Implementing a Culture for Continual Improvement

Continual improvement (CI) refers to the ongoing process of identifying and implementing changes to processes, products, and services to make them more efficient, effective, and/or customer-focused. It involves problem-solving, and a willingness to try new things and learn from successes and failures, hence CI is a concept that can apply directly to people.

CI, when applied to a business, is an often spoken of, but overlooked approach to primarily increase the value the organisation delivers to its customers, employees, and stakeholders, and in parallel, help the organisation become more competitive and effective over time.

Every aspect of an organisation (from back-office processes to business strategy) can benefit from CI. But what is the order needed to improve the business? To answer this, some may recommend that organisations use a data-driven approach.

A data-driven uses data as the primary source of information to guide decisions and actions. Primary doesn't mean foregoing or ignoring managerial and human instinct, these are crucial but are subject to bias. This need for human instinct drives me to suggest that a data-influenced approach is a slightly better and more nuanced recommendation.

All organisations swim in a sea of data, much of this unseen and utilised. So to implement CI it is simple (although not easy); focus on gaining access to this data by measuring as much as possible about the areas of the organisation that are of interest, and then use and analyse the gathered data to identify areas for improvement. This is straightforward to conceptualise, but tough to achieve due to a number of factors that need to be influenced with the right practices, systems, people and culture.

Practices and systems supporting CI

There are a number of teachable frameworks and systems that support the development of a culture of CI.

1. Lean principles: These are a set of principles for optimising processes and reducing waste, developed by Toyota. They include concepts such as identifying value, mapping the value stream, creating flow, establishing pull, and seeking perfection.
2. Six Sigma: This is a data-driven methodology for measuring, identifying and eliminating defects in processes. It aims to improve the quality of products and services by reducing variability and improving the predictability of processes.
3. Kaizen: Is a Japanese term that actually means “continuous improvement.” It refers to a philosophy of continuous improvement through small, incremental changes, rather than large, disruptive changes. I think this is a great life philosophy to consider and adopt.
4. Total Quality Management (TQM): This is a management approach that focuses on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. It involves all employees in the organisation in the improvement process and emphasises the importance of data and facts in decision-making.

Each of these techniques and approaches is worthy of its own discussion, but often the biggest impediment in implementing continual improvement successfully throughout an organisation is the absence of a suitable culture. The needed culture is driven by strong leadership, open to experimentation, with engaged employees free to challenge and try new ideas and learn from their successes and failures. This is indeed consistent with the people, process and technology framework, where the people always come first. Unfortunately, the fear of the unknown and pursuit of hitting near and medium-term goals can mean this culture is rarely focused on and prioritised.

Fostering the right culture

There are several challenges to implementing any cultural change, which equally applies when we consider how to foster a culture of CI:

1. Resistance to change: Humans naturally resist change that brings discomfort and uncertainty. Employees who are comfortable with the current processes and procedures, may not easily welcome change especially if they are already successful. Convincing employees to try new ways of working, even if they may be more efficient or effective can be difficult. Addressing the human aversion to fear of the unknown is an effective mitigation approach. If employees understand how the change affects them, and where possible, if they can be involved with the design and implementation of the change, resistance can be vastly reduced.
2. Lack of leadership support: A culture of CI requires strong leadership support and commitment. Culture, defined as ‘how we do things here’, is often defined at the top of the organisation and trickles down. Without genuine leadership buy-in, actively encouraging and enabling improvement and experimentation with the absence of blame, it will be difficult to get employees on board and to sustain the effort over time. Leaders often find the commitment to CI difficult to prioritise as the benefits are not always immediately obvious.
3. Limited resources: Implementing new processes or technologies can require significant resources, including time, money, and training. Most organisations have limited resources available to devote to improvement efforts whilst already fulfilling their day jobs, this is why embedding continual improvement into the culture works. No one ever says, they didn’t have time to brush their teeth in the morning, because it’s just embedded.
4. Complex organisational structure: Large, complex organisations often have multiple layers of management and decision-making, which can make it difficult to implement changes quickly. This is exacerbated when organisations span multiple geographical locations, where cultural differences can have a massive impact on the way things are done.
5. Difficulty in measuring progress: It can be difficult to measure the tangible impact of improvement efforts, especially in the short term. This can make it challenging to demonstrate the value of the effort to employees and stakeholders. This is why it is often worth starting with the desired end results and working backwards, i.e. if you are trying to improve employee engagement, think about the key metrics involved and then work out how these can be continually measured and reported on.

Wrapping up

So if an organisation wants to foster a culture of continual improvement (CI) to add value and create a competitive advantage, the mindset of the leadership is a great place to start. Creating the desired culture requires a sustained effort and a willingness to embrace change which can be difficult to achieve, especially when competing with other (sometimes short-term) financial goals. It requires strong and open-minded leadership, available and empowered resources, and a focus on continuous learning and development. If it is successfully implemented, the benefits can feed the organisation long(er)-term.

Whats your view?

How much of an organisation's efforts need to be focused on creating the type of culture that allows CI and the ability to compete in the long term?