Next Level Leader Blog

Tips on how to speed collaboration and get great results

  

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I was having coffee with a colleague talking about speed, she was working on speeding up the sales cycle for her clients, I speeding up collaboration at senior levels of leadership.

Speed was the goal, regardless of what we were discussing. Why? No one has enough time in this connected world in which we are all bombarded with thousands of messages each day from somewhere in the universe. It's hard to think straight let alone get the important things accomplished.

So, what's the secret to speed? It's not moving faster!

That only gets more irrelevant things done, perhaps 10% more in any given day. We need breakthrough. We need to cut out things, not add more.

Story of slow:

One of my clients was frustrated with their continuous improvement process. The CEO wanted business results fast. Great business results! Most of the teams in his organization were taking 18 months to arrive at a solid recomendation for improvement of whatever they were working on.

I took a deep dive to find out why?

This is what I found.

1. Teams required a facilitator who was trained to be an expert in problem solving
2. They were using a methodology that had 14 steps for designing a new process
3. They had 7 steps if they were improving a current process
4. Many teams spend 4-6 months deciding which path to take
5. Most teams had been working on their challenge for at least 8 months

My CEO client was shocked and needless to say intent on doing something about it. At first, he wanted all teams stopped fully believing that a monster was created that had to be killed.

He asked me what I advised.

He had a real dilemna. His organization had launched a continuous improvement process for all the good reasons. His people were the brightest in their industry. All were delighted to have passed the rigorous requirements for getting hired by this well respected company. And, this CEO's employees were dedicated to the mission of this organization and committed to doing the right thing for their patients and other customers.

I could see that this CEO was between a rock and a hard place. Stop all efforts and he would demoralize everyone who had dedicated their time and energy to contribute their best. Let them continue would be to ignore a terrible waste of talent and resources. Waste was not something this healthcare organization could afford given the competition over price in the market place.

So, what did we do to speed the collaborative problem-solving process for achieving the most needed breakthroughs?

1. Reinstituted senior leadership reviews of all major initiatives
2. Required leaders to present their progress in measurable terms
3. Made decisions to accelerate and re-invest in the most important initiatives
4. Established a designated percent of budget for strategically vital initiatives
5. Conducted a rigourous executive level review of improvement priorities and committed targetd funds for the top 5
6. Established an accountability structure and process for each

These six steps eliminated waste by creating focus. Now, the top talent in this organization dedicated their time to the most important initiatives. They closed our their involvement with those initiatives which were not top on the list.

But what about speed? Did the top initiatives go faster? Yes, and here's how:

1. The laser beam of executive commitment got focused on the most important projects
2. The leader of each was held accountable for results and required to present progress reviews
3. No requirement was placed on methodology
4. Requirements for reviews were made perfectly clear
5. Recources were focused on these top initiatives and removed from the least important ones

This great organization re-discovered that focus created speed.

That's it. What about the process that was slowing them down? Did these leaders change their approach?

They most certainly did. Here's what this organization changed in process:

1. Achieving vital business / clinical results became the focus
2. Recognition shined the light on sound thinking, progress, and measurable results, regardless of the process used
3. Process improvement experts focused their consultation on achieving results rather than on conducting the perfect process
4. Expert internal consultants reported to the leader of the initiative, not the other way around
5. This organization simplified the imporvement process that was driving theoretical debate
6. Continuous improvement consultants were challenged to be useful in the eyes of each team
7. Teams were no longer accountable to the internal consultants but rather accountable to senior leadership

In summary: This CEO challenged his organization to achieve the results required for successful execution of their strategy. Speed and improved results were achieved through the following.

1. Focus
2. Simplified process (evaluated on ease-of-use)
3. Accountability (for business results)
4. Commitment of resources for achieving sound results (not for following a proscribed process