Peter Drucker says “Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay for what is of use to them and gives them value.”
Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”
Both suggest value is in the eye of the receiver.
I love these words - if you can be sure of anything you can be sure that whatever follows this phrase will be exactly that. I heard it used most recently at a senior team event I was facilitating when the ‘discussion’ between team members got a little heated. What I then found interesting was that, when the person who said it - and indeed followed it with a personal attack - was challenged on her behaviour, she shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘I was just being authentic’. I realised how easy it is, when under pressure, to misuse such a positive and powerful word - and deliver a devastating personal blow to the receiver.
In The Powerful Combination of Leadership & Lean Thinking part 2 I outlined the principles of Leanership™ Now is the time to go into more detail
Always Start with the Customer
In order to always start with the customer, by definition you need to identify who the customer is. At a whole systems level this must be considered from both an internal and an external perspective.
During a week of holiday by the sea I’ve been reflecting on what it takes to get individuals and organisations out of their old habits and into a better place.
My brother is considering changing his job and has a great opportunity to do something really rewarding and stretching. He was at the stage where he risked convincing himself that the Status Quo was the better option until, over the course of a bottle of single malt, we fully explored the benefits of change.
Whatever change we might consider there are plenty of roadblocks and diversions. Whether it be giving up smoking, tackling underperforming teams, or transforming a whole organisation.
Here are my thoughts for the steps:
I’ve been reading a book that has been around for some time but I hadn’t got round to reading. ‘Maverick’ by Ricardo Semler describes Semler’s journey from taking over his father’s business in 1980 to turning it into the successful business it is today. The journey has not been an easy one but his determination to run his business in a way that has been way ahead of its time is a refreshing read.
In the world of leadership development, the ideas on how he leads and manages his business are not new. What is unusual and refreshing is the commitment to and tangible evidence of success in a manufacturing business based in South America.
It’s that time of year again. Business plans and budgets are signed off, employee reviews are due and the annual objective-setting extravaganza is looming.
In the ideal world, this all happens seamlessly. As a manager, you have a clear line of sight to the organsation’s vision and goals; your manager discusses their objectives with you - along with the targets and measures in place; you have a pleasant, inspiring and meaningful conversation that crystallises for you exactly what you need to do, how you need to do it and exactly what you will have done at the end of the year to contribute to the success of the business. You can’t wait to go and have a similar conversation with your team to set them all on the way to success, leaving you to concentrate on your bit.
Leadership is usually defined with such statements as
* Creating and communicating a vision and strategic direction
* Aligning the organisational stakeholders
* Motivating and inspiring people to deliver
The principles of Lean thinking are
* Define value from the customer’s perspective
* Define the value stream activities for the waste free delivery of each product/service
* Align the value stream for continuous flow
* Manage demand at the pull of the customer
* Seek to continually perfect what you have created
Why Do Change programmes Fail ? - A subject close to my heart!
I have had the good fortune to work with some great companies and achieve some fantastic results with them using lean and Kaizen methods. The problem is that when I’ve returned some time later for the next round of improvements, I have found that changes and principles implimented have slipped, or even disappeared altogether. Why on earth after all that effort, soul searching, creativity and sweat have the benefits won been allowed to evapourate ?
Much has been written about leadership; what it is, who should be doing it, how they should be doing it, what models work in which situations and how companies might apply those models for organisational effectiveness.
Much has been written about lean thinking; what it is, how it works, what the tools, techniques and concepts are and how different companies can translate those concepts into working models for their business.
Both leadership and lean thinking are seen as enablers for organisational success and yet…
The final 3Cs are compatibility, connectivity and creativity and in conjunction with capability make up 4 key elements to consider when recruiting, training and developing people to deliver value for and to your customers. At the front line of value are the sales and commercial teams who are accountable for the customer relationships and order taking part of your brand proposition. To differentiate your service offering they need to be more than transactional; they need to have an enterprise mindset.
COMPATIBILITY