If our organizations could produce breakthroughs, we would
all be enjoying exponential increases in results. Did you
know that such breakthroughs often require a different
focus than making modest improvements?
How can we replace our improvement projects with
breakthrough progress?
Breakthroughs usually take the sweat and tears of many
people. But those efforts won't bear fruit unless the
right mix of skills and experience is involved, properly
directed by exceptional leaders and by the right thought
process.
Let me put this advice in context: It's an important lesson
for those who want to make lots of 2,000 percent solutions
(ways of accomplishing 20 times more with the same time,
effort, and resources).
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 practicing to become more effective
in accomplishing step seven, select the right people and
provide the right motivation.
Recruit and Coach a Winning Team
People are the critical resource for any organization.
Without the right people, it's hard to exceed the future
best practice and approach the ideal best practice. Keep in
mind that few people, no matter how talented, function well
in a changing environment. Still fewer can work well on a
team instituting changes. One naysayer can discourage a
whole team. Someone who uses too much influence can stifle
others. You’re looking to create a rare and delicate
balance in your dream team of change makers.
Change? Over My Dead Body!
It might seem that the best way to implement any change is
to work with those who know the job best — those who
actually work with the process every day. But if big
changes are needed, this approach isn't always a good idea.
Use only the old crew and you are likely to run into a very
serious foot-dragging stall. Even the best workers lose
their perspective over time. Experimental evidence shows
that people new to a job have a much easier time with
understanding the need for and enjoying the pursuit of
changes. They can be taught whatever history they need to
know without being stalled by it. The current crew can play
devil's advocate — to keep the new team honest, as it
were. But don't hold their experience against the current
crew. Provide them with a new challenge in a different part
of the organization where they are unfamiliar with the
operations.
You need very capable relative strangers to take on a
change project, but they don't have to be people from
outside the organization. Look for as wide a range of
perspective, skills, and knowledge as you can.
Build a Dream Team
You must find people who are energized or excited by a
change. Your ideal team members must see change as a
challenge that will help them grow personally. Select team
members who will feel that being chosen to work on
approaching the ideal best practice is the most wonderful
thing that ever happened to them.
Beyond enthusiasm, what do you need? Open-mindedness. Take
a cue from Abraham Maslow and his concept of
self-actualization: what a person can be, he or she must be
(See Motivation and Personality [Harper, 1954]). Maslow
characterized the self-actualized, among other
characteristics, as displaying higher levels of:
• Efficient perceptions of reality
• Comfort with reality
• Accepting oneself, others, and nature
• Spontaneity
• Simplicity
• Naturalness
• Focus on problems outside themselves
• Detachment
• Preference for privacy
• Autonomy and independence from culture and
environment
• Freshness of appreciation and richness of feeling
• Transcendent experience
• Identification with mankind
• Deep interpersonal relations
• Preference for democratic processes
• Ability to differentiate between means and ends
• Nonhostile humor
• Creativity, originality, or inventiveness.
Maslow also spotted significant drawbacks among some of the
self-actualized who could be vain, irritating, cold,
uncritical, and overgenerous. Obviously, you should seek
team members who present the fewest of these drawbacks
… even at the risk of losing some creativity.
Don’t be restricted to Maslow's concept. People who
can adapt rapidly to unexpected problems are even more
valuable because they point the group in a new direction
when everyone else is stuck. You can spot these people by
asking them how they solved seemingly impossible problems
in the past.
Is There a Leader in the House?
Naturally, choosing the right team leader makes a big
difference in your results. Look for a leader who shares
the enthusiasm of each team member and knows how to harness
that enthusiasm. In addition, you want someone who places
the interests of the team and the organization ahead of any
desire to exercise power as top dog.
Avoid borrowing a leader from another organization (whether
they be consultants or outsourced service providers). Such
outsiders will have a harder time reflecting the values of
those they lead. If you cannot find an appropriate leader
in your organization, be sure to hire someone who will help
create the excitement necessary to bring off major changes
and who matches your company's values as closely as
possible.
Four leadership qualities determine success:
1. Shared values with the organization
2. Understanding the problems thoroughly before beginning
the mission
3. Ability to persuade others that the project will succeed
4. Skills relevant to the task.
If your top candidate is in good shape except for skills,
consider how you could use some training to fill in those
gaps. It's easier to fill in for ignorance than for a lack
of values.
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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