Continuous improvement is a competitive advantage

Tom Stocker

05/01/2010

Teamwork, morale, motivation and commitment are all keys to making a business thrive. This doesn’t happen by accident. The leadership must have the respect for and by their employees for the business to thrive. Continuing education and training help keep people motivated and contributing. Productivity, empowerment and continuous improvement are enhanced as a result. Sounds simple, but let’s explore this concept a bit deeper.
Continuous improvement is a journey that can never end. In fact, it is impossible. To change a company culture, to really be a continuous-improvement company takes a major investment. The first part is you. Time, effort and training are the second part.
As the leader, you must be the first person in your organization to make the commitment, closely followed by every member of your senior staff. No waffling, no skepticism. If you show either, your people will pick up on it and immediately retreat. Too many times have I worked with a president or owner who talked the talk, then immediately retreated to their office with a “let me know if you need anything” attitude. Those companies never had a chance. Improvements may still happen, but most were not from the bottom up.
If teamwork, motivation and commitment are all the traits of a thriving business, a continuous-improvement culture is the fuel that feeds those traits. So what is that? Employee empowerment is a major requirement for a company to have a continuous-improvement culture.
Employee empowerment unleashes the genius every one of your employees has within. In a “command and control” environment, genius is stifled, unwelcome and generally ignored. Many employees sit back and watch as engineers and managers tinker with their processes. Those same managers and engineers never really ask for help from those who know the answer or have a key clue (the employees doing the job) to a given process or problem. Unfortunately, this is more prevalent than you think. I recently had the opportunity to visit a Rhode Island company, well known in the New England region as an innovative company that has fully embraced continuous improvement through their implementation of lean concepts. VIBCO Vibrators is not your typical manufacturer. It is a company of “geniuses,” as they call their employees. They have been on their lean journey for eight years. Their culture is to never be satisfied and you can feel it from every genius you meet there.
Karl Wadensten, VIBCO’s president, is very open and willing to share his experiences. He even has a daily radio show. VIBCO encourages companies worldwide to visit them on a regular basis, and they run a formal tour for company owners and presidents every quarter for this purpose. I encourage you to come see for yourself. Telling you about it will not make you believe or understand it.
Employee empowerment, training and support are all necessary to make continuous improvement a success. Support by letting employees run with an idea, even if you are skeptical, is imperative. A fear of failure will stifle every one of these necessary components. You must be willing to take the risk that not everything will work all the time.
Training is a key to helping employees understand and try the continuous-improvement process. You must allow your people to build their confidence and find success. That will give them the satisfaction of knowing that not only are they important, but you trust and support their efforts to make improvements themselves. Most importantly, you listen to them. Some of us have a hard time not influencing outcomes. But you must restrain yourself. Support your employees by letting them come to you for help. But even then, unless absolutely necessary, don’t do the work for them. Your role is to be a facilitator, but only when asked.
When you start, all employees will be watching. When something new or different is happening in their environment, there will be many skeptics. It is change, and change is hard. Communication is key, and helping those having trouble with the change may need extra hand-holding. Work with them and be patient. Your role is to encourage, not criticize.
Not many companies can say they have been able to make a full transformation in only a few months. It generally takes well over a year. It may take only a few months to have a success in one or two areas of your business. That will build momentum, but it can take a long time before the transition gains full acceptance.
Continuous improvement is a real competitive advantage for those companies who make the commitment. Strategies can be built around this process to give your competition fits. And this advantage is not temporary. Once continuous improvement is built into the fabric of the company’s culture any attempt to move away from it becomes a major change. And we all know how easy it is for a company to change. &#8226

Tom Stocker is the managing director of Owner’s Edge, LLC, a strategic-planning, advisory and consulting firm for small and mid-market businesses. He can be reached at
tstocker@OwnersEdgeLLC.com.

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