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The Blue Yarn

October 8, 2018 by Chris Scherer Leave a Comment

 


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?

  • Email me so that we can learn more about your business: chrisscherer@ceofocusmi.com
  • Join our Facebook group for key insights: https://www.facebook.com/groups/StressfulToSuccessful/

 

Listen to the original story

Here: 99% Invisible – The Blue Yarn

Filed Under: 0 Organizational Profile, 0.2 Organizational Situation, 0.2c Performance Improvement System, 3 Customers, 3.1 Voice of the Customer, 3.2 Customer Engagement, 3.2a Product Offerings and Customer Support, 3.2a.(1) Product Offerings, 3.2a.(2) Customer Support, 3.2b Customer Relationships, 3.2b.(1) Relationship Management, 3.2b.(2) Complaint Management, 4 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management, 4.1 Measurement, Analysis, and Improvement of Organizational Performance, 4.1a Performance Measurement, 4.1b Performance Analysis and Review, 4.1c Performance Improvement, 4.1c(1) Best Practices, 4.1c(3) Continuous Improvement and Innovation, 4.2 Knowledge Management, Information, and Information Technology, 4.2a Organizational Knowledge, 5 Workforce, 5.1 Workforce Environment, 5.2 Workforce Engagement, 6 Operations, 6.1 Work Processes, 6.1a Product and Process Design, 6.1b Process Management, 6.1c Innovation Management, 6.2 Operational Effectiveness, 7 Results, 7.1 Product and Process Results, 7.2 Customer-Focused Results, 7.2a Customer Satisfaction, A Core Values and Concepts, A.01 Systems Perspective, A.03 Customer-Focused Excellence, A.04 Valuing People, A.05 Organizational Learning and Agility, A.06 Focus on Success, A.07 Managing for Innovation, A.11 Delivering Value and Results, Uncategorized

Four Barriers to Business Transformation

February 12, 2018 by Jim Adkins Leave a Comment

As I have led or been involved with dozens of business changes, I get asked often, “What makes you so successful?”  I might offer up a different perspective, “What can stop a business transformation in its tracks?”  In my experience it boils down to four things:

  1. Spotting the Need to Change

There’s an old line, “Watch out for the truck…behind the bus.” If we’re looking the wrong way, it’s easy to miss the change bearing down on us from a trigger event somewhere else.

Most of us in most of our firms are experts in our small little space in the universe, and we focus all of our energies on understanding and mastering the rules of the game in that space. Those fancy terms, dominant logic and market myopia are our real adversaries here.

They blind us to the truck behind the bus.

They keep us from seeing the impending systemic disruption. And our own biases and experiences keep us falsely optimistic in the face of big changes in our arena.

  1. Extreme Organizational Pride

Marshall Goldsmith famously suggested in business, “What brought you here won’t take you there.” Proverbs more famously suggested, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Sometimes, culture is the problem. There’s truth but not a foregone conclusion that culture eats strategy for lunch. (I push back in my article, Sometimes Strategy Must Eat Culture.)

In my travels, I’ve encountered more than a few organizations and the people in them predictably and proudly holding on to a past that was indeed glorious but is no longer relevant.

My friend mentioned above suggests this is the natural sequence of events for all businesses and those that have outlived their utility must pass.

Good, maybe great for awhile, and then as conditions change, gone. C’est la vie.

Alternatively, sometimes culture can be disrupted as well. (More in the next post in this series on knocking down the obstacles.)

Know that the passion and emotion surrounding resistance to radical change in your organization may very well be the last thrashing of a dying business.

  1. Incorrect or Incomplete Diagnosis

We all understand the importance of an accurate diagnosis for our health maladies. The same goes for business. Much like the organizational culture change issue described above, human biases, emotions, experiences deadly sins and failings all get in the way of cultivating and agreeing on the answer to the question, “What the hell is really going on here?”

Fail to answer that question properly, and the succeeding events move organizations down the path to decay and demise.

  1. Lack of Leadership Courage

Transformation requires asymmetrical bets on new strategies, markets, technologies, and investments. Our management systems are set up to optimize in the short-term, and throwing sand in the gears of the management system requires leadership courage that many lack. (Young child to Mom, “Mommy, what are gears?”)

We might understand what we should do, but putting oneself on the line for a hard change and an asymmetrical bet is a commitment many will not make, and a risk most won’t take.

Why I Don’t Blame the Management System?

I debated throwing the present management system in as the fifth big obstacle to organizational change. Indeed, it is a factor. Nonetheless, I believe it is leadership’s responsibility to drive the changes needed in a system leading the firm down to the path of destruction. A management system is a tool of leadership, and as a tool, it can be changed or adapted to fit the situation. The fact that we often fail to adapt our management systems is a failure of leadership.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Walt Kelly, the illustrator of the famous and long retired comic strip, Pogo, once suggested (drawing upon a quote from the War of 1812), “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

It’s always true. What’s not guaranteed is your organization’s failure in the face of existential threats. In my next post, we blow up these big obstacles. And remember, all it takes is courage.

 

Filed Under: 4.1c Performance Improvement, 4.1c(1) Best Practices, 4.1c(2) Future Performance, 7 Results

Measure Your KPI’s

January 15, 2018 by Uwe Wetzel Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: 4 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management, 4.1a Performance Measurement, 4.1b Performance Analysis and Review, 4.1c Performance Improvement, 4.1c(1) Best Practices, 4.1c(2) Future Performance, 4.1c(3) Continuous Improvement and Innovation

Are You Vulnerable

October 17, 2017 by Chris Scherer Leave a Comment

The primary goal of leadership is to have influence. Leaders should have the answers. They don’t need help. Right?

Wrong. Attaining leadership is more complicated than it might seem. How about leading through power and authority? Lead the way. This, too, has inherent limitations.

Why? What if he doesn’t know the way? What if this (whatever-it-is) has never been done? Power and authority only get you so far. They have a limited sphere of influence. They can maintain the status quo and strengthen boundaries. They might even extend borders, build strong walls, control or mitigate bad outcomes, contain and constrain you-name-it. A leader who wields power and authority to get stuff done inherently imposes his ‘way’, which is, by definition, limited.

On the other hand, the leader who has the courage to be vulnerable immediately creates opportunity for all possibilities. She opens the door to the unknown. She invites change, collaboration, discovery, evolution, growth, innovation, invention, questioning, transformation, and transparency.

The leader’s job is to enable this environment and provide a framework within which her team can influence reaching whatever goal lies ahead.

Are you courageous enough to be vulnerable?

Courtesy: Glenn Lopis at Entrepreneur

Filed Under: 0.1a Organizational Environment, 1 Leadership, 1.1 Senior Leadership, 2 Strategy, 4.1c Performance Improvement, 4.1c(1) Best Practices, 4.1c(2) Future Performance, 4.1c(3) Continuous Improvement and Innovation, 4.2 Knowledge Management, Information, and Information Technology, 4.2a Organizational Knowledge, 5 Workforce, 5.1 Workforce Environment, 5.2 Workforce Engagement, 6.1c Innovation Management, 7.4 Leadership and Governance Results, A Core Values and Concepts, A.01 Systems Perspective, A.02 Visionary Leadership, A.04 Valuing People, A.05 Organizational Learning and Agility, A.06 Focus on Success, A.07 Managing for Innovation, A.10 Ethics and Transparency, A.11 Delivering Value and Results

Categories

  • 0 Organizational Profile
  • 0.1 Organizational Description
  • 0.1a Organizational Environment
  • 0.1a.(2) Mission, Vision, and Values
  • 0.1a.(3) Workforce Profile
  • 0.1b Organizational Relationships
  • 0.1b.(1) Organizational Structure
  • 0.1b.(2) Customers and Stakeholders
  • 0.1b.(3) Suppliers and Partners
  • 0.2 Organizational Situation
  • 0.2a Competitive Environment
  • 0.2c Performance Improvement System
  • 1 Leadership
  • 1.1 Senior Leadership
  • 1.2 Governance and Societal Responsibilities
  • 2 Strategy
  • 2.2 Strategy Implementation
  • 3 Customers
  • 3.1 Voice of the Customer
  • 3.2 Customer Engagement
  • 3.2a Product Offerings and Customer Support
  • 3.2a.(1) Product Offerings
  • 3.2a.(2) Customer Support
  • 3.2a.(3) Customer Segmentation
  • 3.2b Customer Relationships
  • 3.2b.(1) Relationship Management
  • 3.2b.(2) Complaint Management
  • 4 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
  • 4.1 Measurement, Analysis, and Improvement of Organizational Performance
  • 4.1a Performance Measurement
  • 4.1b Performance Analysis and Review
  • 4.1c Performance Improvement
  • 4.1c(1) Best Practices
  • 4.1c(2) Future Performance
  • 4.1c(3) Continuous Improvement and Innovation
  • 4.2 Knowledge Management, Information, and Information Technology
  • 4.2a Organizational Knowledge
  • 4.2b Data, Information, and Information Technology
  • 5 Workforce
  • 5.1 Workforce Environment
  • 5.2 Workforce Engagement
  • 6 Operations
  • 6.1 Work Processes
  • 6.1a Product and Process Design
  • 6.1b Process Management
  • 6.1c Innovation Management
  • 6.2 Operational Effectiveness
  • 7 Results
  • 7.1 Product and Process Results
  • 7.2 Customer-Focused Results
  • 7.2a Customer Satisfaction
  • 7.3 Workforce-Focused Results
  • 7.4 Leadership and Governance Results
  • 7.5 Financial and Market Results
  • 7.5a Financial Performance
  • 7.5b Marketplace Performance
  • A Core Values and Concepts
  • A.01 Systems Perspective
  • A.02 Visionary Leadership
  • A.03 Customer-Focused Excellence
  • A.04 Valuing People
  • A.05 Organizational Learning and Agility
  • A.06 Focus on Success
  • A.07 Managing for Innovation
  • A.08 Managing by Fact
  • A.10 Ethics and Transparency
  • A.11 Delivering Value and Results
  • Baldrige
  • FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • The Blue Yarn
  • Crisis Management & how to overcome it
  • Creating a Learning Organization
  • Four Barriers to Business Transformation
  • CEO Habits to Develop in 2018
  • Will Your Business Be Sold Or Will It Fold?
  • Measure Your KPI’s
  • Avoiding Blind Spots
  • Who’s In Charge
  • Dream of Selling

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