How to Achieve Sustainable Operational Performance
A change in leadership can bring fear and uncertainty to an organization, and a new leader must defuse that to begin bringing about sustainable change. And although new leaders must act quickly, they should not do so until they gain an understanding of the organization and the trust of its employee.
It is a mistake for a new leader to go in with preconceived solutions. Change needs to happen fairly quickly but not before the initial level of trust is built and the new leader gains an understanding of the opportunities the employees see and the obstacles they have faced. A new leader can create a culture of sustainable operational performance.
New Leaders Can Gain the Confidence of Long-Term Employees
When a new leader moves into that position, there are typically expectations of higher performance, so as soon as that leader can communicate those expectations to the organization, the better. It is important to convey that systems, processes and behaviors are going to have to change in order to achieve a higher level of performance. You really need to communicate that overall vision, that a higher standard is important, and then communicate why it is important in terms of your customers’ demands and what is changing in the marketplace.
Creating a Culture of Higher Performance
The CEO has to spend time one-on-one with the organization’s key leaders to understand their pain. Typically, these people want a higher level of performance as well. That really gives you the opportunity to start building trust with the team, as well as understand the landscape of the organization and what obstacles and opportunities exist. Change is scary, and new leadership can be frightening, so it is important to ask people what they are afraid of and address those fears head-on.
Implementing Operational Improvements
The most important thing is to identify the top four or five priorities you are going to work on. Then, you begin to challenge the status quo. Ask, ‘What would it take to create a higher level of performance?’ Then, to discuss solutions to the challenges, create a forum, which should include people across different functions in the organization, from front-line people to C-level positions.
Solutions should be sustainable and should aim to simplify, standardize and automate a process. First, to simplify, you need to eliminate waste in your processes. There is not a single area of an organization that does not deal with processes that have inherent waste and opportunities to eliminate it.
Once you simplify that process, standardize it so that you get a consistent outcome from now on. When an organization does not have standardized processes, it has difficulty moving past the same challenges because they continue to have different outcomes.
Finally, automate the process. Figure out how to take advantage of the technology you have at your disposal and how to leverage the system to automate those processes throughout the organization.
Encouraging Employees to Embrace Changes
You have to celebrate the trying. Even if you tried something and it did not work, it is still a win that you tried something different. If you are willing and open to trying different things, quick wins are going to come, but make sure that you celebrate not only the things you tried that worked really well but also when you tried something that did not work well. This will foster a culture of change at all levels of the organization.
Pitfalls New Leaders Make when Implementing Change
The first is not acting quickly enough. Many organizations are great at identifying their challenges and even at following through to develop solutions, but then they do not take quick, decisive action.
Another pitfall is failing to follow through. Many employees have heard the message in the past about maintaining a culture of continuous improvement, but it has not been followed through on. When improvements are not sustained, that responsibility resides with the leadership.
Finally, many leaders make the mistake of focusing on the draggers in an organization instead of on the performers. Focusing on the draggers and allowing them to maintain the status quo and not get involved in change is demotivating to the employees who are working hard to make improvements in the organization.
Ensuring the Culture of Operational Performance is Sustainable
Reward employees who are willing to drive change and identify solutions. Do not just have them go through the motions of attending a training class, but have them focus on external activities. Have them start to understand more about the external marketplace and really see other businesses and other business models.
They will come back with really great ideas, and one of the best ways to take advantage of training is to ask those employees to share their learning with others. You put them in a position of expertise with others, and that really starts to raise the average level of performance. Those people then become the removers of obstacles and the gatekeepers of resources, so that their leaders can then focus on improving and growing the business.