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| Volume 3, Issue 12 - December, 2004 • Agility for Sustainability High Engagement, it’s not your standard Employee Motivation Sometimes, I think we overlook the fact that the rules of the game have changed as well. Early on in my career, businesses were evaluated by the amount of assets or “Retained Earnings” showing on their books. “Good Will,” used to be a bone of contention in determining the real value of an organization. Today, little if any attention is paid to “Retained Earnings” as we have switched to measuring “Return on Investment” and other measures of efficient use of capital. In part, efficiency has become the key instead of asset accumulation because a product and process that is generating a profit today may be tomorrow’s buggy whip. Change in our environment and change in the rules we are measured by all point to the need to be adept at change. To me, an agile organization is one that is proficient at change. It can do anything it wants, whenever it wants. There have been lots of different operating strategies presented over the last few years to help us transform our organizations to higher levels of performance. These strategies include, LEAN, TQM, Continuous Improvement, SMED, Process Reengineering, Mass Customization and others. Sadly many of the efforts to implement these strategies have failed not because the strategy was wrong, but rather because agility was missing in the organization. Agility is a people issue not a strategy or process issue. Successful adoption of operating and transformational strategies will happen much faster and with less expense as an organization becomes more agile. Like evolution and mutation in living organisms, organizational adaptability or agility is a core survival requirement. Achieving agility in an organization is contrary to the way most of us were trained to manage. Most management training even today is still based on the work of Frederick Taylor. It is an approach to management that worked well at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but is sadly out of date in today’s highly sophisticated world where computers, cell phones, the internet, radio and television are commonplace and workers are better educated and more involved in their world than ever before. As I witness the changes in organizations, I become more convinced daily that all of the process improvements in the world will not by themselves
solve the problems facing organizations. It is time for a new approach to management that involves people in the issues that affect them leading
to engagement, creativity and commitment in the workplace. Jack Stack in his book The Great Game of Business makes the case when he says, “…productivity
depends on people. I don’t disagree that machines can make you more competitive. They can absorb overhead. They don’t take breaks. They
don’t go on vacation. They don’t sit around wasting time. What machines can’t do is figure out how to make money. Only people can
do that. If you have people who know how to make money, you’ll win every time.” Not only do groups make better decisions, but once agreed to, the decisions are far easier to implement and have much greater likelihood of success. More and more research points to the advantages of group engagement and decision-making. It is no longer a matter of why you should adopt a high engagement strategy with your people to gain agility, but rather how to implement this process. Roadway is a trucking company that is currently implementing a high engagement strategy in their organization with some tremendous successes. Their approach includes three elements and may very well be the model for other organizations. The three elements of their program are: 1.) Education, 2.) Tools, 3.) High Engagement. First, Roadway is spending a lot of time educating their people about the business. They have adopted much of the thinking from Jack Stack’s book, “The Great Game of Business.” The key is to help their employees understand the financials of the business and how they affect the numbers. Second, they have trained their people in the basic principles of LEAN so that they can evaluate current processes and procedures and have a basis for making changes that will positively affect the bottom line. Finally, they have adopted and use a positive approach to achieving “High Engagement.” Rather than focusing on the problems in the company, they have chosen to look at the strengths of the company and build on those strengths using David Coopperrider’s 4D model for positive change. The results at Roadway have been impressive. There are many stories of success at individual terminals that are now being shared across the company and in the meantime just one of the measures they use has recorded a $10 million improvement over the last 4 years. Roadway is rapidly developing Agility to help them face a very competitive and rapidly changing world. Without it, they would most likely not have survived. If you need to become more agile or have undertaken operational or transformation strategies that didn’t get the results you wanted, give us a call to discuss how you can use “High Engagement” to achieve sustainability. • OptiLedge System the pallet alternative • Happy Holidays! If you have a subject that you would like to see covered in future issues of “Taking Aim,” please send me an email at aim@CannonAdvantage.com.
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Robert E. Cannon "Best Practice" Sales Force
Development Change Management Customer Service Assessment for ISO Requirements Smart Thoughts from Smart People – “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not get bent out of shape.” Anonymous
"The best proof of love is trust." Dr. Joyce Brothers
"Getting people to like you is simply the other side of liking other people." Norman Vincent Peale
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." Leo Buscaglia
Taking Aim © 2004 Bob Cannon, The Cannon Advantage Newsletter. All Rights Reserved. The Cannon Advantage visual branding by Zarney Creative. For contact information, click “Resources.” |
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