Transforming Organisational Excellence with CI – Chapter 5: Integrating Continuous Improvement into Organisational Culture
You are convinced that Continuous Improvement (CI) can help your organisation in many ways, such as reducing waste in processes that take up your valuable resources – people’s time. However, you can’t do this alone, not when you are in an organisation. Unless you are in senior management, you will need their support.
This chapter explores how companies can successfully embed CI into their organisational culture, starting with management leading by example. CI is more than a set of tools or techniques; it is a mindset that requires engagement from every team member (employee) and a strategic commitment from leadership.
1. Leadership Commitment and Vision
CI begins with the leadership of every organisation.
For CI to thrive, leaders must embody the principles they promote, which means setting a clear vision for the organisation. CI should not be seen as an optional initiative; it should instead be viewed as a fundamental driver of success. Leaders must communicate the “why” behind CI and, most importantly, demonstrate it in their actions. Taking action creates a louder voice than not taking action and talking only.
How can leaders show their commitment?
Walk the Talk
Leaders can engage directly in CI activities like Gemba walks to show alignment with improvement efforts. They can also lead the creation of a CI Project to improve their work area. Let the actions speak, which is louder than voice.
Set a Clear Vision
Leaders should define how CI contributes to the organisation’s long-term objectives, making it a shared purpose. One approach is to define an objective and clearly state the key results to outline what achieving the objective looks like.
Invest in Resources
Leaders who are unconvinced of CI treat it as an ECA and a cost to the organisation. Instead, leaders should view CI as an investment and dedicate time, budget, and tools to empower CI teams. Show and demonstrate this commitment to the team.
Provide Recognition
When there is a small success, celebrate it. While the celebration might be small, it helps to reinforce positive behaviours and build momentum. Giving recognition helps tell people that this is the behaviour you are advocating.
For example, Toyota’s leadership continuously fosters its Kaizen philosophy, with executives directly involved in promoting efficiency improvements on the shop floor.
2. Employee Engagement and Empowerment
It’s key to focus on the people first.
Every team member is the lifeblood of CI, the agent delivering this to the organisation’s various corners. Frontline members and teams closest to the processes are best equipped to identify inefficiencies and suggest improvements. However, this requires an environment where everyone feels comfortable and safe enough to share their insights without fear of action being taken against them.
How can we encourage more feedback from the team?
Build Ownership
Allow team members to take responsibility for their tasks and their improvements. The best way for one to be accountable is for them to own it. Encourage initiatives from the ground up instead of always directing them from the top.
Encourage Idea Sharing
Create platforms such as suggestion boxes, online feedback or regular sharing sessions to enable ideas to be shared and flow freely among everyone. This also helps ideas build upon each other, aiding creativity.
Create Cross-Functional Teams
Forming teams beyond one’s department or domain encourages collaboration across departments to address systemic issues holistically. This helps diversify thinking and broaden perspective.
Reward Contributions
Recognise team members by rewarding those who contribute to CI, fostering a culture of continuous participation. This also sends a signal that management encourages management encourages this behaviour. A reward could be a dedicated parking lot for those who drive or a lunch with the senior management.
A notable example is 3M’s innovation policy, which allows team members to spend 15% of their time working on personal projects. This investment in empowering individuals has led to breakthrough innovations.
3. Training and Development
Equip people with the tools for them to take action.
Training is a cornerstone of embedding CI into organisational culture. It helps to create awareness that people can apply in their daily work. Team members may lack the confidence or capability to drive improvements without proper knowledge. A structured approach to training ensures that CI principles, tools, and techniques are understood and effectively applied.
What can we do to inculcate tools & methodologies?
CI Workshops
Encourage the team to bring their specific problem or opportunity to a purposely curated workshop. Such a workshop introduces various CI tools relevant to the team and supports framing the project to solve the problem or exploit the opportunity.
On-the-Job Application
The best way to learn a skill is to apply it. Reinforce workshop sharing by relating it to potential opportunities or problems and encouraging participants to deploy the systematic method to approach the situation.
Mentorship Programmes
Create a sustainable culture by pairing experienced practitioners with newer members to accelerate learning and adoption. This will not only pass knowledge and know-how but also aid in exchanging thoughts that could enhance the programmes.
Soft Skills Focus
Train and encourage team members to collaborate and communicate to maximise team effectiveness. This helps build relationships and a willingness to accept differences in perspectives, which enhances cross-pollination.
For instance, General Electric’s Six Sigma training programmes have resulted in billions of dollars in savings through widespread operational efficiencies across the company.
4. Making CI a Way of Life
Applying helps in making the knowledge sticks
CI is most effective when seamlessly integrated into daily activities. Instead of treating CI as a separate initiative or something extra, it should become “how we work.” Management participation and example leadership are key to creating this behaviour across the organisation.
How can CI be embedded into our daily activities?
Standard Work
Define and document the best-known way to perform tasks to ensure repeatability and reproducibility. A clearly defined process can be applied in almost any area where team members perform repeated tasks, even when these tasks are repetitive and performed in different places.
Daily Briefs
You can decide on the frequency of this meeting depending on your type of work. The focus is to enable team members to discuss progress, roadblocks, and new opportunities for improvement. To make it concise, you can conduct this meeting standing up or in a plank position, whichever suits your team.
Tools and Frameworks
Many tools are available; you must determine those relevant to your domain. Generic tools include PDCA cycles to structure problem-solving and 5S to maintain organised workspaces. While the organisation can recommend tools and define a framework, the team must also be able to choose those that apply to their circumstances.
Objective & Key Results
The improvement work ought to aim to achieve SMART outcomes. Leaders must regularly review these measurables to identify areas needing refinement or adjustment and allow different teams to share and learn from each other.
5. Measuring and Sustaining Improvements
Make it a habit that stays.
Measuring CI’s progress is vital to sustaining momentum and demonstrating its value to stakeholders. CI initiatives can lose focus and relevance over time without clear metrics and sustained efforts. It is also key to avoid expecting success the first time around; learn to accept failures and use them to pave the way to success.
How can we measure and make this sustainable?
Set relevant KPIs
Define what success means to you and what needs to be shown to tell you this clearly – measurements such as lead time reduction, error rates, resource reduction, or customer satisfaction scores.
Use Visual Management Tools
A picture tells a thousand words, and words could take longer to tell a story. Implement dashboards and scorecards to track progress and highlight performance trends. Use symbols that are universally known to prevent misrepresentation.
Conduct Regular Audits
Periodically review CI initiatives to assess their impact and identify areas for further improvement. Encourage open reporting if something is not working well, and do not “kill the messenger,” as this could silence the whole team and set things back to the “Stone Age.”
Start Slow and Small
“When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes.” Do it hastily, and you will lose the pace. Expect immediate mega-gain, and people will reject it.
Conclusion
Developing CI into an organisational culture takes time, and one should expect progression instead of perfection. Leadership commitment, team members’ engagement, training, daily integration, and robust measurement systems are all essential to making it work and stick.
CI brings many benefits to an organisation, both tangible and intangible. While improvements made that are intangible are often thought of as not meaningful (as they do not affect the bottom line), they cannot be measured. Can we tag a price to safety? How much are we losing when team members leave?
When an organisation integrates CI and makes it a habit, it enables innovation, reduces waste, encourages sustainability, and fosters a resilient and adaptive organisation.
While it’s not an easy task, it’s not that difficult too.
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