Speaking of Business: Management improvement begins with changing mindsets

Q.x09Our management team has formed an improvement team. We’ve met several times but made little headway. There are so many opinions about the priority of issues and problems, as well as their causes and solutions, that we can never agree on what to actually work on. We’re frustrated and feeling like we are wasting our time. Is there any way to come to some sort of agreement on what we should work on?

A.x09Your question cuts to the heart of many inquiries we receive. To do it justice we will be devoting the next few columns to answering your question and hopefully giving you and your team, and others, some ideas about a useful approach. It has been said that the most popular human sport is jumping to conclusions. This tendency is amplified in business organizations. Individuals and groups within a business are constantly making assumptions and jumping to conclusions about problems and issues that are colored by their unique role, biases and self-interests.

Typically, the conclusions and opinions of owners and managers are assumed (especially by them) to be the most valid and the most worthy of attention. However, when we perform a “reality check” we invariably find that other individuals and groups within the organization have come to completely different conclusions and opinions that they consider to be just as valid.

Owners and managers usually call us because they have some sort of problem or they want to improve something. In our initial discussions with them we typically find that they have one of several mindsets: 1) They’ve made up their mind about the problem and they want us to solve it; 2) They’ve made up their mind about the problem and the solution and they want us to help implement their solution; 3) They want to use our credentials to bolster their pre-conceived conclusions; 4) They’ve decided on the problem and they want to glean ideas from us so they can fix it themselves; or 5) They know there are problems and they are willing to suspend judgment and invest time and money to objectively determine the true nature of the problems and systematically develop solutions.

We’ve learned not to work with owners and managers unless we can help them adopt mindset 5 because we have found that their initial assumptions and conclusions are typically too simplistic, incomplete, reactionary, excessively focused on people instead of the system as the problem, often emotionally charged, and not based on an objective investigation. Although their initial conclusions are well-intentioned and may contain valid elements, they are usually misguided and do not provide a sound basis for embarking on an improvement effort.

When an owner or manager adopts mindset 5, then there is a solid starting point for true problem solving and making lasting improvements. Adopting mindset 5 is similar to someone who has been feeling badly who finally goes to the doctor for a professional, objective diagnosis.

Getting back to your question: We believe that the first step in any improvement effort is to conduct a professionally designed diagnosis that isn’t biased by the subjective opinions of those who are imbedded in the situation. The knowledge and experience of owners, managers and employees is essential for success. However, it should be “reality checked,” guided and focused by an objective diagnosis.

Properly designed and conducted assessments are excellent diagnostic tools for understanding problems and issues related to improvement, and they provide valuable information for guiding improvement efforts.

Businesses, even small ones, are systems of interacting people and processes that manage and integrate basic business functions, including diverse interpersonal relationships, leadership, creating strategy and business plans, obtaining and utilizing resources, teamwork, process management, relationships between groups, creating the organizational environment (morale, employee satisfaction, values, “culture”), and conducting relationships with critical stakeholders such as customers, suppliers and community.

Business problems arise due to less than optimal management and integration of these functions. Assessments are an excellent way to diagnose business functions and identify improvement targets. Although assessment of any single business function by itself is valuable, greater and more significant improvements can be accomplished by assessing several or all functions and then integrating the results.

As you can see, our answer to your question about how to identify and agree on improvement targets is to start with professionally assisted and properly designed assessments.

In future columns we will take a look at some specific types of assessments for diagnosing basic business functions. Stay tuned.

Greeley resident Russell Disberger is a founding member of Aspen Business Group, a Northern Colorado based specialty-consulting and venture-capital firm assisting businesses in obtaining strategic growth. He can be reached at (970) 396-7009 or by e-mail at russell@aspenbusinessgroup.com.