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The Blue Yarn

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So, the blue yarn. What does it mean?

The best way to understand the blue yarn is to follow it. That’s exactly what Dr. Gary Kaplan did. In 1998, he was CEO of Virginia Mason Medical Center, which was losing money. As he searched for a better system to manage the hospital, he ‘wound up’ at a Toyota factory in Japan where he spoke to a sensei familiar with the Toyota Production System.

What he found was something very simple that, at the time, had been around for nearly 100 years. Sakichi Toyoda developed a self-correcting loom that could stop when thread was broken or defective. They ultimately automated the process and made it mistake-proof. This process is called Jidoka, or autonomation, and means automation with human intelligence.

Why Jidoka?

Jidoka is important because it stops a process immediately when a problem first occurs. Not only does it fix the condition, but it ultimately eliminates the root cause of the problem or defect. In an automated Jidoka process, equipment monitors its output (products) independently from operators, thereby enabling operators to operate multiple pieces of equipment and improve productivity.

Why the blue yarn?

Back to the hospital. The sensei used the blue yarn to map the path a patient would follow in a visit through cancer treatment. What they found was a mess. Cancer patients were already low on time and energy, but this ‘process’ had them winding all over the building in a seemingly needless pattern: a waste of time and energy.

When they ‘re-mapped’ the process, the savings from insurance expense alone were 37% and they were able to increase the number of patients without additional staff. Ultimately, they reduced patient receive treatment time by 50%. Dozens of hospitals have since adopted the Virginia Mason Production System. Based on a recent study of US hospitals, for two years Virginia Mason has placed in the top one percent in safety and efficiency.

Clearly, the flow of the process is one piece of the puzzle. Of equal importance is the decision to enable employees to: monitor a process, identify defects, stop the process, fix the problem, identify the root cause, and, ultimately, help eliminate the root cause of defects.

Imagine following a blue yarn through every step of one of your processes, including mistakes, corrections, delays, handoffs, miscommunications, etc. Recurring mistakes building on other recurring mistakes will create a big mess. Now imagine every person in that process having the ability to address those gaps and improve the process. Addressing the root cause will build a mistake-free and efficient process that is much cleaner and direct.

There is a method to achieve this. It starts with:

  • Clarity around your dream or whatever it is you want from your business (i.e., ultimate business outcome and whatever ‘freedom’ means to you)
  • Your mindset to achieve your dream
  • Your decision to use a methodology and management system to bring your dream to life.

 

Ready to achieve your dream?

 

Listen to the original story

Here: 99% Invisible – The Blue Yarn

Measure Your KPI’s

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We all are in business to make money unless you are a non-profit organization, but profit is not a manageable activity, it’s a “Result”.

Certain activities are directly linked to profitability like Sales and Expenses. Performing these activities more effectively leads to greater profit.

The accounting system is the historical “System of Record” that captures all physical transactions. Geared primarily around financial criteria, profit, cash flow, assets & liabilities. Measuring profits only is imperfect and influenced by many variables like inventory, sales cycles, timing issues and more. It is historical and therefore purely retrospective.

There is a better way, switching from past tense management to current and future-facing management. Here are the three Stages of Management:

  1. What happened (Accounting View – Financial KPI)
  2. What is happening (Real Time KPI)
  3. What’s going to happen (Future Facing Management – Leading KPI)

 

Weather forecasters are using radar to predict the short-term weather changes (we all knew when and where the hurricane would make landfall and could prepare in time). Leading KPI’s are like a Radar for your business. You can see the changes coming and prepare in time.

What leading indicators are critical in your business? Share your experience.

Innovation Metrics: How Do You Catch a Cloud and Pin It Down?

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Innovation Metrics seems like a paradox. Innovation is Thinking Outside the Box, it’s spontaneous, it’s dynamic. Metrics are measurements. Not only are metrics the box, they are the specific geometry of that box.

But Innovation Metrics are valid and useful, and implementing them can give you greater insight into the mysterious black box of creativity and spontaneity that many think innovation is.

There are three basic areas to measure when doing these metrics:

1) Inputs

2) Outputs

3) Processes

The Processes lie between the inputs and the outputs, but are often the mysterious black box where innovation happens. Inputs and Outputs are more obvious thing to measure.

Start with what you have and measure those things (e.g. new people, new strategies). Measure how the new strategies are communicated throughout the firm.

Start simple. Once you begin getting insights you can make your metrics more granular. An important start to innovation metrics is deciding what to measure. You should not try to take in all the data and measure everything. Keep it simple. Do a check after a few weeks. Are we measuring the right things?

Your company is already using metrics. One of the most important aspects of using innovation metrics is having a common language in the firm around innovative processes. Think about how you can use current methodologies and their lingo and apply them to your innovation strategy.

Do not merely measure for the sake of measuring. What are the metrics telling you? If they are not telling you anything useful, get rid of them. Applying an innovation methodology means not being afraid to scrap the methodology. It is not because of fear of change, but because it isn’t relaying valuable information.

This is what Stuart Hamilton has called “The Curse of the Methodology”.

The Curse of the Methodology: Instead of having the PM work out what needs to be done and then the PM taking care of it, (all behind the scenes), there emerged methodologies (PMP or otherwise) that try to ensure that the PM follows the menu of daily activities. Don’t get me wrong, a lean methodology to enforce good governance is a good thing, but on my last engagement, every project (big or small) had to lodge a minimum of 21 documents, and often as many as 40. These documents are lengthy, repetitive, and take weeks of the PM and other team members to fill out. Then they all go into the archive where they will never be read.

In the end, the most important thing is to have a common language in the firm in which to communicate about innovation and outcomes. It does not matter as much what methodology of metrics you use as much as it matters that everyone is using the same one, with the same language, conveying the same goal.

Leadership 101

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Many factors influence the success of an organization’s leader. Skills, opportunity, temperament and intelligence all play a part. I’ve observed and worked with leaders representing a broad spectrum of capability and eventual success. Despite the attributes mentioned above, leaders cannot experience real success unless they manage their direct reports and their employees in a consistent and respectful manner. Here are some of the characteristics that distinguished the successes from the failures.

  1. Leaders must model management behavior to their immediate subordinates, and from there throughout the organization. Double standards are unhealthy and so the way a leader wants his or her managers and supervisors to behave has to be the way the leader behaves.
  2. Successful leaders clearly communicate specific performance expectations to their immediate subordinates. For example, if you, as leader “let them do their own thing” you may have to settle for what’s inappropriate or what you don’t want. The belief that specific direction to management constrains individual freedom and initiative is incorrect. If you want to give someone freedom to act, then it’s imperative that you define the limits to that freedom. Managing by Dropping Hints never works.
  3. The best leaders don’t tolerate incompetence anywhere in their organizations. They hold people accountable for the expected performance.
  4. Top leaders see that procedures are in place so that direction of the work force is systematic, orderly, managed and not left to chance. By using them, the leader can positively influence how all people in the organization behave and perform.
  5. Successful leaders are not lazy — they work hard. Research shows that maintaining a healthy management climate requires a high and continuous energy output. A proactive leader can improve the probability of organizational success, whereas a laissez-faire approach is likely to cause the organization’s demise.
  6. Successful leaders know when to make decisions and they avoid excessive consensus and compromise. Poor leaders tend to avoid decisions if the consequences might upset someone: they defer the responsibility for tough decisions to others.
  7. In today’s world, leaders must have effective interpersonal skills for coaching their immediate subordinates (management and non-management) and for gently and relentlessly enforcing the organization’s standards of performance.
  8. Similarly, top leaders recognize and fulfill their responsibility to manage their executives or senior management. Executives require direction, coaching and support — they’re people too. Good leaders are more than aloof figureheads.
  9. Equity is crucial for trust and morale in an organization. Effective leaders don’t play favorites. They practice a high degree of objectivity and fairness in all their actions, especially with immediate staff.
  10. Communication is the blood-stream of every organization. The best leaders have control over the communication process between themselves, at the top, and those at the bottom of the organization. Communication blockages are systematically routed out and eliminated. For success, not only do leaders place a very high priority on open, timely and valid communication throughout their organization, but also, they make it happen.

Mastering the Follow-Up

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Mastering the Follow-Up

Everybody would like a one-call close. However, 99% of sales calls do not close in one call. You have to master the follow-up process.

At Josh Turner’s session on “Follow-Up Funnels” at Ascend 2017, he showed this graphic from a Microsoft study. Take a moment to absorb the graphic.

The Key Takeaways from this study are:

  • 85% of sales people give up after the second contact with a prospect
  • This is interesting because it typically takes up to five contacts to even become a factor in your prospect’s mind
  • By contact number eight, you are most likely the only person to make eight contacts with this prospect (i.e., you’ve officially out-worked the competition)
  • By contact number nine, you have a 90% chance of being the one who is called when your prospect is ready to buy
  • On average, it can take 12 touchpoints to turn a prospect into a client.

 

What are you doing to master the follow-up, out-work the competition, and turn a prospect into a client?

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