In my last post, I wrote about the difference between Change and progress. Today, let’s talk about progress from the point of view of improvements.
In one of his lectures, Peter Scholtes talks about 5 ingredients of true improvement.
- The proposed change or improvement is rooted in deep awareness of our customers (internal or external) – their concerns and how they apply what we supply.
- The proposed change or improvement is important to the business and is acknowledged by our customers (internal or external) as something of value.
- The approach to the change is disciplined, logical, data-based and most importantly addresses the root causes of the issue being solved.
- The change is supported by subject matter experts and is deeply rooted in the understanding of how this will affect all the different parts of the system at large.
- The change or improvement is translated into clearly articulated and laid down operational steps for the same to become standard operating procedure.
While his lecture is at least 30 year old, the principles he laid out still are practical and applicable to any innovation or change or improvements that we make in how we run our business. This is true for any innovation efforts or for any change that we want to make as a leader in how we operate.
PS: If you are interested in watching the original lecture from which I have listed down these principles, you can do so here.
