Continuous learning and continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is one of those beguilingly attractive phrases we toss around in organizations. But continuous small-step improvement, Kaizen,is a sophisticated and difficult thing to achieve, and is, in practice, quite foreign to most organizations.
Continuous improvement means capacity to question received wisdom, and to propose and accept sensible changes based on future challenges.
If we could think of an organization as a person, we would say that to improve, an organization has to learn – to assimilate information from its environment, to compare that information to its current practices, and to amend its current practices to take account of the information it has received.
When a person is learning to drive, he or she harnesses a whole complex interplay of fixed skills (this is what the handbrake does and this is how to physically operate it) and dynamic reactions to situations arising (here is a bend in the road and it is raining – what should my best approach be?). In the same sense, organizations, and people in organizations, need to harness a similarly complex interplay of skills, capabilities, awareness of what is going on, and translation of this into meaningful action.
Let us be sure about what that means. Some decisions in organizations are strategic ones, and need to be taken with a full understanding of their implications. Some are operational ones, which only really affect the area to which they are closest. If we are looking at continuous improvement for real, we need to help people understand when they can take and follow through with operational improvement decisions, and when they need to suggest decisions which although might seem sensible, would impact on wider strategy. It does not mean,crucially, that all decisions need to be referred upwards. Many that are, in reality, do not need to be, or only need to be encouraged by senior staff rather than taken away and brought back approved or disapproved.
To continue the driving school analogy, the driving instructor is helping the student to learn to take decisions based on their own judgement in real time, as quickly as possible. If driving schools acted like most organizations, not only would the driving instructor be a constant companion to the driver for most of his or her motoring life, every stop, start or turn decision would need to be referred back to head office by the instructor with a decision relayed after due consideration by an experienced team of senior driving instructors.
If that is how your organization looks, and you want continuous improvement you had better either change your decision structures, or your desires for a Kaizencompany.
John Peters
