Continuous Improvement could be hazardous to your organization
Buckle up. We’re going to get real.
If your focus is wrong, Continuous Improvement will fail and you will do more harm than good
Continuous Improvement programs are to organizational health what weight loss programs are to personal health. You might get short term desired results but when you focus on outcomes, you aren’t building and strengthening the fundamentals that create sustained results.
Interestingly, the failure rate of Continuous Improvement programs and weight loss programs are about the same: 95-96%. And, the amount of time and money wasted in failed Continuous Improvement programs mirrors the amount of net weight gain after weight loss programs.
The focus is all wrong and that’s why companies are failing.
Decades of implementing organizational improvement and watching companies succeed and fail have taught us
The 3 reasons why Continuous Improvement doesn’t work:
Limited Visibility
Continuous Improvement can’t thrive unless the Four Voices™ of the ecosystem (customer, employees, company, and process) are all thriving within it. Maintaining visibility of these four dimensions — both their impact on the ecosystem and the impact of the ecosystem on them — is fundamental to success. If you lose sight of any one voice, the ecosystem will slowly (or quickly) die and Continuous Improvement fails.
Misaligned beliefs and behaviours
Continuous Improvement doesn’t drive engagement and alignment; engagement and alignment drive Continuous Improvement. The Harvard Business Review says that improvement demands new behaviours and beliefs from leaders and employees. It lives in the collective hearts and habits of people who share a perspective on how and why things are done ‘around here’. Without that fundamental shared perspective, improvement programs lead to disengagement or disaster.
Low Improvement IQ
The ability to identify and quantify (IQ) the right improvement opportunities is a fundamental driver of Continuous Improvement. Without it, companies waste time and money driving changes that don’t improve outcomes — or worse, they drive destructive change in culture, company or customer experience. One of the main problems with Continuous Improvement programs and software programs is its potential to drive ideas into action recklessly, without Improvement IQ.
Caution!
Continuous Improvement Software could make it worse
If you’ve tried to activate Continuous Improvement, have felt resistance from employees, haven’t seen results, and you’re looking at Continuous Improvement Software to solve your problems, stop. It will make it worse. Continuous Improvement Software exists to drive change but, without the fundamentals, you’re just going to make bad things happen faster.
Software alone does not drive Continuous Improvement.
Faq
But, isn’t Cloe a continuous improvement software?
Yes it is, and so much more. We created Cloe to support people to DO Continuous Improvement and CREATE Operational Excellence. Cloe was designed with human beings in mind – to ensure that Continuous Improvement does work in the longer term. The result is a CI/OE Ecosystem that focuses on building and strengthening the organization’s fundamentals in order to create a culture of Continuous Improvement and sustained performance.
The Sounds & Symptoms of failed Continuous Improvement in an organization
Sound Familiar?
“This all about cutting jobs”
“We’ve tried this before”
“This is just creating more work for me”
“I wish they’d just let me do my job”
“They say they care about us, but they don’t”
“This is all just corporate brainwashing”
“This is just another flavour of the month”
“Customers aren’t happy”
“Leadership isn’t listening”
“These changes don’t make a difference”
“This is just making my job harder”
“This is a management burden”
“There’s no direction or reason for this”
“We keep making the same mistakes”
“We have processes for processes around here”
The hard and soft costs of Continuous Improvement done wrong
Destructive Cut
Customer and employee satisfaction
lost in ‘efficiency’ initiatives.
Decreased Morale
Employee skepticism, frustration, and
resistance to leadership initiatives.
Change Waste
Lots of investment in change that
doesn’t cause a meaningful return.
Should we abandon the pursuit of Continuous Improvement?
Absolutely not! But, with a paradigm shift toward how we pursue Continuous Improvement, tremendous value can be created and sustained long term for companies, customers, employees, and more.
A better way:
When we support businesses to activate the fundamentals, Continuous Improvement is the result.
Is the way you’re doing Continuous Improvement hazardous to your organization?
Book a call with Cloe to find out.