Are Improvements Sustainable?

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This is the most important question executives ask or should be asking themselves when it comes to reaching a new level of performance either by internal efforts or through external support.

 

Every year, when budget and strategic planning time comes around goals along with new and more aggressive performance targets are set, CAPEX are discussed and decisions are made in terms of sustainability, growth and expansion. It is all good if internally and within the areas of self-control the foundations are in place and accompanied by a consistent execution.
However, external factors will always be there and organizations should quickly respond and adapt.

 

Many believe that specific industries can sustain improvements through the ERP alone, this is an excellent, solid tool, however, like all tools, not used correctly can be damaging. Some people believe, that once improvements have been achieved, they can be taken for granted, allowing you to keep moving forward. Unfortunately that is not always the case, while you should be able to decrease the level of emphasis in areas that have achieved important improvements, it is always critical to maintain your resources in a constant state of alert while working on further enhancements.

 

Improvements are always sustainable as long as you’re able to manage the following, along the way…

 

• INVOLVEMENT: Make sure that those accountable to carry forward any improvements are aware of this and are fully involved in the process. Ownership is a key element in achieving improvements and sustaining them, the higher the level of involvement the better performance will be. Keep in mind that those individuals working day in and day out in the process are the key into identifying opportunities for improvement as they also hold the key into some of the most creative ways to make things better, if you don’t allow participation or minimize the level of involvement then you are paving the way for unsustainable results. 
  A manufacturing plant in North America was about to make an important investment in enhancing one of their key pieces of equipment at a great cost, engineering was ready to go for approval, however, when an external more detailed analysis was done and people working on the shifts was invited to participate, they came up with a solution that was easier to apply, at absolutely no cost for the organization and provided 15% additional capacity than what would have been achieved with the investment, what they did not understand is why the engineering team never got them involved in trying to find opportunities for improvement.

 

• COMMUNICATION: Every initiative that will consume time or other resources from the organization no matter how large or small should be communicated to all stakeholders, it is in your best interest that rumors don’t take over and underground communication does informally what you don’t communicate formally, the more open and clear you keep the objectives of your initiatives the more proactive your organization will be in supporting the outcome. Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about sugar coating bad news, if the initiative you are embarking on has a negative side you will be better served by a straight forward and well thought out communication strategy, sustainability will rely on most of the same people that are already in the organization and you don’t want to be left behind with a team that doesn’t perform due to a low morale or even worst, that has lost confidence in the organization. 

 

• RECOGNITION: Making sure that credit goes where it belongs, to the individuals that really make things happen day in and day out is a key sustainability factor. Make it important, visible and if possible, a big deal, people that are recognized for their efforts become guardians of what has been achieved and pillars of sustainability. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on this, but do spend the time to share with your teams and let them feel and hear how important they are in achieving company goals, you will find it an enriching exercise that goes a long way in making sustainable those things that got recognized. Think about this, has your organization ever had the “John Smith” improvement project in recognition for John the line operator who provided the basic concept or idea for a process change that meant multimillion dollars in cost savings to the organization?

 

• TRACEABILITY: Your Management Operating System provides you with key indicators, in order to run the successful daily operation of your business on your weekly or monthly scorecard you must have a section devoted to sustainability, what does not get measured does not improve, this being a principal that is typically applied when seeking leap improvements. Unfortunately, once a certain threshold is achieved, the natural tendency is that the metrics used to successfully get to the result get quickly dumped or delegated to the last page of a report that most of the time goes unnoticed. Keeping a set of KPI’s that include sustainability will help you stay at an improved level of performance.

 

• REWARD: Getting there is half the journey, staying there is key to success. Motivation is never going out of fashion, if you are making a transformational effort in your organization then you have to make sure that in order to keep everyone aligned and focused, you must make sure that your reward system, whatever that may be, weighs heavily on maintaining what has been achieved vs the generation of ‘new’ initiatives. Keeping the proper balance will allow you to sustain and generate continuous improvements.

 

• CONSISTENCY: Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is being consistent with something that does not have your fingerprints, there is no ownership and is easily dropped or changed, this is, in my experience, the greatest threat to sustainability. When executives get into new roles more often than not, the effort for consistency disappears, when this happens, it rapidly cascades down in the organization creating unnecessary risks, too many changes too frequently have no foundation for sustainability.

 

Bottom line, all initiatives are sustainable when these considerations are made. Make sure you seek external help to give you an unbiased view on how to better design sustainable improvement efforts.

 

By: Cristopher Del Angel, CEO at To The Top Management Consulting