By Mike Leamon

Field News Flash! Clients and prospects admit to historically spending less than 2% of their time on improvements!  Ouch!

First, let us clarify that we “get it!”  Steven Covey’s “Chopping the wood verses sharpening the axe” analogy is classic and heavily used because we all struggle with this deferred gratification.  We also applaud our clients and prospects for the refreshing honesty to admit low investment rates.  Some have even engaged our services to ramp that number in an efficient sustainable way.  We all know that admitting we have a problem is the first step!

The second step is to set the Goal.  If “Here” is 2%…. what is “There?”  One CEO had a jaw dropping response.   First, you could see that he struggled with the question because, in his mind, improving was an integral part of getting the most wood chopped!  Now that’s a cool (and sometimes rare) leadership mindset!

He then went on to say that his goal is to have staff spend 20% to 25% of their time on improvements.  WOW!  He wants us to collaborate with his teams on tangible improvement projects but also methodically expose the teams to world class best practice theories.  This will allow the team to pick and choose the continuous improvement concepts and methods they want to make habitual as they grow and evolve.  That’s not all.  He is also designing a continuous improvement culture.

In the comments below, share your reasons why organizations don’t invest enough time in improving the way they operate?

Examples so far:

• Foundation Blindness:  Leaders are focused on results (amount of wood chopped) and don’t consider stopping to sharpen the axe to be legitimate work.

• Bad Reputation:  Many of us have been turned off by heavy or “flavor-of-the month” improvement approaches like Six Sigma and Total Quality Management that didn’t stick.

• No Time:  Switching gears from intense wood chopping efforts to sitting down to sharpen the axe ISN’T EASY! Leadership must creatively find ways to support the ramp of improvement.  If you start by removing waste, you can reinvest the time savings in improvement efforts.