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How to implement dramatic improvement solutions

Leading and managing the implementation of systemic solutions is a crucial part of securing dramatic improvement. It doesn't matter how good a solution is if it doesn't get implemented!

The problem: Changing people’s thinking is extremely challenging, biologically

Dramatic improvement is particularly challenging because it requires people and teams to go about things in a significantly better way which - as we’ve already said - is extremely challenging, biologically.  People just don't have the required expertise, incentive or time to apply and implement new ways of thinking, on-the-fly.

Conventional project and change management methods are woefully inadequate for dramatic improvement because they're task-focused, not people-focused - and so don't take this individual and collective biological reality into consideration. That's why so few organisational change projects are successful – and why nearly all that do succeed, blow out on both time and budget.

The solution: Create a pull-system

The trick is to deliberately create an internal pull-system, rather than an external push-system.

Evoking the desire within people to participate is far more effective than coercing them to comply. It’s only natural to resist an external force, but nearly impossible to resist an internal craving.

Here are some things you can do to start the ball rolling:

1. Focus interventions at current backlog and workload and immediate challenges and objectives

People - particularly when they're under pressure – are far more open to expedient solutions that make things easier immediately and relieve immediate pain than they are to longer term, more strategic solutions that make things harder and more painful in the short term.

Because the solutions are systemic, however, they deliver bottom-line benefits almost instantaneously – and sow the seed for long-term gains in the process.

2. Use small, short, fast-cycle iterations

Small footprint solutions are easier to implement and far more effective, because they don't require a large change overhead and establish momentum very quickly. The key is to use multiple cycles, downplaying quality and focusing on speed. Quality will emerge iteratively as a prosequence. It may be counter-intuitive, but it's highly effective.

3. Restrict access

Restricting access to the solution roll-out is the surest way to create demand for it:

1. Start where appetite and aptitude is highest and migrate outwards in layers.
2. Publish and promote results and progress across the organisation to crank up demand.
3. iMake it clear that people need to contend for the next roll-out “slot”.
4. Crank up the pressure to get better results, so that even the laziest see the solution as the easy way out.

Please sing out for help in creating a pull-system for your intervention - we're keen to help.

Just ask.