Operational Excellence Methodology Desires

Transcription

1 Operational Excellence Methodology Desires Duvan Luong, Ph.D. Operational Excellence Networks In our everyday lives we all have objectives. Usually, the objectives are associated with obligations from work or from our personal lives. Regardless of where the objectives come from, our tendency is to do things to achieve our objectives; to fulfill the objectives as fast, as much, and as best we can. Operational excellence is the state of achievement for the work we do to fulfill our objectives. When we achieve the high state of operational excellence, we will have the respect and recognition for the work we do; the optimization of the execution to get results; the satisfaction for the achievements; the ability to sustain work performance and continuously improve our work as better, faster, and cheaper. There are three roles for stakeholders involved in the operational excellence effort: requester, actor, and coach. Requester is the role for stakeholders who have overall responsibilities for the success of the effort and the business involved. Requesters anticipate the needs for ensuring that all the necessary elements for the effort are in place and make requests to fulfill those needs. Actor is the role for the stakeholders who are responsible to act or to implement the needed requests that come from the requester. Coach is the role for the expert stakeholders who are involved from an independent perspective. Coaches provide appropriate and needed suggestions, guidance, and observations to ensure overall progress toward success of the efforts involved. Stakeholders of these three roles collaborate throughout the operational excellence implementation effort, focusing on their responsibilities to ensure its success. The operational excellence framework and its associated methodology were developed to provide the necessary implementation guidelines and practices to enable the achievement of the desired objectives at work. The operational excellence framework describes the structure and characteristics one can use to determine the desired level of operational excellence, understanding of the current level, identification of gaps, and improvements Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 1

2 needed to achieve the desired level. The associated operational excellence methodology includes the implementation guidelines and practices that enable excellence in one s efforts. The use of the framework and its associate methodology will enable the achievement of operational excellence by ensuring that: Executives desire and support the company s operational excellence strategy The company masters the capabilities to achieve the business objectives The company capitalizes the needed capabilities well The company has total visibility into its operations The company continuously improves its operational excellence capabilities There are 6 steps in the operational excellence methodology: Step1 - Create a burning desire for success Step2 - Turn desires into objectives for success Step3 - Mastering the capabilities for achieving the desired objectives Step4 - Achieve greatness in execution Step5 - Ensure the Operational Transparency Step6 - Continuous Improvement In the following paragraphs, the step1 of the methodology will be discussed in details; with guidelines and practices to enable the achievement for the main objective of this step the establishment of Executives desires and supports for the company s operational excellence strategy. The Executives desires and supports documentation and communication must be provided to the company staffs; this will generate the necessary fuel to fire the burning desire for the achievement of operational excellence for the company. Step 1: Create a Strong Desire for Success Success is one of those concepts that we all understand, and yet, in reality it means something different to each individual. There is no clear cut, universal definition of what success looks like because success is very personal and requires discovery by each of us. But what do we truly know about success? Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 2

3 Success can be the achievement of an action within a specified period of time or within a specified parameter. Success can also be completing an objective or reaching a goal. Success can be expanded to encompass an entire project or be restricted to a single component of a project or task. Success can be achieved within the workplace or in an individual's personal life. Success needs to be strongly desired! It needs to be intentionally sought after! Once the desires are formed and the meaning of success is defined, you need to pursue it with all of your passion, purpose and intentionality. You can t just assume that you ll accomplish your desires and achieve success even if you know what it might look like, you need to work hard toward it, and you need to work toward it passionately, energetically and strategically. People are moved by desire. Life is maintained by hope of getting one s desires fulfilled. Before you can succeed, you must have a desire for it. The definition of desire is "a wish or longing" for something. Desire is a feeling that typically arises from being in an unsatisfied state and wanting to reach a success state. Desire will prompt people to look for a more satisfying or rewarding state. Your desires are your dreams and visions. First you fuel the desire, and then the desire will fuel you - Napoleon Hill You must have the desire with your whole being. Desire is the fuel, the motivator and energy that propels you towards your success. It influences your thoughts and actions. Desire helps you overcome obstacles and draw inspiration from your subconscious. A strong desire, combined with visions of prosperity along with continuous action towards success, will attract the people to you. It will create circumstances and situations you need to be successful. All the great men and women of the past have known this. They all shared a burning desire to achieve their success. Thomas Edison experienced many failures before he perfected the light bulb. His desire to succeed never waned. The Wright brothers suffered through years of effort to make a vehicle that can fly through the air. Yet the strength of their purpose and desire allowed them to persevere until they successfully produced the first airplane. Henry Ford went bankrupt twice before the first Model T rolled off the assembly line, yet he never wavered from his determination to massproduce the automobile. To keep your desire alive, you can use the following simple tips: Write down a clear and concise statement of what it is you wish to obtain. Brainstorm about it with your team and partners. Outline what you intend to do or give to achieve your desires. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 3

4 Promise yourself to let nothing stop you from obtaining your desires. Read your desire statement over twice every day. A strong, burning desire to obtain and to possess the goals/objectives you are pursuing is the starting point for all achievement. For business Executives, strong revenues, positive financial bottom line, market shares growth, total customer satisfaction, absolute employee loyalty, etc., are among the top elements of success which a company must master and have under control. A strong desire for the achievement of operational excellence for company functions such as product generation, customer satisfaction, marketing, sales, etc., will provide a foundation upon which the company can build to achieve its business objectives. For the best outcome, the company requesters, in this case, Executives who are responsible for the success of the business will have the burning desire for achievement of excellence in company operations to drive business success. This burning desire will provide the necessary support and will become the assurance for the company success through operational excellence. The desire for operational excellence can also come from the grass-root efforts of involved actors. It will drive the achievement for individuals who desired it. The desire for operational excellence can also be initiated by the coach and planted or instilled it in the Executive requesters and appropriate Actors as seeds for the company pursuit of success. To sustain operational excellence achievements and propagate the results throughout the organization, buy-in from the Executives requestors is crucial and necessary. In the cases of the desires from both requesters and actors, coaches can provide appropriate and needed suggestions as well as assistance and facilitation in formulating effective and compelling desires that will drive achievement of operational excellence. The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step Chinese proverb The journey for the achieving operational excellence starts with the strong desire and commitment of Executives in the role of requesters. If you are among the company Executives, fueling your desire and motivating yourself with a desire for achieving operational excellence is the necessary 1st step. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 4

5 For Executives to effectively motivate themselves to have a burning desire for operational excellence, focus on understanding and answering the following questions will facilitate creation of a burning desire for operational excellence and its communication to others: What is the cause for your desire for operational excellence? For company objectives? There is no more powerful source for the burning desire to resolve a cause that you really care about, a cause that matters to you can inspire you indefinitely. It is a never ending source of motivation that you can always count on. The burning desire is the attempt to break the barrier between the current and past stalled or stagnating operational situations and future forward progress. Once a breakthrough takes place, momentum is born and your energy enhanced. So, if you want to know how to generate a burning desire for yourself, you ll need to decipher your own personal needs/reasons for breaking those barriers which denied your achievements in operational excellence and in company objectives. What has truly motivated you to have a burning desire for operational excellence? For company objectives? You need to know the real hot buttons inside your head, these buttons, once pushed, will light the burning desire and drive the action forward with nothing to down progress. Typical hot buttons for people can be related to: achievement, recognition for achievement, work, responsibility, growth, advancement, relationships, working conditions, salary, status, security, etc. Focus on understanding the desire for operational excellence and company objectives, not on how to implement them. Focusing on things takes energy and energy is the resource that starts progress forward. If your focus is spread out, your energy will be weak. You can t afford to worry about anything beyond the starting of effort and progress. Expanding focus will take place later, at the appropriate time, done by the appropriate people. By limiting your focus on the starting of the effort and initial progress, you harness all the power that your energy has to offer, creating a powerful effort for the breakthrough. So if you want to know how to create a burning desire yourself, you have to stop concerning yourself with the whole process. You need to focus on creating the burning desire to break the stagnation barrier. You have to know what you want but you don t necessarily have to know exactly how you re going to get there. Focus on a few key operational excellence and business objective hot buttons. Start with ones that motivate you the most and avoid or forget about unnecessary burdens or responsibilities that drain your energy more than contribute to the progress forward, trying to not get caught up in the day to day problems and distractions that come while trying to achieve anything worthwhile. You also want to defer the solving Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 5

6 of issues or problems that are more of annoying nature and focus on the more persistent ones that have higher impact on the business. Have confidence in taking a step forward. When you face the obstacles along the way, you may think about quitting, that it is too difficult to move on, that your desire is impossible to achieve. But this is where you can see the difference between winners and losers. Though both of them face the same difficulties, there is one thing that makes the winners different: the courage to continue, to move forward. In difficult situations, just focus on taking one more step forward. Don t think about how to complete the race, about how many more obstacles are waiting for you. Just focus on taking the next step. Think of your burning desire for operational excellence as the step forward to the achievement of company objectives. Have a big dream, set challenges and rewards for you. Having a dream is important because it s difficult to be motivated if you don t have anything to shoot for. You need a desire with a direction. That s what your dream is for. However, just having a dream is insufficient. Your dream must be big enough to inspire you. It must be realistic but challenging. It must stretch your ability beyond your comfort zone. To follow your big dream, you need to challenge yourself to achieve what you desire and tell people about it. By having other people know that you are setting out to achieve something, you have more motivation because you won't want to not achieve what you said you would do. When you are motivated to get something done, set rewards for yourself. Knowing you have a reward waiting for you when you achieve the desired objectives can really act as a spring board for you and you will go for your dream with a lot of motivation. Commit. Once you have in your mind the burning desire for operational excellence and company objectives that you really want, then you must commit to them. This is often an overlooked step but a vitally important one. If you commit 100% to achieving your burning desires, you will more than likely get them. You almost need to burn all your bridges and don t look back. Your intention is to achieve what you desire, no excuses. As you are going through the above tips, you will gain a better understanding of your burning desire for operational excellence and company objectives. This will be your powerful source of motivation that enables you to act, to carry out the necessary actions to achieve desired objectives. If you are the coach or actor who are passionate and have absolute belief in operational excellence as the success assurance for the company, you need to encourage and motivate your company Executives to have a burning desire for the company to achieve operational excellence. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 6

7 People are motivated when their fears are eliminated, when they are clear about the rewards for the effort they do, and when they are convinced of the correctness and the urgency for making the necessary changes to achieve the needed objectives. To the extent that they are eager to act, and keep acting, they will reach those objectives regardless of the difficulties they may face. To successfully motivate company Executives into having burning desire for operational excellence, you must know the needs, the fears and the motivating rewards of the Executives. With this knowledge, you can help eliminate the fears and to have a very clear understanding of the needs, challenges, but also rewards associated with the effort to achieve operational excellence. You must be able to instill the absolute confidence in them that it is the right solution for the company. The following guidelines will facilitate motivating Executives into having a burning desire for operational excellence: Earn the Executives' trust Establish your expertise and creditability in the operational excellence area by having recommendations from experts or well recognized people in the field. Use relationships. Find support within the company. Seek for experts or other Executives within the company who have involved in projects/works related to operational excellence or continuous improvement to help you pitch your idea. Make sure these people are enthusiastic and optimistic about your idea. Come prepared with samples of your prior work in the area. Make them feel good about what they can do to improve the company. Let them know they are helping the company by doing the right things. Point out their strengths, abilities and talents. Talk their language This indicates respect for their way of thinking. It helps to open others up and give you information that can help to motivate them. Communicate with clear, explicit information. Don't assume that they will know the discussed subjects Do your research Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 7

8 Try to understand the needs, the fears, the motivators, and the desires of the Executives whom you are trying to motivate. Know what ideas the company is already interested in or has worked on in the past. Know the elusive business objectives that have not been achieved in spite of significant efforts already made by the company to address them. Understand what types of activities and ideas appeal to the company. Talk about how operational excellence ties into the company's strategies and objectives, especially elusive objectives. Show how the operational excellence achievement will help further company objectives. Make the operational excellence idea part of the "big plan" Solve a relevant problem Get Executives attention on the idea of operational excellence by showing how the idea can resolve an issue for the company (e.g., cost reduction with quality improvements). Understand the challenges for the Executives whom you are trying to motivate. If you can't figure out how to help that Executive or help the company, you can't really motivate the Executives to understand the needs from which you are trying to fulfill with the proposed operation excellence idea. Pay attention listen and look. What do they say with their words? When and where do they show emotion? What are their values? Bring the executives into reality Be open with them. Explain your thinking on issues. Help them to understand the whys behind the needs for operational excellence. Use visions Executives like realizable visionary goals, those that they stand a good chance reaching but still require stretching. Executives are motivated even more by visionary goals they create. Be ready to address objections or weaknesses in the operational excellence idea. Don't downplay weaknesses. Most good ideas have Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 8

9 cynics. Be ready for objections and negative comments when you present your idea and have rebuttals prepared. Turn negatives into motivators If the Executive is touchy about something, is quiet and a loner, or is demotivated, look for the cause and try to help. By helping him/her to overcome difficulties, the Executive may respond. Make operational excellence exciting Give your idea a memorable or catchy name. People will remember your idea and be more willing to think about it and discuss it. Operational excellence is a catchy enough phrase; "operational excellence program" is a good enough name to use for the proposed idea. Use exciting words to describe your idea. You can help shape the way executives think about your idea with the words you use. Words like "innovative," "cutting edge," "state of the art," and "visionary" will help sell your idea. Let them clearly understand the rewards Executives want to lead the company to success. Try to have an open discussion with them about the current challenges for the company and the potential benefits/returns/rewards that associate with the achievement of operational excellence for the company. Typical rewards that get Executives attention are: Increased revenues Reduced costs Decreased employee turnover Improved customer retention levels Improved customer satisfaction levels Faster response time Increase Market shares Increase company competitiveness capabilities Minimized risk, etc. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks 2012 Page 9

10 As Executives eliminate fears, internalize rewards for their efforts, and become convinced of the correctness and urgency for making the changes to achieve the company needed objectives, they are likely to develop a burning desire for achieving operational excellence as the platform to reach the company success. They will be more eager to act and make progress to achieve operational excellence. The next step for the Executives to do is to turn their desires for operational excellence into actionable objectives and to start the progress by communicating them to the people in the company. Once the establishment of Executives desire and support the company s operational excellence strategy is completed, in the later steps of the methodology, Executives will need to translate their desires objectives into obtainable, realizable and actionable business objectives to set the direction and the final target destination for the company. Executives will continue to lead and drive the implementation of the operational excellence strategy by ensuring that: Necessary resources and time are allocated, Assignments are made for the implementation tasks, Appropriate progress reviews are put in-place for tracking the achievement of the objectives (both of the business and operational excellence objectives), Results of the operational excellence strategy implementation are recorded and published for all in the company to see, Improvement actions for failures are taken and rewards are given for individuals, teams, and organization that achieved the business and operational excellence objectives. Summary A strong desire for the achievement of operational excellence for company functions such as product generation, customer satisfaction, marketing, sales, etc., will provide a foundation upon which the company can build to fulfill its objectives, a mean to achieve its business success. The company Executives, who are responsible for the success of the business, should have the burning desire for achievement of excellence in company operations to drive business success. This burning desire will provide the necessary support and will become the assurance for the company success through operational excellence. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks Page

11 Step1 of the operational excellence methodology describes the guidelines and practices for the establishment of the necessary Executives desires and supports for the achievement of excellent in company operations to drive business success. Contents copyright Operational Excellence Networks Page