The other day I was listening to an Egyptian intellectual being asked about the development of the country’s new constitution.  When asked if this should be done on religious or secular grounds he replied suggesting that this was not the right question; the issue was should it be drawn up by draughtsmen or dreamers?

I think this same distinction applies in business when leaders need to develop strategies and change plans.  Luckily for most businesses this is not a once in a lifetime opportunity like the challenge now facing many countries in the wake of the Arab spring.  So the choice is not really either / or.  Leaders must have the ability to do a little of both and have the wisdom to know how much of each is required in a given situation.

In these austere times, when survival is the name of the game then undoubtedly the skills of the draughtsman must win out.  Careful, disciplined attention to detail is the most effective way to eliminate waste without cutting in to the capabilities that will be so vital when recovery opportunities appear.

However no business ever cut its way to glory.  There must be a time for ambition and there is a time when leaders must have the courage to dream a little.  In previous posts I’ve quoted king Solomon – “Without vision the people shall perish”.  A business perpetually run by draughtsmen is a dull and uninspiring place to be.

Survival comes at a price.  It’s the leader’s job to ensure that it doesn’t come at too great a price.

While Einstein was working on his theories of relativity he still found time to philosophise and came up with this neat definition:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

From a business perspective this resonates in two ways:

If a business wants to achieve different outcomes then it needs to change something about the way it does things – if you want change you have to change.  It’s simple enough but too many businesses still produce business plans that anticipate miracles but then fail to put the effort and resources in to a properly focussed change project!

However, that ‘obvious’ interpretation of the quotation is not the only one.  As a scientist (well actually I’m an Engineer) lets just re-order the equation.

Once you’ve redesigned your business and implemented new processes they need be capable of producing repeatable outcomes. So our definition becomes:

“If you want a process to produce the same results then it would be insane to do anything other than the same things over and over again”

Repeatable outputs come from capable processes driven by consistent inputs.

It’s easy really but too many businesses still expect consistent quality from incapable processes or fail to define, document and implement the process conditions that they want to create on a repeatable basis.

So next time you need to change something or need to justify process control just tell the boss it’s one of Einstein’s theories.

I was reminded of this quotation from Solomon (Proverbs 29:18) by a piece on the radio. While it was intended for an altogether mightier purpose it still has resonance in the corporate world of today.  Though let’s hope that the consequences of working without a clear vision are not quite so dire because way too many businesses still don’t have this sorted.

A clear picture of where the business is going is the single most important determinant of success in any change program.  In the recessionary times we’re currently in this is even more important.  We need people to act incisively and in a way that combines collective efforts in a single direction rather than fighting against each other.

A well-constructed vision is so much more than a series of financial targets.  It should inspire, motivate and explain to staff what the business is trying to achieve, why and with what sense of urgency.

Creating such vision is not always easy.  Many businesses try to do it by committee and this is always doomed to fail.  A vision is a personal statement of corporate ambition by the organisation’s leader.  Yes that should be devised following a process of consultation and from a deep understanding of the business but democratic charters always lack the necessary punch.

While the most effective visions are bold and deal imaginatively with challenges the business is seeking to overcome it must be rooted in concepts that are familiar to the people inside the business today.  There is little point in describing a future world that is so far removed from the realities of today that no one can understand what the leader is talking about.  If the business really does need to move into to such a revolutionary new paradigm then it probably needs to do it in a couple of steps.

Decide what you want / need to achieve and by when and then look back from the imaginary position of having achieved all of this and reflect on the blockages you will need to have removed along the journey.  Through doing this you will create a vision that describes how you will achieve the future by changing what it is you do today.

You’ll notice a theme beginning to appear in these blogs – we like to keep things simple.

Our view is that there are only three type of role in an organisation (though someone’s job may actually be made up of one or more of these).

The primary role, and interestingly in a conventional hierarchy these roles are often at the ‘bottom’, is the performing of value adding processes.  In a previous posting we’ve defined value adding as something the customer will pay for, something that converts inputs to outputs and something that is done right first time, every time.  Typically, in a manufacturing business these will include material conversion operations.

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Change is a fundamental part of everyday life – after all, we’re all getting older every day.  However, most people crave some stability and consistency in their lives.  It’s sometimes seems like watching TV with one finger on the Play button and one on the Pause.

In working environments I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to be part of a successful company and most actively want to do the best they can.

So why do so many change programs run in to trouble and what can be done to improve the odds of success?

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Great leadership is the single most important determinant of business success.  Without it few businesses can prosper and while it’s not a guarantee that you’ll overcome all the external factors pushing against your business, it is the surest way to give you the best chance.  The best thing about it is that it is one of the easiest things to affect, because it’s down to you.

The ten things that mark out a great leader are:

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Focussing the lean enterprise on value adding is at the heart of any excellence program – so what is value adding and how can you tell if what you are doing adds value?

Well many people have many different definitions but we like to keep things simple.

1) Value adding steps do things that customers care about.  The acid test is ‘will they pay for this’?

2) It’s a conversion activity or process.  It takes ‘inputs’ and changes them in some way to produce an ‘output’.  This output is either already in the form that the customer wants it or it becomes the input to a downstream process that converts it some more

3) This conversion process must be optimised to produce the output right first time, every time

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