What do you get when you marry individual perfection and
organizational flawlessness? It's a marriage made in
heaven for making the greatest breakthroughs in performance
improvements.
Capture this perspective and you'll soon be accomplishing
beyond your wildest dreams . . . while working less.
Let me put this message 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 five.
Combine Perspectives from Individual and Organizational
Ideal Best Practices in New Ways
Of all the approaches to identifying ideal best practices,
this one is the most powerful because it allows you to
build on individual strengths in nearing perfection to
create new dimensions of group strengths. You'll be
delighted with what this perspective can help you
accomplish.
Here's an example to explain what I mean: Individuals are
very good at remembering to put fuel into their vehicles.
Rarely will you see a vehicle stranded for lack of fuel.
Why? If you run out of fuel far away from a fueling station
where there's no cellular telephone reception, you may have
a long walk to fill and carry back a heavy container. The
process may waste an hour or more. Also, if you run out of
fuel when it's very cold, this exposure can be dangerous.
Some people are probably worried about being robbed while
going to and from the station. Most vehicles have fuel
gauges that are reasonably accurate in letting drivers know
when more fuel is needed. As a result, there's not much
reason to run out of fuel.
Groups are exceptionally good about using up supplies that
their organization provides. Why? There's no barrier. If
you need it, you take it. There's no cost to you. Groups
may not be nearly as good about remembering to order more
when supplies dwindle.
Let's assume now that you want to lower costs more rapidly
in your organization. How might these two principles be
combined? Let's start with the individual tendency to want
to have enough. You might appeal to that instinct by tying
salary and wage increases to achieving cost improvements
above a certain target and letting everyone know on a daily
basis how cost reductions are going. Those who want to be
sure to have a decent income increase will be monitoring
the information and taking action.
There's a problem though. Many people may not feel like
they have the knowledge or time to work on faster cost
reductions. You could provide free breakfasts and lunches
to those who were willing to attend training sessions to
learn more about creating and implementing better cost
reductions. Your organization could also provide a hotline
people could call to get advice on how to develop their
cost-reduction ideas. The tendency for organizations to
use free resources would accelerate learning.
By comparison, most organizations disqualify almost
everyone in the organization from being able to work on
cost reductions. Only managers, supervisors, and engineers
may be given the leeway. Yet the best ideas often come from
outside those perspectives. Cost reduction is clearly one
of those places where more heads work better, but the task
has to engage everyone in helpful ways.
For better results, you can combine even more
near-perfection perspectives. You might use four individual
and three group principles to identify the potential for an
astonishing breakthrough practice.
To provide further opportunity, build a list of 100
individual and 100 group instances of near perfection. With
experience, you'll locate even more helpful perspectives
that can be applied to achieving breakthroughs.
Spread the Word
Share your ideas about how to combine individual perfection
and organizational flawlessness with members of your family
and people at work. Tell them what you have learned. Coach
them in how to devise their own solutions.
The following questions will help you focus on the right
steps:
• How can you interest others in pursuing ideal best
practices by sharing your experience in intriguing ways?
• How can you help other people work through the process of
identifying ideal best practices?
• How can the value of this new way of thinking be spread
even further by encouraging those you've helped to
coach others?
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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