Continuous Improvement = Constant Change
Business leaders have typically seen organizational change as a specific event – usually tied to a project. A planned ‘change programme’ with a start and finish. A rollout. A go-live. But the truth is that organisational change is an ongoing process, and thus, best operates in organisations with a continuous improvement mindset; be it consciously or otherwise.
Whether it is technology, process, organisational structure, budget, operating model, standard operating procedure, ways of working, culture OR anything else… everything within such companies is in a permanently iterative state, enabling them to react, respond to and absorb changes in an agile, iterative way.
In the name of ‘customer experience’, ‘employee experience’, ‘winning in the market’ or ‘accelerated growth’… the reality is that continuous improvement (and thus, CHANGE), is a non-negotiable term of doing business in our post-digital world; to keep winning we must keep improving and changing.
It was in that spirit that a global consumer goods company approached us with a challenge: “how do we ensure that our team – who are expected to deliver continuous improvement (code for: constant change 😉) – are equipped to not only manage change but embrace it and resiliently drive value from it.
Building change capability for sustainable growth
Excited by this challenge and based on our experience across over 25 global organisations, we worked with the team to closely identify how we could help them to build and sustain a ‘change agile’ mindset, ensuring effective change leadership, as well as building skills for leading and managing change. Change should not sit within siloes or exclusively within project teams, but within the business. To embed this, we also developed a methodology and tool kit that provided the foundation for creating a consistent change experience across the organisation.
As always, we began with a “Prep & Personalize” phase. A brief but focused discovery identified the key steps that would be required, and we also gathered key insights to design relevant assets in order to align with the overall purpose of the company and the strategic objectives.
Next, we entered the “Immerse & Learn” phase. An immersive experience took place across five ‘change’ topics where participants learnt how to manage identify and manage continuous improvement and embrace change agility.
The final phase involved leadership coaching, a sustainable change action plan to embed mindsets and behaviours as well as business metrics to measure ‘change agility and value’.
Being equipped to inspire and manage improvement and change
Continuous improvement is not change for change’s sake. But rarely do companies or people change for the sake of it. The reality is that the alternative to continuous improvement is stagnation. The alternative to change is falling behind. For this consumer goods organisation, more than 90% of the team reported that they felt more confident leading continuous improvement, whilst 100% of participants agreed that the step change improved how they viewed and embraced change. Going forward, we hope to help equip more organisations with the capabilities to inspire relevant change on a continuous basis and ride the waves of opportunity that continuous improvement brings.
