Category: Quality

SHIFT HAPPENS...JOB CUTS and More...

29/8/2012

SHIFT HAPPENS

“If we don’t shift our intention, direction and action we will end up where we are headed”

SHIFT HAPPENS. So… start accepting it. Let go of trying to stop the change or slow it down. There are likely to be 7 billion other similar stories just like yours, they just have different characters and plots but the same underlying message. Everyone you talk to is sick of change. One approach is to be more effective rather than be affected by it.

Are you working in a stuck or non-stuck environment? If not….get yourself into a Teflon Team. Stop sticking to old habits, old processes, old teams, old whining and shift. There is a lot of bad press around the economy, job cuts, poverty, famine and war. It is serious, so get serious and SHIFT into gear.

Use all the gears to leverage your mindset and workplace to where it needs to shift.

In many facilitation exercises we talk about the current and future state, the important bits are in the middle…”the action state”…or the “shifting state.” The shifting state delivers targeted action, lots of it and regularly. Guess what? SHIFT happens. Most if it starts within the mind then shifts into behaviour.

“SHIFTING” is what I coined some time ago. It’s a deliberate process of shifting thoughts, behaviours, attitudes to develop a more adaptable, resilient and optimistic view in a shifting world. It’s a holistic process that deals with complex systems and aims to understand and respond to them with more agility and sustainability.

STRAINING…..Have you noticed how workplaces over-process, over-engineer, over-produce, over-change and over strain? It’s time to get over it…don’t you think?

UNDERSTANDING YOUR SHIFT

Whenever we change one type of behaviour or situation, we are losing as well as gaining something. In order to sustain real and lasting change in the workplace we need to change ourselves first. Everyone can shift. Shifting is challenging and requires effort but not straining. The juggling act is “knowing,” that is, knowing not to get caught up in everyone’s emergency, urgency or dramas. Of course we must balance what’s important and necessary. How you view or feel about a situation is always your choice.

So…SHIFT YOURSELF to think and do what matters most. Be more effective, be lateral, be creative, be a SHIFTER. Don’t get caught up in the change, we have limited influence and control over what people decide to change in the workplace but we can shift our focus.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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Strengthen Resilience in Change and Get Inspiring Results

15/3/2012

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Strengthen Resilience in Change and Get Inspiring Results

Have you noticed how many workplaces struggle with implementing change correctly. Unfortunately this impacts on the bottom line, customer service and workplace culture.

Dealing with resistance to change will be one of your greatest barriers and greatest successes.

Research repeatedly tells us that change initiatives fail due to poor planning and most of all poor change sponsorship.

Resilience in the knowledge worker economy is key to your change management success.

Our company provides both consultancy and faciliation to assist organisational and workplace change programs.

Lessons Learned

Some of the most common errors that I have found when consulting in transforming teams, services and an organisation are that they have:

Allowed too much complacency,
Failed to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition,
Underestimated the power of vision,
Under communicated the vision by a factor of 10x-100x,
Permitted obstacles to block the new vision,
Failed to create short-term wins,
Declared victory too soon,
Neglected to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture.

Critical Success Factors in Change Management Process

Here are my thoughts on the critical success factors in managing your organisational change, trust me, so many people fail to use a process. At least start with a process by addressing these key issues:

Define the purpose
Prepare a business case and project plan
Define the role of the sponsor/s
Manage human resource and industrial relations issues
Establish consultation and communication processes
Conduct a stakeholder analysis
Acquire and develop change agent skills
Identify and develop plans for managing risks/threats
Develop evaluation strategies

Strengthen your individual and team resilience, through partnering with us...

We improve your change initiatives providing options to suit you including:

practical change management training
change management planning
change management implementation
change management coaching
change management tools, assessments, templates and resources
supporting teams in transition
assisting leadership transform the business.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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Inspiring Excellence, Achieving Bottom Line Results

12/3/2012

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Inspiring Excellence.... Achieving Bottom Line Results

I was asked via the blog to make more resources available on Quality. What a huge task. So I’m making an effort this week to do so with this months blog. I hope that you find it useful.   Tell me if you do or if you don’t. l’ll start from simple then move to complex as the blog grows. So make sure you subscribe to rss feeds or the newsletter.

Case Study 2012, Inspiring Results

In our company we operate business processes to deliver quality. That is, the customer gets what the customer needs based on their business requirements and based on what they perceive value to be.

I’ll be transparent and start off with the basics. I have a background as Quality Manager managing healthcare accreditation, service delivery, innovation and a long background in the human service industry.

Quality is the core to our success. Our mantra is, less is more. Our business is not going to be all things to all customers. That’s fine, it’s just not the way we do business. We will take a share of business out there and service you, our customer to the quality you expect. We all have a choice, that’s the one we made.

What makes sense to our business is that our business is like a wheel of the car.

Sometimes it moves slow, other times not all and sometimes very quickly. I accept that it’s my responsibility as the driver. Our business wheel has defined spokes. Imagine a wheel on your car. Essentially the wheel moves forward when the engine is running and fuelled. Yes I know… wheels can go backwards, I know. That’s not the direction our gears are in. Central to the wheel is the business engine.

I’ll be truthfully honest, the whole car needs tune ups and servicing to keep in order. How far between tune ups is depending on driving conditions and so on…

So, yes…our business gets regular tune ups, check-ups, and inspections.   The wheels need balancing, aligning and tyres need changing.

Our business wheel has four major components.

1.      Commitment to excellence
2.      Build a culture around service
3. Business principles
4.      Measurement of the important things

Our company  has 12 principles or spokes we consider important to delivering a quality business, they are our enablers:

1.      Focus on customer and employee satisfaction

2.      Create and develop leaders and employees

3.      Build and enable individual accountability

4.      Align behaviours and attitudes with goals and values

5.      Communicate at all levels, timely, effectively and appropriately

6.      Recognise and reward success continuously

7.      Connect, share, learn, and improve continuously

8.      Innovate to make a difference by helping others succeed in their goals

9.      Research and develop new ideas to provide the best evidence based services

10.   Deliver fair, equitable and ethical services

11.   Provide socially and environmentally responsible services

12.   Deliver sustainable solutions and services

Our company focuses on Performance Results, we focus on 6 key areas

Service
Quality
People
Finance
Growth
Innovation

Central to our business is the fundamental purpose of being in business, to serve other businesses.

Core to our business is our engine, that is... it is maintained and fuelled by 4 key drivers

Meaning
Purpose
Motivation
Autonomy

Those who understand quality get what the customer and employee really wants.

Coaching challenge

Who in the organisational leadership is not focussing on quality?
What is being done about that?
If they did focus on quality what might happen?
How can you positively influence a better outcome?
When will you do that?

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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Small Business Lean Initiative Has Sights on Leaning International Industry Leaders

8/3/2012

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Small Business Lean Initiative has Sights on Leaning International Industry Leaders

I’m posting a quick message about the power of Lean Thinking and how I’m helping a small specialised business going lean in their own processes, automating wherever they can and also aiming to lean an international peak body to improve efficiencies in quality of service. I am unable share any commercial details. That’s business, but I will share some insights with you which I believe are helpful.

It goes like this.... I was consulting with a client today and we were discussing their proposal that was being presented to an international agency. This proposal if accepted will transform a performance culture, best practice and quality standards internationally. This result will revolutionise a quality control industry and insure its future sustainability.

Without saying too much, leaning the process will essentially transform out-dated existing quality improvement systems. It has taken the new and younger blood to ask questions…. the tough questions of ….“Why do it this way, couldn’t we do it better, here is the alternative, these are the benefits, here is a new process, can we test it?”

The challenge is the proposal has to be accepted by an international committee. I ‘Il keep you posted in the year ahead how we get ahead.

Lean is a key strategy, but don’t be fooled in to using it alone without all your other business processes.

When you Lean one process, it is likely that downstream might need reviewing as well. Lean needs to go enterprise wide for real benefit. I've seen it fail miserably in some departments like healthcare because one department does not lean all areas involved with the client journey. Additionally, not all staff are adequately engaged. Generally governance from the top is simply lacking.

One popular misconception is that lean is suited only for manufacturing. Not true. I’ve seen it used in small business, manufacturing, IT, HR, importing and complex environments like healthcare. I see Lean principles used widely in the biggest retail giant in the world. Just look at E-bay. At E-bay it’s an automated lean machine generating more site searches than Google in 2012.

Lean can be tailored and applied in every business and every process. It even applies in my household. Although the 5S techniques could do with some improving in the kids bedrooms, and okay….the garden shed to. Yes, I’m striving for perfection, it's a continuous improvement journey.

Lean is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, it’s a by-product of changing the business culture of thinking and acting as an entire organization. It has many proven quality improvement processes backing it.

Three takeaways today. Purpose, Process, People

If you are thinking more into Lean Thinking read the authors Womack and Jones, Lean Enterprise, 2nd Edition. It’s a useful book. The authors note that managers and executives that embarked on Lean transformations think about three fundamental business issues that should guide the transformation of the entire organization:

Purpose: What customer problems will the business solve to achieve its own purpose of prospering?

Process: How will the business assess each major value stream to make sure each step is valuable, capable, available, adequate, flexible, and that all the steps are linked by flow, pull, and levelling?

People: How can the business insure that every important process has someone responsible for continually evaluating that value stream in terms of business purpose and lean process? How can everyone engaging with or in lean terms (touching) the value stream be actively engaged in operating it correctly and continually improving it?

Lean needs to be tailored. The best way to experience it is to have a short workshop facilitated in workplace with your work processes. With you we will map your processes, look at bottle necks, queues, delays and so on. Then take it from there.

Mapping the journey or process is amazing. It’s like “Learning to See” how you do things in business. It’s an eye opener and you may go away scratching your head asking, “what the… why do we do that, it doesn’t make sense.” Remember many processes are inherited and never really planned or evaluated. Here is your opportunity to break the cycle. Add value… that’s your job.

We have a team of Lean experts who can provide customized training. One on one, or in small groups. Our Lean approach is a systems approach. Lean combined with coaching, facilitation, good team management, business excellence and good governance is required.

Our business is Inspiring Results in your business.

The approach to Lean is it’s a transformational process. That seems to resonate better with clients. They get it, they know something is going to happen, it has an emotion attached to it and it provides an image of a better future. Feel free to discuss how we can help your organisation big or small. We can all improve.

Also, if you interested in joining our Lean Team please contact me though this site.

If nothing changes, then nothing changes.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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A war on email, I survived and so did others

5/3/2012

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A War on Email, I Survived and So Did Others.

Some time ago I started a war on my email. I survived and won the battle. Yes... there were only minor casualties. I put an automation rule to respond to my work email to deal with the deluge. One of my email accounts had over 3000 unread emails in it. I’ve turned that account off. It can’t be important to me. I simply just don’t value it and it’s never important. Its information overload.

I have survived and I haven’t been in trouble about it. I have had the occasional “didn’t you get that email? Of course I did, I just hadn’t got around to reading it”

I operate a number of email accounts to manage my workload. I tried something like this recently and this and it worked a treat. I suggest if you do try it, tell your team or boss and do it as trial for a week. Tweak it to make it work for you and your team.

I set up an auto responder email. It read:

“Thank you for your email. I read my emails twice a day and respond to them accordingly at 12 midday and 4pm. I read email in order of business priority. If you are sending me a meeting appointment, please send the agenda and the meeting outcomes that are required so that I can prepare accordingly.

If that matter is urgent please ring me and leave a message and I will call you back as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding as this helps me manage time more effectively and serve you better.

Have a great day.
Regards Matt”

I told my immediate coworkers in advance if you need me, just call me and still send me the email.

I then put my landline phone and mobile onto message bank and observed what happened. Surprise people stopped sending me unnecessary emails and the phone calls dropped off. I have now created more productive time.

Other people’s urgency no longer became mine. Within a week I increased my productivity time. It was hard the first day. I was used to the amphetamine pellet dispenser responding to most email as it came in. I went cold turkey and turned it off and back on at 12pm and 4pm.

It bothered a couple of people. It was an experiment. I was challenging the status quo. Like all good experiments there are lessons and sometimes causalities. I gather those people didn’t quite understand my needs or priorities. They assumed I waited around for email. They operated in the urgency paradigm not the high performance paradigm. Just a reminder if you are not applying Stephen Coveys Important and Urgent Matrix, you are losing precious time. Consider applying it for at least 3 days and check your progress. It's a mental, behavioural and attitudinal shift.

The Important and Urgent Matrix

This tool, developed by Stephen Covey (Covey, 2004), helps people set priorities and learn how good management means putting first things first and organizing and carrying out work based on priorities. This tool helps people learn that the most important thing is not managing time; it is managing ourselves.

The Importance of Effective Self Management and Prioritization

Quadrant I Represents things that are 'urgent and important'. Quadrant I activities are usually "crises' or problems'. They are very important, but if not careful Quadrant I activities can consume you. As long as you focus on it, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it dominates your work. There will always be crises that require immediate attention, but how many things are really that urgent?

Quadrant II includes activities that are `important but not urgent'. It is the quality quadrant, where you plan and anticipate, and prevent things that otherwise might become urgent.

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal leadership. This is where you should spend most of your time!

Quadrant III includes things that are "urgent but not important". Plenty of managers spend too much time in this quadrant. The urgency sometimes is based on someone else's priorities.

Quadrant IV includes activities that are "not urgent and non important". It is the "waste of time' quadrant.

If you’re strong and able, try and have an email free day……once a week or once a fortnight or once a month. We are far to addicted to email ecstasy, love or hate it. Choose your work poison wisely.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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Systems Thinking for Business Leaders 101: A Refresh

16/2/2012

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Systems Thinking for Business Leaders 101: A Refresh

I admit…. I’m a systems thinker and it gets me into trouble…sometimes. However what you think about is often what you get, so it has its benefits for me.

It helps me plan and deliver better services, better projects and better business. Yes it involves risk, more communication, effort, engagement, politics, power and money, without it my work systems just don’t work. My business needs, other business, and their business is needed by other businesses and so on.

As Einstein observed, "we cannot solve problems using the same level of thinking that created them".

Our "Brave New World" requires a systems approach to solving problems and creating community-wide growth opportunities. Strategic leaders in both private and public sectors must work together to identify interdependencies and the growth levers that will turn the economic doom into an economic zoom.

Our company and other businesses form part of the heartland of the national economy. Other private companies and the people who work for them, pay taxes that fund public service and government agencies. They – both companies and people – also contribute to not-for-profit and community service providers, which help societies in many ways. Without a healthy cash flow in and out, other parts of the national system lose impetus and suffer, or just stop.

Consider this. You are the business supplier to other businesses in the supply chain; if your company slows or fails, your suppliers are negatively affected too. Likewise, a drop in business activity reduces employment and taxes, resulting in less government monies to fund central and local government. It also results in increased unemployment and crime, and places demands on social, educational and health services. All these have their own costs often paying a national debt of social and disease burden.

The reality is that if the main engine room goes down, so do all the other parts of the system (individuals, families and other organisations), creating a downward spiral. While not a light bulb moment, this is often not in our conscious minds as we are often concerned about our immediate turf and the immediate impact…. fair enough, but do take some time out...

Wouldn’t it be good if we had a system of government support to grow small and medium enterprises? What about, minimal taxes during their first five years, help get fledglings off to a good start. In contrast, large budget cuts, staff layoffs and reductions in outsourcing to the private sector by government departments results in the burden being passed to other parts of the community. Suddenly the private sector heartland is under pressure and the whole system goes into an enormous pressure cooker.

Imagine how influential and productive a group of strategic leaders could be if they took a broader perspective of social wellbeing and broadened their vision to consider every level of society: international, national, community, organisational, family and people. Remember, Mandela showed, it only takes one man to change a nation

Here it is….leadership and management expertise are key to a more innovative, dynamic and sustainable economy for the future.

How strategic are your visions for uncertain times?
How is your business putting systems thinking action?
What other systems or groups could you belong to be more influential?

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Lean Thinking in Lean Times

15/2/2012

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Lean Thinking in Lean Times, Impress your work place, think and talk like a CEO

I’ve been going Lean in the past few years and I'm blogging to encourage you and your organisation to do the same.

I was sceptic at first but later converted to the concept of applying Lean Thinking also known to many as the "Toyota Way", for those who haven’t used it, you probably should, you’ll save some headaches in business, be more productive and add value to your customers.

Guaranteed your boss will love you more than they currently do. Lean is not mean, its smart business process improvement and it helps people to talk about the process not about the person.

Okay, I am not a world expert but I have trained in both Lean and Six Sigma, I use it personally, I like Lean. Six Sigma for me has too many stats for my business engagements, so I leave that to the black belts. It’s not karate, but it will chop out the process variations and defects in process management.

Yes, both lean and six sigma refer to certifications or qualifications as “belts”, white, yellow, green, black, and there is now universal standardisation or accreditation, so choose your training provider wisely. I trained through three different providers with very different approaches and outcomes. Make sure the provider understands your industry, my white belt trainer did not. Urrrrr….painful

Anyway, last year I put 20 or so people through a practical lean course. The idea was to help them better understand their business processes. It worked, it was enlightening, no exam, just practical exercises to get results and it wasn't expensive.

Lean bits of info, that you must know, the fast track, hold on...here we go......

Lean Thinking:

Defines the way we do things
Defines the way we think about improvement
Shapes the belief about what is possible

Lean Thinking is about learning to see and improve the process. Lean is a management philosophy utilising a set of tools that can be applied across all activities of an organisation.

Lean thinking was initially developed and used in the manufacturing industry to focus production on the needs of the customer rather than the needs of the organisation. Toyota are leaders in Lean Thinking.

Lean is based on five key principles:

Value - Understand what the ‘customer’ perceives as value.
Value Stream – How ‘value’ is created and delivered to the customer.
Flow- Smooth the journey, removes all barriers and interruptions to deliver ‘value’.
Pull – Linked to the value stream processes and is triggered on demand from the customer.
Perfection – Continuous improvement.

Lean: Reducing Eight Wastes

A key step in Lean Thinking is to understand what value is and what activities and resources are absolutely necessary to create that value. Once this is understood, everything else is waste. In Lean there are eight types of waste that have been identified: Just remember WORMPITS, it works.

• Waiting
• Over-Production
• Rejects
• Motion
• Processing
• Inventory
• Transport
• Staff Utilisation

Lean and 5S

5S is a Lean process method to ensure work areas are systematically kept clean and organised, providing a foundation to build a Lean environment.

1S for sorting the necessary from the unnecessary.
2S for planning the best place to set items in order.
3S for shining, cleaning, and identifying items.
4S for creating and setting the standards for cleanliness
5S for establishing the discipline to sustain the first 4 S’s through education and

Ok, Lean it or lump it, it’s a change in attitude, and behaviour and many are sceptical, but this process improvement works, give it a go..... it is here to stay in business.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results
© Copyright 2008 -12

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SHIFT HAPPENS...JOB CUTS and More...

Strengthen Resilience in Change and Get Inspiring Results

Inspiring Excellence, Achieving Bottom Line Results

Small Business Lean Initiative Has Sights on Leaning International Industry Leaders

A war on email, I survived and so did others

Systems Thinking for Business Leaders 101: A Refresh

Lean Thinking in Lean Times

Matt Cartwright +617 3040 1129

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