Athletes know they must repeat their conditioning and
training to achieve top performance. Musicians know that
without practice their sound won't appeal to very many
people.
Business people often do just the opposite: Running off in
all directions to deal with short-term problems of little
long-term consequence.
But discipline yourself to create and improve upon 2,000
percent solutions (ways of accomplishing 20 times more with
the same time, effort, and resources), and you'll soon be
enjoying world-class rewards.
The steps for creating a 2,000 percent solution are listed
here:
1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.
2. Decide what to measure.
3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.
4. Implement beyond the future best practice.
5. Identify the ideal best practice.
6. Pursue the ideal best practice.
7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.
8. Repeat the first seven steps.
This article looks at step eight, repeat the first seven
steps.
Practice Reaching Toward Perfection
"Practice makes perfect." We learned to walk by taking more
and more tottering steps before we fell. We learned to
write by copying each letter many, many times. Doing is the
best way to learn. Imagine trying to read a book to learn
how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle.
Achieving 20 times progress also requires repetition. When
you reexamine the same process and improvement opportunity,
you will uncover new and better ideas with each repetition
of the first seven steps of the eight-step 2,000 percent
solution process.
The gains from such repetitions can be staggering because
they usually multiply onto a higher performance base.
Here's an example. Imagine that you just created a way to
expand revenues by 20 times from the current level. On the
next reexamination of that opportunity, you might find a
way to increase revenues by an additional 200 percent from
the 20 times improved base. That seemingly more modest
increase would be equal to double the entire gain from the
first 2,000 percent solution!
Many times, reexamination leads to larger absolute gains
during the repetition than during the initial examination.
Naturally, when a 2,000 percent solution is reached on top
of the first 2,000 percent solution, you've turned a 20
times gain into a 400 times gain. Think of the opportunity
to reexamine such an area for a third time.
If you have wisely chosen to work on your highest potential
opportunity, this upside potential shouldn't surprise you.
It's also unlikely that any other opportunity will be as
large as reexamining what you just finished.
When people first create and implement a 2,000 percent
solution, most will opt not to reexamine the same area for
at least five years. That's a big mistake! In most cases,
you can start reexamining the opportunities right away and
come up with big gains. By looking for more opportunities
sooner, you'll build on the momentum of what you learned in
the first iteration as well as deepen your understanding of
the opportunity.
There are valuable, related benefits from such repetition.
Each success will increase commitment to creating 2,000
percent solutions while geometrically expanding the
resources available to pursue new solutions. With practice,
the 2,000 percent solution process becomes easier, more
productive, and faster. At some point, creating 2,000
percent solutions will become part of your corporate
culture. As a result, you'll have even more good habits to
help performance when you're not working on 2,000 percent
solutions. You'll also notice and start working on large
opportunities sooner.
When the 2,000 percent solution process has been accepted
into your organization's culture, you will benefit from
having a powerful common language, thought process, and
capability for improvement. To accomplish this
desirable result, your organization's leader must create an
expectation that creating 2,000 percent solutions is the
new standard of what must be accomplished. With that focus,
the leader's words become thoughts throughout the
organization. The thoughts become ideas. The ideas become
actions. The actions become new habits. The new habits are
reinforced and improved by experience and success. The new
habits upgrade the culture. Repetition strengthens,
deepens, and widens the impacts of each of these
reinforcing mechanisms.
STALLBUSTERS
The main issue for you is reinforcing repetition of the
eight-step process. Skip this step, and you will lose
almost all of the potential benefit of using what you have
learned about creating 2,000 percent solutions.
Here is your assignment:
• Make everyone aware that the eight-step process
will be repeated in the same area, again and again.
•When the process is begun, set early dates to start
repeating the process.
• Set dates to begin the eight steps in other
important management processes.
• Set dates to begin repeating the eight steps in
those other important management processes.
• Add to your organizational ability to use the
eight-step process through improved capabilities such as:
— More measurement capabilities to spot unperceived
ways to improve
— Better ability to identify cause and effect
— Increased access to organizations with best
practices you can use
— Faster learning from other organizations
— Improved forecasting of future process improvements
— Enhanced conceptualization of the ideal best
practice
— Effective planning for more quickly approaching the
ideal best practice with contained costs, while moving
rapidly into new opportunities opened up by nearing the
ideal best practice
Make a copy of this assignment and put it near your work
telephone so that you will see the assignment every time
you make or receive a call and be reminded to take these
critical actions.
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared
Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, and The 2,000 Percent
Solution Workbook. You can find free tips for accomplishing
20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .
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