Tackle the biggest barrier to performance – adoption of your improvement initiatives. By everyone in the company. The easy way. Today.
‘Common Approach – Uncommon Results’ reveals a proven approach which is simple and practical, and achieves staggering levels of adoption. It comes from the day-to-day experience working with more than 500 organisations, including Lockheed Martin, Orange, Toyota, and Accenture BPO.
Synopsis
How do you really deliver results on all the initiatives and projects in your company? The answer is Adoption. Through Adoption, everyone in your company ensures that your strategy gets implemented and you obtain visible results from your initiative.
We put this succinctly: R=IA2 (Results = Initiatives x Adoption2)
Maximising Results by successful Adoption of the transformational changes driven out of the Initiatives. In other words, it does not matter how many initiatives (projects, exercises, and programmes, whatever) you throw at people if no one adopts the results of them. Typical initiatives include Six Sigma, software implementation (SAP, Siebel etc), Cost Reduction, Sarbanes Oxley and outsourcing programmes.
While this may sound obvious, the corporate landscape is rife with these initiatives in progress, where little or no thought has been put into how to make sure that the rest of the organisation actually adopt and own whatever improvement is advocated. Little surprise then that the adoption rate (and hence the success rate) of initiatives is pitifully low in many companies.
Gaining adoption is a challenge, not least because it involves changes in behaviour and attitudes. Inspirational leadership helps kick-start adoption throughout the company, but it cannot sustain the necessary continuous improvement required for companies to stay competitive. Adoption has measurable results, as the dramatic benefits obtained by the success stories reveal.
Adoption means communicating the changes required of people – and getting people to make the changes. The approach we are suggesting is applicable to virtually every initiative and it is achievable as it makes change as painless as possible. This is where a common language is required – an operational language which can describe the changes in activities, behaviour and results that are expected.
This language describes activities, roles and measures, and is managed through the use of a Common Operational Platform. It manages processes, documents, resources and metrics – and the relationships between them. This is made possible by current IT infrastructure and software. Use of this Common Operational Platform enhances accountability and serves to further adoption. And once the COP is in place it can be applied to other initiatives and therefore increases their return on investment.
Whilst this may seem interesting in practice, most companies already have a range of initiative s at different stages. Therefore the book takes 5 typical initiatives (outsourcing, Six Sigma, software package implementation, compliance and rapid growth) and considers the most effective way of implementing the COP alongside them depending on the phase of the initiative.
From the experience of countless client engagements we have identified 7 simple steps to develop and manage the Common Operational Platform. These steps build on the principles of Adoption, but sets them out in a practical blueprint for action.
Once you will have gone through these steps, it will be remarkable how the barriers to change seem to disappear. The current business issues of compliance, the introduction of enterprise software applications and outsourcing all provide new challenges to business leaders. It is essential to get these right, and applying this new approach to these issues enables you to control and transform your business. It even keeps the strategy and your objectives to the fore when a business faces rapid growth.
Real case studies from clients around the world, in every industry, reveal the dramatic benefits and the astonishing results achieved by putting this approach into action.
Achieving results – the easy way. Turning your strategy in to reality.
I enjoyed both the written style and the illuminating content. -- Manager - Accenture - UK
I enjoyed it, wondered why I hadn't written something similar (which shows it has that essence of obvious "rightness") -- Senior Consultant, Xansa, UK
It's sooo useful and clear. Perfect management style. -- Consultant - Volvo - Sweden
The book addresses the question that all business managers have been struggling with over the past years -- Manager, Strategic Projects Group - Toyota Motor Marketing Europe
The most refreshing business book I’ve read in a long time. -- Marketing Director, Capita, UK
