“Work transition is the silent killer of productivity of every organisation. Like a relay race, things quickly fall apart when the transition of the baton between runners falters.” ~ Jim Sinur

AFTER thinking about business processes for the past two weeks, MBA Forum participants may be wondering about the other possible performance improvement initiatives, some of which you may have heard of in the past.

There is a good article that you may access at esd.mit.edu/WPS/2010/esd-wp-2010-05.pdf, which reviews the following six initiatives: i) Lean Enterprise System, ii) Total Quality Management (TQM), iii) Six Sigma, iv) Theory of Constraints (TOC), v) Agile Manufacturing, and vi) Business Process Re-engineering (BPR).

Many of these initiatives have washed over the management landscape like a passing wave which has receded quietly, shortly afterwards. Each in turn has been labelled as a “management fad”, which has come and gone with the only change being that corporations have spent several million dollars with nothing to show.

The use of consultants

Many consultants who have been hired to assist in implementing these initiatives really mean well, and have tried gallantly to persuade reluctant managers of the best ways of implementing these changes successfully.

There is this Dilbert cartoon where the management consultant authoritatively declares to the management team in the room, “The first step is to identify your problems.” The CEO swiftly replies, “We don’t have any problems, what is the second step?!”

Also, many managers do not realise that consultants need to be managed, and if the working relationship is not optimal, then the initiative will fail.

Consultants bring to the table some valuable items, like a different perspective. This is important because many management teams suffer from group think — which means that after a while, people who have worked closely together for some time start to sound alike, respond to situations and problems in similar ways, and even start to think along the same beaten track. One must be aware of this — and realise that, for example, brainstorming sessions could benefit from participation of people from outside the regular working group. Another valuable item that consultants contribute is their experience gained from helping other companies.

However, consultants typically will not know your people and your culture. That is why I insist that managers should have Change Management and Process Management techniques in their management tool kits. Without these valuable skills, many of these performance improvement initiatives will, and have, failed.

Often the company hears of the latest and greatest management tool that will “save us millions and boost the bottom line”! They then hire a consultant, gather the employees together for a couple sessions, and the members of the management team ensure that whenever they have to address staff in meetings that there are one or two appropriately inserted usages of the current jargon — even if they are clueless about the meaning. So “Just in Time”, “TQM”, and “BPR” get used at critical moments.

Sooner or later, though, the consultant leaves and things calm down, the jargon disappears, and the company settles down to the same regular routine — without an iota of change.

So why business process improvement?

In Part 1 of this series, I indicated the difference between Business Process Improvement (BPI) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). I am advocating the increased use of BPI (or BPM — M for Management) as, if it is done well it can yield significant improvements. BPI/BPM is a fairly simple way of addressing broken processes, and the results can be pleasantly surprising. Even though all aspects of the various initiatives we mentioned earlier may not be relevant to all organisations, the fact is that some aspects are actually brilliant and would be more than useful. However, a common flaw is the extent and suddenness of the changes required. This is a recipe for disaster.

One of the main advantages of Business Process Improvement is its philosophy that the changes should not be immediate, deep and expansive all at once.

Please do not misinterpret me — to become an expert at Process Improvement is not simplistic, and the modelling that we will start looking at in subsequent articles in this series may be more readily appreciated by someone with some Information Technology (IT) background. However, if you understand the basic principles, and without technical IT training, you can start reaping great benefits from some “low hanging fruit”.

I must, however, strenuously remind MBA Forum participants that for BPI to be a success — and this goes for whichever performance improvement initiative you undertake — there are some simple rules that you MUST observe:

i) Apply Change Management tenets — which we reviewed in past MBA Forum articles

ii) Communicate comprehensively and aggressively

iii) Involve all the stakeholders, especially those you require to change

iv) You need more than just buy-in from top management, they should be passionate about, and involved in the initiative

v) If consultants are on board, a key deliverable should be to train selected employees to continue when they leave

vi) Whether consultants are involved or not, you need internal change agents who know the steps to achieve success, or the initiative will not be sustained

vii) Follow the money — the initiative must yield easily identifiable reduction in expenses or increases in revenues. Also, do not forget that “time is money”.

If ALL these seven rules are not possible, then chances of failure will increase exponentially. The change agent(s) should fight for all these or retreat!

Dr Kenroy Wedderburn, JP, is a part-time lecturer on the MBA programme at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Send your e-mails to drkwedderburn@gmail.com.