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understand and believe in the benefits of the improvement approach
communicate the principles and techniques of improvement
participate in the improvement process
formulate and maintain a clear ‘improvement strategy’.
Chapter 20 Organizing for improvement 621
This last point is particularly important. Without thinking through the overall purpose and
long-term goals of improvement it is difficult for any organization to know where it is going.
An improvement strategy is necessary to provide the goals and guidelines which help to
keep improvement efforts in line with strategic aims. Specifically, the improvement strategy
should have something to say about the competitive priorities of the organization, the roles
and improvement responsibilities of all parts of the organization, the resources available for
improvement, and its overall improvement philosophy.
Senior managers may not fully understand the improvement
approach
In Chapter 18, we described how there were several (related) improvement approaches.
Each of these approaches is the subject of several books that describe them in great detail.
There is no shortage of advice from consultants and academics as to how they should be
used. Yet it is not difficult to find examples of where senior management have used one or
more of these approaches without fully understanding them. The details of Six Sigma or lean,
for example, are not simply technical matters. They are fundamental to how appropriate the
approach could be in different contexts. Not every approach fits every set of circumstances.
So understanding in detail what each approach means must be the first step in deciding
whether it is appropriate.
Avoid excessive ‘hype’
Operations improvement has, to some extent, become a fashion industry with new ideas
and concepts continually being introduced as offering a novel way to improve business
performance. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Fashion stimulates and refreshes,
through introducing novel ideas. Without it, things would stagnate. The problem lies not
with new improvement ideas, but rather with some managers becoming victims of the process,
where some new idea will entirely displace whatever went before. Most new ideas have
something to say, but jumping from one fad to another will not only generate a backlash
against any new idea, but also destroy the ability to accumulate the experience that comes
from experimenting with each one. Avoiding becoming an improvement fashion victim is
not easy. It requires that those directing the strategy process take responsibility for a number
of issues.
(a) They must take responsibility for improvement as an ongoing activity, rather than
becoming champions for only one specific improvement initiative.
(b) They must take responsibility for understanding the underlying ideas behind each new
concept. Improvement is not ‘following a recipe’ or ‘painting by numbers’. Unless one
understands why improvement ideas are supposed to work, it is difficult to understand
how they can be made to work properly.
(c) They must take responsibility for understanding the antecedents to a ‘new’ improvement
idea, because it helps to understand it better and to judge how appropriate it may be for
one’s own operation.
(d) They must be prepared to adapt new ideas so that they make sense within the context of
their own operation. ‘One size’ rarely fits all.
(e) They must take responsibility for the (often significant) education and learning effort
that will be needed if new ideas are to be intelligently exploited.
(f) Above all they must avoid the over-exaggeration and hype that many new ideas attract.
Although it is sometimes tempting to exploit the motivational ‘pull’ of new ideas