To me, an agile organization is one that is proficient at change. It can
do anything it wants, whenever it wants. There have been lots of
different operating strategies presented over the last few years to help
us transform our organizations to higher levels of performance. These
strategies include, LEAN, TQM, Continuous Improvement, SMED, Process
Reengineering, Mass Customization and others. Sadly many of the efforts
to implement these strategies have failed not because the strategy was
wrong, but rather because agility was missing in the organization.
Agility is a people issue not a strategy or process issue. Successful
adoption of operating and transformational strategies will happen much
faster and with less expense as an organization becomes more agile.
Like evolution and mutation in living organisms,
organizational adaptability or agility is a core survival requirement.
Achieving agility in an organization is contrary to the way most of us
were trained to manage. Most management training even today is still
based on the work of Frederick Taylor. It is an approach to management
that worked well at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but is
sadly out of date in today’s highly sophisticated world where computers,
cell phones, the internet, radio and television are commonplace and
workers are better educated and more involved in their world than ever
before.
As I witness the changes in organizations, I become
more convinced daily that all of the process improvements in the world
will not by themselves solve the problems facing organizations. It is
time for a new approach to management that involves people in the issues
that affect them leading to engagement, creativity and commitment in the
workplace. Jack Stack in his book The Great Game of Business makes the
case when he says, “…productivity depends on people. I don’t disagree
that machines can make you more competitive. They can absorb overhead.
They don’t take breaks. They don’t go on vacation. They don’t sit around
wasting time. What machines can’t do is figure out how to make money.
Only people can do that. If you have people who know how to make money,
you’ll win every time.”
For too long, we have relied on a leader – who by virtue of position,
greater experience, wisdom or skill, is relied upon as the problem
solver and that leader fails to ask for or accept input from team
members. Psychologist Patrick Laughlin and his colleagues at the
University of Illinois recently released a new study that shows that the
approaches and outcomes of cooperating groups are not just better than
those of the average group member, but are better than even the group’s
best problem solver functioning alone.
Not only do groups make better decisions, but once
agreed to, the decisions are far easier to implement and have much
greater likelihood of success. More and more research points to the
advantages of group engagement and decision-making. It is no longer a
matter of why you should adopt a high engagement strategy with your
people to gain agility, but rather how to implement this process.
Roadway is a trucking company that is currently
implementing a high engagement strategy in their organization with some
tremendous successes. Their approach includes three elements and may
very well be the model for other organizations. The three elements of
their program are: 1.) Education, 2.) Tools, 3.) High Engagement.
First, Roadway is spending a lot of time educating
their people about the business. They have adopted much of the thinking
from Jack Stack’s book, “The Great Game of Business.” The key is to help
their employees understand the financials of the business and how they
affect the numbers. Second, they have trained their people in the basic
principles of LEAN so that they can evaluate current processes and
procedures and have a basis for making changes that will positively
affect the bottom line. Finally, they have adopted and use a positive
approach to achieving “High Engagement.” Rather than focusing on the
problems in the company, they have chosen to look at the strengths of
the company and build on those strengths using David Coopperrider’s 4D
model for positive change.
The results at Roadway have been impressive. There are
many stories of success at individual terminals that are now being
shared across the company and in the meantime just one of the measures
they use has recorded a $10 million improvement over the last 4 years.
Roadway is rapidly developing Agility to help them face a very
competitive and rapidly changing world. Without it, they would most
likely not have survived.
ã Copyright Bob Cannon/The Cannon Advantage, 2003. All
rights reserved.
