Don’t Journey Without It

A Swiss Army Knife is regarded as a versatile, multi-functional, and useful tool. It is easy to carry. And you never know exactly when you’ll need any one of its many features.

A well-designed Performance Improvement System is like a Swiss Army Knife.

It is useful across a wide range of performance areas and all work units.
It contains a carefully assembled set of tools, allowing the individual or team to pick just the right tool for the situation.
Each tool serves a powerful purpose. The tools can be used singularly or in combination.
The user doesn’t need advanced training, but benefits from basic familiarity with each tool.

Over the years, I have seen a wide variety of performance improvement systems.

I first look at the results…is the organization better off? is it consistently improving? This often signals whether they have a solid performance improvement system in place, and whether leadership views improvement work as a priority.

When working with an organization who has not yet developed or honed their improvement approach, we draw from a plethora of proven and complementary tool kits to establish their Improvement Capability.

First, improvement work is grounded in the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Repeatable and repeated!
We include Process Improvement (PI) tools at each step in the P-D-C-A cycle. Most commonly: Flowcharting (As-Is and To-be), the Pareto Chart, Fishbone (cause-and-effect) Diagram, and Storyboarding (including using an A3 Template).
We include tools from the Management & Planning Toolkit (7MP). Tools such as the Affinity Diagram, the Radar Chart, an Interrelationship Digraph, or a Tree Diagram.
Next, we intentionally integrate Change Management tools and techniques to build stakeholder commitment and ease users through the transition to a new process. Prosci’s ADKAR® model and John Kotter and William Bridges models for change and transition prove particularly useful here.
Finally, we round out the toolkit with tools from Project Management. The gantt chart, communications plan, and stakeholder management are particularly applicable in improvement efforts.

With experience and intentional practice, organizations, leaders, and teams become skillful in performance improvement. They pull out their “Swiss Army Knife” of Performance Improvement and become adept at selecting just the right tool for the right situation. They wield this tool kit with ease and use it in every applicable setting.

Like a Swiss Army Knife, I encourage you to keep your improvement approach close at hand, have a foundational understanding of the tools in the kit, and don’t overly rely on one gadget. Value grows exponentially with repeated use!

If you’d like to receive these Inspirations in your inbox every other week, you can subscribe to Kathy’s Excellence Advantage Inspirations Newsletter.
Kathy Letendre, President and Founder of Letendre & Associates, advises organizations and leaders to create their excellence advantage.
Contact Kathy by phone or text at 802-779-4315 or via email.