How to Succeed With Continuous Improvement: A Primer for Becoming the Best in the World

The book transitions between the author's personal experience of his first job as a continuous improvement consultant, and the lessons he learned along the way. These lessons are sometimes within the story itself, and sometimes set apart as short essays.

Within the storyline you'll learn how to set up a framework for constant improvement in your own organization. You'll learn how to coach people through the process of change, and convince them that it's important for everyone's success.

Joakim Ahlström is one of Sweden's leading authorities on continuous improvement. He's a motivational speaker and consultant, and has helped companies around the world plan and implement continuous improvement programs.

So, keep listening to learn which questions will reveal the problem you need to address first, how to use a Fishbone Diagram to dissect problems in your organization, and an easy way to get people on board with a change initiative.

As you might guess with such a short book, the author's story gets going immediately. He was hired right out of graduate school to help an IT company with its improvement efforts. It didn't take him long to realize that this successful company had serious problems. Morale and performance were down, and customers were starting to cancel their contracts as a result.

As Joakim dug deeper, he realized that many of the problems the company was experiencing were not new: they'd actually been happening for a while. But no one had done anything about them and, over time, they had grown from small problems into major ones.

To get some inspiration, Joakim and one of the company's managers, Roger, went to a conference on continuous improvement. And while he was there, Joakim had an important insight.

He realized that he couldn't help the IT company improve unless he had a good understanding of where it was right now. Once he knew that, he could identify a clear target, where it wanted to go.

Roger and Joakim decided to use concepts from orienteering to frame their approach. They needed to ask, "Where am I?" "Where am I going?" and, "How am I going to get there?"

Joakim also realized that he couldn't start working on improvements until everyone in the company understood why that action was necessary and important. So once he and Roger returned from the conference, the pair began to work with each department to get them thinking about how they could make things better in the organization.

During this training, Roger and Joakim highlighted one of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to continuous improvement. Most companies focus their time and effort on shortening the time it takes to create value. They try to make processes, people, or machines move faster.

The pair used a simple role-playing exercise to show their teams why this is the wrong approach. As you'll see in the book, it's far more efficient to focus on getting rid of unnecessary hassle and waste than to work on speeding up an activity.

We think this is a great insight, because it's something that readers can take away and start using immediately. Stop and think about your own team or department. What hassles and waste could you get rid of to help them be more efficient?

During training, Roger and Joakim also introduced the concept of flow. Flow occurs when the team is able to meet the needs of the customer without any unnecessary hassle for themselves.

This definition is a little different to the concept of flow used in many organizations. We achieve flow on a personal level when we do work that we enjoy. When we're flowing, we're using our talents and skills, and time seems to slip away.

The author is using the term "flow" here to describe the seamless interaction between a team and its customers. A team is flowing when there are no bottlenecks or problems in the pipeline between a customer and the team that's there to meet that customer's need.

We like that the author introduces the idea of flow, because it's all too easy for an organization to bend over backwards to meet customer needs. Expending a lot of effort can make for happy customers in the long run but, if you're not careful, it can also result in significant hassle and waste. We think it's smart to focus on meeting customer needs while, at the same time, reducing hassle for your team.

One important tool that Roger and Joakim introduced to their teams is the Fishbone Diagram. Fishbone Diagrams are useful for dissecting a problem, and helping you figure out how you're going to reach your desired end state.

To build and use a Fishbone Diagram with your own team, use the acronym FISHY.
Begin with "F." Formulate the question, starting with "why." This question needs to focus on your desired end state.

For instance, imagine that your department is really disorganized, and you know that organizing the office will help reduce hassle and lead to higher productivity. Your question might be, "Why isn't our department more organized?"

The next letter in the FISHY acronym is "I," which stands for individual work. Each person on your team needs to answer the "why" question using a Post-it note. These give everyone a chance to contribute to the discussion, and take ownership of both the problem and the potential solution. If you have a small team, you should encourage everyone to come up with several ideas.

"S" stands for spread out the notes. This means that you need to group the notes together by theme or idea, and create a branch off the fish with each group. All of these off-shoots, or "bones," should have a main heading that sums up the idea the notes express.
"H" stands for have consensus through voting. Your team needs to prioritize the branches and agree on what they should work on first.

The last letter in the FISHY acronym, "Y," stands for your to-do list. Here, you're going to list solutions, identify who's going to work on each task, and set a date for completion.

Now, it's all well and good to have an inspired team and a long list of ways to solve a core problem in your organization. But even the most inspired and enthusiastic teams will eventually run out of steam if they don't pace themselves.

This is why you need to set smaller milestones and celebrate successes as you go along. This is the only way that people will have the energy to actually reach their end goal.

If you've ever led your own change initiative, you'll know that some people will do whatever they can to resist adopting a new mindset or approach. To overcome this resistance, don't tell people what to do. Instead, ask them what they think. Asking for their opinion gets them involved and gives them power over the process.

This is true even when you focus on an improvement that some people don't feel is important. Dissenters will likely still hop on board and stay engaged, because they were given a chance to voice their opinion.

This is why it's so important to use the Fishbone Diagram. The Diagram gives everyone on your team the chance to talk about improvements they think are the most meaningful. Most of the time, knowing you were heard matters more than getting your own way.

You also need to hold regular meetings to keep your team on track. The three orienteering questions, as well as the milestones that are set for your team's next celebration, need to be revisited regularly, at what the author calls a "board" meeting. And by "board," he's not referring to a meeting with the executive leaders. He's talking about a whiteboard.

Your team needs a whiteboard, and you'll use this to create your Fishbone Diagram, write your to-do list with assignments and deadlines, and list your targets and upcoming celebrations. Think of the whiteboard as "command central" for the improvement effort.
Your board meetings should include three to eight people, and last no longer than 30 minutes.

Now, after the author left the IT company, he called in regularly to see how his former team was doing. And he was thrilled to hear that, even though they had to cope with some serious quality issues after he left, they handled the challenges easily, mainly because they were so comfortable identifying problems and taking small steps to fix them.

According to the author, the IT company was such a success at continuous improvement because of five key factors. These are focus, visualization, simplicity, ownership, and systematic approach.

He goes into each of these five factors in detail, and discusses why your own team will need each one to succeed. Let's take a closer look at the first one, focus.

The author says that, at the IT company, people wanted to tackle everything at once. There were endless problems to address, and many of them needed attention right now.

They made progress because they identified the problems that were the most important and meaningful, and targeted their energy at fixing each of them one at a time.

This is a simple but powerful insight you can start using with your own team right away. You might be facing a mountain of problems or potential improvements that need attention. But you'll make more progress by slowing down, figuring out which ones are the most important, and devoting all your energy to resolving each issue, one at a time.

The concept of "thinking inside the box" is another insight we want to mention.

Some people believe that we're most creative when all boundaries are removed. But the author says he's found the opposite to be true. And he outlines a simple scenario to illustrate his point.

Imagine that you and 10 of your colleagues are taken to a junkyard, and told to build whatever you want. Some people would just stand there, trying to think of ideas. Others might start poking through the junk. But the chances are slim that you'd all coordinate your activities and build something together.

Now imagine that someone asks you to build a vehicle that will transport you at least 10 yards without touching the ground. This request would get all of you thinking about axles, wheels and planks to stand on. You'd all be more creative, and you'd likely share out the tasks and work together to build the vehicle.

The lesson here is that when you limit and clarify the task, you actually make it easier for everyone to think creatively and contribute.

We think this is an important insight to consider when it comes to problem solving. When you give your team an open-ended request, like asking them to make a process better, you might get some good ideas. But if you make a focused request, such as asking them to make a process 50 percent more efficient, you channel their thinking and increase the odds that you'll get a lot of good ideas.

While we've covered some of the insights that really stood out for us, there's a lot more to be found in this book. For instance, there's a useful section on coaching, where you'll learn how to use a tool called a coaching spider to help your team learn and grow through continuous improvement.

The authors also include a practical section on creating a culture of continuous improvement.

So, what's our last word on "How to Succeed with Continuous Improvement"?

We like this little book, for several reasons.

First, it's an insightful and succinct look at why continuous improvement is so important, and it offers real lessons and techniques that you can use to start making small, consistent improvements in your own organization.

It's also a very easy read. Some people will get through this book in one sitting. The insights and lessons are short and punchy, demonstrating the author's commitment to lean thinking. It's definitely a lean book, and we think that's a benefit here. The author doesn't waste your time with stories or commentary that don't matter.

There are some useful exercises and games that you'll be able to use with your team right away. And, if you already have an improvement effort going, there's a great quiz at the end of the book that will help you analyze how well it's really going.

All in all, we think the book provides a simple but valuable look at lean thinking and continuous improvement.

"How to Succeed with Continuous Improvement" by Joakim Ahlström is published by McGraw Hill.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.