Stratex Fundamentals – What Drives Achievement?

What drives StratEx achievement & how do we sustain it? Do the StratEx lessons I learned as a young Toyota engineer & manager still apply?

 What's in it for them?

I grew up in the ‘90’s on a steady diet of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Our compass through almost continuous expansion was a business system called ‘Hoshin Kanri’ or Strategy Deployment, which I’ve written about it extensively. The past decade my practice has evolved toward ‘ambidexterity’ and fields like financial services, consumer goods & Tech. My hypothesis: those will prosper who can both protect the core business with OpEx and ignite new growth with Digital methods.

So, do the TPS methods & mindsets I learned as a young engineer & manager apply? Yes, provided you translate & adapt them for each industry. (Does anybody care about how we did it at Toyota?) With that prologue, let’s see if we can answer the questions posed above.

What Drives Stratex Achievement?

Whether your focus is protecting the core business with Lean/OpEx, or igniting new Growth with digital methods, our motive force is smart, capable people continually solving problems (aka ‘Total Involvement’). This is the ‘wind that fills the sails’ and it has two parts: a) good people, and b) good systems that let them work with minimum hassle.

‘Good People’ entails answering the following questions:

·       What qualities do we need in our team members? How do we hire for those qualities?

·       How do we develop their skills? (Subordinate questions: What are the needed skills, skills gaps, and with what methods do we close them?)

·       How do we reward them & recognize their achievements?

·       How do we sustain a physically & psychologically safe workplace?

·       How do we engage team members in continuous improvement and/or innovation work?

·       How do we motivate them to continually improve themselves and help us to improve & innovate?

Our People management system must answer these questions in simple, concrete terms.  For example, ‘engagement’ means doing things such as Quick & Easy Improvements, Root Cause Problem Solving, and Innovation Sprints that generate Value which the CFO recognizes.  Filling out surveys or attending Senior Leader talks, while helpful for info-gathering, is not engagement.

‘Good systems’ means daily team huddles around team boards, a standard operating rhythm & huddle process at each level. It means a senior leader Obeya (Big Room, Control Tower, Cockpit) wherein the senior team addresses the big questions in a frank robust & visual way: What Should Be Happening?  What is Actually Happening? What are We Doing About It?  For leaders, what you do it what you get.

‘Good systems’ also means identifying & addressing blockers that hinder total involvement. These typically include bureaucracy, too many meetings, corrosive mental models (e.g. rewarding ‘busyness’ vs effectiveness), and perverse incentives.

How Do We Sustain Team Member Involvement?

We have to answer a difficult question: ‘What’s in it for you?’

Leaders need to explain why team members should go the extra mile & try to improve the current condition.  Does an answer like, ‘Because you need a paycheck’, instill passion & commitment?

Each leader has to reflect & answer this question in a heartfelt way.  Here the response of a leader I’ve been privileged to work with: ‘We want to win and be the best in our industry. We want to have fun & make money, and do right by our customers, team members & community. We want to invest in you & give you growth opportunities so you can help us to be the best. You’re going to learn leading edge methods, and you’ll have a job with us for as long you want one.  Your job may change, because we intend to keep improving. In return, you have to help us to improve, you have to be open & curious & energetic, and you have to tell us if something is not working and help us fix it.”

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org