and few could come up with any of them at all. Ouch.

A blog post by Matt Banna Think about all the points of contact that customers go through with your company throughout their time in your sales pipeline and then as customers. Smart organizations realize that every one of these points of contact, frequently called touchpoints, are extremely important and valuable. Whether it's the first time you talk to someone, a customer changing their service, or a prospect buying your product, every touchpoint a person goes through shapes the way they feel about your company and influences their lifetime value.

Post by Sam Turner: "Achieve Performance Excellence with Baldrige: The Framework You've Been Needing"